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BuddhismBuddhist Philosophy of Language., Buddhist Semiotics., Buddhism in Semiotics.,episteme?, abhidharma, yogācāra, dharma, dharmas:, dharmas

How is communication explained by Buddhism? What are the characteristics of signs? What are their statuses and functions?

In what ways does semiosis—the cultural practice of creation and interpretation of signs and transmission of knowledge

—occur? Further, which strategies concern the discursive transposition of Buddhist religious experience? What kind of

relationship connects cosmology, ontology, soteriology, and semiotic concepts and practices within the Buddhist episteme?

All these questions are relevant to the interpretation of cultures in which Buddhism developed, since Buddhist philosophical

reflection on sign and related practices probably constituted their predominant semiotic paradigm (or at least part of it) for

many centuries.

Buddhist Philosophy of Language.

Debates concerning philosophical problems on language occupy a large part of Buddhist theoretical reflection.

According to Buddhist phenomenologies (abhidharma, yogācāra), language is not a dharma (a constitutive entity of reality)

in itself but a combination of three different dharmas: phonemes, words, and sentences. These three linguistic dharmas have

a peculiar nature in that they are different from material entities, from mind—considered by Buddhism as pure

consciousness—and from mental factors, which are affective and intentional states. Every concrete activity of thought is a

manipulation of syllables or phonemes into words or sentences, the only structures of ordinary language endowed with

meaning. For this reason, linguistic dharmas belong to a group of incorporeal entities, neither material nor mental.

Buddhist thought conceives of language as the main tool for building up and articulating phenomenal reality. The fourth ring

in the chain of conditioned causation (pratītya-samutpāda), known as names-forms (nāma-rūpa), represents the inextricable

interdependence of cognitive processes and external reality, phenomena and discriminating mind, names and things of the

ordinary world of suffering.

Linguistic descriptions of the world have no absolute truth value; language is an instrument of fallacious knowledge, for it

creates reality as perceived and constructed in ordinary states of consciousness through categorization and conceptualization

of perceptual data and their semantic articulation. For the yogācāra epistemology, a radical constructivism, language has the

function of articulating a world of illusion through the power of semiotic “seeds” (bīja). Nonenlightened people consider their

own ordinary image of the world to be true and corresponding to reality since they attribute to the objects characteristics

peculiar to linguistic expressions (autonomy, immutability, homogeneity). Such confusion of ontology with epistemology, of

reality with its linguistic descriptions and mental images is called avidyā (ignorance) in Buddhism. Epistemologic ignorance

is the first cause of existential suffering. Therefore, there is an absolute gap separating language from true reality. The

tradition of the great Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE) in particular developed systematically this philosophical

position (Murti, 1955).

According to a traditional doctrine quoted in some Buddhist texts, ordinary language is made up by words that are

related to superficial aspects of phenomena;1.

uttered in dreams;2.

conditioned by fallacious attachment to wrong ideas; and3.

forever conditioned by the seeds of suffering.4.

Buddhist linguistic speculation thus had to face the question of the status of the word of the Buddha. Did the Buddha

contribute to the suffering and delusion of sentient beings by speaking words devoid of truth? Doctrinal matters of pedagogy,

epistemology, and soteriology were at stake here that also affected speculations on the nature of the Buddha and the status of

his historical manifestations. Obviously, it was not possible to deny completely the value of the word of the Buddha, because

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this would have meant the self-destruction of Buddhism. Thus, a distinction was made between the wisdom of the Buddha

and the signs that convey it, and the word of the Buddha was given a peculiar status. Texts such as the Diamond Sutra, the

Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra, and the Laṇkāvatāra Sūtra sanction in an inevitably paradoxical way the ineffability of the

wisdom of the Buddha in human ordinary language.

This sanction of ineffability can be interpreted in two ways, both very interesting for the semiotician:

the Buddha does not speak and conveys his experience in a nonlinguistic way because ultimate communication

through language is not possible; this view was later developed in particular by some Chan and Zen currents, which

rigorously attempted to deconstruct and dissolve every semiosic practice;

1.

the Buddha uses a peculiar language consisting in special systems of signs, which it is possible to know and

understand. These opposite positions both presuppose a theory of communication and a semiotics of initiatory

transmission of meaning. In spite of doctrinal differences, all Buddhist traditions agree upon the basic assumption

that the Buddha explained many different doctrines in consideration of the circumstances, contexts, and the

competence and salvational needs of the audience.

2.

The first sanction of ineffability (communication through language is impossible) was developed by the tradition ascending

back to Nāgārjuna and was aimed at the attainment of emptiness through an incessant deconstruction of meaning. The

second option (the Buddha speaks a different, higher form of language) could yield in turn two different interpretations:

the language of the Buddha is a mere upāya (“skillful means”), an expedient devoid of absolute value but necessary in

order to help humans attain a truth transcending every language (this is the doctrinal position of most Buddhist

schools);

1.

absolute truth can be communicated, and the Buddha speaks peculiar words of a nonordinary language in order to

lead sentient beings to salvation.

2.

This is the basic assumption of the teachings of esoteric or tantric Buddhism. In both cases, a systematic manipulation of

linguistic signs was put into practice in order to bring language beyond its limits and force it to speak the absolute (see

Grapard, 1987; Rambelli 1991).

The Indian religious experience attributes major importance to a set of words called mantra, used in meditation and in rituals

(Alper, 1989). This peculiar kind of words has been exploited also in Mahāyāna Buddhism as tools for meditation (dhāraṇī) or

as amulets. The profoundest teachings of the Buddha were thought to have been transmitted by this kind of “twilight

language” or “intentional language” (saṃdhābhāsā or saṃdhyābhāsā), comprehensible only to those endowed with superior

faculties.

In any case, theoretical and ritual problematics of mantras were not developed clearly by Mahāyāna Buddhism, which tends

on the contrary to present language as a provisional means (upāya); the absolute principle of tathatā (“thusness”; absolute

reality) remains beyond language and signification.

Tantric Buddhism, especially in its East Asian forms, has developed systematically the doctrines and practices of the absolute

language, which it identified with mantras and dhāraṇīs. The word of the Buddha was considered to be a reality in itself,

which cannot be reduced to mere expression of an individual thought: It was the objective expression, the double of reality as

experienced after enlightenment. As the great Japanese monk Kūkai (774–835) wrote, only if language and reality are closely

and deeply related can the Buddha show the way to salvation through his teachings (Hakeda, 1972). The esoteric Japanese

Buddhist notion of hosshin seppō (the preaching of the Buddha in its absolute modality of existence) is based on the identity

of language and reality (Rambelli, 1994a).

However, for the attainment of the goals of esoteric Buddhism (becoming Buddha in this very body [sokushin jōbutsu] and

obtaining worldly benefits [genze riyaku,] it is not enough to simply postulate the deep identity of language and reality: such

identity must be evident from the structure of language itself. This is the only way for Tantric symbolic practices to have

efficacious and instantaneous results. It is not surprising, then, that Tantric Buddhism devoted great efforts to the


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rearticulation and remotivation of signs in order to give them the status of microcosms (doubles of the enlightened universe).

As far as Japanese esoteric Buddhism is concerned, Kūkai was the first who explicitly outlined the fundamentals of an esoteric

semiotics. Kakuban (1095–1143), by developing Chinese ideas of his time, opened the way for the introduction of mantric

expressions into a complex network of correlations. Sanskrit letters were correlated to natural elements, parts of the human

body, stars, orientations, seasons, and so forth. Meditation on these microcosmic letters produced a “symbolic” assimilation

of the whole cosmos within the ascetic's body. Kakuban was able to condense in the mantric expressions the whole esoteric

knowledge of his time, turning each linguistic unit into a minimal maṇḍala.

According to esotēric Buddhist teachings, language is true because once its ordinary laws have been deconstructed, it becomes

iconic and thus—for a fundamental postulate of esoteric logic—identical to what it speaks of. Theoretical identity is confirmed

by processes of remotivation that concern not just the sounds of language but also writing and the forms of sentences and

texts.

Buddhist Semiotics.

A systematic study of Buddhist semiotics has yet to be undertaken. Until now, only a few scholars have tackled aspects of

Buddhist cultures with a semiotic eye, among them Allan Grapard (1992), Stanley Tambiah (1970), Alexander Piatigorsky

(1984), and Bernard Faure (1991, 1993). There are multifarious Buddhist semiotic ideas and practices, for they developed in a

wide variety of cultural, historical, and social contexts. Buddhism established two basically different kinds of semiotics: One is

related to what could be called “ordinary” semiosis; the other describes the interactions with reality in altered (ritual and

meditative) states of consciousness. Only the most basic elements of Buddhist semiotics, common to a large part of the

Buddhist universe of discourse, will be outlined here.

One of the most striking characteristics of the Buddhist canon is its heterogeneity; even the doctrines traditionally attributed

to the teaching of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni are often in overt contradiction with one another. The Buddhists gave

such doctrinal heterogeneity a pragmatic and communicational meaning. One of the core notions of Buddhism, in fact, is that

the Buddha taught many different doctrines according to the faculties and possibilities of comprehension of his audience. This

is in accordance with Indian cosmology and psychology, which recognize various levels of existence and stages in the

development of consciousness: to each stage correspond a certain truth and a certain set of doctrines. Therefore, Buddhist

exegesis presents interesting semiotic features, such as different levels of truth and a semiotics of textual cooperation.

Numberless Buddhas are believed to be preaching the Law at the same time to multitudes of beings living in countless world

systems that make up the Buddhist cosmos; each Buddha is teaching the Dharma using a particular language, and verbal

language is just the most unsophisticated. The semiotician is confronted here with two problems: the semiotic status of these

languages and the unifying principle of all cosmic discourses.

In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Buddha is no longer simply a historical person, the teacher, or the enlightened one; he is

transformed into a manifestation of the universal principle of enlightenment, a silent, eternal, numinous presence, called

Dharmakāya (the body of the dharma). This transformation made the universal Buddha the ultimate subject of all discourses,

the universal principle of articulation of discursivity. This is shown in many texts where the Buddha says nothing until the

epilogue but silently empowers the characters in the text to talk and explain difficult doctrines.

Perhaps the most influential Buddhist model of semiosis was developed within the Indian yogācāra epistemologic tradition

by Asaṇga (fourth century), Vasubandhu (fourth and fifth centuries), and later by Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and

Tibetan monks. The principles of this school are very subtle and complicated. Yogācāra epistemology emphasized the

connections between three different layers of psychophysical reality: the material world, the mind, and the perceptive,

intellective, and volitional activities connecting them. The outside world is not considered to be endowed with an independent

existence. Organized in categories, it is not independent from the mind articulating them. Semiosis (and knowledge) is thus a

complex process of interaction between various levels and functions of mind with a supposedly “outside” world through the

mediation of senses. Each one of the six sense functions (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, intellect) perceives qualities

among six perceptual fields in the “outside” world (visible objects, sounds, flavors, perfumes, tactile qualities, the thinkable).

Perceptual data of experience (preceding the attribution of a name) are elaborated further by six sense consciousnesses


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corresponding to each of the six sense functions. The sixth consciousness in particular unifies data, attributes names, and

formulates judgments.

These six superficial consciousnesses are based on another consciousness, called mano-vijñāna, which is the center of the “I

consciousness,” creating the distinction between subject and object. But this process is possible because of the existence of a

still deeper consciousness, the ālaya-vijñāna, the store of sign seeds, which acts recursively on perception and volition and on

the interaction of the mind with the world. ālaya-vijñāna has usually been described by modern scholars as a kind of

unconscious or subconscious, but it is perhaps more accurate to consider it as the center of semiosis. It contains the seeds of

all perceptions, objects, thoughts, deeds, volitions; past experiences influence future ones, and future experiences reorganize

the deposit of seeds. In this way, time and karma receive a semiotic foundation.

The basic tenets of the yogācāra epistemology are that only the mind exists and that the world is the result of the articulating

activity of the mind (vijñaptimātratā). The image a person has of the ordinary world is ultimately nothing else than a

transformation of ālaya-vijñāna. External reality is nonexistent because the objects are created by consciousness through a

complex work of articulation and organization. Usually described as a form of idealism, this view seems rather to be closer to

constructivism. In any case, it should be remembered that according to the yogācāra school, mind and consciousness are also

nonexistent from the point of view of enlightenment, and everything is not different from emptiness, which is at the same

time semiosic potentiality and mirrorlike quiescence.

Yogācāra semiotics posits two different kinds of signs: signs as characteristics of the objects (lakṣaṇa and nimitta) and signs

as cognitive and passional potentialities stored in ālaya-vijñāna (bīja). Lakṣaṇa is the name of signs characterizing the

essence of things (such as the thirty-two marvelous marks of the Buddha body) and has positive overtones. Nimitta are

superficial, external characteristics of things.

The power of ālaya-vijñāna to create all things is compared with the generative power of vegetal seeds. Actually, the power of

ālaya-vijñāna depends on the existence of semiotic seeds called bīja. There are two kinds of bījas:

linguistic and karmic seeds: The phenomenal existence of the subject and the outside world is related closely to the

language that articulates it; linguistic seeds sown by good or bad actions are called karmic seeds and affect the

subject's becoming;

1.

innate bījas (such as the seeds to become a Buddha) and newly produced bījas (seeds sown after experience).2.

Seeds produce the phenomenal world, but at the same time the phenomenal world affects the ālaya-vijñāna, where it sows

new seeds. Production of new bījas depends on perceptual and cognitive contact with lakṣaṇas and nimittas; but at the same

time, the recognition of objects consists in the identification of lakṣaṇas and nimittas through bījas stored in the ālaya-

vijñāna.

The production of new seeds is called perfuming (vāsanā, abhyāsa, bhāvanā). As a strong perfume lingers on a dress, so do

the impressions of experienced things remain in the consciousness and affect the mind and the body. Through the power of

karma, the cognitive and affective contents of phenomena perfume the knower's ālaya-vijñāna and produce new bījas, which

in turn give rise to more phenomena. This recursive circuit of subject and object generates the ordinary world, and semiosis,

as a discriminatory process articulating the world, is the cause of ignorance, attachment, illusion, and suffering.

Buddhism posits the existence of two radically different cognitive modalities corresponding to two different semiotic models:

one is ordinary, discriminative, and basically fallacious, the other is contemplative, integrating, and undifferentiated.

Ordinary knowledge (jñāna) is considered fallacious because it confuses a presumed ontological reality of the universe with

the ordinary psychomental phenomena and processes (modalities and functions of the mind) that create that reality. On the

contrary, true and absolute knowledge, described in many different ways by Buddhist schools, is called prajñā or bodhi. It is

the product of the practice of yoga, resulting in altered (nonordinary) states of body, mind, and language. Usually translated

as enlightenment, true knowledge has often been ascribed by Western scholars to the various phenomena of irrationality and

mysticism and its theoretical semiotic relevance has been over-looked.


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Such an absolute knowledge implies radical transformation of the human cognitive apparatus. ālaya-vijñāna is transformed

through the practice of yoga from an ideative device, source of illusion and suffering, into pure mind, a clear mirror reflecting

everything without formulating interpretations or judgments. The more superficial consciousness apparatus becomes the

agent of good and pure actions. In this way, ordinary consciousness can turn into the instrument for the attainment of

Buddhahood and liberation from suffering.

Once the human cognitive apparatus has been transformed into the supreme mirrorlike wisdom, semiosis (as the activity of

creation, interpretation, and transmission of signs) is brought to an end by the attainment of emptiness. What remains is only

the reiteration of cosmic processes and the reflection of the absolute and undifferentiated realm of essence performed through

yoga. Buddhist texts describe this condition that defies human possibilities of comprehension through the metaphor of

Indra's Net: each pearl reflects all the other pearls without interpreting or modifying them. The Buddhist universe in its

absolute modality is made of reflections reflecting reflections in a cosmic interplay of pure light.

Buddhism in Semiotics.

Since the late 1970s, Buddhist concepts and metaphors have been met more and more frequently in semiotic discourses. It is

less a systematic phenomenon than a transversal attitude fragmented across scattered texts and in the usages of many authors

within the general ambit of the new cognitive sciences (constructivism, cognitivism, complexity, artificial intelligence), in

which traditional boundaries between “hard” and human sciences, between physics, biology, psychology, and semiotic

disciplines, are blurred.

Although fragmentary and in many respects still superficial (and fashionable), the introduction of Buddhist concepts in

semiotic discourses is a significant symptom of an epistemological crisis in scientific research. The “new sciences,” having

distanced themselves from the tradition of modern science and its dualistic postulates, need new models of reality and new

descriptions of the world to accommodate their critical approaches. A significant number of thinkers are resorting more or

less explicitly to Buddhism in their searches for new metaphors and concepts.

Roland Barthes (1970) was perhaps the first to introduce into semiotics Buddhist concepts such as kū (emptiness) and satori

(enlightenment). Although very simplified, these concepts borrowed from Zen Buddhism entered Barthes's own personal

semiotic discourse aimed at bringing language to a stop (“arrêter le langage”), in a quest for what he called the zero degree of

semiotics. Barthes's peculiar interpretation of the “empire of signs” had a significant impact in Japan. In spite of the

shortcomings of his interpretation of Zen, Barthes contributed to the semiotic problematization of concepts such as emptiness

and enlightenment, usually considered only from a religious point of view.

Buddhism has been associated also with the practices of deconstruction. Some scholars have pointed to methodological

affinities between the treatments of language by Jacques Derrida and Nāgārjuna. Robert Magliola (1984) has shown how the

study of Buddhist deconstructionist doctrines can be useful also for the creation of a postmodern Christian theology.

Douglas Hofstadter (1979) used Zen Buddhism as a paradoxical tool to solve logical apories related to systemic recursiveness

and to formulate hypotheses on the problem of mind and consciousness. Buddhist metaphors and concepts appear to be

important for the development of a new epistemological paradigm. For instance, the cosmology of the new sciences is often

described with metaphors drawn from “oriental” thought, after the groundbreaking work of Fritjof Capra (1975), although the

category of “oriental thought” itself is very problematic.

Criticism of classical ideas of rationality and the study of different cognitive modalities (Matte Blanco, 1975; Morin, 1986)

seem to be inspired by Indian yoga and Buddhist thought. According to Ignatio Matte Blanco, for instance, there are two ways

to understand the world: one is asymmetrical and dividing, the other is symmetrical and unifying. This is very close to

Buddhist psychological and epistemological theories.

Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (1987) are the authors of a radical and semiotically grounded theory of living

entities emphasizing the continuity of knowledge with the perceptive and biological structures of beings. Their recursive

theory of knowledge is significantly similar to Buddhist yogācāra epistemology, although they never mention it.


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Floyd Merrel (1991), using Peirce's theme of unlimited semiosis as a starting point, attempts to outline a theory of semiotics

suitable to the “new” cosmology. According to Merrell, who describes the cosmos as an incessant semiosic flow, there is no

way to talk about objective reality because everything that exists in our world “can be no more than semiotically real.” To

sketch his semiotic cosmology, Merrell resorts also to Buddhist metaphors and concepts such as emptiness and Indra's net

(see above).

Francisco Varela relies extensively on works from Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions in his elaborations of a project of

ethics for a new society. According to Varela, Buddhist doctrines of no self and nondualism can offer an interesting

contribution to a dialogue with cognitive science. For instance, the doctrine of no self can help to explicate the fragmentation

of the self revealed by cognitivism and connectionism; Buddhist nondualism, especially that of Nāgārjuna's tradition,

complements the conceptions of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) and also more recent ideas on knowledge as enaction.

The penetration of Buddhism into semiotics, epistemology, and ethics is by no means a surprise. Since the 1970s, Buddhism

has been taking root in Western countries and is flourishing as an autonomous tradition. This is perhaps similar to what

happened many centuries ago in China and in the other countries of East and Southeast Asia, when many forms of Buddhism

spread and started to interact with those cultures, producing new and richer ideas and practices.

[See also Barthes; Mandala; Mantra; and Zen Gardens.]

Bibliography and More Information about Buddhism

Buddhist Philosophy of Language

Alper, H. P., ed. Mantra. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.

Conze, E., ed. Buddhist Wisdom Books: The Diamond and the Heart Sutra. London: Unwin, 1958. Revised edition

published in 1988.

Gómez, L. O. “Buddhist Views on Language.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by M. Eliade, vol. 8, pp.

446–451. New York: Macmillan, 1987.

Grapard, A. G. “Linguistic Cubism: A Singularity of Pluralism in the Sanno Cult.” Japanese Journal of Religious

Studies 14.3 (1987):211–234.

Hakeda, Y. Kūkai: Major Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.

Kajiyama Y. Kū no shisō: Bukkyō ni okeru kotoba to chinmoku (The Philosophy of Emptiness: Language and Silence

in Buddhism). Kyoto: Jinbun Shoin, 1983.

Kunjunni Raja, K. Indian Theories of Meaning. Madras: Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1963.

Luk, C., ed. Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra. Berkeley and London: Shambhala, 1972.

Murti, T. R. V. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (1955). London: Unwin, 1987.

Rambelli, F. “Re-Inscribing Maṇḍala: Semiotic Operations on a Word and Its Object.” Studies in Central and

East-Asian Religions 4 (1991):1–24.

Rambelli, F. “The Semiotic Articulation of Hosshin seppō.” In Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, edited by I. Astley, pp.

17–36. Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 1994a.

Rambelli, F. “True Words, Silence, and the Adamantine Dance.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21.4 (1994b):

373–405.

Suzuki, D. T., ed. The Lankavatara Sutra. London: Routledge, 1932.

Buddhist Semiostics

Faure, B. The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1991.

Faure, B. Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1993.

Grapard, A. The Protocol of Gods: A Study of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley: University of California


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Press, 1992.

Piatigorsky, A. The Buddhist Philosophy of Thought. London and Totowa, N.J.: Curzon Press and Barnes and Noble

Books, 1984.

Piatigorsky, A., and D. B. Zilberman. “The Emergence of Semiotics in India.” Semiotica 17.3 (1976):255–265.

Tambiah, S. J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1970.

Buddhism in Semiotics

Barthes, R. The Empire of Signs (1970). Translated by R. Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

Capra, F. The Tao of Physics. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1975.

Hofstadter, D. R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books, 1979.

Magliola, R. Derrida on the Mend. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1984.

Matte Blanco, I. The Unconscious as Infinite Sets: An Essay in Bi-Logic. London: Duckworth, 1975.

Maturana, H., and F. J. Varela. The Tree of Knowledge. Boston: Shambhala, 1987.

Merrell, F. Signs Becoming Signs: Our Perfusive, Pervasive Universe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Morin, E. La méthode 3: La connaissance de la connaissance/1. Paris: Seuil, 1986.

Varela, F., E. Thompson, and E. Rosch. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.

—Fabio Rambelli

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User Commentsover 1 year agoTom Jackson

Wow. Very helpful. In the 1960s I studied semiotics under Thomas Sebeok at Indiana University, and soonthereafter joined a Buddhist ashram (not because of Sebeok) in Bloomington, Indiana. (My guru was AlbertRudolph, known as Rudi.)

The article is so clear and the references again so helpful.

You have helped me understand a lot of experiences I've had lately.

A parting thought:

Enlightenment by definition cannot be a "permanent" state, ne c'est pas? Enlightenment is beyond time,which is just another way of saying beyond semiosis. The concept of enlightenment itself, as Nagarjuna wouldinsist, is empty also.

It is, nevertheless, a real experience, meaningful or not. Meaningful and not meaningful. Neither meaningfulnot not meaningful. You get my drift.

So here's my idea, if I can call it that...

True enlightenment is not the Buddha's bliss in realization, it is instead the Buddha's decision to teach.Gautama returned (Karen Armstrong describes this beautifully in her little book on the Buddha) from thebliss of meditation to the lousy world of semiois, of Maya (the sanskrit root of which is "to measure" which ofcourse means to measure either in terms of number (math) or qualities (language).


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Both math and langauge are forms of semiosis, right? Of course right.

So here's the idea:

The real Enlightenment is a perfect (well, we hope so anyway) swan dive by an "enlightened" being(necessarily--more or less--individuated on account of Maya, flashing forth, dependent co-arising, and all ofthat) back into Maya.

Here's the kick in the head:

This is Darwinian.

The impulse to "save the world" is none other than the impulse to reproduce!

Nietzsche, that crazy MF (pardon my French) almost got it right in his theory of the eternal return.

He describes the act of closing (or was it opening) a fence on a path, probably a mountain path, and tryingone's best to do such a good job of latching (unlatching?) that one could possible stand the idea ofaccomplishing the same task again, over and over, forever.

On a certain level, it's kind of a cool ethic. Neitzsche's mistake was a failure to account for novelty, diversity,genetic, memetic, semiotic.

When the Buddha dove back into Maya, he did it to "save" all possibilities. None of us is free until all of us arefree.

The Buddha's swan dive, his decision to teach, is thus the Arrow of Time. life must go on until everypossibility is "saved."

And this of course is a theoretical impossibility.

So the multiverse continues, so long as the Buddha points the way.

Happy Easter,

Tom


8 of 8 06/08/2011 21:39

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