The Buddha’s
‘Silence’ on the Questions of the Inexpressible
The Blessed One, the Buddha, declared that
certain questions based on abstract general reasoning
(metaphysical) are unanswerable, they are termed the Inexpressible.
The Buddha likened those who asked such questions as not wise, as
it is like a man who when struck by an arrow and before treatment,
would like to know what sort of arrow struck him, where it come
from, who aimed it etc. It is likely that he would be dead before
he can get any satisfactory answers to his questions. The moral
drawn is that such enquiries are unnecessary and can prove
detrimental to a spiritual life.
There are four sets of questions with its
accompanying alternatives that are usually stated, they
are:
(1) Whether the world is eternal, or not,
or both, or neither. (Its origin and duration)
(2) Whether the world is finite (in space),
or infinite, or both, or neither. (Its end)
(3) Whether the soul is identical with the
body or different from it.
(4) Whether the Lord Buddha exists after
death, or does not, or both, or neither.
To hold that the world is eternal, or not,
or to agree to any of the other propositions is to theorized, it
does not conduces to detachment, tranquility, peace or knowledge
and wisdom of Nirvana. ‘This is the danger I perceive in these
views which make me discard them all,’ The Blessed One
said.
The third question is not about the
individual who is subject to birth and death, but about the
ultimate essence and separate existence of the soul as a
transcendental entity. The opposite theory denies the above by
identifying the soul with the body.
On the question of the Lord Buddha
existence after death, it is generally about the unconditioned. To
say that the Blessed One existed after death is to equate him to
the ultimate essence of the universe. He is in another term, The
Dharmakaya, he is free from all measure and form. That form by
which the Buddha is usually known is no longer present. Again, the
opposite theory denies the existence of any such reality and
confined the real to the empirical historical Buddha, i.e., what
the sense experience only.
The Buddha was aware of the conflict in
Reason on the above four sets of questions, as the conflict is not
on the empirical level and so is not capable to be settle by appeal
to facts. When Reason tries to go beyond phenomena to explain what
is the ultimate ground, it gets involve in endless conflict.
Speculative abstract general reasoning brings about not only
difference but also opposition. When one theorist says ‘yes’ to a
question, another one can come along and say ‘no’ to the same
question. He thus declares the Inexpressible to be
insoluble.
When asked by the wandering ascetic
Vacchagotta whether he has any theory of his own, The Buddha
replied that he is free from all theories and that he knows the
nature of form, and how form arises and how form perishes.
Therefore, the Blessed One has attained deliverance and is free
from attachment. As far as all imaginings, or false notions, or
anything pertaining to an Ego, it has perished in
him.
Here, The Buddha takes a middle position,
which is actually not a position, but one that supersedes both ends
of the extreme views and rises above them and onto a higher plane.
The Blessed One, unlike those who subscribe to speculative
doctrines, knows what form and the other four aggregates of
existence are; he percept their origin, their nature as pain and
the way to suppress them, i.e., The Four Noble Truth. He does not
theorize about them. Other form theories about them, but do not
know their inner constitution. Instead of forming speculative
doctrine about form and the other four aggregates, The Blessed One
was analytically aware of them. To know and to experience it is to
be free from the notion of ‘I’ and the ‘mine.’ To become aware of a
theory as such is not putting forward another theory, but to be
self-conscious of it.
It is freedom, freedom from speculative
doctrines and attachment to them.