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The Tathagata’s pilgrimage
Initial state: Intense suffering (dukkha) resulting from trauma Goal: The permanent end of suffering His insight (Pali: samma-sambodhi): The Tathatgata as whole
person happens as the product (i.e. as an emerged phenomenon) of conditions
(or causes). Means of escape from suffering: 1.
Professional Edition: Eliminate (i.e. disown) the conditions and the
person emerging from them is eliminated, thereby eliminating suffering. 2.
Home Edition: Alter (towards political correctness, i.e. via the
Nobel Eightfold Path – or the Middle Way) the conditions and the person
emerging from those conditions is altered (to political correctness), thereby
reducing suffering (or reversing into happiness, joy and so on). Note: Metaphysics didn’t come into it, at least not for the Tathagata. Hence he took no stand (no fixed position) on metaphysics. Indeed, he realised that all positions happened as emerged phenomena, therefore could not be stood on. That’s why he called himself Tathagata, meaning: ‘Gone beyond (the notion of) thus.’) It was this insight, implied in the original samma-sambodhi, that would be elaborated ad infinitum (hence rendered metaphysical), thereby ad absurdum (so Nagarjuna), by his Mahayana followers. What the Tathagata did not realise (but later Mahayana Buddhists – taking their cue from the Upanishads) attempted to prove, was that the differential affect of the emerged phenomenon was its atta, i.e. its ‘true real I am’ (or true self).
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