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What the Tathagata taught
The Tathagata
taught nothing! The Tathagata
taught NO!
THING! Note the recently emerged correct translation of the name Tathagata, to wit: ‘Gone beyond thus’ (or that, or this, i.e. gone beyond the notion (and experience) of thus, thereby being liberated to nirvana). The Tathagata
merely pointed to the obvious fact, obvious to adolescents (who can
relativise) but not to infants (who can merely quantise), namely that THINGS happened as emerged rather than absolute phenomena. In other
words, he demonstrated that a thing (Pali: samkara) had no own quality (read:
permanent substance, German: Eigen-schaft) but happened as
the after-effect of the interaction of conditions (i.e. of other samkaras)
which also had no own (German: eigen) quality (or substance), …. ad
infinitum. In short, a thing has no
own (read:
atta) substance,
i.e. no original element unique (i.e. peculiar) to itself. He explained
all in the anatta part of the 3
characteristics sutta. His explanation reappeared centuries later as the
Mahayana, frills and whistles elaborated Diamond Sutra, and in the bare
essentials version of the Heart Sutra.
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