Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT OF NIRVANA
The image of a fire extinguished in the Vacchagotta’s question
In the Aggivacchagottasutta in the MajjhimanikAya, the curious Vacchagotta
asked the set of ten unanswered questions. The answer given by the Buddha
to all his questions was simply ‘I am not of a such view, Vaccha (na kho
ahaN Vaccha evaNdiMMhi)’. 36 After some additional questions from him, the
Buddha struck back, asking the following questions concerning the state of
the TathAgata after death using the image of a fire extinguished and of a
palm uprooted:
If, Vaccha, this fire in front of you were to go out (nibbAyeyya),
would you then know ‘This fire in front of me has gone out’? Yes I
would, Gotama. Again if you, Vaccha, were asked ‘This fire which
has gone out in front of you, in which direction – to the east, west,
north or south – has it gone from here?’, how would you answer? It
does not fit, Gotama. This fire has blazed up through grass and
sticks as fuel. Through using them up completely and through the
non-supplying of anything else, it is said to have gone out with
nothing to feed on’ (anAhAro nibbuto). Even so, Vaccha, the material
form (rEpa) of the TathAgata through which the TathAgata could be
identified should be known as ‘abandoned, with root cut off, like a
palm uprooted, destined to be non-existent, no longer reappearing
in the future’. 37
As we see from this passage, the Buddha was not entirely silent on this issue.
He actually explained his position through his own methodology, thinking
according to the cause (yoniso manasikAra) mentioned above, 38 with the
images of the extinguished fire and of a palm uprooted. He did not simply
follow the way Vacchagotta had questioned him since he regarded his questions
as unfit and saw a danger if he answered.
In fact, Vacchagotta’s questions on the state of the TathAgata after
death have already assumed a certain state reachable after the death of the
enlightened one. In any case, affirmative, negative, both and neither, answering
him means that the Buddha had to explain a certain state that was
basically known neither through direct perception (pratyakLa), like material
form (rEpa), feeling (vedanA) and so on, nor through inference (anumAna),
like the faculty of sight. 39 This state, like a soul (Atman) as we saw before, 40
cannot be explained through his way of thinking, thinking according to the
cause (yoniso manasikAra), which clarifies things through the causal relationship
between dharmas that are known through either direct perception
or inference.
Actually accepting the existence of the enlightened one after the final
nirvana inevitably leads the Buddha to admit a soul (Atman), an agent or
subject behind our cognitive activities, since the soul according to the
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