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Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism

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c o m m o n g r o u n d between i s l a m a n d b u d d h i s m<br />

is extinct from himself <strong>and</strong> from his own extinction. For<br />

he is conscious neither of himself in that state, nor of his<br />

own unconsciousness of himself. If he were conscious of<br />

his own unconsciousness, then he would [still] be conscious<br />

of himself. In relation to the one immersed in it, this state<br />

is called “unification” (ittihād) according to the language<br />

of metaphor, or is called “declaring God’s unity” (tawhīd)<br />

according to the language of reality. 36<br />

The paradoxes uttered by the Buddha—as well as the identification<br />

of the Buddha with the Dharma, or with Suchness, or Nirvāna,<br />

etc.—might be seen as expressions of a tawhīd at once radical<br />

<strong>and</strong> mystical, which is strictly predicated on extinction, nirvāna,<br />

precisely: ni = ‘out’; vāna = ‘blowing’, the idea being akin to a<br />

flame being blown out by the wind. If Buddhist teachings are<br />

read in the light of the chasm which separates language—<strong>and</strong><br />

with it, all formal concepts—from the reality consummated<br />

through enlightenment, many puzzling paradoxes will be grasped<br />

as inevitable shadows cast on the plane of thought by that which<br />

deconstructs all thought, <strong>and</strong> negates the limitations of specific<br />

consciousness: the negation of these limitations of specificity<br />

implies the affirmation of liberating infinity. Whatever can be<br />

distinctively perceived by the mind is other than the ultimate truth,<br />

<strong>and</strong> is thus to be relinquished. Thought has to give way to being; in<br />

other words, ‘mental fabrication’, to quote the Avatamsaka Sutra,<br />

is to give way to a state of enlightened being:<br />

Having no doubt as to truth,<br />

Forever ending mental fabrication,<br />

Not producing a discriminating mind:<br />

This is awareness of enlightenment. 37<br />

The fact that this absence of ‘discrimination’ is far from a kind of<br />

vacuity or thoughtlessness in the conventional sense is brought<br />

home by the Sutra of Hui-neng. 38 Referring to the perfect wisdom<br />

36. The Niche of Lights, op. cit., pp. 17–18.<br />

37. The Flower Ornament Scripture—A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra,<br />

op. cit., p. 292.<br />

38. This sutra has the distinction of being ‘the only sutra spoken by a native of<br />

China’, according to Wong Mou-lam, translator of this sutra. The name ‘sutra’ is<br />

normally applied only to the sermons of the Buddha, <strong>and</strong> this shows the high esteem<br />

in which this discourse is held in Ch’an (Zen in Japan) <strong>Buddhism</strong>.<br />

50

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