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Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism

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Oneness: The Highest <strong>Common</strong> Denominator<br />

formal thought <strong>and</strong> by the empirically defined individual; rather, it<br />

is the indescribable ‘fruit’ of the experience of enlightenment. The<br />

positive content of this enlightenment—absolute Reality—is thus not<br />

denied when the formal designations of that Reality are undermined,<br />

contradicted or ignored. What is contradicted by the Buddha is the<br />

idea that the ultimate Reality can be adequately designated, contained,<br />

<strong>and</strong> still less realized, on the level of formal thought by the individual,<br />

both being bound up by relativity of nama-rupa (name <strong>and</strong> form).<br />

This explains why in some texts even the idea of ultimate reality being<br />

uncompounded is contradicted:<br />

The Buddhas’ reality is subtle <strong>and</strong> hard to fathom;<br />

No words or speech can reach it.<br />

It is not compounded or uncompounded;<br />

Its essential nature is void <strong>and</strong> formless. 47<br />

Referring to the ultimate reality as uncompounded is an error, not because<br />

the ultimate reality is in fact compounded, but because the very<br />

fact of verbally designating it as uncompounded is already tantamount<br />

to an act of compounding. There is the uncompounded reality, on the<br />

one h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> the description of it as uncompounded: putting the two<br />

together means that one has left the presence of the uncompounded <strong>and</strong><br />

embraced the compounded. The final verse in the passage quoted, ‘Its<br />

essential nature is void <strong>and</strong> formless’, could just as well be contradicted,<br />

for the very same reason as one contradicts the idea of reality being<br />

uncompounded. Holding on to the idea of reality being void or formless<br />

itself undermines the voidness of that reality, <strong>and</strong> acts as a mental<br />

barrier preventing one from being submerged in it. Again, according to<br />

The Flower Ornament Scripture:<br />

Things expressed by words<br />

Those of lesser wisdom wrongly discriminate<br />

And therefore create barriers<br />

And don’t comprehend their own minds.<br />

...<br />

If one can see the Buddha,<br />

One’s mind will have no grasping;<br />

Such a person can then perceive<br />

Truth as the Buddha knows it. 48<br />

47. The Flower Ornament Scripture, op. cit., p. 290.<br />

48. Ibid., p. 376.<br />

55

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