Why the Negative Points to the Positive: On Cessation, Epistemic Closure, and the Unconstructed in Early Buddhism

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I just wanted to write this down as i've been distilling down these lines of reasoning.

As to why the negatives point to a positive

I've been asked this in regards to the Unconstructed element

How does a purely negative description get you an intrinsic essence? That is telling you what it is not, not what it fundamentally is (essentia).

I answered thus:

Any closed epistemological system pointing to a beyond itself would only be able able to describe "the beyond (noumena)" in negatives and as not-itself (not phenomenal categories). And it would need the beyond to be a real element to verify the system's analysis of itself.

As to why ignorance is the requisite for perpetual fabrication

Once we grasp that subjective experience is of mind's constructs, then we can think about our experience/existence as closed epistemological system, capable of consistent analysis of itself, built on logic and axioms ─ then it will have four categories of statements:

  1. true and can be proven within the system

  2. false and refutable within the system

  3. false and not refutable within the system

  4. true and not provable within the system

As to #2, we can't prove a false statement but we can show that they produce inconsistency and contradiction of foundational axioms.

As to #3 These are countless and refuting them requires knowing the truths which are provable outside of the system.

As to #4 These are statements which need the system to be transcended to be proven. And this category implicitly requires the axiom of there being a truth outside of the system.

And so any closed system is in a predicament ─ inherently analyzing itself by means of its own construct, and so we are explaining words with words and fabrications with fabrications. This is essentially akin to a cat chasing its own tail in that the system can't resolve the predicament without coming to a halt.

As Korzybski put it:

Whatever we say something is… well it isn’t

And the logic here is that whatever is the model, designation or a label of a "thing" is not the thing that is being described, modeled and labeled ─ the label is one thing and what is being labeled is another.

Within the synthetic perpetuation of the phenomenological system, all we get to do is model the experiment resulting in negation, and the meaning of the word “Beyond”, as that which makes the negation of the phenomena possible, is derived from the operation of negation rather than rhetoric.

This predicament essentially depends on the perpetual persistence of the predicament and remaining ignorant about the Truth beyond for allowing belief in what is false and not refutable within the system. This is essentially akin to how a magic trick requires delusion about the mechanics and why it is said:

"Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?

"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate. Through dispassion, he's released. With release there's the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-Gone, the Teacher, said further:

Form is like a glob of foam; feeling, a bubble; perception, a mirage; fabrications, a banana tree; consciousness, a magic trick —

this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun. However you observe them, appropriately examine them, they're empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately.

Beginning with the body as taught by the One with profound discernment: when abandoned by three things — life, warmth, & consciousness — form is rejected, cast aside.

When bereft of these it lies thrown away, senseless, a meal for others.

That's the way it goes: it's a magic trick, an idiot's babbling. It's said to be a murderer.

No substance here is found.

Thus a monk, persistence aroused, should view the aggregates by day & by night, mindful, alert; should discard all fetters; should make himself his own refuge; should live as if his head were on fire — in hopes of the state with no falling away. ─SN22.95

His deliverance, being founded upon truth, is unshakeable. For that is false, bhikkhu, which has a deceptive nature, and that is true which has an undeceptive nature—Nibbāna. Therefore a bhikkhu possessing this truth possesses the supreme foundation of truth. For this, bhikkhu, is the supreme noble truth, namely, Nibbāna, which has an undeceptive nature.” — MN140

See the world, together with its devas, conceiving not-self to be self. Entrenched in name & form, they conceive that ‘This is true.’

In whatever terms they conceive it it turns into something other than that, and that’s what’s false about it: Changing, it’s deceptive by nature.

Undeceptive by nature is Extinguishment: that the noble ones know as true. They, through breaking through to the truth, free from hunger, are totally extinguished. — Sn3.12


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