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When I was 18, I met Professor Yoon - a historian of Modern Asia hailing from Korea. Most students at my university found his classes impenetrable and boring - he would drone for 2-3 hours about “hygienic modernity” or “the meaning of ‘public’” without necessarily explaining why these ideas mattered. But for myself and a close friend, these lectures were magical - mystical even.
For here was someone who was surely a greater authority on his expertise than we had ever encountered, and he was sharing that expertise with us freely. His stories, which one had to pay close attention to to even realize they were stories, included: being arrested as a Japanese spy by the Chinese Communist Party in Harbin then befriending his interrogators over wine; being a student protest leader during one of the most brutal crackdowns in South Korean history; and wining and dining with James C. Scott before announcing he was drunk for our lecture 15 minutes later (the lecture was among his best).
But the above stories about Yoon are just a footnote - compared to his remark on nothing.
Nobody can remember the context, why he said it or what he meant for it to signify - but everyone who was there agrees that, at some point, Yoon said:
“… But of course, everything, is simply a reflection, of a reflection, of nothing.”
Without context or understanding, this statement was of course very striking. We all latched onto it as a “Yoon-ism” - one of the strange things this incredibly cerebral, yet somewhat comical, Korean man would say without expecting any comment (he would also routinely misgender people in speech, and say the word “realm” backwards).
The amazing thing is, after joking that it was nonsense for years, I now understand that it is nonsense - but it is true nonsense.
The mystic turn is a strange one - I may have alienated people close to me by professing to understand what cannot be understood. This is the catch, however - once you truly understand that you can understand, you understand that you cannot understand. You also open the door to true un-understanding. Socrates said the “awareness of our own ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.” This is true - but what is the end of wisdom? I would argue it is the ignorance of our own awareness - a coming to terms with un-awareness.
“I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.”
-Plato, Symposium, 175d
When we attain knowledge normally, we normally iterate and grow our ideas in a positive direction - we apply fuller and richer descriptions to them in order to render them intelligible and thus under our control. This process allows us to more directly bring our actions in line with our knowledge - technology is the most striking exploitation of this faculty.
When we attain un-knowledge - the inverse can be said to be true. We iterate and grow our ideas in a negative direction - we strip away unnecessary descriptions and remove them until we arrive at an essence. However, for a variety of reasons, we must conclude that the only essence is non-essence. Essence and non-essence being identical is categorically false - but the argument is that categorically false and categorically true only obtain in reality; not in extra-reality.
If the only completely verifiable thing in our experience is our experience in the present - then all other experiences are extra-real and thus have no truth value. This itself is the ultimate truth value: objectivity is subjectivity and the relationship between the two together.
Everything is nothing, nothing is everything, and therefore, the summation of everything and nothing is more than either is alone.
1 + 0 = 1; the input is one and nothing, the output is one. But to pretend that no operation occurred is a false view; for by definition, the cause (summation) is distinct from the result (the value ‘one’). One and nothing is not one, but it is - it is one and nothing.
Thus any action that occurs will break the symmetry of nothing and everything, and produce the two simultaneously via its own arising.
The nothing, the reflection, and the reflection of the reflection are not themselves generative - but each constituent part is constructed by the others via its participation in construction itself. Interestingly, statements about this essence/non-essence will resolve in paradox, but this outcome is expected - touching an infinite structure will inevitably lead to infinite regress, which is also why structure creates phenomenon and phenomenon maintains structure. The only adequate description of such a phenomenon as we understand it is an indescription.
In this light, we can see Cataphatic reasoning about the essence/non-essence as a form of knowing about it - but this form of knowing points to the un-knowingness of Apophatic thought. Once the two are combined in their proper relation, the proper proportion of knowledge and un-knowledge can be realized - a perfected emptiness that is still generative and active, yet restrained.
I do not - and can not - know where this line of reasoning ends; it is fundamentally un-knowable. But to know the un-knowable is exactly the paradox to discuss - I argue that this can simply be accounted for by the grace of un-knowing.
Consider, for instance, a Hegelian Dialectic - thesis, antithesis, synthesis. This is the proposed structure of everything - however, the dialectic (which creates a triad) is itself a tetrad because of infinite regress (each description contains a more expansive non-description external to itself). That structure is itself the fourth substance of the tetrad, that which is either conventionally real, or conventionally unreal (consciousness, or that which we are conscious of - either or the other, but not fully both). But all parts are both distinct and synonymous - meaning that there is no intrinsic meaning except for intrinsic meaning, which is intrinsic to everything that is, but also to things that are not.
A working understanding of the infinite may be impossible - but it is precisely because it is impossible (and that we can state it as impossible) that it becomes possible. This also means that an understanding of the infinite does not come from the individual - but the proper reconciliation of the individual and what made them - nothing, everything, and the everything that is nothing - and their interaction!
In this light, the only thing that remains to be explained is what action is possible for one who has completed this reconciliation - the answer is that there is no action possible, as the individual has ceased to exist as only real and becomes extra-real (Christ and the Buddha from this perspective did cease to be human by completely subjecting their identity to the totality of being - thus becoming being itself).
Understood this way, the powers ascribed to divinity - or the powers ascribed to divine beings like Christ or the Buddha - are not contradictory with reality as we experience it, but rather a super-structural feature of being - once the will of being itself and the will of a being itself are one and the same - they can easily bend to the other. Christ and Buddha are facets of the same essence/non-essence - if they are indeed immersed totally in the dualistic structure of nature, then the dualistic structure of nature is immersed in them.
Omniscience, raising the dead, walking on water and so forth are all explainable as this manifestation of the unexplainable - the fact that this is explainable is itself perhaps the most miraculous thing to consider. I am not saying that miracles are real - I am saying that our only options are to consider them real as descriptors of a higher order reality - or that if they are unreal, they are only unreal insofar as our ordinary perceptual model is. Indeed, the Buddha also claimed that supernormal powers (siddhis) are not an effective pedagogical tool as they further reify reality. If the method for walking on water could be explained to you in simple, reproducible terms, it would be - but it is in the nature of such an act not to be. The fact that we can not do these things is an artifact of the fact that we cannot do another supposedly impossible thing - attain true understanding. But what if we were to attain its inverse?
Let's examine this idea in the context of the Diamond Sutra - a dialogue between the Lord Buddha and his disciple Subhuti.
The Lord Buddha said to Subhuti: “Good men and good women who seek after the supreme enlightenment should thus abide, and thus subdue their thoughts. They should resolve to lead all beings to Nirvana, and yet, after all beings have been led to Nirvana, no being at all has been led to Nirvana. And why? Because, Subhuti, if a Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality, he is not a true Bodhisattva.”
This is the paradox of in existence - we do not exist, but we do exist. The dissolution of the ego is a representation of this, as it is dissolved within the real.
The Lord Buddha replied: “Subhuti, do not speak so. Yes, even at that time, there will be Bodhisattvas, and they, on hearing these words, will awaken to their truth. For these Bodhisattvas will not depend on their own ideas, nor on the ideas of others; they will not depend upon marks of form, nor upon sound, taste, touch, or any quality. They will depend only upon the truth of the Dharma itself. These Bodhisattvas, free from all dependence, will have their minds abiding in peace. And why? Because all ideas of marks are not marks, and so all ideas of beings are not beings. These Bodhisattvas will be moved by compassion, and they will awaken to supreme enlightenment.”
Even though there are no beings, there will be beings until the end of time. But being is not dependent on the idea of being - being is being. To unknow - to be in unknowingness - is to touch the truth itself, as the finite and the infinite converge.
This is not that, and that is not this - therefore all of this is all of that, and all of that is all of this. The shocking simplicity of such claims - argues the Buddha - indicates to us that the supreme nature is one of compassion.
The Lord Buddha continued: “Subhuti, what think you? Can the Tathagata be recognized by some visible form, or by some distinguishing marks?”
Subhuti replied: “No indeed, World-Honored One. The Tathagata cannot be recognized by any visible form, nor by any distinguishing marks. And why? Because what the Tathagata has taught as distinguishing marks are not in fact distinguishing marks.”
The Lord Buddha said: “Wherever there are marks, there is deception. If you see no marks, then you see the Tathagata.”
Since there are no singular, distinctive features - only category itself - to what category does the divine belong? To what category does the Buddha belong? The only category that adequately defines them is the defiance of category. To say “it is so” of the Divine is to say too much; to say “it is not so” is too little. Only a combination of true and untrue can approach true, and thus, not even attempting is as adequate a response.
The convergence of knowledge and un-knowledge here effectively tells us that our work is done - recognizing it as being done, however, is a further task that must be undertaken, itself a part of the implicit paradox of being.
Subhuti said to the Lord Buddha: “World-Honored One, will those who set their hearts upon supreme enlightenment be able to gain a complete faith in these teachings?”
The Lord Buddha replied: “Subhuti, do not speak so. Even five hundred years after the Tathagata’s Nirvana, there will be those who, hearing these words, will believe them. Such people will not be depending upon virtue alone, but will have planted good roots with many Buddhas. The Tathagata knows them and sees them, and they will obtain measureless merit.”
The Lord Buddha said: “Subhuti, if a Bodhisattva, in his practice of charity, bestows as many precious gifts as there are sands in the Ganges, and if another, having realized the truth that all things are without self-existence, achieves perfect patience, the latter has more merit than the former. And why? Because, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva who practices patience without depending upon appearances, his merit is immeasurable. Subhuti, what do you think? Did the Tathagata obtain anything when he attained supreme enlightenment?”
Subhuti answered: “No indeed, World-Honored One. When the Tathagata attained supreme enlightenment, he did not obtain anything.”
The Lord Buddha said: “So it is, Subhuti. In that enlightenment there is not the least thing that can be obtained. That is why it is called supreme enlightenment.”
The absolute is dissolute. The merit of this understanding is thus both insubstantial and absolute - innumerable Buddhas are incomparable to the understanding of true (untrue) emptiness, because innumerable Buddhas are still emptiness. This very emptiness enables a being like the Buddha, and his multiplicity in multiplicity and singularity in singularity.
It is precisely because there is no perception - no reason - that can engage directly with reality that the effort required to perceive reality is not anything, and the result is not anything. This unresult from unknowing is not caused - it is received and receiving.
This is the Christian idea of Grace in another package - conscious effort towards a goal may move us towards it; but if we realize that we never needed to go forwards in the first place, how can we go backwards? And what do we do once we begin to go backwards?
To realize that self is other and other is self is to realize that other can only be saved by self and self can only be saved by other. This is also true of harm - other can only harm self and self can only harm other. This is not ornamental paradox, but a consequence of fully reducing reality to its constituent parts. Any given individual perspective cannot be defined except in relation - and thus as relation.
This is the reasoning for fundamental goodness and compassion as a logical outgrowth of nothingness. Radical Freedom - the knowledge that no self exists except conceptual relations between conceptual entities, all of which share a basic identity feature with all other entity-relation systems - entails Radical Evil and Radical Good.
Both of these, as Kant suggested, extend from a perfect moral reasoning. Enacting it is impossible - but this is what beings of Pure Truth enjoin us to do - enact the impossible.
Remember that here, the Buddha is reminding us that - although he has powers that defy the very notion of reality in our minds - the Buddha’s true and greatest power is to defy the very notions of mind and reality in the first place - or at least, the distinction between the two. Supreme enlightenment is supreme compassion — because paradox makes self and other inseparable.