Deep like the Ocean

by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The suttas tell of numerous occasions when the Buddha and his disciples were presented with a list of ten questions to see what the Buddha’s position was on the hot philosophical topics of the day. Apparently, the list was meant to cover all the possible positions that could be taken on those topics, but in every case, the Buddha and his disciples stated that he didn’t take any of the ten.

Four of the questions concerned the existence or non-existence of a Tathāgata—a fully awakened being, such as the Buddha or an arahant disciple—after death. These questions are called a tetralemma because they entertain four possible positions:

This would seem to cover all the possible positions that could be taken on this issue, but just for good measure, when a young monk told a group of sectarians that the Buddha taught that the Tathāgata after death could be described otherwise than by any of these four positions, the Buddha later rebuked him as well (SN 22:86).

Given the thoroughness with which the early suttas reject all possible ways of describing the Tathāgata after death, it’s always something of a surprise when Buddhists maintain that a fully awakened person doesn’t exist after death. Those who defend this position insist that their way of holding to it falls outside the tetralemma because, in their eyes, every position listed in the tetralemma assumes that the Tathāgata has a self. They, however—adopting the no-self version of the not-self teaching—insist that the Tathāgata never had a self to begin with, so their position isn’t ruled out by the Buddha’s rejection of those four positions.

In other words, the proponents of this position assume, in effect, that the word “exist” in the tetralemma means “continues to exist.” So when the first possibility says, “The Tathagata exists after death,” it’s actually saying, “The Tathagata continues to exist after death.” When the second possibility says, “The Tathagata doesn’t exist after death,” it’s actually saying, “The Tathāgata doesn’t continue to exist after death.” This argument would reject both positions on the grounds that the Tathāgata doesn’t exist prior to death, so there’s nothing to continue or not continue.

However, the closest the Buddha gets to using an argument like this to reject all four possibilities in the tetralemma is in SN 44:7 and SN 44:8. In SN 44:7 he notes that wanderers of other sects would take any of these positions because they assume, with regard to any of the six sense spheres, that ‘This is mine, this is my self, this is what I am.’ In SN 44:8, he states that they take the positions because they assume a self identical to any of the five aggregates, possessing any of the five, in any of the five, or containing any of the five within it. He, however, doesn’t make any of these assumptions, which is why he doesn’t take any of these positions.

But this is not to say that he held to the view that there is no self. In MN 2, he lists the questions, “Do I exist?” and “Do I not exist?” as unworthy of attention. From there, he goes on to state that the views that come from trying to answer questions like these—including the view, “I have no self,” along with the view, “I have a self”—are “a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.”

So there’s no reason to believe that the Buddha or his awakened disciples would have used the view that there is no self as their basis for rejecting the tetralemma.

And there are at least three other reasons for suspecting that neither he nor they would have approved of the argument for using the view that there is no self in this way.

• The first reason is that any attempt to describe the existence or non-existence of a Tathāgata after death has to fall under the tetralemma no matter how you define “exists.” For example, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to accept the idea that “exists” in the tetralemma means “continues to exist,” then if you reject the first two possibilities of the tetralemma—on the grounds that there’s nothing to continue existing or not—then your position would have to fall under the fourth possibility: “The Tathāgata neither continues to exist nor doesn’t continue to exist after death.” In other words, if you say your description is not x and not not-x, then it would be accurately described as neither x nor not-x.

What this means is that as soon as you try to describe the existence or non-existence of the Tathāgata after death, regardless of whether you assume or don’t assume a self prior to death, you still have to fall into one of the four members of the tetralemma, all of which the Buddha refuses to affirm.

• Second, even if it were possible to define the first two members of the tetralemma in any other way to avoid the problem just noted, SN 22:86 rules out any ways of describing the Tathāgata after death that would fall outside the tetralemma. So they would have to be rejected, too.

• Third, if the Buddha meant to imply that the tetralemma is unacceptable because it’s assuming a self that the Tathāgata never had, either before or after awakening, then the Buddha would have refused to adopt any of the alternatives of the tetralemma not only with regard to fully awakened beings, but also with regard to all beings, on the grounds that no one has ever had a self. But as the Buddha said in SN 44:9, he designated the birth—meaning rebirth—of one who has clinging, and not of one without clinging. And we can see many instances in the Canon where he describes the birth even of those who have gained any of the noble attainments but have not yet reached full awakening:

It’s also the case that the Buddha had no qualms about describing how beings get reborn in general. When, in SN 44:9, Vacchagotta asks him, “And at the moment when a being sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body, what do you designate as its sustenance then?” the Buddha didn’t say that there was no being. He answered categorically, “Vaccha, when a being sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body, I designate it as craving-sustained, for craving is its sustenance at that time.”

These passages indicate that the Buddha refused to describe Tathāgatas after death because of something that sets them apart from beings who are not fully awakened. And SN 44:9 tells us clearly what that is: They’re without clinging, whereas beings are not. Why this would make Tathāgatas indescribable—and why all four members of the tetralemma thus don’t apply to them—is related to the Buddha’s discussions of how beings are defined.

The way the Buddha plays with the meanings of “satta” in this passage doesn’t mean that he’s “only” playing with words here. We have to remember that wordplay, in the context of his culture, was often used for very earnest purposes, to make one’s teachings memorable. And the importance of the point he’s making here is underscored by the fact that he makes essentially the same point again in another sutta, this time without recourse to wordplay:

In other words, beings are defined by their clingings and attachments. When they let go of all their clingings and attachments, there’s nothing by which they can be defined. When you can’t define them, you can’t describe them. After all, to describe something, you first have to pinpoint exactly what it is. It’s for this reason that Buddhas and arahants, after death, can’t be described by any of the four positions of the tetralemma, or by any other position at all, because they can’t be defined as beings—or as anything else.

The Canon itself makes this connection in the reasons it gives for why the Buddha and his disciples would not take any of the four positions of the tetralemma. These reasons fall into two types—formal and strategic. The formal reasons are related to the basic rules of discussion: in this case, the rule that if you want to discuss whether something exists, you first have to define what it is you’re talking about. The strategic reasons are related to the actual impact the act of asking and answering a given question would have on the mind and, in particular, whether it would be helpful in putting an end to suffering and stress or actually get in the way.

The suttas’ formal reasons for rejecting the tetralemma are based on the fact that, given that you can’t measure or define the Tathāgata, it’s not legitimate to describe him as existing, not existing, both, or neither after death.

In fact, as SN 22:86 makes clear, fully awakened beings can’t be defined even in this lifetime, even though they’re obviously functioning and interacting with the world.

The verb I have translated here as “not being pinned down”—anupalabbhiyamāno—can also be translated as “not apprehended” or “not ascertained.” The preceding series of questions, in which Anurādha has been unable to define precisely what a Tathāgata is, even though he’s conversing with one, suggests the translation I’ve adopted in this case. But however you translate the verb, the context provided by SN 23:2 and SN 22:36 makes clear that the sentence as a whole means that because the Tathāgata, devoid of clinging, can’t be measured or defined even in this lifetime, there’s no way that you can legitimately describe him after death in any of the terms of the tetralemma—or in any other way at all.

As for the suttas’ strategic reasons for why the Buddha and his disciples wouldn’t take any of the four positions, these fall into two subsets. The first subset states that the attempt to answer the question of whether the Tathāgata exists after death isn’t relevant to the practice leading to the end of suffering, and actually can get in the way by entangling you in a snare of views.

The second subset of strategic reasons derives from the fact that the desire to take any of these four positions is inspired by unskillful states of mind. To answer the questions would be to encourage these unskillful states, and thus get in the way of awakening. For instance:

It’s because of these formal and strategic reasons that, if we’re serious about getting the most out of the Buddha’s teachings, we should try to avoid taking any position on what a fully awakened person is—before or after death—and instead to follow the example of the suttas. This means two things.

First, we can gain motivation in the practice from its similes for why such persons are indescribable. They’re hard to measure like the ocean, and they’re freed from location like a fire released from its clinging/sustenance (upādana).

Gone to the beyond of becoming,
	you let go of in front,
	let go of behind,
	let go of between.
With a heart everywhere released,
you don’t come again to birth 
		& aging. — Dhp 348

	Sister Subhā:

I—unimpassioned, unblemished,		
with a mind everywhere released…
Knowing the unattractiveness
	of fabricated things,
my heart adheres nowhere at all. — Thig 14

	Ven. Revata (right before passing away):

So then, I’m about to 
unbind. 
I’m released 
			everywhere. — Thag 14:1

	Ven. Anuruddha (on the Buddha’s passing away):

Like a flame’s unbinding
	was the liberation
		of awareness. — DN 16

(Cetas, the word translated as “awareness” in this last verse, can also be translated as “mind.”)

Second, we should focus not on what such persons are, but on the example provided by what they’ve done. This, after all, is the most important thing to know about them, so that we can get an idea of what we have to do to join their ranks.