Chapter II - The Disvaluation of the Empirical World

	In this chapter I would like to demonstrate in some depth one structural feature that both these traditions appear to have in common, namely, the tendency to subject the relative-empirical world to a distinctively qualified
disvaluation. Disvaluation is a term which I have adopted in order to distinguish it from devaluation taken in an extreme absolute sense. The words disvaluation and devaluation have many similarities but in this chapter I wish to contrast them. Devaluation has the connotation that if the process of disvaluation was to continue we would in time, for all practical purposes, be left with either that which was very little and insignificant or that which was effectively worthless. To illustrate this aspect of meaning we can allude to the financial situation of hyperinflation wherein the currency is subjected to excessive devaluation. Moreover, in contrast to disvaluation, devaluation has an intransitive connotation whereas disvaluation appears to express a state of affairs underlying a limited process rather than the de-finitive end of a radical process. In this thesis disvaluation will be treated as limited and process-orientated (in contrast to devaluation which will be treated as absolute and intransitive, as a final resultant-product derived from a completed process conducted in a thorough and extreme fashion).   
	Disvaluation is a distinctively qualified devaluation that occurs in an absolute philosophy's adoption of meta-phor's of illusion, magic, deprecation and/or similar in their treatment of the nature of the empirical-everyday-relative world. In contrast to absolute devaluation disvaluation is the qualified devaluation of the relative world, this qualification ensuring, firstly, that disvaluation is non-nihilistic in scope and intention, and secondly, that such treatment explicitly or implicitly leaves untouched how the Absolute, in and through its relationship with the relative, is to be found reflected in or expressed through the phenomenality of the everyday world. In both traditions the spiritual merit of the empirical world is discounted without severing and dichotomizing the spheres of the Absolute and the Relative. Preserving the relationship between these two realms two fundamental questions are then thematically addressed by both traditions although never explicitly, name-ly, what is the nature of this relationship, and as some form of evidence in what fashion is this relationship found to be expressed in the relative world? As the absolute is treated as the religious par excellence these fundamental questions, effectively establish, through their being implicitly formulated, and the manner of their resolution, the philosophic nature and style of the particular religious point of view under examination.   
	As I have stated it is my intention in this chapter to demonstrate that with respect to this feature of disvaluation there is between these two traditions a marked degree of structural and functional isomorphism. To facilitate this study I shall, throughout this thesis, generally limit myself to two basic texts, one representative text from each tradition. In regards to the Neoplatonic Tradition I shall use the Enneads of Plotinus preferably in that translation by A.H.Armstrong, although, during the writing of this thesis this translation was not completely published I have had to rely primarily on that done by S. MacKenna and B. S. Page. In regards to the Buddhist Mahayanic Tradition I shall use The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines in conjunction with its Verse Summary as translated by E.Conze.
	The former text was written some time between A.D.253 - A.D.270 and edited (approximately 300 A.D.) by Porphyry after Plotinus' death in A.D.270. Most of our Buddhist text was collectively written over a period from B.C.100 - A.D.100. A Chinese translation of this text in A.D.179 effectively establishes a terminus date although minor additions continue to be made to this text, as in other texts in the literature of The Perfection of Wisdom. Later texts in this tradition either summarizing or elaborating upon basic themes already established in The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines.
	In this chapter I shall first examine the Neoplatonic use of metaphors of illusion and deprecation. Then I shall examine the Buddhist use of metaphors of illusion and magic. Following this I shall then enter into a process of comparative analysis to show how the use of these three types of metaphors possess the same type of structureand function in their disvaluation of the relative world. Confirming this structural and functional identity lets us establish the fact that there is at least one feature isomorphic to both of these traditions, namely, the feature of disvaluational treatment. 
	Lastly, I shall briefly investigate the phenomenological implications of the disvaluationally-orientated attitude towards the relative world in order to come to a deeper understanding of this concept of disvaluation.
	Throughout this chapter I shall endeavour to establish the fact that between these two traditions, as represented by our two basic texts, there exists a structural and functional isomorphism in regard to this feature of disvaluation. In my next chapter I shall textually demonstrate other isomorphic features, although in less detail, our study of disvaluation in effect establishing a prima facie case that lets us come to realize that our overall comparative research is not only possible through isomorphism but also fruitful through the contrast and potential commentary each tradition has in relation to the other.
	By isomorphism is meant that some structural and/or functional feature that underlies a certain state of affairs, or system, is found to also underlie another state of affairs, or system, that in effect in the transformation necessary to arrive at the second system from the first a feature found in the first system is found to be preserved under that transformation. This concept of isomorphism also implies that superficially two systems may appear disparate yet on a deeper structural or functional level a symmetry is found to be present that to all practical purposes is coincident or equivalent.
	By structural is meant the manner in which certain key components, in the  metaphorical body of a philosophy, relate to other key components.
	By functional is meant the manner in which the system as a whole functions structured the way it is. In this thesis I shall argue that both religious philosophies are structured along absolutist lines and incorporate negative theological processes that have the apparent function of creating and assisting the development of religious insight.
	The Neoplatonic and the Buddhist Mahayanic Traditions both utilize metaphors of illusion to analogically illustrate and treat our general perception of the world as mistaken, as a misrepresentation of how reality, from the absolute point of view, truly is. In this process of disvaluation our natural attitude towards the world becomes effect-ively suspended, all experience then becomes treated as phenomenal and as such is regarded as changing, deficient, illusory, as involved in a multiplicity of mental constructions that distort or conceal reality as it is in itself, etc. On the other hand, to some extent the apparent world is also seen as a reflection, or an emanation, or similar, of the Absolute which in contrast to the phenomenal is regarded as the Absolute, the One, eternal, immutable, the pure, inexhaustible, simple, non-dual, sacred, etc. Moreover, once this dichotomic contrast is drawn it is then often dissolved or transcended through some form of fundamental equation of those dichotomies. In its religious context the process of disvaluation through the analogical use of metaphors of illusion, magic and/or deprecation or denigration is thus a complex process.
	Both traditions use metaphors of illusion to effectively achieve a disvaluation of the relative world. A stylistic difference can be noted through the fact that the Neoplatonic Tradition also uses explicit metaphors of deprecation to a achieve a similar end whilst not adopting meta-phors of magic. On the other hand the Buddhist use explicit metaphors of deprecation.
	Deprecation can be perceived as a process of de-appreciation that insists on the direct disvaluation of a certain state of affairs. In this process something that is initially taken to possess some degree of value is disvalued through comparison to some metaphor that directly suggests its correct valuation would be on a par with the relatively unworthy or worthless.
	In both traditions metaphors of illusion are utilized to treat the phenomenal as relatively valid from the relative point of view. Thus in the process of disvaluation the relativity of the empirical world is not nihilistically dismissed as pure illusion. This qualified treatment of illusion I have labelled in the introduction to my thesis, illusionism. Utilization of metaphors of illusion therefore effectively disvalue this relative world but do not absolutely devalue it.
	This process of disvaluation is achieved through the analogical use of metaphors of illusion, etc. Disvaluation appears to be conducted through a process of analogical transference wherein one or more of the intentionally important strands buried in the general metaphor invoked are extracted out and applied to this everyday vision of the world. E.g. Plotinus states....

....all living apart from Him, is but a shadow, a mimicry.

	Here Plotinus compares all living apart from the One as in effect inauthentic, as a lesser substitute or imitation. Shadows as a metaphor appears to possess both a denotational sense of illusoriness and a connotational sense of deprecation or denigration. The former sense suggests that the world is in some way less real than the Absolute, a lesser copy of the real world of the Absolute. As an object in the three dimensional world casts a two dimensional shadow the relative world in being compared to a shadow is analogically compared to Reality as being in some way less real. In effect the claim is made that some essential property or relation that holds in the comparison between an object and its shadow reoccurs in the comparison between the Absolute and the relative world. The feature shared in both processes of comparison would appear to be comparative and differential degrees of reality. With respect to the latter sense the deprecational connotation of shadows implicitly suggests that the world is a place less bright than Reality, a realm of relative darkness and evil.
	The illusion of shadows involves our mistaking the shadow for the real object then realizing at a later point in time our initial mistake. The metaphor of the illusory revolves around the primary experience of the illusion and our later secondary realization of the illusoriness of the illusion. First the illusion is seen or experienced and then the illusion of the illusion is seen, a process that implies two levels of conscious awareness. However, if the metaphor of the shadow was completely analyzed out and this analysis was transferred to the context of the empirical world vis-à- vis the Absolute it would be realized that in this world as shadows are just as real as the object shadowed that no ontological distinction can be drawn between this world and the Absolute. On this analysis the relative world would be just as real or unreal as the Absolute a consequence that would rob this metaphor of its intended disvaluational role. Indeed, I am sure, that if all metaphorical analogies were to be fully analyzed out they would be found to possess no final metaphorical impact and that metaphorical impact can only arise through contextually intentionally-determined metaphorical selectivity. The metaphor is introduced so to speak into a deliberately selective situational context where certain strands of meaning are set up to be discriminated out of, and extracted from, the metaphorical image, then once discrimination is achieved it is then applied to the subject matter the metaphor was contextually designed for. In our last quotation the subject matter is in effect all that which is not the Absolute, namely, the relative-phenomenal world. From our metaphor the analogical strands of denotational illusiveness and connotational deprecation are extracted and applied to our subject matter treating it to a consequent disvaluation.
	It would appear therefore that this use of metaphors is a two stage process - the extraction of the strand or strands of analogical meaning intended to be applied to a certain context and their application to that context in order to intentionally highlight the point of this analogical transference. However, I find that this two stage process in its religious context is more correctly a three stage process wherein the dichotomy drawn between what is real and what is illusory, or less real, in an absolute-oriented philosophy is eventually evacuated, if not almost immediately, of its metaphorically derived meaningfulness through the equation of the dichotomic aspects discriminated in the overall situation, in its application, the metaphorical device was apparently designed for.
	Realizing that this type of metaphorical usage in its religious context is a three stage process lets us come to appreciate the epistemological character of the metaphorical intention and its non-ontological orientation or pseudo-ontological orientation. In my use of the term ontological I mean being in the world, by ontological orientation I mean that type of consciousness that is directed towards the world as a physical world rather than in the opposite direction of the epistemological where consciousness is orientated towards the self and its knowing this ontological orientation. Although it is not argued for I propose and perceive both terms to be merely resonating polarizations on a continuum, in an organizational hierarchy of fields of consciousnesses, between the unity of mind as an overall sense of self and the world as a projection of all things dis-unified (although the world itself is seen as the unification of this projected dis-unity). The mind, on this continuum, or in this hierarchy, oscillating in its overall orientation towards one or the other of these polarizational tendencies without realizing, in theoretical terms of reference, either polarizational mode as a pure state of consciousness. Put more simply these two terms, the epistemological and the ontological, are two ideal polarizational orientations inherent in all types of consciousness that can be moved towards but never realized. By pseudo-ontological orientation is meant the tendency to ascribe greater physical-like reality to a certain state of affairs, giving to the same greater existence as if existence could be treated as a property that can be increased (or diminished). Correctly existence can only be given to the logical subject treated as a concept or class whether membership is singular or plural, this type of logical confusion being examined in some depth, along with the reason for its presence, in the following pages.  
      In philosophical terms of reference when degrees of reality are invoked what is involved is most probably our qualitative epistemological appreciation of the subject matter under investigation and not our ontological appreciation of it. Our epistemological understanding involves levels of awareness entered into and left in a process of unfolding and development wherein each level is the perspective for appreciating what comes before it (both in a temporal sense and a judgmental sense). It is a tautology to state what is is and what is not is not. Degrees of ontological reality cannot therefore be directly involved in the utilization of this type of metaphor, rather what is at stake is the matter of insight. When this point is understood we can then understand how these three stages are not correctly contradictory but more moments in the deepening of our insight through the enlarging of our religious perspective provoked by the religious text under examination, from the metaphorical to the relative to the absolute point of view.
	Textually a transformation of our understanding is intended, an enlargement of our vision is provoked by our attending to the use of metaphorical language articulated and its dialectical collapse through its juxtaposition of fundamental dichotomies developed in our applied metaphorical understanding. The safety and sureness of the phenomenal world is undercut by the application of metaphors of illusion, this disvaluation, through doubting or disvaluing our natural attitude, creates the psychic need for reality, religious validity and value in general. This complex need appears to be met through the introduction of the Absolute, that which is not the merely phenomenal but more the ground or necessary precondition for the same.
	However even that ground is undercut through the provoked realization of the limitations of our discursive thinking, through the fact that we cannot treat the Absolute as some sort of absolute phenomenon, realizing that Reality as the Absolute must somehow transcend predication. Let me elaborate on this point and establish this observation.
	Predicates and their anti-predicates must be involved in some sort of relationship as correlatives. This relationship can be observed in the fact that in the process of double negation that restores the predicate to its predicateness and the anti-predicate to its anti-predicateness both predicate and anti-predicate must in the process of logical manipulation pass through the state of anti-predicateness and predicateness respectively. Thus it follows that predicate and anti-predicate must be co-relatives, correlationally related to each other, the limits of one defining the limits of the other and vice versa. Some form of mental interrelationship must be invoked in order to account for this informative contrast. That being the case their absolute demarcation from each other is thus an impossible mental operation to perform, dealing with one correlative means that we are indirectly dealing with the other simul-taneously. Because we cannot absolutely divide predicate from anti-predicate (nor predicate also from its logical subject for that matter) then from the absolute point of view there exists their absolute non-difference, their absolute self-differentiation is thus not distinctly possible. Applied to all mental distinctions an extreme critique must therefore reveal some point beyond which these limits become revealed with a consequence that these distinctions therein dissolve and disappear with the breakdown of their relative boundaries. Logical language and thought in applying itself to phenomenal reality must fix this patterned flux of our experiential existence within some form of contextual framework at the expense of a freezing and fabrication of reality distorting in the process its essential-fluidity. Both the Neoplatonic and the Buddhist Traditions place a heavy emphasis on the unsatisfactoriness, from a critical-philosophical point of view, of predication, language in general, those attempts that try to describe absolute reality. In order for the religious philosopher to enter into a religious discourse about the Absolute beyond a discursive-phenomenal point of view their use of language must become specially adapted to a transcending of the boundaries between predicate and anti-predicate, predicate and logical subject and yet manipulate such a feat within the confines of a predicationally bound language. One way this type of linguistic manoeuvre can be conducted is in what I define as a negative theological process. What I would like to point out here is that the third stage in the use of metaphors of disvaluation where dichotomies drawn are juxtaposed, equated and dissolved is conducted within the confines of a negative theological process and that this type of procedure will be investigated in a later chapter dealing with the same. Suffice to say the process is complex but that sufficient has been indicated to enable us to understand where, and how, the religious utilization of metaphorical disvaluation is headed.
	Now at this point I would like to add some additional qualification to this idea that the invocation of degrees of reality is a subterfuge for the introduction of degrees of epistemological appreciation because, in this schema as it stands, its associated psuedo-ontological character would not be adequately accounted for. From my own understanding I believe this confusion with the ontological arises firstly through the hierarchical stratification of reality associated with these levels of insight, and secondly, ascribing a greater degree of power to that evaluated as higher in this hierarchical stratification of reality.
	In a court a king is just as real as anyone of his courtiers but in terms of power and function he is normally considered to be more significant. In a like fashion the Absolute is treated in a dynamic creative sense as more powerful than any item in the phenomenal world. The use of degrees of reality thus entails a spectrum of powerfulness, the Absolute in an absolute philosophy being generally treated as the infinitely powerful, inexhaustible in scope. Being absolutely powerful the Absolute is also regarded as possessing a greater sense of presence and value. Overall the use of arguments that involve degrees of reality generally confuse levels of awareness, ontological stratification and distinctions in power and value.
	Let us take a second quotation from Plotinus that utilizes a metaphor of illusion to examine textually the validity of, and enlarge upon, our understanding as developed at this point in time.

....the Absolute Existents; the original of which this beautiful world is but a shadow and an image.

	Firstly, I believe an inspection of this quotation should confirm much of my analysis of our previous quotation. The general metaphor invoked is comparison to a shadow and this is reinforced through its conjunction with a metaphorical comparison to that of an image (as seen in a mirror, e.g.). Both metaphors imply an object and a shadow, or image, and as the everyday world is treated as like the latter, as a shadow or image, it is implied that there exists a real world above and beyond this lesser vision that somehow is separated from, yet finds itself reflected in, the deceptiveness of this world. However this lesser vision is dialectically qualified as beautiful - this beautiful world is but a shadow and an image. Thus although the empirical world is treated like an illusion it is none the less treated as a beautiful illusion, an illusion whose beauty reflects the greater beauty and glory of the Absolute.
	Plotinus goes to some considerable extent to qualify his general devaluation of the world as a disvaluation lest he be confused with the extreme type of position taken by the Gnostics, etc. wherein matter e.g. is treated as absolutely evil and quite distinct from the realm of spirit, the numinous or God. This second quotation therefore quite aptly highlights our second qualification to our concept of disvaluation, namely, that the Absolute is found to be reflected or expressed in some fashion, to some degree, within the realm of the relative.
	Such treatment of the world reinforces Plotinus' non-nihilistic stance and at the same time gives and preserves a degree of value that can be discovered within its ambit. Existence therefore in this beautiful world is neither a mere illusion nor a mere delusion but is, or should be, a process that has, or should have, some form of positive value and meaningfulness. These two qualifications imply firstly, that the relative is relatively valid within the context of the everyday phenomenal world but that such validity or value is limited and relative, and secondly, the relativity of the empirical world gains what absolute validity it does have through indirectly reflecting the realm of the Absolute albeit through the prism of the relative. Understanding the philosophy behind this type of absolute philosophy and coming therein to appreciate this distinction between absolute and relative value or validity lets us come to comprehend the equivocation that Plotinus appears to enter into where on one hand he states the world is an illusion and on the other he states it is a place of beauty. Plotinus may appear hesitant in this regard but I am sure he is fully aware of the implications of his absolutist position dialectically qualifying his position on the distinctiveness of the relative and the absolute whilst at the same time indicating the nature of their interrelationship. By dialectical is meant here a particular type of philosophical argument carried out like a dialogue or debate that realizes and qualifies the limits of logical items introduced into that process of argumentation recognizing that the reality of the world cannot be caught by the superficial net of logical-extremes.
	Our last two quotations both possess a connotational element wherein by implication the relative is subject to deprecation through allusion to darkness and evil. In the following quotation this deprecational element is made explicit.

All other life is darkness, petty, and dim and poor, it is unclean and polluting the clean for if you do but look upon it you no longer see nor live this life which includes all living,.... For evil is here where life is in copy and Intellect is in copy. 

	The relative world, all other than the Absolute, is here subjected to explicit deprecation. This realm of evil however is treated as relative and not absolute. Evil is defined not as something in itself but through the qualified absence of life. The Absolute as Life is given statue through the implication that it is not petty, that it is light-orientated, rich and pure. Moreover there is a sense of dynamism, energy and power imparted to it through the sense that Life is lived as a process of living that is all living. Further, we are invited by Plotinus to enter into this process of real living which transcends this apparent life of ours and look upon this realm of the Real, the One. In effect it is claimed some form of insight is entered into that lets us see the difference between the Relative and the Absolute. With insight the illusion is then seen for what it is, the element of deprecation that insisted on this fact in the first place can now quite naturally flow from the realization that as the empirical world is an imitation of the real our sights are better set upon this other world of real value. Hence it be could claimed insightful deprecation is more entered into through default, through the fact that our natural interest reserved for the world becomes displaced and redirected towards the Real. However deprecation also has a positive role for Plotinus of seeming to actually help us come to realize this reality of the Absolute as the One. By explicitly, or implicitly, deprecating the relative and phenomenal nature of the world our sight is prompted to become focused, instead, on that which is not the many as the empirical world appears through the richness of its present-ation, but on the One seen as the pre-conditional and pre-presentational ground of that sensuous reality. The use of deprecation therefore also appears to be a method whereby, theoretically, the Absolute can be experienced. In effect metaphors of illusion and deprecation are used by Plotinus in both a descriptive sense and a prescriptive sense. Realizing that Beauty and Goodness are greater than this everyday vision of the world our natural disdain, given such insight, for the latter should open us up to a redirection of our vision towards the former (whilst the latter would therefore be consequently reperceived as deceptively attractive). Disdain for the phenomenal world thus has the positive aspect for Plotinus of helping us come to a position whereby the Absolute can be seen to reveal itself.

That life, the various, the all-including, the primal and one, who can consider it without longing to be of it, disdaining all the other.

	On the positive role of deprecation Plotinus states....

It is not by some admixture of non-Being that one becomes an entire, but by putting  non-Being away. By the lessening of the alien in you, you increase. Cast it aside and there is the All within you, engage in the alien, you will not find the All.

	Deprecation consists therefore in not only identifying the alien but our also rejecting it, casting it aside so that in the process the Absolute can be revealed as the ground beneath or behind phenomena. Plotinus' emphasis on purification and psychic separation from that which is subjected to deprecation is a natural consequence that follows from this philosophic position, putting into practise this process of disdaining.
	Plotinus in our third last quotation tells us that if we just look upon this phenomenal world we do not enter into a process of true living. The moral to be drawn therefore is that in disdaining this relative world and longing for the
Absolute it is claimed we open ourselves up to insight, enter into participation with the Real. Thus it would appear that the element of deprecation, implicitly or explicitly, is also a methodological tool for the creation of insight to be seized upon by the person who seeks to realize and exper-ience the facticity of the Absolute. Hence it appears, for Plotinus, that realization of the illusoriness of the relative world would necessitate our disdaining it, motivating us in our establishing a redirection of a purified vision away from the phenomenal world towards the One, the Absolute. In effect the general process of disvaluation associated with the utilization of metaphors of illusion and deprecation is used by Plotinus as both a description and a prescription. As a description it seeks to demarcate the realms of the Relative and the Absolute and as a prescription it seeks to provide the means whereby one can experience their interrelationship.

The Soul wrought to perfection, ...., is steadfastly pure; has turned away from matter, .... it endures in its purity, only, and wholly, determined by the Intellectual Principle. The soul that breaks away from this source of its reality to the non-perfect and non-
primal is, as it were; a secondary, an image, to the loyal Soul. By its falling-away,.... becomes wholly indeterminate, sees darkness.

	An examination of this last quotation should reinforce our understanding of this concept of disvaluation and also bring to our attention a number of other themes that appear to be closely associated with it. For example in this quotation we can note the presence of an emphasis on purity and, by extension, its prescriptive demands for a process of purification as a precondition for religious insight. From the text we are also told that the soul by falling into this world does so as a secondary, as an image and in its collaboration with Matter is seen as in darkness, as being in a realm of non-being and evil. The phenomenal world is thus seen as deficient, as an illusion whose order, beauty and goodness are weakly given to it secondhand, as a pale imitation of the Absolute by the Absolute. In this quotation we can thus observe a hierarchicalization of reality, namely, a primary (the Absolute) and a secondary of various degrees (dependent on the extent of its fall vis à vis the Absolute).
	Treating the world to deprecation negatively evaluates it worth relative to the Absolute, however, the Relative being in a state of ongoing relationship with the Absolute has expressed through this relationship that which is in common to both realms. These essential attributes, attributes that characterize the nature of the Absolute, are weakly expressed in the Relative so that to all purposes the Relative can be described as an image and in practical terms as an illusion when that image is mistaken for absolute reality, reality being seen as the prerogative of the Absolute. In a sense the treatment of the empirical world as an illusion naturally denigrates its relative worth. On this analysis it becomes apparent that metaphors of illusion and metaphors of deprecation are intrinsically linked although this linkage is not necessarily articulated to the same degree nor for that matter made fully explicit. Moreover allusions to hierarchicalization, purity and purification, indirect reflection of the Absolute in the world, degrees of being and value seem to naturally follow from, and act as a precondition for metaphors that disvaluationally treat the world. I would propose therefore that the two processes involving metaphors of illusion and metaphors of deprecation both possess the same essential structure and function and that the same can be described through a general concordance with the various themes just listed, although these features need not be articulated to the same degree nor made fully explicit. No doubt other themes will also be found to accompany this general concept of disvaluation. An analysis of disvaluational language and its closely associated family of conceptual structures effectively acting as an ideal introduction to the general religious nature of this type of absolute philosophy, which I believe is common to both of these two traditions, and at the same time revealing, through different direction and degrees of emphasis within this general disvaluational structure, stylistic differences between these two traditions.
	Let us now investigate the Buddhist aspect to our comparison. In this section I shall first discuss various textual instances of illusionism and attempt to show that our three qualifications attached to this metaphorical usage equally apply in this tradition. Secondly, I shall note a stylistic difference in that this tradition uses no meta-phors of explicit deprecation or denigration and uniquely adopts explicit metaphors of magic but that such overall adoption has in effect the same essential structure as that which attaches to our more general concept of disvaluation.
	Our first qualification noted that disvaluation is not treated absolutely and therefore was non-nihilistic in scope. Our second qualification made the observation that as the relative cannot be nihilistically dismissed it followed that the relative point of view must possess some degree of relative validity. That accepted the question would then quite naturally arise, without being necessarily made textually explicit, as to how and in what manner the Relative relates to the Absolute and vice versa? A complex third qualification was later developed that treated degrees of reality as pseudo-ontological, as stages in a process of increasing epistemological insightfulness and as experientially indicative of a hierarchical stratification of reality in terms of power and value. It was stated that this last qualification had the tendency to express itself through the polarization, equation and dissolution of fundamental dichotomic tensions textually introduced and articulated through the application of a disvaluational treatment process.
	The Perfection of Wisdom Tradition and its philosophic systematization in the Madhyamaka in various ways stress their non-nihilistic intentions. Nagarjuna in his influential Mulamadhyamakakarikas states ....

"It is" is a notion of eternity (sasvaka), "It is not" is a nihilistic view (uccheda). Therefore, one who is wise does not have recourse to "being" or "non-being".

	Nagarjuna's philosophy is grounded in and founded upon this Prajnaparamita Tradition and historically he is claimed to have written a commentary on The Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Lines". As a philosopher he explicated various trends in this tradition, made explicit various presuppositions, arguments, implications and conclusions generally systematizing this endeavour under one ostensively coherent framework. The nature of this framework is effectively meta-philosophical in scope because this type of philosophy presents itself as a dialectical methodology that criticizes and attacks the deficiencies that it claims are naturally inherent in all philosophical views about reality.
	As this text makes no direct reference to its non-
nihilistic intent let me therefore show that this implication, as a consequence, can still be drawn and that such a state of affairs in its historical context was taken for granted. In dialogue form in dealing with the nature of the experience of perfect wisdom it is stated....

That thought which is no thought, is that something which is?
Does there exist, or can one apprehend in this state of absence of thought either a `there is ' or a `there is not'?
No, not that.
Was it then a suitable question when the venerable Sariputra asked whether that thought which is no thought is something which is?
It is without modification or 
discrimination.
Well do you expound this, Subhuti,....

	In this intriguing dialogue the question of whether, in enlightenment, the thought of existence or non-existence is entertained? It was answered that this question was not a suitable one to ask for the reason that in the experience of perfect wisdom no thought is present, consciousness being without modification or discrimination. Effectively this question cannot be allowed because the presuppositional structure to the subject matter of this question is constructed in such a way as to disallow such a question being asked of it. The rules of the game are articulated in such a way that the question of existence or non-existence cannot be applied to the nature of the Absolute and its experientially enlightened reception?
	In the question did the bachelor kill his wife an answer of yes or no can have no sense or real meaning. In this example it is obvious that the necessary presuppostional conditions are not met in order for the question to be meaningfully asked even though grammatically the question superficially appears to be sensible.
	Returning to our previous quotation we can now ask why this question is presuppositionally inappropriate, i.e. why certain logical conditions are not fulfilled in order for a question or description, etc. can be meaningfully asked or applied? Our quotation informed us that from the absolute point of view, the experience of perfect wisdom, consciousness is without modification or discrimination and therefore predicates cannot be attributed to or denied of its logical subjectivity. Moreover this text continues and in a few lines further on even disallows the presuppositional ground of subjectivity itself, both logical and personal.

I who do not find anything to correspond to the word "Bodhisattva", or to the words "perfect wisdom", in which Bodhisattva should I then instruct and admonish in perfect wisdom? It would surely be regrettable if I, unable to find the thing itself, should merely in words cause a Bodhisattva to arise and pass away.

	As this text itself states certain questions, and by implication all questions, are not suitable candidates when the inquiry is made from the absolute point of view. In the ensuing evacuation of presuppositional ground language and concepts as expressed in words are treated as conventional signs that are empty of their purported structure and content. Language is treated as a pragmatic device useful in the realm of relativity (the world of relations in contrast to the non-relational world of the Absolute) but directly useless in itself to describe reality (treated as the Absolute). Not only matters of existence, non-existence, logical subjectivity, personal subjectivty are evacuated of a presuppositional ground but this same text in many other places collapses by implication all cognitive categories in the same manner.

Form itself does not possess the own-being of form, etc.... A mark does not possess the own-being of a mark. The marked does not possess the own-being of being marked, and own-being does not possess the mark of (being) own-being.

	This removal and destruction of presuppositional ground would appear to progressively rob language of any meaningful role it could have, dissolve any discourse or dialogue that one might wish to enter into. That being the case we may well ask ourselves the questions why should this type of text demand, and, the reader of this type of text attempt the apparently impossible - the comprehension of its message and the putting into practise any instructions associated with that text? Obviously such a type of textual discourse cannot be considered normal. Even this text itself recognizes this when it tells us that it is difficult to comprehend, can cause despair and despondency, dejection and fear. Therefore we can further ask why normal language is subjected to such a process of abnormalization. This text in this same chapter to our previous quotations states....

He (the Bodhisattva) does not go near any dharma at all, because all dharmas are unapproachable and unappropriable. The Bodhisattva then has the concentrated insight "Not grasping at any dharma" by name,.... When he dwells in this concentrated insight, a Bodhisattva will quickly win the full enlightenment.

	It seems therefore that  abnormalization of discourse has a practical religious point to make, namely, the articulation of a methodolgy for the creation of insight into reality from the absolute point of view. However is such insight insight into the nihilistic nature of reality or can reality escape such an accusation? The inapplicability of predicational attribution to reality from an absolute point of view still leaves open the question as to whether reality has any value or meaning transcendent to that presupposit-ional ground treated collectively? It is at this point in our investigation that we can now critically examine the use of metaphors of illusion, and other metaphors of disvaluation, in order to answer this question.
      With respect to our last quotation the same chapter continues and soon makes the following curious point.

What do you think, Subhuti, is form, etc. one thing and illusion another?
No Lord. Because it is not so illusion is one thing, and form, etc. is another; the very form is illusion, the very illusion is form.
What do you think, Subhuti, is that notion "Bodhisattva" that denomination, that concept, that conventional expression, - in the five grasping aggregates (of the skandhas)?
Yes, it is. Because a Bodhisattva who trains himself in perfect wisdom should train himself like an illusory man for full enlightenment. For one should bear in mind that the five skandhas are like an illusory man.

	In effect because there is no underlying substance or structure basic to the personality in Buddhist nominalistically-orientated analysis it follows from such a position that the person should see themselves as presuppositionless, groundless, inherently empty of such fictitious entities. Thus the introduction of a metaphor involving illusion is in a religious attempt to reevaluate the nature of the person from the point of view of the Absolute. Abnormalization of language in this section of dialogue abnormalizes its relativity in order to introduce a sense of the Absolute, a frame of reference that transcends the presuppositional ground that scopes and limits the relative. Moreover, the text also indicates that the relativization of the phenomenal through discursive mental processes is itself a type of abnormalization, a distortion of the same through mental constructions that effectively conceal reality.

They (foolish, untaught, common people) have constructed all dharmas which yet do not exist, they neither know nor see the path which is that which truly is.

	Taking the person to be like an illusion this text pro-ceeds to take this concept to its logical limits. As illusory people, like those in a dream, etc., are neither bound nor freed and as we are like illusory people, according to the text, it follows that in truth, from the absolute point of view, we too must be neither bound nor free! By our very nature we must be enlightened but through our short sightedness and not being able thus to see into the true nature of our being we neither know nor see this.

For all-knowledge is not made, nor unmade, not effected....
So it is. For form, etc. is neither bound nor freed. And that is true also of the Suchness of feeling, etc....   the form of the illusory man is neither bound nor freed. The Suchness of the form of an illusory man is neither bound nor freed.

	By unravelling this text in this manner I have sought to show that the abnormalization of the relative, through the evacuation of presuppositional ground (through the disintegration and withdrawal of cognitive-categorical structures) meaning is not made merely nonsensical but indicative of a breakdown in the appropriateness or applicability of the relative in its attempt to describe the Absolute. The non-nihilistic intent of this text is highlighted by the positivity such treatment is claimed to have upon the person who instigates and pursues its methodological critique of the relative and who enters into an experientially receptive openness towards the inexpressibility of the Absolute. Meta-phors of illusion introduce us to the concept of emptiness and by implication suggest that our estate is naturally enlightened but that for most of us in the world we are not aware of this true state of affairs. Such metaphors then are used to destroy the relativity of our being in order to reveal the Absolute. Such being the case our text therefore stands far removed from any nihilistic intent that could, mistakenly, be superficially argued for. Indeed the Buddhist philosopher has traditionally taken a middle path between the extremes of nihilism and changeless eternalism, a position restressed by Nagarjuna which earned for his school the title of Madhyamaka - Middle Path. This position is effect-ively implicit in most mainstream Buddhist denominations and is central to the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition.
	Let us now continue our examination of metaphors of illusion in order to uphold the application of our second and third qualifications.

The Suchness of these dharmas and the Suchness of all dharmas, and the Suchness of the Tathagata (Buddha) are simply this one single Suchness. There is no division within Suchness. Just simply one single is this Suchness, not two, not three. Suchness has passed beyond counting, because it is not. A man scorched by the heat of summer, at noon might see a mirage floating along, and might run towards it, and think `there I shall find some water, there I shall find something to drink.' What do you think, son of good family, has that water come from anywhere, or does that water go anywhere, to the Eastern great ocean, or the Southern, Northern or Western? 
No water exists in the mirage. How could its coming or going be conceived? That man is foolish and stupid if, on seeing the mirage, he forms the idea of water where there is no water. Water in its own being certainly does not exist in that mirage.

.... the text continues about the dreaming of a number of Tathagatas (Buddhas).

One cannot conceive that in that dream any dharma at all had the status of a full and perfect reality, for that dream was deceptive.
Just so the Tathagata has taught that all dharmas are like a dream.... in agreement with the teaching of the Tathagata, they do not imagine the coming or going of any dharma, nor its production or stopping.

	This passage begins with an air of positivity that would contradict a position of nihilism. Even though empirical content is treated as empty the experience of relativity is not dismissed. In the mirage there is no real water, in the dream about a miscellaneous number of Tathagatas there are no real Tathagatas. These metaphors are adopted in order to show by analogical transference that from the point of view of the Absolute, realized through enlightenment, through coursing in all-knowledge, etc., that the everyday world is equally an illusion without at the same time, denying its relative validity.

Like a magical illusion are those beings, like a dream. For not two different things are magical illusion and beings, are dreams and being. All objective facts also are like a magical illusion, like a dream. The various classes of saints, from Streamwinner to Buddhahood, also are like a magical illusion, like a dream.
A fully enlightened Buddha also, you say is like a magical illusion, is like a dream? Buddhahood also, you say is like a magical illusion, is like a dream?
Even Nirvana, I say is like a magical  illusion, is like a dream? How much more so anything else!

	In this quotation even terms that ostensively apply to the realm of the Absolute are subject to disvaluation. The Absolute must appear to resist a phenomenalization of itself through attempts by language to relativize its inherent
inexpressibility. Descriptive treatment by language must weaken this dichotomy between the Absolute and the relative and in the process diminish the sense of the absolute, the sense of the religious or numinous or God.
	One of the ways open for language to deal with the inexpressibility of reality is to indicate a feeling for the absolute through the negation of some positive religious item. Such negation, however, is not simple nor straight forward. The item treated to negation is not nihilistically dismissed in some iconoclastic fashion but is more qualified. Its limits in dealing with the absolute are clearly articulated and in the process its positiveness is effectively encapsulated, preserved in such a confine and qualified through the limits imposed by its negational scoping. At first negation appears to proffer a complete dismissal of that subjected to its critique, however, given a larger frame of reference positivity is restored, albeit in the confines of the relative, whilst a sense of the numinous is revealed through revealing a sense of its limitation before the unlimited. Disvaluation, through metaphors of illusion, deprecation or denigration and magic is a type of negative theological process wherein positive religious categories become scoped and systematically reinterpreted. Through the juxtaposition of limitation before the unlimited the relative is related to the unlimited power and value of the Absolute. Hence the restrictions placed upon a positive theological category by the negative theologian, i.e. its scoping, in effect constitutes a way whereby absolute and rela-tive can be made to relate to each other. This absolute backgrounding to a positive theological item, across the boundaries of its scoping, then allows the Absolute to appear to reinvest that particular item with a deeper religious significance both in a connotational sense and a denotational sense. The former sense preserves the religious feeling or aura the original positive theological item possessed on a connotational level. The denotational sense dia-lectically reconstructs and qualifies its cognitive conceptualization in order to appear to be in some degree of harmony with the nature of the absolute philosophy that re-evaluated that item of positive terminology.
	In our last quotation a fully enlightened Buddha, Buddhahood and even Nirvana were scoped by declaring them like a magical illusion or dream. In the same sweep of identification everything else is declared to be even more like a dream. Taken at face value as dreams are contrasted with our waking states a dissolution of this contrast, between waking and sleeping, must rob even dreams of their being meaningful. Rather, as I have earlier stated, the use of a metaphorical allusion is selective in what feature or features of the image are extracted and analogically applied to the intended subject matter of such treatment. What appears to be the intention of this particular treatment process can be examined on a connotational level and a denotational level. Dreams are states of consciousness wherein certain situations may appear to be real. However on waking the reality of their presentation comes to be appreciated as a simulation of reality. The denotational feature extracted from the imagery of dreaming e.g. suggests the ability to appreciate mistaken interpretational processes and by extension the world of appearence then becomes treated as a distortion of reality as it really is. That the connotational aspect suggests that the world is in some way defectively interpreted, that the relative world is an unpleasant place that is insufficiently lit, is fragile and deceptive. Our metaphorical image of dreaming comes to suggest therefore that reality is distorted in our discursive appreciation of the world but that this distortion, from the absolute point of view, can be recognized to be as such opening us up by implication to a vision of the real, the reputed true nature of the situation.
	In the context of our two traditions metaphors of illusion are implicitly deprecational in the way they discount the value or validity of the world as perceived through the natural attitude. The Buddhist adoption of metaphors of magic also possess an implicitly deprecational element. These two features of illusoriness and deprecation combine together to act in such a way as to circumscribe the phenomenality of that under examination, and would suggest that an expansion of our appreciation would reveal the limits and apparent deceptiveness of the phenomenal. Effectively the use of such metaphors creates an interpretational system that retranslates statements obtained through the exercise of the natural attitude. It is claimed that reflection on such meta-translations engineers a process of insightfulness and that the systematic application of such techniques prepares the ground for that person to intuit the reality of the world from the absolute point of view. This change of perspective realizes a process of revelation wherein the person who comes to experience the same comes to intuit or believe that they have experienced the nature of the relationship between Relative and Absolute.
	A second way of establishing a relationship between the same asserts itself in this type of religious philosophy through the identification of fundamental dichotomies. Through the adoption of a higher dialectical point of view the polarization and tension of religious terminology is collapsed with a consequent sacralization of the profane. The unlimited is then perceived as investing the limited with a sense of the limited before the unlimited which in turn returns a sense of value to the relative world. The concept of degrees of reality in a contextual examination should reveal this process of revaluation at work textually. This complex concept of degrees of reality was analyzed into the following strands - a pseudo-ontological element (i), a process of epistemological insightfulness (ii), the power (iii) and value of the Absolute (iv). Let me at this point in time textually indicate that this analysis of the concept of degrees of reality is at least moving in the right direction.

And he (a Bodhisattva) also considers the full enlightenment (ii) and its happiness (iv), and the perfection of the sovereignty (iii) over all dharmas, and the accomplishment of the measureless and unconquered supreme wonderworking power which has conquered all (iii), and the power (iii) of the Tathagata's cognition (ii) of what is truly real (i) which is without covering, attachment or obstruction, unequalled, equal to the unequalled, incomparable, without measure, and the power (iii) of the Buddha-cognition (ii), preeminent among the powers (iii), and the vision and cognition of a Buddha (ii), the perfection of the ten powers (iii), the obtainment of that supreme ease (iv) which results from the four grounds of self-confidence (iv) and the obtainment of Dharma through the realization (ii) of the ultimate reality of all dharmas (i). 

	I believe, in the quotation of this paragraph, that these major themes present in this complex concept of degrees of reality are sufficiently self-evident to that extent that they need little further discussion. It would appear that the complexity of this concept is implicated in any philosophy that utilizes disvaluational techniques in order to draw a contrast between the sense of the absolute versus the sense of the relative or phenomenal.
	The theme of value or valuation, as I see and define it, is an existential one. The term value is, as I perceive it, an open concept open to a variety of interrelated meanings and contexts and not able to be pinned down to any one determinate logically clear definition. First, there is a sense of validity, what is valid in some existential sense. In a dynamic sense it can be treated as that which gives value whilst in a static sense it can be treated as that which has value, is valuable. In a personal mode it can also be treated as that which evaluates the relationship of self, on one hand, to the being of the Absolute and, on the other, to the being of others and the world. The overall effect of value being seen and experienced as a feeling of worth, happiness, transcendental detachment, natural self-confidence, sense of personal integrity, etc. However in this chapter I do not wish to elaborate upon my understanding of this concept of mine but instead to merely point out this component in the complex concept of degrees of reality and its implication in the concept of disvaluation (through the restoration of value imparted by the imputed recognition and experience of the presence of the absolute in the world).   
	Metaphors and descriptions of magic appear to be used in the text The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines in four ways, namely, (i) to exalt the power of a buddha or buddha-like person, (ii) as a skillful device used or described by the same to introduce to an audience two closely related concepts of (iii) the non-self-existentness and (iv) selflessness of phenomena (or as a straight forward illustration of these two doctrines).
	The first usage is used to dramatically set our text in a magical-religious-like atmosphere wherein buddha-like figures are shown to have a super-human nature and divine-like attributes giving emphasis to a devotional element that permeates this text.
	The second usage involves the skillful (upaya) adoption or description of magical illusions in order to illustrate, more often than not, the two closely related doctrines of the unsubstantiality or non-self-existentness of phenomena and the selflessness of the same. These two doctrines represent respectively the emptiness of the world and the emptiness of the personality. Together these two doctrines represent the emptiness of all dharmas.
	This term dharmas is another difficult Buddhist concept to initially deal with. In the above context dharmas can come to be seen as distinctive types of phenomenon that unceasingly come into existence and flash out of existence at the same time. As a meditational device its philosophical elaboration led initially to a severe nominalistic-like critique but dharmas themselves came to be spared such criticism. Consequently, in the academic environment of early Buddhist monasticism they were given an increasingly realistic and atomistically orientated interpretation. However with the advent of the Mahayana critical techniques that were applied in a dharmic analysis of the world and the personality came to be transferred to the dharmas themselves. In the process Buddhist philosophical thinking dramatically shifted from a radical realism to a critical radicalism and in the matrix of this transformation was born a systematic absolute-orientated philosophical approach to the world with a marked emphasis on the via negativa.

Thereupon the Lord on that occasion exercised His wonderworking power.The entire assembly .... saw the Tathagata Akshobhya surrounded by the congregation of monks, accompanied by a retinue of Bodhisattvas .... Thereupon the Lord again withdrew His wonderworking power.The Lord Akshobhya, the Tathagata, then no longer appeared .... And the Lord said to Ananda: All dharmas do not come within the range of vision.... For all dharmas are of such a nature that they can be neither known nor seen.... All dharmas are unthinkable, similar to illusory men. All dharmas are unfindable; because they are in a state of non-existence.

	In this last quotation the Buddha is stated to have conjured up another buddha figure - the Tathagata Akshobhya along with a vast congregation of people, and then to have dissolved the same. The point of this exercise was to skillfully impress upon his audience that the nature of all dharmas is essentially the same, namely, like an illusion.
	This type of metaphor is also used to illustrate the point that not only is the world like an illusion but that the personality is similarly constituted (and that the bodhisattva, as a bodhisattva, is aware of this).

A fictitious creature (who has been conjured up by the Tathagata) to do a certain work (in converting beings), performs that work, but remains without discrimination .... Just so a Bodhisattva performs the work for the sake of which he develops the perfection of wisdom, the perfection of wisdom remains without discrimination.

	Metaphors of magic are effectively a special type of metaphor of illusion. Both types of metaphors have the same overall structure and function. Both are denotationally disvaluational and, on a connotational level, implicitly deprecational towards the relative world as seen through the natural naive point of view. Both are used with the same type of intent, namely, to function in such a manner that helps us to discriminate between a realm of the real in contrast to a lesser world of the phenomenal whilst at the same time establishing their interrelationship.
      In entering into a comparison of both traditions with respect to their adoption of disvaluational treatment processes we must ask ourselves four questions. Firstly, do these traditions use similar metaphors, and secondly, in the use of those metaphors that are ostensively the same are the same metaphorical processes of selection at work? Thirdly, can those various disvaluational structures individually considered be treated as essentially isomorphic between these two traditions, and fourthly, does there exist an adequate degree of structural and functional isomorphism on a collective level that would allow us to affirm that the same general concept of disvaluation is at work in both worlds? It stands to reason with respect to our last point that the presence of a number of isomorphic features of themselves do not imply that overall these two philosophic religious traditions are either structurally or functionally isomorphic. Two different political cultures may both possess courts, judges and death sentences, e.g. but this coincidence does not imply that the pursuit of justice is exercised in the same fashion.
	Previously, in this chapter, I argued for a contextual intentionally-predetermined metaphorical-selectivity in the use of metaphorical-like structures. It was claimed that the metaphor was intentionally introduced into such a frame of reference that one or more strands embedded in the open richness of the symbolic matrix of the metaphor become dis-criminated out of such a matrix and applied to some pre-determined subject-matter deliberately set up to be so highlighted. The whole analogical process, when correctly devised, comes to be seen as obvious, naturally appropriate and decisively illuminating. The use of an image as an analogy focuses and presents us with the essential point to be made often in a vivid, artful and interesting fashion.
	In this chapter I have discussed how both traditions use disvaluational treatment processes to, firstly, effect a relative-absolute contrast, and secondly, to indicate the nature of their interaction within this contrast. I have noted that both traditions use metaphors of illusion and at least involve themselves in an implicit religiously motivated highly qualified deprecation or denigration of the naive acceptance of the natural attitude towards the relative-phenomenal world. However when we compare the text-ual instantiation of their metaphorically treated and il-lustrated concepts of illusionism we would find different processes of metaphorical selectivity at work. Although the same types of metaphors are ostensively present, e.g. dreams, images, etc. the metaphorical processes are differently constructed in both traditions, yet, a deeper appreciation of this difference, in my opinion, would reveal and establish an effective level of structural and functional isomorphism that would support my contention that this same general concept of disvaluation is at work in both worlds. That behind the conceptual and metaphorical machinery the same intentions, structures and functional consequences can be observed. Indeed, through such a comparison each tradition naturally lends itself to act as a commentary on the other and in the process help reveal other common conceptual structures associated with this disvaluational attitude.
	In the Neoplatonic context the metaphor of illusionism is constructed in such a way that the element of being a copy or simulation of reality is extracted from it. The phenomenal world is treated as if it were some copy of some heavenly-like realm, albeit in a weakly diminished form. This dim copy therefore barely reflects the perfection of this higher realm of reality. As a consequence the moral is drawn that although the world appears real we must not mistake its deceptive charms for the reality that lies above it or beneath it.

It (nature) is a Vision silent but somewhat blurred, for there exists another clearer of which Nature is the image: hence all that Nature produces is weak, the weaker act of intuition produces the weaker object.

	On the other hand the Buddhist context extracts from the imagery of illusion the observation that illusory phenomena, as phenomena, are only a simulation and that in effect the reality of the situation is such that there is no substance to the appearance. Subjecting the phenomenal world in general to the treatment process that considers it to be in the same class as that of illusory phenomena the conclusion is drawn that the world and the nature of personality, as it appears in the world, are both without substance or reality. It follows in such a frame of reference that there can be no authentic self-initiated thought of self-existence, that such discrimination on our part can have no true ground without denying however the manifestation of such an appearance to our consciousness or our conscious perception of others.

....as with an illusory man. Praise does not penetrate into him, win him over. When there is no praise he is not effected, or frustrated. Just so the true nature of dharmas is just so much,....

	Although different processes of metaphorical selection are adopted the disvaluational consequences of such analogical treatment remain practically the same in both traditions. Disvaluation is qualified as non-nihilistic in scope and intention, the relative is related to the Absolute via the argument that the essential nature of the former is the same as that of the latter with degrees of reality being in-voked between these two realms from the relative point of view.

The five skandhas have by the Tathagata been declared as world (loka). Which five? Form, feeling, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.....
The perfect wisdom of the Tathagata have pointed out the five skandhas as `the world', because they do not crumble,.... For the five skandhas have emptiness for own-being, and as devoid of own-being, emptiness cannot crumble away.

	In this quotation the ontology of the world is stated to consist of the five categories known as skandhas. Because, it is stated, through a number of arguments, the essential nature of each skandha is emptiness then it follows that as the world consists only of these five categories it too must be empty. Moreover as the emptiness of emptiness is emptiness, because emptiness is without own-being, it cannot be subject to change, cannot crumble away and must therefore transcend the same. Thus the essential nature of the world is equivalent to the Absolute because it too is without own-being. However this absolute must not be treated as some type of absolute phenomenon because that would defeat the purpose of this exercise to indicate that the Suchness of reality is beyond the direct reach of discursive consciousness. In effect the world is reperceived to be non-nihilistically deceptive whilst the relationship between the Absolute (Nirvana) and the world (samsara) is
perceived to be one of a fundamental-intrinsic-equivalence.
	In comparison we can note....

No longer is there thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and object of Intellection; .... With this he himself becomes identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender Intellectual-Principle, not loosing in that engendering but for ever unchanged, the engendering coming to be simply because the Supreme exists.

	Here the connotation of radiance dismisses the possibility of a nihilistic interpretation.At the same time the equivalence of seeing and the light to see by, Intellect and Intellectual-Object establish an interrelationship between the Absolute (Supreme) and the relative world of duality, a relationship based on a transcendental, or essential, equivalence.
	As I have remarked earlier the conception of disvaluation also has a prescriptive aspect, an aspect that has practical methodological implications. The utilization of disvaluation as a method for the instantiation of religious insight into the nature of the relationship between relative and Absolute produces a religious frame of reference with a marked emphasis on purification. This demand is pronounced in both texts. Associated with it is also an element of devotion through a personification of the nature of the Absolute, a personalization that appears to be implicitly present in the religious experience of this relationship. The nature of the method for the reception of such insight being essentially reductive, destructive, negative and potentially iconoclastic.

And this is true and set before the Soul, to take that light, to see the Supreme by the Supreme and not by the light of any other principle - ....
But how is this to be accomplished?
Cut away everything!

	This negative process of removing all lesser entities, processes of thought, etc. from the centrality of our being is a thorough rejection and disvaluation of the relative. Disvaluation not only indirectly describes the Absolute, by negative means, but directly opens up for the religious person, it is claimed, a path towards the experience of the relationship between Absolute and Relative and thence the experience of the Absolute itself.
	In comparison we can note the meditational application of the doctrine of emptiness is claimed to produce a similar result.

In that Beyond there is no discrimination. Through their non-discrimination do all dharmas become fully known to the Bodhisattvas.

As contrary to the ways of the whole world is this dharma demonstrated, - it teaches you not to seize upon dharmas, but the world is want to grasp at anything.

For just the very skandhas, elements and sense-fields are empty, isolated and calmly quiet. As a result .... they cannot be apprehended .... Where there is no perception, appellation, conception or conventional expression, there one speaks of `perfection of wisdom'.

	To conclude this chapter I would like to briefly discuss the phenomenological aspect that appears to be implicated by this concept of disvaluation. I believe such an enquiry would throw further light on our understanding as developed so far and in the process give us a deeper apprec-iation of this disvaluational treatment process at work in both traditions. 
	Disvaluation is in effect a qualified devaluation of the natural attitude. The natural attitudeis that attitude that naively accepts the world as it is thought to be perceived both by ourselves and others and which is thought to be the intersubjective and objective subject of social discussion. Phenomenological research as formulated by Husserl, for example, cannot equally be accused of nihilistic intent. Experience is bracketed, its interpretation is not denied but subjected to suspension whilst the form of the experience is subjected to a phenomenological scrutiny in order to bare its universal configuration or essential structure.
	A phenomenological investigation of experience must, in order to ground this discipline, first establish the essential structure of experience, in effect investigating the essence of all essential form as it is had in conscious experience.
	Disvaluation of the natural experience in effect suspends or brackets experience. Questions of existence, or non-existence, now no longer enter the arena of our conscious attention rather our concern becomes focused upon the essence or general form, the structure of that experience. Moreover transcendental considerations (of the bracketed experience) question the nature of the essential structure in general.
	Buddhist investigation at the absolute-transcendental point of view articulates a doctrine of emptiness declaring in effect the essence of essential structure (dharmas) to be essentially essenceless (sunyata), - a one Suchness above and beyond processes of discursive intellection.
	Neoplatonic investigation uncovers a transcendental ground of the Absolute equally above and beyond all trace of the dual, predication, processes of language, etc. Both of our traditions appear therefore to practise a phenomenological type of investigation and although the language of each tradition ostensively appears to be different at a structural level the degree of isomorphic equivalence is quite profound.
	With increasing sophistication the practice of a phenomenological type of investigation makes its first developed historical appearance, I believe, with the advent of absolute-orientated philosophicalization, finding its precursor in the rise of Skepticism around B.C.300. Qualified skepticism brackets our ontological-existentially-orientated beliefs without dismissing their relativity. Transcendental reduction of this relativity reveals the structural form intentional to the act of consciousness under investigation. Transcendental investigation examining the essential nature of this essential structure. For Plotinus the essence of essence is the One, a One that is beyond number, measure or shape. In a like fashion our Buddhist text states (my italics)....

.... all this Suchness - .... is just one single Suchness, is without any trace of the variety of positivity and negativity, as being one, non-different, inextinguishable, unaffected, non-dual, without cause for duality.

	Noting this apparent phenomenological isomorphism between these two traditions it naturally leads us to ask the question if other themes of the phenomenological method are also present? Husserl himself indicates that his research was not unique, nor original, but that he was one of the first to articulate clearly and examine the presuppositional ground beneath its methodological practise and in the process refining its exercise. Suffice to say that this intriguing question cannot be appropriately examined here but that enough detail has been indicated to suggest that the concept and practise of disvaluation appears to be phenom-enologically structured and motivated. Overall our phenom-enological appreciation reinforces our perception that between these two traditions a significant degree of descriptive structural and prescriptive functional isomorphism can be affirmed and that the use of disvaluational treatment, as a religious-philosophical technique, effectively has phenomenologically-orientated motivation and consequences.