Chapter III - Textual Comparison

	In this chapter I wish to establish in the affirmative that on a textual basis there exist a number of important parallels between these two traditions. In comparing a number of these coinciding conceptual structures I hope to establish on descriptive-structural and prescriptive-functional levels that both of these traditions are essentially isomorphic and that together both are instances of an absolute-orientated philosophy (along with an overall, apparently concomitant, emphasis on systematization and the via negativa).
	To help facilitate this study and to scope it I shall only use a number of themes that can be found in a short, but very rich, segment of text in the Enneads, namely, 6VII33-37. In order to parallel these themes I shall propose for comparison one or more passages in The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines. These passages, I will argue through their comparative examination, can be seen to be in an essential agreement with Plotinus, this agreement being on both prescriptive and descriptive levels. The former aspect can be treated as representing the functional consequences of accepting and putting into practice the implications derived from descriptive and meta-descriptive components developed through characteristic forms of argumentation. The latter aspect can be treated as representing the philosophical and/or meta-philosophical ways of describing the nature of reality, religious experience, the presence of the numinous, etc. By meta-philosophical descriptions is meant those methods that subject philosophical and non-philosophical ways of seeing the world to some form of critique or treatment. The use of the via negativa being a classic example of a meta-philosophical description wherein positive theological treatment of the world is subjected to some form of negational critique.   
	Both of these philosophies claim to possess an insight into reality denied those people who merely attend to the natural attitude and its tacitly accepted naive realism. Further, both traditions claim that by following certain practices this insight; as a process of revelation or enlightenment, can come to be experienced and therein through some form of internal validation give confirmation to the descriptive-structural claims made by those philosophies.
	I realize that a chapter dealing with a comparative textual examination can represent a problem in the way our interest is to be kept maintained. However, let me add here that establishing such parallels lets us ask ourselves the
question, given such isomorphism, of what relationship is borne by this equivalence between these two traditions? Entertained in the affirmative such a consideration is highly controversial and perhaps an awareness of this dimension to our research may help us to enter this investigation with a keener sense of awareness.
	An intuitive appreciation of this sense of parallelism has, it appears, fueled a lengthy debate with those people who, in opposition, feel the European world itself is capable of being its own source of innovation in this regard. However, the question still remains, such parallelism accepted, why such a strong correspondence should appear to historically coincide. As military and economic histories perceive no barrier between these two effectively adjacent areas of the world should we then believe a philosophical interaction and exchange to be an impossibility?
  
1.	To begin with we can note that Plotinus states that the Absolute is above number, measure, counting.

....but the Authentic Beauty and the Beyond-Beauty cannot be under measure.

	In the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition the sense of the absolute appears to be treated in a similar fashion.

Just simply one single is this Suchness, not two, not three. Suchness has passed beyond counting because it is not.

Why it is immeasurable? Because Tathagatahood, etc., is immeasurable. And why is it incalculatable?

2.	Further on Plotinus discusses the Absolute as above good and evil, above time and sense perception and as alone or isolated.  

There is no vision, no union, for those handling or acting by any thing other, the soul must see before it neither evil nor good nor anything else, that it may alone receive the Alone.

	First let us attend to the start of this quotation. This emphasis on no vision, neither evil nor good finds itself mirrored in the following quotations (my italics).

As a matter of fact, however, the true nature of dharmas is not past, nor future nor present; it lies quite outside the periods of time; and for that reason it cannot possibly be converted, cannot be treated as a sign, or as an objective support and it cannot be seen, nor heard nor felt nor known. 
 
If all dharmas are isolated and empty, how is defilement and purification of beings conceivable? For what is isolated cannot be defiled or purified, what is empty cannot be defiled nor purified...

	The Perfection of Wisdom in its knowing all dharmas in their own essential nature can know no defilement nor purification, can know neither good nor bad.
	The concept isolated (vivikta) as expressed in the previous quotation appears to offer a parallel to the idea of the alone (         ) as used by Plotinus. This concept appears to take the consequences of the emptiness of beings to it logical limit by declaring that as there is no permanency of self through change and their inherent egolessness it follows that the experience of self is truly isolated, from the absolute point of view, there being no other substantially self-existent selves (other minds) for it to interact with nor a substantially self-existent self for it to interact within itself. In a similar argument the Absolute as one single Suchness through emptiness is also itself lacking a substantially self-existent self hence it too is equally alone, i.e. isolated in this selfless state of affairs.
	Isolatedness (vivikta) takes into account the consequence that as Reality is above relations, relativity, the world of the relative, etc. it can therefore in truth enter into no relationship with an other, that which would be not real, or, less real. Isolatedness therefore follows as the consequence of emptiness; the emptiness of the relational (i.e. all dharmas), from the emptiness of emptiness itself.
	This aloneness can be accounted for in Buddhist absolute philosophy through the above argument. The question can now be asked as to what prompts Plotinus to declare his vision of the One to be also isolated? Perhaps Plotinus can answer this question for us through an analysis of the following quotation? 

There were not two; beholder was one with beheld; it was not a vision compassed but a unity apprehended. ....he is become the Unity, nothing within him or without inducing any diversity; no movement now, no passion no outlooking desire, once this ascent is achieved; reasoning is in abeyance and all Intellection and even, to dare the word, the very self; caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he turns neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards to himself; utterly resting he has become very rest. He no longer belongs to the order of the beautiful; he has risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed even the choir of the virtues; he is like one who, having penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple images behind him....

      It would appear therefore that the Supreme as a unity knows no diversity. Having transcended relational diversity for a point of view that knows neither relation nor interaction it follows, in a similar manner to the Buddhist vision, that the Absolute, according to Plotinus, must equally be alone, be the Alone.

3. 	Plotinus now states that the soul's experience of the highest is such that the Absolute reveals its presence, that this revelation is sudden (although preparation for it involves a lengthy process of purification and self-preparation).

Suppose the soul to have attained: the highest has come to her, or rather has revealed its presence; ....she has seen that presence suddenly manifesting within her, for there is nothing inbetween....

	This concept of revelation has its parallel in the way The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines" states that the perfection of wisdom is like a mother to the Buddhas, etc.

For she is their mother and begetter, she showed them this all-knowledge (sarva-jnata), she instructs them in the ways of the world. From her have the Tathagatas come forth....the perfection of wisdom instructs them in this world.

	With respect to the transition between the enlightened and the unenlightened state this Buddhist text on this point is open to either a sudden enlightenment-position or a position of gradual enlightenment. However, the more correct
interpretation I believe is a combination of the two in so far as preparation is gradual and the final stages of enlightenment are perceived as relatively sudden. It was over just such a point that the Chan (Zen) Tradition in China divided. In many ways this tradition can be seen as an historical continuation and developer of this Wisdom Tradition and that the roots of this later controversy are already present in this central and very influential text. E.g. compare the following two quotations from the Verse-Summary. 

Water drops fill a water jar drop by drop,
Gradually, from the first incidence to the last one,
Just so the first thought is the (initial) cause of supreme enlightenment; 
Gradually are the bright qualities fulfilled in the Buddhas.

But those who have been taken hold of by the supreme wisdom,
Skilled in seeing the own-being of existence, seers of ultimate reality:
They are persons worthy of the vehicle who have collected the wealth of merit and cognition.
They will speedily experience the exceedingly wonderful Sugata-enlightenment.

	Examination of this apparent dilemma opens up to our inspection a type of controversy that perennially infiltrates a religious tradition, regardless of persuasion, namely, whether religious experience and interaction with the numinous is possible in the short term, more or less initiated through ones own efforts, or is effected in the long term more or less through some form of religious help or intervention? Both traditions in this regard appear to equivocate although, as I previously suggested, this need not leed to a logical conflict.
	In the Buddhist frame of reference the equivalent concept for plotinian revelation would appear to be enlightenment (sambodhi). Entailed is an understanding of reality as it is, an understanding that realizes that the essential nature of all phenomena (dharmas) is emptiness - that all dharmas are devoid of self-existence as entities with the important qualification that emphasizes that even emptiness itself is empty. Such knowledge is defined as all-knowledge (sarvajnata). From such an understanding, it is claimed, there is no distance between nor difference from the apparent diversity that appears to constitute the world of relativity. Reduced to the same (samata) sacred and profane become identified (implying that enlightenment is ultimately an illusion also). 

For the Suchness of the Tathagata, and the Suchness of all dharmas, they are both one single suchness, not two, not divided....

      The process of enlightenment according to this Buddhist text, as I have suggested includes, and oscillates, between these two possibilities of self-instigated enlightenment and that initiated by a buddha-like figure in response to acts of faith (sraddha), meritorious behaviour, devotion, religious ritual, etc.

And this all-knowledge of the Tathagata has come forth from the perfection of wisdom. The physical personality of the Tathagata, on the other hand, is the result of the skill in means of the perfection of wisdom. .... Supported by this foundation the revelation of the cognition of the all-knowing takes place, the revelation of the Buddha-body, of the Dharma-body, of the Sangha-body. The acquisition of the physical personality is thus the cause of the cognition of the all-knowing. As a sure foundation of that cognition it has, for all beings, become a true shrine, worthy of being saluted respectfully, of being honoured, revered and adored. After I have gone to Parinirvana, my relics will also be worshiped. It is for this reason that the person who would copy and worship the perfection of wisdom would beget the greater merit. For, in doing so, he would worship the cognition of the all-knowing.

	A comparative examination of revelation, as a process of realizing insight, as enunciated by both of these traditions, would reveal that this is a complex matter for investigation. Suffice to say that a number of themes can be found to parallel each other between these two traditions and that as this thesis unfolds this congruence will be made more apparent both with respect to the nature of the revelational-process itself and its experiential content as revealed textually. At this point we can note that, in its final stages, the process of enlightenment is perceived as both sudden in onset and rapid in its progress, that not only is insight possible to obtain but that preparation for the same, e.g. purification, can be self initiated whilst the experience itself can be experienced as a presence with personalized overtones, identified as absolute reality itself that not only lets us experience this reality but which it seems lets us experience this reality.

4.	Plotinus continues....

Here there is no longer a duality but a two in one; for, so long as the presence holds, all distinction fades.

	In comparison we have the same intent stated almost word for word....

There is no division within Suchness. Just simply one single is this Suchness, not two, nor three.

....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.

     A few lines further on Plotinus continues....

....the soul has now no further awareness of being in body and will give herself no foreign name, not "man", not "living being", not "being", not "all"; any observation of such things falls away; the soul has neither time nor taste for them.

	In comparison we can note....

All words for things in use in this world must be left behind.

That all talk about dharmas consists in mere words, mere conventional expression - but the conventional expression does not refer to anything real.

That thought is no thought, since in its essential nature thought is transparently luminous.
....Does there exist, or can one apprehend in this state of absence of thought either a `there is' or `there is not'?
No, not that.

6.	Both traditions make reference to a state of fearlessness that appears to be evoked in and after the experience of insight into the absolute facticity of reality - the nature of the Absolute and the nature of the relationship between the Absolute and Relative as defined by these absolute philosophies. Plotinus states....

.... linked to this she can fear no disaster nor even know it; let all about her fall to pieces, so she would have it that she may be wholly this, so huge the happiness she has won.

	In the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition there are numerous references to fearlessness, in this regard we can note....

When this deep perfection of wisdom is being taught, he (the bodhisattva) does not become cowed, or stolid, nor does he turn his back on it; he will not tremble, be frightened, or terrified; he does not hesitate, or doubt, or get stupefied, but he plunges right into it, becomes resolutely intent on it, and delights in its vision and hearing.

      With respect to the delight that the soul feels in its rapture we can also note the following....

Because he is exhilarated by the cessation of all dharmas. Because he feels neither content nor discontent. Because he becomes neither impassioned nor dispassionate.

7.	Plotinus continues....

Even the act of intellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses.

	With respect to the transcendence of intellection we can find innumerable parallels, e.g....

It (the perfection of wisdom) is inconceivable, completely inconceivable.

Unthinkable, O Lord, is the perfection of wisdom. Because the perfection of wisdom is not something that thought ought to know, or that thought has access to.

	Plotinus states that this vision of reality is continuous, there being neither object nor subject.

....the vision is continuous so that seeing and seen are one thing, object and act of vision have become identical.

	The personality, and the act of perception, in this Wisdom Tradition, as in mainstream Buddhist traditions, are perceived, and treated, to be dependent upon the five skandhas of form, feeling, perceptions, impulses and consciousness. As each of the five skandhas is argued to be empty (sunyata), i.e. without self-existence, they are therefore the same (samata). Being the same they are thus continuous, in truth - one! (and by extension - One!).

.... the very skandhas, elements and sense-fields are empty, isolated and calmly quiet.
It is thus that the perfection of wisdom and the skandhas, elements and sense-fields are not two, not divided.

9.    Plotinus continues and a few sentences further on states....

As for soul, it attains that vision by - so to speak - confounding and annulling the Intellectual-Principle (Nous) within it.

	For Plotinus the constructions of intellect must be confounded and annulled, when that happens soul, he claims, receives the highest of vision. In a similar fashion The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines states....

The Bodhisattva who, not discriminating, comprehends all dharmas as empty, signless and unimpeded, without any dualism he seeks in wisdom for enlightenment.

Not discriminating, free from (mental) constructions, coursing on resolutely this is the practice of wisdom.

10.	Plotinus continues and states....

The Good is not in place but is the container of the Intellectual place; the Good is in nothing but itself.

	In comparison we can note....

From the fact that all dharmas have neither place nor locality. For form, etc. (i.e. the skandhas) is without place and locality, in accordance with the own-being of its original nature.

	Moreover the Absolute (as the perfection of wisdom) is identical to itself.

The perfection of wisdom is self-identical, because all dharmas are the same. Perfect wisdom is isolated because all dharmas are isolated.

	I.e. the perfection of wisdom (as the Absolute) through the same nature (samata) of all dharmas (essential-realities) which being emptiness (sunyata) is thus isolated (vivikta/alone) just as the Neoplatonic Good is in nothing but itself, alone without location.

11.	The Absolute is defined by both traditions as without movement. 
The soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows none.

	In comparison there is stated....

Perfect wisdom is immobile because all dharmas are immobile.

Suchness (tathata) does not move .... Non-production does not come nor go,....

12.	Plotinus states....

We come to this learning by analogies, by abstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents, all that is derived from the Good, by upward steps towards it. Purification has the Good for goal; so the virtues, all right ordering; ascent within the Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the divine.

	In this passage there is an emphasis on purification. Similarly in the Perfection of Wisdom there is an equal emphasis upon the same. In both texts the Absolute is defined as undefiled, faultless, etc. As The Perfection of Wisdom states - the perfection of wisdom knows no purification (because through emptiness there is nothing that can comprehend purification nor is in need of purification). Although the Absolute itself stands in no need of purification, being the Pure, for the Buddhist adherent of this tradition the unenlightened person needs to free themself from an attachment to thought-constructions generated by discursive consciousness by realizing their inherent emptiness and non-coincidence (as an appearance) with absolute reality. In both texts there is much emphasis upon a correctly observed morality preparatory to our disestablishing our attachments - those imaginary obstacles created by ourselves that prevent us from seeing things as they are in themselves, preventing us from realizing that our natural estate, according to this type of religious tradition, is essentially pure in itself and thence, paradoxically, in no need of direct purification.

A Bodhisattva should approach the perfection of wisdom as follows. Through non-attachment to all dharmas. From the non-differentiatedness of all dharmas ....In the conviction that all dharmas lie outside conventional expression and discourse,....
By penetrating into all dharmas. From the fact that all dharmas are perfectly pure in their original nature. From the fact that all dharmas are beyond words.

13.	Plotinus continues....

- by these methods one becomes, to self and to all else, at once seer and seen, identical with Being and Intellectual-Principle and the entire living all, we no longer see the Supreme as an external; we are near now, the next is That and it is close at hand, radiant above the Intellectual.

	In this section let us note the equation of identity between Being and Intellectual-Principle (and the entire living all). The dichotomies of mind and body, body and soul, world and mind, etc. are all transcended in one sweep. In a similar fashion this same type of grand equation is effected in The Perfection of Wisdom.

The five skandhas have by the Tathagata been declared as world (loka). Which five? Form, feeling, perception, impulses and consciousness.

      The text continues and individually equates these five skandhas with....

For the five skandhas have emptiness for own-being, and, as devoid of own-being, emptiness can not crumble nor crumble away.

	In other words through emptiness the five skandhas are the same (in their essential-absolute nature) hence the world, in all its apparent diversity, divisions and multiplicities is the same, namely,....

O....no single Suchness. There is no division within Suchness. Just simply one single is this Suchness, not two, nor three.

14.	In a poetic section Plotinus now describes the experience of this vision as light....

....suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never knowing how; the vision floods the eyes with light, but it is not a light showing some other object, the light is itself the vision.

	In comparison we can note....

The perfection of wisdom gives light , O Lord. I pay homage to the perfection of wisdom! She is worthy of homage. She is unstained, the entire world cannot attain her. She is a source of light, ....She brings light to the blind, she brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken.... She disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion.

	Both quotations use a metaphor of light in a reverential manner suggesting an experiential-mystical-like dimension additional to metaphorical and metaphysical aspects. 

	With these fourteen short sections from Plotinus I have noted parallel points of similarity with The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines. Briefly I have shown that for both traditions the Absolute is treated as....

1	Beyond measure and number (section 1),
2	Alone or isolated (2),
3	Non-dual (4),
4    Beyond naming (5),
5    Beyond intellection (7),
6    Beyond the dichotomy of subject/object (8),
7    Beyond movement (11),
8    Beyond place (10),
9    That realized through purification (12),
10   That realized through annulling  thought processes (9),
11   That realized through an experience of revelation (3), 
12   An experience that induces 'fearlessness' (6),
13   An experience that induces 'delight' (6),
14   An experience that can be compared to light (14).

	Inspection of this list, as I have arranged it, would reveal that items 1 - 8 effectively attempt to describe the structure of the concept of the Absolute. This concept is designated, in both traditions, by numerous titles, e.g. the One, the Supreme, the Perfection of Wisdom, Suchness, etc. By extension the structure of this concept is also intended to map out, in a one to one correspondence, the structure of reality itself. As each of these descriptive-items is not a direct description but the negation and/or transcendence of some positive descriptive state of affairs it follows that such a description is more correctly meta-structurally constructed. In effect a descriptive state of affairs is subjected to an operation that notes its semantic limits and in bypassing them defines the sense of the Absolute. However, as this process is parasitic on a positive descriptive-like state of affairs in the first place, and, as a complete removal of the same through some form of absolute devaluation or rejection would destroy that ground, as a ground able to be subjected to such a transformation, it implies therefore that some form of symbiotic relationship must be entered into by both the positive descriptive ground and the operational transformation of its negation and/or transcendence. Acceptance that the bipartite nature of this relationship must remain preserved implies that neither aspect can be dismissed and that this would suggest the formation of an unstable alliance in a perpetual state of potential instability. Indeed resolution of this state of dissonance, that caused through continuous negational critique, would necessitate a transcendence of the same, the realization of a point of view that would transcend the particular dichotomy, and its associated tensions, under examination. The continuous threat of instability in this complex dialectical concept (of absolute reality) would generate a need for its continuous resolution and that this would be achieved through some form of ongoing synthesis and philosophical systematization. This potential for dialectical-fission and resolutional-fusion would seem to generate within the concept of the Absolute an element of the dynamic and through its resolutional channeling a sense of power. It is not by accident therefore that both traditions emphatically describe the Absolute as inexhaustible in scope, infinite in power, etc. The ongoing resolutional nature of this complex concept must in its perception and examination experientially highlight this feature of the Absolute as a type of concept that cannot be reduced to pure descriptive terms of reference nor pure meta-structural terms of reference. This perceived potential for internal instability may also account for the fact that this type of philosophy, characterized by an emphasis on the via negativa, is also rich in processes of qualification that surround those points of negative theological treatment, that coming to terms with this tension would naturally lead to a religious interpretation of the world conducted in a relatively higher frame of synthesis and systematization than that offered by the positive theologian.
	Items 9 - 14 in our list concern the prescriptive- functional dimension to this concept of the Absolute. An experiential event can be treated as an historical process conducted in time with three temporal phases, namely, a pre-conditional phase prior to the event, a conditional phase during the event itself and a post-conditional phase consequential to the event. In dealing with the functional dimension to these temporal headings we can note that this division of an event into these three phases is conducted in order to better appreciate this prescriptive aspect to the concept of the Absolute. Not only does this concept attempt to negatively describe reality but it also demands, directly or indirectly, certain patterns of behaviour that are seen to promote or result from its experiential reception.
	With respect to this temporal classification we can note that the headings of Purification and the Annulling of Thought Processes as pre-conditional. In turn the headings of Revelation, Delight and Light-likeness can be perceived as conditional whilst the heading of Fearlessness can be construed as generally post-conditional.
	I believe, in these few pages, I have been able to sketch out something of the manner in which these two traditions, on structural and functional levels, are effectively isomorphic in their construction and aspiration. Beneath the stylistic differences of language and textual-form both philosophies, in their motivation, appear to address themselves to similar questions and promote their resolutions to these implicit questions along similar lines. This degree of correspondence, both with respect to a similarity in their structural and functional subject matter, and their similarity in their emphasis and overall systematization, quite justly, indeed, allows us to ask the question what historical relevance this deeper or essential congruity might have upon the consideration that these two contemporaneous traditions may have entered into a direct or indirect interaction with each other? Our investigation here also allows us to analyze the nature of the Absolute as it is thought to be had by these two traditions in their interpretation of religious experience? In my next chapter I shall try to determine what is meant by this term Absolute when treated as the One, as Suchness, etc. 
	It would appear therefore, without being too premature in this regard, that both traditions share a common vision of the Absolute, an absolute whose conceptual construction involves its negative theological description - a structure so designed to imply and demand certain functional attitudes to be held towards it that, textually, claim to be able to establish both the validity of an argument for an absolute and a verification of its reputed structure.