Enlightened Vision of the Self

Author(s): Akalankadev, Devendra K Goyal
Publisher: Radiant Publishers New Delhi

Page 51

FOREWORD
relations with their bodies, other selves, and all other entities. This is why, Gier says, “I refer to the Buddhist self in relational or process terms rather than the negative phraseology of ‘no-self." While Buddhism's relational ontology certainly implies social relationality, Gier adds, "the Buddhist self is definitely more individualistic than either the Hebrew or Confucian view”.
Buddha, Gier observes, offers us as reconstructed self, which can be put in the form of the triad as self >no self > “self”, which, he says, can be translated as substantial self >no substantial self >relational process self. Using this technique for the first triad, he adds, we get: being > no being > “being", exparded to substantial being > no substantial being > “being” as becoming. Gier concludes by saying that concepts can describe the way to liberation, but not the state of the liberated one, and, finally, advising us to be aware of the pitfalls of "absolutism in all its forms”. 67
In identifying the notion of it is' or‘it exists' with that of substance and then explaining that ‘it is' means that it is endowed with the triple character of origin, decay and stability, the Jains explicated the notion of substance in such a way as to avoid falling between two stools of being and becoming. “It was a grand compromise of flux and permanence," as B. K. Matilal points out. Viewed from the perspective of the doctrine of “many-natured” reality (arekanta-rada), which is an important doctrine of Jainism, the substance is being (from the standpoint of own-nature', i.e. sat, unchanging), it is also becoming (from the standpoint of its triple character, origin, decay and continuity, i.e. fluctuations or modification). According to Siddhasen Divakara, reality can be viewed from two important standpoints, being and becoming, permanence and change.
If x is an element of reality, then, according to Siddhasen, x can be viewed as a SUBSTANCE from the standpoint of being, and as a PROPERTY from the standpoint of becoming. The standpoint of becoming' (modification) reveals that everything originates, stays and perishes; the standpoint of being' ('it is") reveals everything as existent, eternally without birth or decay. And, Siddhasen asserts, there cannot be being without becoming, or becoming without being; therefore, a substance (reality) is defined as the combination of being (the existent) with becoming (origin, stability and decay).68 Nathmal Tatia observes: