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Chapter Eight MECHANICS OF CHANGE
Life, even as the ordinary humdrum series of daily events, is something essentially ungraspable and indefinable; never for a moment does it remain the same. We can never make it stand-still for analysis and definition.
The harder, we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation, or to define something in a way which will be satisfactory for all time, the more illusive it becomes. It has been said that to define is to kill, and if the wind were to stop for a second for us to catch hold of it, it would cease to be wind. The same is true of life.
- Zen, Liu.Chi Process of Change and Nine Tattvas
This is the Zen-Buddhist approach, appropriately emphasising the flittering nature of the things of this universe. The Jaina thinkers may have no objection to this proposition. But they go further and maintain that a man has the potential to understand the nature of the change in life as well as capable of bringing some order in the change. This understanding of the change led them to evolve nine fundamental elements, explaining the whole process of bondage and liberation of the soul. These Nine principles are fundamental to the understanding of Jaina philosophy, hence called Nine 'tattvas' meaning 'Essence'. The word 'tattva' is explained in Samskrta as ( Tasya bhavab tattvam ) meaning the essence of a thing is Tattva'. What is the essence of all this change, represented by the process of Karmic bondage and freedom of the self? What is the mechanism by which this process works, why it works and how it can be regulated to take the self the desired end, i. e., the final liberation ? These are the questions, the Jaina seers have tried to answer by pointing out the mechanism of these pipe tattvas,
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