By Aryasatvan
The notion of change in Buddhism is not simple mechanical change as in the illustration of moving ones chair several feet to get a better view of the television. Change, that is, real change denotes the arising of something which previously did not exist or will not exist in the next moment. A most notable example is a temporal moment” or a thought. In both instances, change is thorough and complete. One moment becomes another moment; one thought suddenly turns into a different kind of thought. From what we can sense, there is nothing particularly linear about such change as in the earlier example of moving a chair which stays the same as we move it. With regard to time and thought, nothing is moved from one location to another. There has only been a sudden change into other. By the same token, the ultimate substrate has not fundamentally changed at all at least potentially for me, the participant surrounded by changing phenomena. For indeed, what is ultimately simple has nothing to change into if I am actually that simple nature. But when I, the participant, over time, learns to fix on spatial-temporal change, including qualitative change, and quantitative change, I shall eventually experience radical change insofar as what I thought I was (or believed was unchanging) has now become something entirely different. This last change is the change of generation and degeneration, or what in popular Buddhist literature is termed birth and death. As will be seen later, generation and degeneration are two schools of thought which Buddhists are forewarned to avoid, commonly called, Eternalism (bhava) and Annihilationism (vibhava).
Now, let us look at the aforementioned from our human state of affairs. When I was born, the change from my previous life to the present one was a radical change. As it turns out, I was formally ignorant (avidya) of the simple, unchanging substratum of all. Subsequently, I identified with something changeable which I strongly believed was unchanging. Whatever I had identified with, passed away, that is, changed. It left me bewildered. And then I came to be something else taking up a new body. This kind of change is the change of generation, i.e., the coming-to-be. It should be underscored, that such intense change is so radical that, presently, I am convinced that another such radical change cannot happen because either I believe I shall always be this present state (Eternalism) or I that I shall be nothing after this body dies (Annihilationism).
When I consider myself from under the standpoint of Eternalism (i.e., generation) I believe that I am the experiencer. The manifold of experiences in which I participate constitute who I really am, this is to say, the one who acts is the same as the one who experiences. Believing this way, I adhere to Eternalism. By contrast, if upon looking at all of my experiences I find nothing in them which will remain after these experiences have long passed away, I adhere to the theory of Annihilationism.
In Eternalism and Annihilationism, there is one common problem. In trying to grasp who we really are we don’t go far enough. For the eternalist he is eternal as what is an unending continuum of changing experiences in which he is the immediate participant. He is essentially saying, I am eternal change itself and this never changes. When we regard the view of the annihilationist, he is the flip side of the eternalist. He spins it, What I shall be soon enough is nothing; in becoming nothing nothing can ever be again. Effectively, the first worships eternal change (i.e., generation) while the latter denies the change or generation, seeing only the process of passing-away.
Buddhism breaks through this seeming invincible barrier. To reiterate, both dont go far enough. Both, it might be argued, are caught up in the world of attributes (in Buddhism called dependent originations). The eternalist identifies with each and every attribute, thus becoming a participant in the life of phenomena. Alongside him, the annihilationist believes the attributes constituting him are going to be no more in a matter of years. Where Buddhism succeeds in its siege against such errant views lies in comprehending the unchanging. By the unchanging we mean that of which other things may be predicated, but which, itself, cannot be said or predicated. The world of change, we can say, belongs to the unchanging, dynamic ground of all. The coming-to-be and the passing-away are nothing without the unchanging. In truth, the first is the arising out of the unchanging while the second is a return to it (which is not really annihilation). What further needs to be accomplished is to see that from which things arise and fall back into. For this is truly the core of our being which in Pali is referred to as majjhatta, translated as middlemost substance or soul.
But there is still more. When we answer to the question of the unchanging, does not the eternalist and the annihilationist believe that their positions are also unchanging? One believes change, itself, is unchanging while the other believes that being annihilated is unchanging. At this point it might be objected that both positions are inadequate since both constitute an antinomy such that one cannot include its opposite. And this is their fallacy. In fact, both positions advance sham absolutes. The only worthy absolute is the unchanging absolute whereby we see it give birth to phenomena (like our thoughts) and return these forms back into itself by which this same absolute comes into unity with itself. In truth, the coming-to-be is self-affirmation while the passing-away is not annihilation, but self-affirmation which is a return to self.
Pythagorical 