[Buddha-l] MMK 25.09 (was: as Swami goes...)

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 29, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Bhāva remains the key term -- to treat it as a stable locus is a symptom of 
> svabhavic thinking.

Not at all. A word formed with the suffix cvi followed by a nominalized form of the verb bhavati is an idiomatic expression, for heaven's sake. It is completely wrong-headed to take an idiomatic expression literally. I honestly can't understand what your problem is with this whole thing. If someone sees a process one way, it is saṃsāra, but if one sees it another way, it is saṃsāra. There is no question of anything remaining a stable locus. It's a dynamic process, not a stable locus. I just can't manage to find anything about this in the least bit puzzling. Candrakīrti's interpretation is, as is almost always the case, one with which I find myself in complete agreement, now that I have read through it.

Richard