Chapter 1, Part II: Map of the metaphysical frontier¶
The threefold distinction in the first half of this chapter (category mistake, failure of predication, and the unresolved) can be combined with the list of commitments, the frontier, and the wilderness of the sixty-two views in a single map. Read it from the center outward. The two central rings contain explicitly affirmed positions and pictures used without ceremony. The gray frontier band holds what lies partly inside and partly outside: predication of nibbāna without remainder, the four imponderables, and the ontological status of the cosmological picture. Four gates represent the undeclared questions set aside. Three graphic forms distinguish why they cannot be answered: a single wall for a category mistake, a double wall for failed predication, and a dashed line for an unresolved case. Short formulations of each gate's questions and badges counting its alternatives in the fourteen- and ten-question lists appear in text boxes outside the circle. Camps in the wilderness follow the groupings of the Brahmajāla Sutta, each facing its kindred gate. Netting covers the whole wilderness as well: this marks the genealogical diagnosis that all views arise through feeling conditioned by contact, craving by feeling, and clinging by craving. Fortuitous origination and annihilationism also bear marks of refutation, each connected by a line to dependent arising.
The map below is interactive. Hover to see explanations. Long notes appear in text boxes outside the circle, linked by angled leader lines. Hovering or clicking highlights both the node and its text box, and clicking pins the highlight. For print, use the overview table on this page.
Overview table¶
| Region | Item | Explanation | Textual basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core commitments | Four truths | Overall framework: all other commitments elaborate them | Discourse on Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion |
| Core commitments | Dependent arising | A law that always holds; refutation of fortuitous origination and annihilationism, genealogical diagnosis of all views | Saṃyukta Āgama 296; Kaccānagotta Sutta; Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Core commitments | Impermanence | The perishable nature of conditioned formations; one of the three characteristics | Taught throughout the Āgamas |
| Core commitments | Not-self | Inspection of aggregates, sense bases, and elements finds no permanent self; a line of tension remains between this and the life-principle/body gate | Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta |
| Core commitments | Kamma and its results | Moral causality without a sovereign; details of ripening remain suspended at the frontier | Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya |
| Core commitments | Rebirth | Continuity across lives is explicitly affirmed; the picture carrying it retreats to the instrumental ring | Taught throughout the Āgamas |
| Core commitments | Nibbāna: the unconditioned element | Straddles the line: affirmation of existence is within the walls (with remainder), the question of predication outside (without remainder) | Udāna 8.3; Itivuttaka 44 |
| Instrumental pictures | Three realms | Divisions of the world that mirror the sequence of jhānas, used without argument | Taught throughout the Āgamas |
| Instrumental pictures | Six destinations | The popular terrain of rebirth | Devadūta Sutta and others |
| Instrumental pictures | Devas | Come and go in the texts without an ontology being established for them | Discourses of the Dīgha Nikāya |
| Instrumental pictures | Sequence of jhānas | A ladder of practice, explicitly affirmed; see Chapter 5 for its correspondence with the three realms | Taught throughout the Āgamas |
| Suspended at the frontier | Ontological status of the cosmological picture | A teaching device or a map of reality? The texts do not ask (Chapter 5) | Essay 13, Chapter 5 |
| Suspended at the frontier | Four imponderables | The range of a Buddha, the range of jhāna, the ripening of kamma, and speculation about the world: a warning line against thinking that brings derangement | Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.77 |
| Suspended at the frontier | Predication of nibbāna without remainder | Nibbāna with remainder lies among worldly phenomena, within reach of predication; nibbāna without remainder has no positive relation to worldly phenomena, so predication fails | Itivuttaka 44; Avyākata Saṃyutta |
| Gate of questions set aside (14-question list: 4 alternatives / 10-question list: 2) | Time gate: world eternal or noneternal | Category mistake: treating time as an object with properties of its own | Arrow Simile discourse; Poṭṭhapāda Sutta |
| Gate of questions set aside (14-question list: 4 alternatives / 10-question list: 2) | Space gate: world finite or infinite | The same kind of category mistake as at the time gate | Arrow Simile discourse; relevant Saṃyukta Āgama discourses |
| Gate of questions set aside (14-question list: 4 alternatives / 10-question list: 4) | Tathāgata-after-death gate: exists or does not exist after death | Failure of predication: the domain of nibbāna without remainder lies outside predication's jurisdiction (double wall) | Fire Simile discourse; Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.86 |
| Gate of questions set aside (14-question list: 2 alternatives / 10-question list: 2) | Life-principle/body gate: the same or different | Unresolved: never expanded into four alternatives; a question of personal identity | Arrow Simile discourse; Avyākata Saṃyutta |
| Sixty-two views (4 forms) | Eternalism | Passes off the limited range of recollection of past lives as an unlimited conclusion | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (4 forms) | Partial eternalism | Both eternal and noneternal; the passage in which Mahābrahmā calls himself the creator | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (4 forms) | Finitude and infinitude | The four alternatives of finitude and infinitude are forced into answers in the wilderness | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (4 forms) | Eel-wriggling | Timid evasion, the reverse image of setting questions aside | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (2 forms; refuted) | Fortuitous origination | When this exists, that exists: dependent arising directly refutes it; it also lies within the net of views | Brahmajāla Sutta; discourses on dependent arising |
| Sixty-two views (16 forms) | Doctrines of perception | Perception after death: the main body of doctrines about the state after death | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (8 forms) | Doctrines of nonperception | Nonperception after death | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (8 forms) | Neither perception nor nonperception | The mirror image of the fourfold form in the wilderness | Brahmajāla Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (7 forms; refuted) | Annihilationism | The Kaccānagotta Sutta avoids the extremes of annihilation and eternity through dependent arising | Brahmajāla Sutta; Kaccānagotta Sutta |
| Sixty-two views (5 forms) | Nibbāna here and now | The earliest attempts to pull nibbāna back within predication | Brahmajāla Sutta |
Notes on drawing the map¶
The camps in the wilderness are placed according to which gate addresses kindred questions; the radii of the camp circles scale with the square root of the number of views. Fortuitous origination and annihilationism bear marks of refutation, not of questions set aside, because neither position is left unanswered: dependent arising directly refutes them. "When this exists, that exists" refutes fortuitous origination; the Kaccānagotta Sutta avoids the extremes of annihilation and eternity through dependent arising. Eel-wriggling stands on high ground outside the gates, contrasting avoidance out of timidity with setting a question aside on principle. The netting over the whole wilderness marks genealogical diagnosis, taking its verdict from the closing passage of the Brahmajāla Sutta: all views are conditioned by contact. Views are diagnosed as symptoms, rather than debated as propositions. This map stands or falls with the first half of the chapter; the prose remains authoritative. The interactive version is for close reading online; the overview table is the basis for print.