Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00358)

<<Bruce: But the question arises as to whether it is possible to conceive
of svabhava which is Both spirit and matter and still not Maya.>>

OK, but this sounds to me like a desperate attempt to salvage a self out of
an anatma teaching. Buddhism would say no to this. And experientially, such
a maneuver is not necessary. Svabhava is the idea of selfhood, of having an
independent separate essential nature. Tibetan Teachers contrast it with
sunyata, emptiness. Svabhava seems to say that things exist. Sunyata seems
to say that things do not exist (and this is why it is a dangerous teaching
that is always accompanied by the doctrine of Two Truths). Tibetans say that
svabhava and sunyata go together like existence and nonexistence, or matter
and spirit, or samsara and nirvana, and that Truth transcends both.

Jerry S.