Section 1r

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

The passage centrally defines the Tathagata by negating physical signs and forms, asserting he cannot be known through them.

The cosmic law that manifests as each being's own duty — right order known not as abstract truth but as the specific obligation of one's nature and station (svadharma), so that maintaining the cosmos and performing one's proper work are one act; the Gita's 'one's own duty, though defective, is better than another's well performed.' Sits beside asha_cosmic_order and maat_cosmic_order as a right-order concept but is distinct in individuating the order into personal vocation; distinct from good_thought_word_deed (ethical triad) in binding duty to cosmic station.

The passage explicitly identifies the Law (Dharma) as the true body of the Buddhas — 'A Buddha is to be seen from the Law; for the Lords have the Law-body' — making dharma the defining ontological reality of the awakened.

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

It asserts that the true nature of the Law and the Buddha is beyond ordinary understanding and cannot be perceived by form or sound.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

Subhuti's understanding of the preaching's meaning over physical signs highlights direct insight as the path to realization.

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

The formula 'it should be appropriated; it should not be appropriated; and therefore it is said: it should be appropriated' and the atoms/no-atoms oscillation dissolve binary oppositions as a mark of the ultimate teaching.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The text employs the contradiction that those who see the Buddha by form will not truly see him to destabilize ordinary perception.

Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance.

Seeking the Buddha through external signs is labeled as 'false endeavours,' critiquing superficial religious practice.

The doctrine that reality has two registers — an Absolute truth as the divine or ultimate mind knows it, and a Relative truth as finite human reason perceives and must act on — with both held as legitimate on their own plane rather than the second being simply an error to correct. Distinct from apophatic_theology (a claim about how the divine may be described, by negation) and unity_of_being (a claim that being is ultimately one) in being a claim about two coexisting registers of truth-claim itself.

The passage systematically holds two registers — conventional designation ('mass of many atoms,' 'sphere of a million millions of worlds') and ultimate truth ('no-mass of atoms,' 'no-sphere of worlds') — as coexisting and mutually dependent, the hallmark of the two-truths doctrine.

The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.

[auto] The passage defines the Tathagata and Law by negating signs, form, and movement, aligning with the doctrine that phenomena lack independent self-nature.