« Syadvada/Tentativeness »

Syadvada is a Jain practice of tentativeness when talking about reality. Reality is too multifaceted to be captured in a single point of view. Syadvada offers a total of seven perspectives to counteract dogmatic thought style and categorical expression.

1. syād-asti—in some ways, it is,
2. syād-nāsti—in some ways, it is not,
3. syād-asti-nāsti—in some ways, it is, and it is not,
4. syād-asti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is, and it is indescribable,
5. syād-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is not, and it is indescribable,
6. syād-asti-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is, it is not, and it is indescribable,
7. syād-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is indescribable.

Here's an attempt of mine to express the same in poetry

The "It" of What Is

In some ways it is,

In some ways it isn't.

There's a total of seven ways

in which it is and it isn't.

Whichever one you choose

in this Russian roulette of truth,

is a right one,

and yet neither is.

Take home message: when encountering an opinion, use Syadvada parentheticals to avoid tactless dogmatism (particularly 1 through 3). E.g. someone says: "this is such and such!" If you disagree, instead of firing off "Hell no! This is how it is," you could say:"In some ways it is and in some ways it isn.t" Use tentativeness to model tentativeness. What goes around, comes around.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., www.eatingthemoment.com