existentialism, stoicism and buddhism

Before reading this edited version of something I wrote a while back, please be forewarned that what you're about to read is undoubtedly flawed. I have a very limited understanding of Western philosophy in general, and I fully realize that what I present here isn't complete and probably incorrect in many respects. It is, more than anything, just a collection of thoughts that were inspired by a day of reading about Existentialism, Stoicism and Buddhism in relation to one particular paragraph. This was written for fun, and not intended to be taken as any sort of authority on the matter.

Until recently, Western philosophy wasn't one of my major interests, mainly because I didn't find much of it very interesting or useful. But lately, I've found myself increasingly drawn towards it, and that interest has grown out of my initial curiosity about the various 'isms' that people often compare to Buddhism. Out of these various philosophies and systems of thought, two have especially caught my attention—Stoicism and existentialism. These more than any of the others have elements that closely resemble ideas and concepts found within the Buddha's teachings.

Stoicism, for example, focuses on self-control, detachment, virtue, reason and finding inner peace by mastering human passion and emotions. Seneca's warning regarding "snares" in Moral Epistles closely parallels that of the Buddha in MN 26, and his admonishment regarding food, clothing and shelter closely parallels that of the Buddha in MN 2. From this, it's easy to see the resemblance and why people new to Buddhism often compare the two. When it comes to explanations of what Existentialism focuses on, however, I've found it difficult to find any consensus, and opinions on this seem to vary from person to person. This is a notoriously hard philosophy to pin down, apparently. Even so, I decided to do my best, and while I was researching existentialism in order to gain a better understanding of it, I came across this paragraph from The Existential Primer:

Siddharta Gautama was appalled by suffering and chaos in the world. So much so, he left his wife and son to meditate on the meaning of everything. Unfortunately, he didn’t find answers among the gurus. There were no easy answers. In some ways, yes, Siddharta experienced an "existential" discovery: life is suffering.

But, Siddharta did not follow the existential notion of rebelling or fighting to establish a meaning. He did not openly challenge people and political leaders. Instead, he took a different approach:

When he met his first disciples at Benares after his enlightenment, the Buddha outlines his system, which was based on one essential fact: all existence was dukkha. It consisted entirely of suffering; life was wholly awry. Things come and go in meaningless flux. Nothing has permanent significance. Religion starts with the perception that something is wrong. […] The Buddha taught that is was possible to gain release from dukkha by living a life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving gently, kindly and accurately, and refraining from anything like drugs or intoxicants that cloud the mind. - A History of God; Armstrong, p. 32

Unlike the existentialists, Siddharta is a stoic in nature: accept things as they are, don’t try to change them or control them. Curiously, this is rebellious in that it rejects social norms. Siddharta was rejecting the Hindu teachings of his time, much as Kierkegaard challenged the ritualized nature of Christianity. But, Siddharta was not an active rebel. He was, in many ways, teaching a passive resistance that the existentialists would reject.

In regard to this paragraph, I don't think it's fair to say that the Buddha wasn't existential because he was stoic—simply accepting things as they are, not trying to change them or control them in any way. In fact, this might not even be a fair characterization of the Stoics. While it's difficult to put the goal of the Buddha's path into words — as the limits of human language fail to express what's beyond conceptualization and conditions — I don't think Buddhism is accurately describe as stoic as described above, although the two certainly share similar elements between them. For one thing, the Buddha taught that the end of suffering was attainable, that nibbana — the cessation of greed, hatred and delusions — could be experienced here and now, provided that one put forth the right effort in the right direction by following what called the noble eightfold path.

The problem of suffering as seen in Buddhism is that when we suffer, we become bewildered as to why we are suffering, and then we look for a way out—except we look in all the wrong places because we're confused about what suffering is, as well as what true happiness is. That's why the Buddha developed the four noble truths and formulated them in the same way that ancient Indian physicians formulated medical diagnoses (i.e., disease, cause, prognosis and treatment), so that we're able to comprehend suffering, abandon its cause, realize its cessation and develop the path to that cessation. Contrary to what C. S. Wyatt writes above, the Buddha was very much trying to change things via a process of self-transformation, going against the stream of craving in the form of renunciation (Iti 114).

From the Buddhist perspective, many of the assumptions we make about ourselves and our experience of the world, particularly our attachment to views and doctrines of self, keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail us and our mental well-being (MN 18), and passive acceptance of these faulty assumptions only serves to perpetuate them. The Buddha termed this mental process of conditionality by which suffering arises dependent co-arising (paticca-samuppada), and it's intimately tied into our sense of self, or ego if you prefer.

In fact, when looked at closely, the teachings on dependent co-arising, the five clinging-aggregates (panca-upadana-khandha) and not-self (anatta) are quite insightful in that they're the parts of Buddhism that correspond to parts of modern psychology. For one thing, they basically detail the process by which we construct our sense of self and, ultimately, how to utilize that process in more skillful ways.

The aggregates themselves, for example, aren't simply descriptions of what constitutes a human being as some people mistakenly think—they're one of the many ways of looking at and dividing up experience that we find throughout the Pali Canon (e.g., aggregates, elements, six sense-media, etc.). But more importantly, they represent the most discernible aspects of our experience on top of which we construct our sense of self in a process of, as the Buddha called it, "I-making" and "my-making" (e.g., MN 109).

The first noble truth states that, in short, the five clinging-aggregate are dukkha (SN 56.11), i.e., it's the clinging in reference to the aggregates that's dukkha, not the aggregates themselves. But what does this really mean? To start with, according to the commentaries, dukkha is defined as 'that which is hard to bear.' In MN 9, clinging is defined as:

"And what is clinging, what is the origin of clinging, what is the cessation of clinging, what is the way leading to the cessation of clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging: clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to rituals and observances, and clinging to a doctrine of self. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of clinging. With the cessation of craving, there is the cessation of clinging. The way leading to the cessation of clinging is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view... right concentration.

In addition, the Buddha said that the five clinging-aggregates are not-self. He called them a burden, the taking up of which is "the craving that makes for further becoming" and the casting off of which is "the remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving" (SN 22.22). The way I understand it, becoming (bhava) is a mental process, which arises due to the presence of clinging (upadana) in the mind with regard to the five-clinging aggregates, and acts as a condition for the birth (jati) of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta).

Put more simply, there's rarely a moment when the mind isn't clinging to this or that in one or more of the four ways (MN 11). Our identity jumps from one thing to another, wherever the clinging is strongest. Our sense of self is something that's always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli, and yet at the same time, we tend to see it as a static thing. It's as if our sense of self desires permanence, but its very nature causes it to change every second. As the Buddha warns in SN 12.61:

"It would be better for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person to hold to the body composed of the four great elements, rather than the mind, as the self. Why is that? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for a year, two years, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred years or more. But what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another.

Change is, of course, a fact of nature. All things are in a perpetual state of change, but the problem is that our sense of self ignores this reality on a certain level. From birth to death, we have the tendency to think that this 'I' remains the same. Now, we might know that some things have changed (e.g., our likes and dislikes, our age, the amount of wrinkles we have, etc.), but we still feel as if we're still 'us.' We have the illusion (for lack of a better word) that our identity is who we are, a static entity named [fill in the blank], and we tend to perceive this as being the same throughout our lives.

That said, the conventional use of personality is a function of survival, as well as convenience. However, clinging to our personalities as 'me' or 'mine' is seen as giving continued fuel for becoming, i.e., a mental process of taking on a particular kind of identity that arises out of clinging. Our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' is merely a mental imputation — the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' — and when we cling to our sense of self as being 'me' or 'mine' in some way, we're clinging to an impermanent representation of something that we've deluded ourselves into thinking is fixed and stable. It becomes a sort of false refuge that's none of these things.

These attachments, particularly our attachment to views and doctrines of self, keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail our mental well-being. Thus, with the presence of clinging, the aggregates have the potential to become suffering (i.e., 'difficult to bear') when our sense of self encounters inconstancy. That's why the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self:

"What do you think, monks — Is form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousness] constant or inconstant?"

"Inconstant, lord."

"And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?"

"Stressful, lord."

"And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?"

"No, lord."

Thus, monks, any form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousness] whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every form is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: 'This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.'

In order to break down the conceptual idea of a self (i.e., that which is satisfactory, permanent and completely subject to our control) in relation to the various aspects of our experience that we falsely cling to as 'me' or 'mine,' we must essentially take this [analytical] knowledge, along with a specific set of practices such as meditation, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event that radically changes the way the mind relates to experience.

This may be a bit of nonsense, but in one of the ways I like to look at it, the conventional viewpoint (sammuti sacca) explains things through subject, verb and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint (paramattha sacca) explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes. This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action.

This mental process is 'seen,' ignorance is replaced by knowledge and vision of things as they are (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the 'letting go' of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta). And without the presence of clinging in regard to the aggregates, they cease to be 'difficult to bear.'

Stoicism, on the other hand, has similar teachings, such as the development of self-control can lead to the overcoming of destructive/violent emotions. It also shares with Buddhism a strong focus on ethics, ethics that have their basis in 'natural laws' or patterns. At first glance, there seems to be little to distinguish the two until we come to the seemingly inherent contradiction between determinism and free will in the Stoic's doctrine of virtue (see Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, pg. 254-255), and this is where I think Buddhism really distances itself from Stoicism.

The Buddha essentially took the position that we, as sentient beings, have functional choice via intention (cetana) operating within a broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time. As one erudite poster from dhammawheel.com put it:

Functional choice isn't independent of other causes and conditions — it operates within the same conditioned mind-stream. But it does operate, and it does so in consort with desire and attention, etc. Hence there is no need for Cartesian notions of free will or Upanisadic notions of a permanent, unchanging Self for there to be functional choice. In fact, these non-Buddhist systems are not sustainable precisely because of the interdependence of phenomena: i.e. an unchanging agent cannot engage in actions, etc.

Nevertheless, the Buddha taught that one can actively transcend this process of conditionality — that one can 'touch the deathless' in an experience that's unable to be satisfactorily expressed in words — and this is directly opposed to the idea that Buddhism simply boils down to the sheer acceptance of things as they are. The same can possibly be argued of Stoicism as well.

While a complete overview of Buddhist philosophy isn't possible to explain in such a brief comparison — as it'd have to include such time consuming topics as kamma, rebirth, emptiness, nibbana and what they mean in relation to suffering and the end of suffering — I think it's clear from this short description that the Buddha wasn't 'stoic' in the sense that he taught one should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief by being passive and submissive to these natural laws or patterns of conditionality, but that one can and should transcend them altogether.

As for Existentialism, I think Buddhism is actually quite similar to that as well. As one person aptly put it:

"Enlightenment" is to eventually realize that all conceptions of the Self are simply that, mere conceptions, illusory, not the "Thing in Itself". In order to find the Self, one must give up being attached to any particular concept of the Self. In other words, its a way to see Reality as it is, without being attached to concepts of Reality.

This is why Buddhism is essentially Non-theistic, but in an Agnostic manner. It was basically an historical reaction to Hinduism which had developed very complex conceptions of the Self, but it is also complementary to Hinduism (or, as [Jason] points out, other local religions).

Some might suggest that Buddhism says that there is no Self, but I see it more as stating that there is no Ultimate Model of the Self. Thus it becomes a sort of philosophical dialectic, not merely in opposition to conceptualization, but in balance with it.

I think that out of the underlying concepts of Existentialism, or at least those that are put forward by C. S. Wyatt in the above article, one of the main reasons Buddhism shouldn't be considered 'existentialist' is the fact that the Buddha taught there are 'universal' (as in applying to all equally) guidelines for most decisions. This forms the basis of his teachings on kamma, the basic premise being there's a cause and effect relationship between our actions and how they're experienced. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "It's simply the fact of action—you do something unskillful, it's going to come back in an unpleasant way." In the same way, if you do something skillful, it's going to come back in a pleasant way.

In the Suttas, the Buddha defines kamma as intentional actions of body, speech and mind (AN 6.63) that have the potential to produce certain results, which, in turn, have the potential to produce pleasant, painful or neutral feelings (AN 4.235). The word itself simply means 'action.'

Pragmatically speaking, actions are deemed 'unskillful' (akusala) if they lead to to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both. Actions that don't lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both are deemed 'skillful' (kusala) (MN 61). Therefore, the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions is based upon how their results are experienced—not only by us, but by others as well. (This emphasis on the consequential aspect of actions is similar to Jeremy Bentham's teleological utilitarianism, with John Stuart Mill's idea of higher and lower happiness being similar to the Buddha's distinction between long-term and short-term welfare and happiness.)

Psychologically speaking, however, the quality of the intentions behind the actions is what ultimately determines whether they're unskillful or skillful. (This aspect is closer to Kant's deontological categorical imperative when combined with the Buddhist principle of ahimsa or harmlessness.) Intentional actions rooted in greed, hatred or delusion produce painful mental feelings "like those of the beings in hell," while intentional actions rooted in non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion produce the opposite ("like those of the Beautiful Black Devas"). Then there are acts rooted in both that bring mixed results "like those of human beings, some devas, and some beings in the lower realms" (AN 4.235). By bringing kamma to an end, however, the mind is said to become free and undisturbed. This, I think, is also the essence of the famous passage from Leo Tolstoy's letter, "To the Working People":

People fare badly only because they themselves live badly. And there is no more injurious thought for people than that the causes of the wretchedness of their position is not in themselves, but in external conditions. A man or a society of men need but imagine that the evil experienced by them is due to external conditions and to direct their attention and efforts to the change of these external conditions, and the evil will be increased. But a man or a society of men need but sincerely direct their attention to themselves, and in themselves and their lives look for the causes of that evil from which they suffer, in order that these causes may be at once found and destroyed.

In conclusion, while I think there are valid reasons why the Buddha shouldn't be considered stoic or existential in nature, even though there are many similarities between them, it's unfair to say that the Buddha wasn't an active rebel, or that he was passive by any means. The Buddha actively rebelled against craving, against the assumptions we make about ourselves and our experience of the world and against the natural flow of worldly life itself. Instead of merely accepting things as they are, he gave up everything he was supposed to hold dear in order to discover a cure for what he believed to be the ultimate disease, human mental suffering.

In that search, he challenged everything from his assumptions, experiences and those of his companions, to society's ideas of what's truly valuable. He challenged everything until he was finally able to find a cure for this suffering, and then out of compassion, taught what he had discovered to those who were willing to listen. While the Buddha may not have openly challenged political leaders, he certainly didn't accept things as they are—he simply sought to change them from within.

is there meaning in evil and suffering?

On one of the discussion forums I frequent (freeratio.org), someone started an interesting topic on the meaning of evil and suffering based on a panel discussion and debate with Dr. William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, Dr. Bernard Leikind and Dr. Jitendra Mohanty. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about a couple of the more general issues raised in the debate from a Buddhist perspective — the majority of which has been taken from previous posts of mine — especially Dr. Mohanty's rejection of karma/kamma on the basis that "no causal explanation in terms of a law-like statement can be a good explanation of it" because when confronted with suffering, the inevitable question arises: Why me?

To begin with, I'd argue that kamma itself is naturalistic and arises out of more or less naturalistic (and predominately mental) causes. In the Suttas, the Buddha defines kamma as intentional actions of body, speech and mind (AN 6.63) that have the potential to produce certain results, which, in turn, have the potential to produce pleasant, painful or neutral feelings (AN 4.235). The word itself simply means 'action.'

The basic premise behind kamma is that there's a cause and effect relationship between our actions and how they're experienced, and the teachings themselves deal specifically with the intentional action of individuals and how the results of those actions are then experienced by said individuals. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "It's simply the fact of action—you do something unskillful, it's going to come back in an unpleasant way." In the same way, if you do something skillful, it's going to come back and be experienced in a pleasant way. That's why the Buddha advises his followers to frequently contemplate:

'I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.'

Pragmatically speaking, actions are deemed 'unskillful' (akusala) if they lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both. Actions that don't lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both are deemed 'skillful' (kusala) (MN 61). Therefore, the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions is based upon how their results are experienced—not only by ourselves, but by others as well. (This emphasis on the consequential aspect of actions is similar to Jeremy Bentham's teleological utilitarianism, with John Stuart Mill's idea of higher and lower happiness being similar to the Buddha's distinction between long-term and short-term welfare and happiness.)

Psychologically speaking, however, the quality of the intentions behind the actions is what ultimately determines whether they're unskillful or skillful. (This aspect is closer to Kant's deontological categorical imperative when combined with the Buddhist principle of ahimsa or harmlessness.) Intentional actions rooted in greed, hatred or delusion produce painful mental feelings "like those of the beings in hell," while intentional actions rooted in non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion produce the opposite ("like those of the Beautiful Black Devas"). Then there are acts rooted in both that bring mixed results "like those of human beings, some devas, and some beings in the lower realms" (AN 4.235). By bringing kamma to an end, however, the mind is said to become free and undisturbed.

Intention (cetana) is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakhandha). The cause by which kamma comes into play is sensory contact (phassa). Furthermore, according to Nyanatiloka's Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, vipaka, 'fruit' or 'result,' is "any ... mental phenomenon (e.g. bodily agreeable or painful feeling, sense-consciousness, etc.), which is the result of wholesome or unwholesome volitional action (karma, q.v.) through body, speech or mind, done either in this or some previous life."

Essentially, intentional actions of body, speech and mind produce results that are said to have the potential to ripen during this lifetime, in the next birth or in later births. This can be taken literally (i.e., ripening in the form of a pleasant or unpleasant rebirth in an external realm of existence), or metaphorically (i.e., ripening in the form of various pleasant or unpleasant mental states). In the words of S. Dhammika:

According to the Buddha, every intentional action modifies our consciousness, thus building our character and thereby influencing our behaviour, our experience and consequently our destiny. Positive intentional actions (motivated by generosity, love and wisdom) tend towards consequences that are experienced as positive while intentional negative actions (motivated by greed, hatred and delusion) tend towards consequences that are experienced as negative.

Therefore, I think that in certain contexts, it would be appropriate to think of kamma as 'habit energy' in the sense that the potential effects of an action can be to condition and even strengthen certain physical and psychological reactions. This is especially true in regard to psychological reactions considering that vipaka is limited specifically to 'mental phenomena.'

(And just for reference, here's an interesting talk I watched recently dealing with the biological basis for morality: 'Morality: From the Heavens or From Nature?' I agree Dr. Thomas that morality is natural in the sense that it comes from the "evolved architecture" of our minds, which is why I believe that, psychologically speaking, the quality of the intentions behind our actions can determine how the results, whether positive or negative, are experienced.)

As for Buddhist ethics in general, they revolve around seeing our desires for happiness and freedom from pain in all living creatures. Essentially, if we don't respect that in them, how can we ever expect the same? This is especially true regarding human beings. Here I agree with the Buddha that, besides some rare and special cases, there's no one that's as dear to us as ourselves, that all beings essentially want to be happy in their own way (according to their specific capacities), and that it's a fairly decent and logical reason to desire their happiness as well as our own (SN 3.8).

The reason, I think, is simple. If our happiness comes at the expense of their happiness, they'll do everything in their power to upset that happiness. Conversely, if they were to infringe upon ours, wouldn't it follow that we'd do everything in our power to upset theirs? It seems like a vicious circle to me, and one of the ways to break this circle is an ethical framework that takes the happiness of others into consideration. Combine this with the Buddha's teachings on kamma, and you have a logical and naturalistic morality based on the principle of ahimsa or harmelessness.

Concerning the issue of evil and whether it 'exists' in some objective sense as in Christian theology — which presents evil as an objectively existent entity or force, personified by the most infamous scapegoat the world has ever known, the Devil — Buddhism is, philosophically speaking, more or less empirical and pragmatic in nature. Things like 'good' and 'evil' aren't really given any sort of ontological status in the suttas. As I've already mentioned, in regard to actions, bad actions are deemed 'bad' or 'unskillful' if they lead to to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both. Good actions, on the other hand, are deemed 'good' or 'skillful' if they don't lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both (MN 61). In other words, these are descriptive labels that are limited to observable qualities and experiences (adjectives), not self-existent entities (nouns).

In the context of actions (kamma), the Pali term kusala, often translated as 'skillful' or 'wholesome,' basically means that which is not conducive to harm and pain, but to benefit and pleasure (AN 2.19). It denotes doing something well, such as in the case of playing a lute (see AN 6.55). The Pali term akusala (composed of the negative prefix a- + kusala), often translated as 'unskillful' or 'unwholesome,' basically means the opposite, or that which is not conducive to benefit and pleasure, but to harm and pain. The Pali word that's usually translated as 'evil' is papa, which can also be translated as 'bad,' 'demerit' or 'wrong action' depending on the context. It seems to me that papa has a stronger, more negative connotation than akusala, but they're more or less synonymous.

So when looking at the question of evil in Buddhism from this perspective, it can certainly be said to exist in a subjective sense, and I'd say it's an appropriate descriptor for qualities that most people would agree to be extremely shocking and harmful. But as far as I can tell, Buddhism refrains from presenting evil as something which exists independently of us, something 'out there' as it were. And while Buddhism has its own scapegoat in the form of Mara, he's generally used as a metaphor for the death, the psychological clinging to the aggregates that gives rise to suffering or to the mental defilements of greed, hatred and delusion.

This, then, brings me to dukkha or suffering. The first noble truth states that, in short, the five clinging-aggregate (panca-upadana-khandha) are dukkha (SN 56.11), i.e., it's the clinging in reference to the aggregates that's dukkha, not the aggregates themselves. What does this mean exactly? According to the commentaries, dukkha is defined as 'that which is hard to bear.' In MN 9, clinging is defined as:

"And what is clinging, what is the origin of clinging, what is the cessation of clinging, what is the way leading to the cessation of clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging: clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to rituals and observances, and clinging to a doctrine of self. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of clinging. With the cessation of craving, there is the cessation of clinging. The way leading to the cessation of clinging is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view... right concentration.

In addition, the Buddha says that the five clinging-aggregates are not-self (anatta). He calls them a burden, the taking up of which is "the craving that makes for further becoming" and the casting off of which is "the remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving" (SN 22.22). Becoming (bhava) is a mental process, which arises due to the presence of clinging in the mind with regard to the five-clinging aggregates, and acts as a condition for the birth (jati) of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta).

Looking at it from another angle, there's rarely a moment when the mind isn't clinging to this or that in one or more of the four ways (MN 11). Our identity jumps from one thing to another, wherever the clinging is strongest. Our sense of self is something that's always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli, and yet at the same time, we tend to see it as a static thing. It's as if our sense of self desires permanence, but its very nature causes it to change every second. As the Buddha warns in SN 12.61:

It would be better for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person to hold to the body composed of the four great elements, rather than the mind, as the self. Why is that? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for a year, two years, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred years or more. But what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another.

Change is, of course, a fact of nature. All things are in a perpetual state of change, but the problem is that our sense of self ignores this reality on a certain level. From birth to death, we have the tendency to think that this 'I' remains the same. Now, we might know that some things have changed (e.g., our likes and dislikes, our age, the amount of wrinkles we have, etc.), but we still feel as if we're still 'us.' We have the illusion (for lack of a better word) that our identity is who we are, a static entity named [fill in the blank], and we tend to perceive this as being the same throughout our lives.

That said, the conventional use of personality is a function of survival, as well as convenience. However, clinging to our personalities as 'me' or 'mine' is seen as giving continued fuel for becoming, i.e., a mental process of taking on a particular kind of identity that arises out of clinging. Our sense of self — the ephemeral 'I' — is merely a mental imputation, and when we cling to our sense of self as being 'me' or 'mine' in some way, we're clinging to an impermanent representation of something that we've deluded ourselves into thinking is fixed and stable. It becomes a sort of false refuge that's none of these things.

These attachments, particularly our attachment to views and doctrines of self, keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail us and our mental well-being (MN 18). Thus, with the presence of clinging, the aggregates have the potential to become suffering (i.e., 'difficult to bear') when our sense of self encounters inconstancy. That's why the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self:

"What do you think, monks — Is form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousnes] constant or inconstant?"

"Inconstant, lord."

"And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?"

"Stressful, lord."

"And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?"

"No, lord."

Thus, monks, any form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousness] whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every form is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: 'This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.'

Suffering isn't inescapable, however. Like all conditional phenomena, it too has a cause. The second noble truth states that the origination of suffering is "the craving [tahna, literally 'thirst'] that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion &; delight, relishing now here &; now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming" (SN 56.11). As Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains in Wings to Awakening:

Craving for sensuality, here, means the desire for sensual objects. Craving for becoming means the desire for the formation of states or realms of being that are not currently happening, while craving for non-becoming means the desire for the destruction or halting of any that are. "Passion and delight," here, is apparently a synonym for the "desire and passion" for the five aggregates that constitutes clinging/sustenance [III/H/ii].

Craving is a very subtle but powerful aspect of our psychology. It's there, latent in the mind, waiting to exert its influence through mental fabrications by directing or at the very least encouraging the mind to feed upon sensory experiences via the five clinging-aggregates in an unhealthy way. Hence, in Buddhism, suffering is a psychological phenomena that can be transcended via the "remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving" (SN 56.11). This is why I tend to think of Buddhism as a type of 'transcendent psychology.' Regardless of how it's been popularized, at its core, Buddhism deals exclusively with one subject, that of human mental suffering. The Buddha himself clearly states that:

"Both formerly and now, monks, I declare only stress and the cessation of stress.

That's not to say there aren't 'supernatural' concepts in Buddhism, or that local customs, deities and religious practices haven't found their way into Buddhism wherever it's been established. But rather than a pure system of thought or a strictly faith-based worship of the supernatural, a critical analysis of the earliest texts reveals a much more pragmatic and specialized method of mental training than most traditional Buddhists and Western converts realize—one that seeks to diminish and even eliminate suffering by radically changing the way the mind relates to experience. This includes our reaction to physical pain, which is made clear in the simile of the arrow found in SN 36.6:

"Now, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones, when touched with a feeling of pain, does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. So he feels one pain: physical, but not mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, did not shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow. In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. He feels one pain: physical, but not mental.

Whatever else this radical transformation may open one up to, I can't say, but I suspect that Thanissaro Bhikkhu's right when he says that we're "not committing spiritual suicide." The allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic immediately comes to mind here, where he uses the image of the philosopher turning the soul (mind) away from the darkness of the visible realm (samsara) towards the light of the form of the Good (nibbana).

unskillfulness

I received this rather interesting comment today on my last blog post, some thoughts on conscience and concern:

The one thing that I noticed about this post is your frequent use of two words, unskillful (19 times) and skillful (24 times). You seem to be using these terms in an unconventional way, a specialistic way. Once you use the word 'unskillful' in a quote from Thanissaro Bhikku, and from that I conclude that it is a Buddhistic way of talking about something else. I am not familiar with Buddhist literature.

How does one know what is skillful and what is unskillful behavior? How does one determined who is skilled and who is unskilled? Where does skill come from? And finally, are we born unskilled and, if so, how do we acquire it?

To contrast your use of "unskillful" with what I take it to mean, I offer this verse from Psalm 51:5 replacing the original words with the terms you use…

Behold, I was brought forth in unskillfulness,
and unskillfully my mother conceived me.

All that I can gather from your post, brother, can be summed up in this single observation: Until you recognize "unskillfulness" for what it really is, and what its effects are, you are just spinning your wheels.

I'd like to a make a couple of points in response. To begin with, I think that it may be a mistake to compare the Buddhist concept of unskillfulness to the Christian idea of sin unless we limit the idea of sin to the Greek word hamartia, which is closely related to the verb hamartanein or 'missing the mark.' As such, I'm not sure the use of 'unskillfulness' in place of 'sin' in Psalm 51:5 is entirely appropriate, if at all.

In the context of actions (kamma), the Pali term kusala, often translated as 'skillful' or 'wholesome,' basically means that which is not conducive to harm and pain, but to benefit and pleasure (AN 2.19). It denotes doing something well, such as in the case of playing a lute (see AN 6.55). The Pali term akusala (composed of the negative prefix a- + kusala), often translated as 'unskillful' or 'unwholesome,' basically means the opposite, or that which is not conducive to benefit and pleasure, but to harm and pain.

Actions are deemed unskillful if they lead to to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both. Conversely, action are deemed skillful if they don't lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both (MN 61). In this sense, Buddhist ethics and philosophy are basically empirical and pragmatic in nature, and these are descriptive labels that are limited to observable qualities and experiences (adjectives), not self-existent entities (nouns). The focus is on actions and their consequences.

At the heart of the practice, Buddhism encourages one to renounce their unskillful habits and desires, and to renounce what's conducive to short-term welfare and happiness in favour of what's conducive to long-term welfare and happiness. In the ultimate sense, this involves, to adopt an image from Plato's Republic, turning the soul (mind) away from the darkness of the visible realm (samsara) towards the light of the form of the Good (nibbana). But at the beginning, it starts with learning to ask the right kinds of questions, such as, "Is what I intend to do here skillful or unskillful? Will it lead to well-being or harm?"

One comes to know what's skillful and unskillful via repeated reflection (MN 61), which is one of the reasons Buddhism is called a gradual path (MN 107). From the Buddhist perspective, until we achieve moral perfection (i.e., the ending of kamma and the elimination of the skillful/unskillful dichotomy altogether), we all have the potential do both skillful and unskillful things, and this is why the Buddha often stresses the importance of being as mindful of our actions and the intentions behind them as we can. As the Buddha notes, "all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness, converge in heedfulness, and heedfulness is reckoned the foremost among them" (AN 10.15).

Skill is something that comes from practice, through trial and error. Unskillfulness, on the other hand, doesn't really come from anywhere; it arises out of ignorance (avijja), specifically ignorance of the four noble truths, and ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. (Incidentally, this is almost identical to the Stoic's belief that people act in ways that are harmful to themselves and others out of ignorance, i.e., if they understood the nature of happiness, of the mind itself, they would never willingly act against their own happiness or the happiness of others.) I think Thanissaro Bhikkhu sums this idea up well in his essay "Ignorance":

Avijja, the Pali word for ignorance, is the opposite of vijja, which means not only "knowledge" but also "skill" — as in the skills of a doctor or animal-trainer. So when the Buddha focuses on the ignorance that causes stress and suffering, saying that people suffer from not knowing the four noble truths, he's not simply saying that they lack information or direct knowledge of those truths. He's also saying that they lack skill in handling them. They suffer because they don't know what they're doing.

The four truths are (1) stress — which covers everything from the slightest tension to out-and-out agony; (2) the cause of stress; (3) the cessation of stress; and (4) the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. When the Buddha first taught these truths, he also taught that his full Awakening came from knowing them on three levels: identifying them, knowing the skill appropriate to each, and knowing finally that he had fully mastered the skills.

Stress he identified with examples — such things as birth, aging, illness, and death; sorrow, distress, and despair — summarizing it as five clinging-aggregates: clinging to physical form; to feelings of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain; to perception; to thought-constructs; and to sensory consciousness. The cause of stress he identified as three kinds of craving: craving for sensuality, craving to take on an identity in a world of experience, and craving for one's identity and world of experience to be destroyed. The cessation of stress he identified as renunciation of and release from those three kinds of craving. And the path to the cessation of stress he identified as right concentration together with seven supporting factors: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, and right mindfulness.

I agree that, until we recognize unskillfulness for what it really is, and what its effects are, we're just spinning our wheels; although I doubt that everyone will agree about what that means.

some thoughts on conscience and concern

This is something I wrote on newbuddhist.com a few years ago.

Many times, the emotional feelings of shame or guilt that are associated with the results of our unskillful actions are looked upon as undesirable things—we see them as just unnecessary thorns in our side. Because we act out of a basic need to be happy, we like to think that all of our actions, whether good or bad, are justifiable. The outcome of this kind of thinking, however, is that when we commit acts of body, speech and mind that turn out to be harmful to ourselves or to others, we want to find some excuse in order to justify those actions. Unfortunately, since we don't posses the wisdom to see that there are other kinds of happiness in the world besides those that are based on fulfilling our sensual desires, we cling to the kinds of happiness that depend upon us to continually feed them. Happiness then becomes an act of relentlessly feeding our desires to the point that our happiness comes before the happiness of others. If we feel that we have to hurt others, steal from others, lie to others or whatever else we deem necessary in order to be happy, then we'll be able to talk ourselves into doing anything to obtain that happiness.

Once we come to a point where we begin to see the effects of our unskillful actions, however, we're unprepared for how to skillfully deal with such consequences. When our conscience catches up with us, our first reaction tends to be to run away from those feelings of guilt and remorse that happen to arise. If we can't outrun them, then we try to bury them underneath the haze of drugs and alcohol. Essentially, the ways in which we try to rid ourselves of these feelings are just as harmful as the actions that brought those feelings into being. We indulge in even more unskillful behaviour in order to cover up the memories of our anger, embarrassment, fear, grief, hatred, pain, selfishness, etc. in an attempt to just get through another day. To make matters worse, these unskillful actions are what have the potential to become unskillful habits or addictions because these temporary solutions are unable to permanently get rid of those painful feelings, and we gradually become dependent upon them to ease our suffering. Because we lack a better way to deal with these things, we become prisoners trapped within our own nightmarish world.

One of the many things the Buddha said was that these emotional feelings of guilt and remorse are actually guardians, treasures and associated with skillful qualities. To begin with, these feelings of guilt and remorse are a warning sign that something is wrong. They alert us to the fact that somewhere, deep down inside, we're uneasy about something we might've done or said, or at least thought about. In the Buddha's teachings, feelings of guilt and remorse are said to guard us from harm. Without conscience (hiri) and concern (ottappa), or shame and fear of wrongdoing, we're unable to recognize those who deserve respect such as mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, teachers, etc. (AN 2.9). In addition, if we're unable to recognize these people for what they are in relation to ourselves or to other people, we're more capable of doing unskillful deeds of body, speech and mind that directly cause them pain and suffering. Not only can this cause us suffering internally when we reflect on those unskillful actions, but it can also cause suffering externally by placing ourselves in trouble with the authorities or other people.

When it comes to skillful qualities, conscience and concern are said to arise out of clear knowing (Iti 40). This clear knowing can be seen as a kind of internal honesty which is aware of our intentions. This awareness doesn't try to cover up our intentions or make excuses for them, but it's an awareness that's open and honest about the qualities of our intentions that enable us to cleanse them of their impurities. In other words, the qualities of ignorance, desire and greed that arise in the mind are seen for what they are. This enables us to develop a sense of moral responsibility that's derived from self-esteem. When we view unwholesome actions as beneath us, when we see that they cause us harm or give rise to bad destinations, we'll be more inclined to refrain from committing those actions, or if we've committed them, to refrain from committing them again. We do this because we have respect for ourselves, and we see the benefits of making the right choices by observing that, as Thanissaro Bhikkhu notes, "unskillful intentions, based on craving and delusion, invariably lead to unpleasant results."

While all of this might be useful to consider before we make any more unskillful decisions in the future, the Buddha also discussed what to do about unskillful things that we might've done in the past. Unfortunately, we're unable to undo past unskillful actions, but fortunately there are ways in which to lessen the inevitable harmful results of those actions. Although the complexity of the relationship between actions and their results can be hard to understand — one that reaches far beyond this present life — that same complexity allows for the possibility of limiting the consequences of past unskillful actions. The first step is to at least observe the five precepts, which are to (1) refrain from harming living beings, (2) refrain from taking what is not given, (3) refrain from telling falsehoods, (4) refrain from committing sexual misconduct and (5) refrain from taking drugs and alcohol that lead to carelessness. This helps to prevent further damage from being done, and to construct the foundation for the rest of our practice. The next steps are to abandon wrong view and develop expansive mind states of good-will, compassion, appreciation and equanimity (SN 42.8).

The development of good-will, compassion, appreciation and equanimity is so powerful that it can take us from being restricted, small-hearted and dwelling in suffering to being unrestricted, large-hearted and dwelling with immeasurable concentration—a state of mind that's only possible with the absence of hostility and ill will. The Buddha also describes four assurances that can be experienced in the present by those people who, filled with doubt, cultivate and develop such purified states of mind: If there's a world after death, if there are results of skillful and unskillful actions that are done, then one can be assured that they'll reappear in a good destination after death. If there's no world after death, if there are no results of skillful and unskillful actions, then here in the present one can be assured that they'll live safely, free from hatred and malice. If evil results befall one who commits evil actions, then one who doesn't entertain evil thoughts towards another can be assured that they'll not experience ill results. And, if evil results don't befall one who commits evil actions, then one can be assured that they're safe in any case (AN 3.65).

It's hard to imagine that cultivating certain mind states can have a tangible effect on our lives. Nevertheless, the Buddha often spoke of the immeasurable benefits of cultivating good-will, compassion, appreciation and equanimity. He once compared the actions of a person who commits an evil deed with an untrained mind — a mind undeveloped in regards to virtue, discernment, etc. — to a glass of water. As there's so little development in the mind of such a person, one evil act is like a salt crystal that's then dropped into that glass of water and the water becomes unfit to drink. He further compared the actions of a person who commits an evil deed with a mind that is well trained — a mind developed in regards to virtue, discernment, etc. — to the River Ganges. As there's so much development in the mind of such a person, one evil act is like a salt crystal that's then dropped into that great river and the water doesn't become unfit to drink. The former person, due to their actions, goes to a bad destination whereas the later person experiences the resulting pollutant for barely a moment in the here and now (AN 3.99).

Ultimately, those emotional feelings of shame or guilt that are associated with the results of our unskillful actions can be looked upon as catalysts to overcoming the results of our unskillful actions if they're seen with the proper insight. When we become remorseful by realizing that what we've done wasn't right, perhaps because we're told by a wise person that such actions are blameworthy, we'll also realize that what we've done can't be undone. These feelings, if they're not properly understood, have the potential to become debilitating. However, when due to those feelings we abandon the taking of life, taking what's not given, telling falsehoods, committing sexual misconduct and taking drugs and alcohol now and in the future, we can be said to have abandoned those evil deeds, those unskillful actions, and to have overcome them. Even more so, when we abandon those unskillful actions now and in the future, as well as cultivate, develop and then pervade all four directions with good-will, compassion, appreciation and equanimity, the inevitable consequences of our past unskillful action will count for next to nothing (SN 42.8).

the fifth precept

New Buddhists often ask what the Buddha's stance on alcohol was, and whether being a Buddhist means they can no longer drink. The short answer is, it's definitely better not to. The fifth precept clearly discourages the use of drugs and alcohol for the sole purpose of intoxication because it leads to carelessness.

That said, it should be made clear that Buddhist precepts aren't equivalent to commandments in that they're training rules which are voluntarily undertaken rather than edicts or commands dictated by a higher power and/or authority. The precepts are undertaken to protect ourselves, as well as others, from the results of unwholesome actions.

As for whether having a glass of wine with dinner or something like that violates the fifth precept, it depends on who you ask. Some say yes and some say no. Dhammanando Bhikkhu, for example, states:

In the Theravadin understanding the fifth precept enjoins complete abstinence, not moderation. It is broken when one knowingly consumes even the smallest amount of alcohol. It is not broken if the alcohol is consumed unwittingly or is an ingredient in an essential medicine.

The main reasoning behind this interpretation — which is based on Abhidhammic teachings — is that "every breach of the fifth precept arises from a greed-rooted citta."

Ajahn Khemasanto, on the other hand, has said that having a glass of wine with dinner (for a lay-followers at least) doesn't violate the fifth precept as long as one stops before they can "feel [the effects of] the alcohol." The main reasoning behind this interpretation, I suppose, is the intent of the precept itself — i.e., to help protect one from breaking the other four precepts, not to insinuate that drinking alcohol in and of itself is unwholesome — which I think is supported by this passage from Sn 2.14:

A layman who has chosen to practice this Dhamma should not indulge in the drinking of intoxicants. He should not drink them nor encourage others to do so; realizing that it leads to madness. Through intoxication foolish people perform evil deeds and cause other heedless people to do likewise. He should avoid intoxication, this occasion for demerit, which stupefies the mind, and is the pleasure of foolish people.

This point is echoed by the Ven. Huifeng (Pannasikhara), who notes:

Whatever the case, there is still a problem with either of these approaches when it comes to the fifth precept, because most Buddhist schools take the stance that drinking alcohol is not a nonvirtue itself, unlike the first four precepts which necessarily have at least some amount of unwholesome mental state behind them. In the northern traditions, this precept is called a "precept of avoidance" (something like that!), and the others "precepts by nature".

Whether this is what the Buddha himself meant when he formulated the fifth precept, I can't say for sure; I'm just passing along what I've heard/read. I have a glass of beer or wine once in a while myself, and I don't lose any sleep over it. Suffice it to say that I tend to follow the spirit rather than the letter when it comes to doctrine. One drink doesn't make me careless, and I don't beat myself up if I decide to have a pint with my mates or my girlfriend. I just note that I gave into this particular sense-pleasure and carry on with my practice. No excuses, but no guilt, either.

Of course, many people will take issue with this, suggesting that to openly break a precept you've undertaken amounts to hypocrisy or even spiritual laziness, and I think there's some truth to that. But looking at it another way, I think taking the precepts knowing that I'm probably going to break one on occasion is better than not taking them at all.

I may not be a very good 'Buddhist' in the eyes of some because I occasional have a glass of wine or a pint of beer, but hey, at least I'm not lying about it. After all, Buddhism isn't called a gradual path for nothing (MN 107). Some of us are just harder to train than others.

re: a newfound appreciation

Before publishing my last post, I sent a copy to Simon asking him what he thought. Because I think it's worth sharing (with his permission, of course), here's his reply:

I like the blog. You are tunelling from your end as I from mine and we appear to be on track to meet in the middle.

Your scepticism about Mystery is shared, I am sure, by many people, myself among them. Most, if not all, the 'institutional' depictions leave me cold - indeed, they often arouse my deepest doubts. It makes it hard to address what I see as one of the greatest dangers facing us today, the danger of dying of spiritual thirst for all the best reasons.

As you may remember, I use the image of the desert to symbolise our trek through life - and I must recognise the influence of Nietzsche's myth in Also Sprach Zarathustra. What seems to me to have happened is that the yearning that Saint Augustine describes is no longer experienced, just as thirst finally goes away despite approaching death. This is not the "God-shaped hole", not a hole at all, it is the thirst that the Psalmist sings about. Augustine's actual words are:

Man [sic] is one of your creatures, Lord, and
his instinct is to praise you. He bears about
him the mark of death…But still, since he is a
part of your creation, he wishes to praise you.
The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he
cannot be content unless he praises you,
because you made us for yourself and our
hearts find no peace until they rest in you.

Augustine, Confessions, Book I, section I.
[Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin (London:
Penguin, 1961)]

In Buddhism, I find the same sort of expression in the poetry, music and stories which are, for me, even more indicative than 'serious' sutras.

You, dear friend, have often demonstrated the breadth and depth of your knowledge of the Pali Canon and I hope that you take time to turn away from dry-as-dust texts to find the mind of Buddhism in Buddhist art. In Christianity, too, as you learn more about the oldest forms of it in Eastern Christianity, look at the history of icons and mosaic art (and the brief periods of iconoclasm): that is where the 'soul' of the beliefs reside.

Let me leave this with two among the texts that I use to calm my mind before mediation, which are quoted in Sogyal Rinpoche's book on Living and Dying:

No words can describe it
No example can point to it
Samsara does not make it worse
Nirvana does not make it better
It has never been born
It has never ceased
It has never been liberated
It has never been deluded
It has never existed
It has never been nonexistent
It has no limits at all
It does not fall into any kind of category
(Dudjom Rinpoche)

Profound and tranquil, free from complexity,
Uncompounded luminous clarity,
Beyond the mind of conceptual ideas;
This is the depth of the mind of the Victorious Ones.
In this there is not a thing to be removed,
Nor anything that needs to be added.
It is merely the immaculate
Looking naturally at itself.
(Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche)

Now I shall turn back to examining Article 13 of the Anglican Articles of Religion from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is remarkably apposite when we consider dialogue between belief families:

XIII. Of Works before Justification

Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

BCP 1662

Nice thoughts, eh? But what if we substitute political, national or racial terms?

a newfound appreciation

Admittedly, I've been fairly critical of Christianity as an institution for most of my life, not to mention certain scriptural passages that are, in my eyes, less than divine. And yet, I find myself coming to appreciate Christianity, and Orthodox Christianity in particular, as an extension of the ancient Greek mystery religions mixed with a bit of Eastern mysticism; although much of its 'mystery' seems to have been lost on many of its adherents.

My appreciation began after reading an interview with Archimandrite Dionysios, and discovering that Gregory Palamas is said to have constantly prayed: "Enlighten my darkness." It also struck me how Hesychastic prayer bears a superficial resemblance with Buddhist meditation, e.g., specific body postures, deliberate breathing patterns, acquiring an inner stillness, sense restraint, etc. It was years ago, however, and my appreciation quickly faded; but it was recently rekindled by my reading of Plato's Republic, as well as other of his dialogues, and a conversation I had at a local Greek Orthodox church.

While I practice Buddhism and am interested in things like philosophy and religion in general, I'm a very skeptical and secular person by nature. I have a hard time seeing into what some call 'the realm of the divine' — i.e., Plato's realm of forms, Spinoza's absolute substance, Buddhism's unconditioned reality — and I regularly doubt that such a realm even exists, but my recent readings of Plato have at least piqued my interest in trying. And talking with my kind guide at Holy Trinity last weekend during the annual Greek festival got me thinking about Christianity in a whole new way.

Seeking to explore this subject more, I decided to ask Simon, my long-time kalyana-mita (admirable friend) from newbuddhist.com, to explain to me his views regarding the "excellence of the synthesis of the messages and practices" of Buddhism and Christianity. After receiving a brief message saying that it may take a day or two for him to condense his views for me, I was delighted to find this reply later in the day:

Despite what I said about taking time to reply, I reflected on this over my latte and toast in the autumn sun while in town and have put together a preliminary outline for your consideration. As you have been speaking to Orthodox Christians, you might like to consider the Christos Pantocrator with what I say about creative sunyatta.

I would add (because these first lines are written after the rest) that a fundamental principle, on which all rests, is that 'revelation' does not stop, either with the Buddha's death or with that of Saint Paul, but that we can inform our understanding across the ages.

First of all, I must stress that I do not imagine that I have a complete or, even, a completely coherent account. The fact is that I see humanity as progressing towards a more perfect understanding and we, you and I at this time and in this place, are within the process, the work in progress (see Note below). A synthesis will require the total transformation of all the elements, resulting in something new and, probably, very alien to our present thinking. This, for me, is the meaning of Jesus' saying about the grain of wheat that must fall to the ground and 'die' before it can grow. My personal image is that of the caterpillar the pupa and the butterfly. Just as the individual ego resists the apparent death of awakening, so bodies of belief like faiths and religions resist their own 'transmogrification'.

This leads me to my second point, which is that I expect to find contradictions because those are the places where the most reflection is needed and where the energy of that mediative reflection is transformative. Do you know the poetry of George Herbert? One of his poems, which is now sung as a hymn, The Elixir

TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see

The last two stanzas talk about "the famous stone/That turneth all to gold", the Philosophers' Stone of the alchemists taken as a metaphor for the Christ-inspired mind:

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine :
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold ;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

It is at the points of resistance that transformation occurs. Here, the poet Rilke and his attitude to praise for "the secateur and the rose" helped form my view.

Both you and I, I seem to remember, find inspiration in the Gospel of Thomas, which sometimes makes it hard to dialogue with those Christians who reject it as authentic or inspired, nevertheless, there are still enough hints in the canonical New Testament to point us to areas of the Way that Jesus taught that have tended to be overlooked or ignored in practice, and the same goes for the Buddhist sutras. These gaps are, to some extent, filled when both are brought together.

Here are some examples:

Jesus says that we are "deny our selves". This occurs in both the canonical and the Thomas gospels, although Thomas is closer to an 'Eastern' approach, an abandonment of ahamkara (the word McGregor Ross uses in his Thomas translations), of atman. The classical explanation is one of self-denial, of disciplining the senses but stops short of a denial of 'self'. I would argue that the Buddhist notion of the aggregates empowers the Christian's self denying practices, making it mindful of the deceit of the world that is often the subject of scripture. Here, as in other examples, Buddhist texts reveal a model of 'how' and Christian texts reveal outcome, particularly if we take the Teilhard view of the Cosmic Christ and the Omega Point. The thorny question of 'soul' must, in the end, be up to each one of us to decide for ourselves, if possible from our own experiences arising from practice or enlightenment.

Of course, there are challenges. By and large, Christians do not accept the notion of anatta as traditionally described and Buddhists object to a teleology or purposefulness other than personal. We have to go deeper.

Deeper brings us to sunyatta and kenosis and the mystery of creative emptiness. Much argument is wasted on whether or not there is a 'Creator', conceived along quasi-human lines. As I see it, Jesus reveals that there is compassion and caring which is behind and subtends all that is, from which all arises and into which all falls back, and that this parent-like caring is personal as well as ineffable. It is, if you like, the Buddha-nature (or indwelling Christ) of the universe.

Arising from the depths of mystery, a further example of creative interaction between Buddhism and Christianity is in the realm of social and politico-economic action. Buddhism, for too long, has tended towards a solipsistic approach, focusing on individual Awakening and ignoring political action. It is salutary to notice that Buddhists like Thich Nhat Hanh or Joanna Macy, along with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, coming to the Western tradition, have brought in an emphasis on 'good works', an area where Christians have been active for many centuries. Whereas there are excellent schools, hospitals and other 'guardian' institutions which were founded by and continue to be run by Christian groups across the ages, catering for all faiths and none, delivering services at the point of need, similar Buddhist institutions are few and far between - indeed, I can only think of hospices or animal sanctuaries. The abolition of slavery, too, is a further example.

From these few examples, you may be able to see why and how I developed, for myself, a 'hermeneutic', a way of reading scriptures and of seeing the world which rejects exclusivity of truth to any one theory or body of faith in favour of another: each brings something to the party. Often, however, I need to sit for a while with a contradiction or a 'knot' before I can penetrate the symbolism because I truly believe that we perceive shadows, as Plato taught in his Cave Myth, and it is up to us to spend the effort needed to understand what casts the shadows, the Reality behind apparent phenomena. In this, I recognise that I am in the mainstream of neither Buddhism, which can be seen as denying an ultimate Reality, and Christianity which ignores dependent origination.

This is already rather long but I hope it gives you some idea of how it all connects for me.

Note:
Years ago I came across a talk given at the World Council of Churches by an IT specialist priest who likened the unfolding universe to a computer program. Such a program, they said, who need to be answering a question and the question is there, in one of the creation stories in Genesis (1:26): "Let us create in our own image". Thus we are part of the (to us) long process by which Compassionate Creativity is achieving that goal. And why? The next (older) story gives us the clue: (2:18) "It is not good to be alone." Inherent in these texts are also the notions of relationship and interbeing.

A lot of what Simon wrote reminded me of what the amiable gentleman at the church said, especially regarding the notions of relationship and interbeing. For example, he said that in talking to me, he saw God. Not that I was God, but that there's something special, something divine, in our interactions with other people. This brought to mind one of the images of hell mentioned by the deacon in one of the church tours earlier in the day — that of being utterly alone — and I couldn't help but be reminded of the Buddha's words to his cousin, Ananda, in SN 45.2:

Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life.

I also found it interesting that Simon mentioned the allegory of the cave from Plato's Republic since it's one of the things that helped motivate me to explore this subject in the first place. (I even wrote a blog post recently comparing what's in the Republic to many of the things the Buddha is recorded as saying in the Pali Canon.)

I'm not planning on converting to Christianity anytime soon; still, I do feel like I'm deepening my own practice and understanding of Buddhism simply by allowing myself to be open to these, for lack of a better word, mysteries. This is not only due to the works of Plato and my recent conversation at Holy Trinity, but to people like David Cooper (God is a Verb), Thomas Merton (Mystics and Zen Masters) and Simon who continually seek to find harmony between spiritual disciplines. Perhaps in time I'll go back to my old, critical ways, but for now, I'm enjoying this newfound appreciation of what devoted people of all religious disciplines have to offer.

the five aggregates

Another subject that people new to Buddhism seem to have trouble understanding is the concept of the five aggregates (khandhas) and how they fit in with other teachings, such as those on dependent co-arising (paticca-samuppada) and not-self (anatta). The way I like to look at it, the teachings on dependent co-arising, the aggregates and not-self are quite insightful in that they're the parts of Buddhism that correspond to parts of modern psychology. For one thing, they basically detail the process by which we construct our sense of self, i.e., our ego or identity, and, ultimately, how to utilize that process in more skillful ways.

The aggregates themselves, for example, aren't simply descriptions of what constitutes a human being as some people mistakenly think—they're one of the many ways of looking at and dividing up experience that we find throughout the Pali Canon (e.g., aggregates, elements, six sense-media, etc.). But more importantly, they represent the most discernible aspects of our experience on top of which we construct our sense of self in a process of, as the Buddha called it, 'I-making' and 'my-making' (e.g., MN 109).

The first noble truth states that, in short, the five clinging-aggregate (panca-upadana-khandha) are dukkha (SN 56.11), i.e., it's the clinging in reference to the aggregates that's dukkha, not the aggregates themselves. But what does this really mean?

According to the commentaries, dukkha is defined as 'that which is hard to bear.' In MN 9, clinging is defined as:

"And what is clinging, what is the origin of clinging, what is the cessation of clinging, what is the way leading to the cessation of clinging? There are these four kinds of clinging: clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to rituals and observances, and clinging to a doctrine of self. With the arising of craving, there is the arising of clinging. With the cessation of craving, there is the cessation of clinging. The way leading to the cessation of clinging is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view... right concentration."

In addition, the Buddha says that the five clinging-aggregates are not-self. He calls them a burden, the taking up of which is "the craving that makes for further becoming" and the casting off of which is "the remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving" (SN 22.22). The way I understand it, becoming (bhava) is a mental process, which arises due to the presence of clinging (upadana) in the mind with regard to the five-clinging aggregates, and acts as a condition for the birth (jati) of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta).

Looking at it from another angle, there's rarely a moment when the mind isn't clinging to this or that in one or more of the four ways (MN 11). Our identity jumps from one thing to another, wherever the clinging is strongest. Our sense of self is something that's always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli, and yet at the same time, we tend to see it as a static thing. It's as if our sense of self desires permanence, but its very nature causes it to change every second. As the Buddha warns in SN 12.61:

"It would be better for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person to hold to the body composed of the four great elements, rather than the mind, as the self. Why is that? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for a year, two years, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred years or more. But what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another.

Change is, of course, a fact of nature. All things are in a perpetual state of change, but the problem is that our sense of self ignores this reality on a certain level. From birth to death, we have the tendency to think that this 'I' remains the same. Now, we might know that some things have changed (e.g., our likes and dislikes, our age, the amount of wrinkles we have, etc.), but we still feel as if we're still 'us.' We have the illusion (for lack of a better word) that our identity is who we are, a static entity named [fill in the blank], and we tend to perceive this as being the same throughout our lives.

That said, the conventional use of personality is a function of survival, as well as convenience. However, clinging to our personalities as 'me' or 'mine' is seen as giving continued fuel for becoming, i.e., a mental process of taking on a particular kind of identity that arises out of clinging. Our sense of self — the ephemeral 'I' — is merely a mental imputation, and when we cling to our sense of self as being 'me' or 'mine' in some way, we're clinging to an impermanent representation of something that we've deluded ourselves into thinking is fixed and stable. It becomes a sort of false refuge that's none of these things.

These attachments, particularly our attachment to views and doctrines of self, keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail us and our mental well-being (MN 18). Thus, with the presence of clinging, the aggregates have the potential to become suffering (i.e., 'difficult to bear') when our sense of self encounters inconstancy. That's why the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self:

"What do you think, monks — Is form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousnes] constant or inconstant?"

"Inconstant, lord."

"And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?"

"Stressful, lord."

"And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?"

"No, lord."

Thus, monks, any form [same with feeling, perception, fabrications and consciousnes] whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every form is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: 'This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.'

In order to break down the conceptual idea of self (i.e., that which is satisfactory, permanent and completely subject to our control) in relation to the various aspects of our experience that we falsely cling to as 'me' or 'mine,' we must essentially take this [analytical] knowledge, along with a specific set of practices such as meditation, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event that radically changes the way the mind relates to experience.

As I like to think about it (I use this a lot if you haven't already noticed), the conventional viewpoint (sammuti sacca) explains things through subject, verb and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint (paramattha sacca) explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes. This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action.

This mental process is 'seen,' ignorance is replaced by knowledge and vision of things as they are (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the 'letting go' of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta). And without the presence of clinging in regard to the aggregates, they cease to be 'difficult to bear.'

sharing in the form of dhamma

I recently picked up a copy of Plato's Republic (OK, two actually), and at first glance, Plato's just and unjust is not unlike the Buddha's distinction between skillful and unskillful actions (kamma). Both seem like a middle way between, or possibly a synthesis of, Jeremy Bentham's teleological utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant's deontological categorical imperative.

That's not to say that Bentham and Kant represent two ends of a single ethical spectrum, only that Plato and the Buddha take what Bentham and Kant stress and emphasis them together. With Plato and the Buddha, just/skillful actions aren't simply judged to be just/skillful based upon their consequences, but also because there's something inherently just/skillful about the actions themselves. In Buddhism, this would be due to the quality of the intentions behind the actions, and I think a similar principle applies in the Republic as well, although Plato would obviously say that it's because they share in the form of Justice, or even of the Good.

But despite the similarities, the Buddha does place far more emphasis on the consequential aspect of actions than Plato in determining whether they're just/skillful (e.g., MN 61), so ethically speaking, he falls decidedly more into Bentham's camp than Plato.

I suspect that this might be a consequence of Plato's denial/rejection of empiricism, which, in the Republic, forces him away from a more consequentialist position until Book 10. Up until then, he appears to limit himself to what Stephan Watt terms 'natural consequences,' and not ones "dependent on other people's recognising and rewarding your justice." Whereas the Buddha accepts a form of empiricism that's, in the words of David Kaluphana, "based broadly on ordinary sense experience and extrasensory perception" (Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis), Plato seems to take great pains to avoid using empirically-based observations to support his propositions for as long as possible. However, he's still compelled to utilize them at some point in many of his arguments.

Perhaps this is simply for the benefit of his less philosophically advanced interlocutors, but his rejection of sense-data as a reliable basis for knowledge seems ironic when many of his arguments are themselves based on sense-data. (I'm mainly thinking of the Phaedo here, where Socrates is arguing for the immortality of the soul and supporting his propositions with empirical observations, or where he does the same thing in explaining causation using his theory of forms.) Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding Plato since he seems like such a smart guy and it's hard for me to believe that he really failed to spot this glaring epistemological dilemma in his philosophy.

Nevertheless, both Plato and the Buddha seem to agree that acting justly/skillfully leads to being a better person, a morally superior type of individual both wise and at peace, someone possessing a noble and unshakable character. For the Buddha, who I find much more direct than Plato, skillful actions, when used appropriately, have the potential to ultimately lead to the elimination of the skillful/unskillful dichotomy altogether, leaving only moral perfection (i.e., the end of kamma). But Plato uses the just city as a backdrop to illustrate his just individual, and I'm not quite sure exactly how much is allegorical.

In any case, it's not hard to compare what's in the Republic to many of the things the Buddha is recorded as saying in the Pali Canon considering the wide variety of similar themes and ideas scattered throughout. For example, Plato's comment at the beginning of 546a, which itself may have been derived from Heraclitus, mirrors the Buddha's maxim regarding origination and cessation at SN 56.11. Then there's 571d-572b, which sounds similar to the Buddha's advice regarding the practice of virtue, restraint and moderation and the cultivation of meditation and discernment in an effort to 'touch the deathless' (amata). (I find similar parallels between Socrates' dialogue in Plato's Symposium regarding immortality and the idea of forms and the Buddha's discourses regarding the deathless, as well.)

The beginning of Plato's third argument supporting his conclusion that the happiest and most just individual is the one who rules over him/herself like a king (with virtue, moderation and reason) sounds Buddhist-esque with the 'motion' of pleasure and pain in the soul bringing the teachings on kamma to mind, while the 'state of calm' intermediate between pleasure and pain is equivalent to Buddhist equanimity (upekkha). And while for Plato the soul is something immortal that reincarnates, he gives an argument later on in Book 10 (612e-613b) that resembles parts of the Buddha's teachings on kamma and rebirth in MN 136.

Even more interesting, however, is 582b-d, where "that which is related to what is always the same, immortal and true" and "that which is related to what is never the same and mortal" are akin to nibbana and samsara respectively. The allegory of the cave at the beginning of Book 7 immediately comes to mind here, where Plato uses the image of the philosopher turning the soul (mind) away from the darkness of the visible realm (samsara) towards the light of the form of the Good (nibbana).

Of course, there are certainly things I disagree with Plato about — such as what sounds like the 'social Darwinism' of Herbert Spencer in 407d-408b and his manipulative and uber-utilitarian use of religion and tradition to mask his imaginary social engineering throughout 459d-461e — and I’m not under any illusions that their messages are identical.

Overall, I can't help thinking Plato makes an unnecessary, and ultimately artificial, distinction between opinion/becoming and intellect/being, which is another result of his reliance on rationalism to the exclusion of empiricism. While I agree that sense perceptions can be misleading, I think it's a mistake to deny them altogether, especially if, like the Buddha, we include mind itself as a sense-base. If what our eyes see is always a shadow, an illusion, how can we be sure that the same isn't true of the mind's intellections? I don't think Plato sufficiently deals with this problem as he seems to hold the mind and its intellection of intelligible things sacrosanct.

For Plato, to truly know a thing, you must know its essence or being, which is something intelligible but not perceptible via the senses. For example, in 596e-597a, he treats the form or idea of 'bed' (being/essence) as something more real and true than an actual bed made by hand (appearance). In other words, the many things we experience and consider to be true are in reality imperfect representations of 'that which is' (forms). And when Plato does attempt to address this issue, his arguments often extend, ironically enough, from more or less empirical observations. Or even worse, from abstract assumptions that are seemingly taken for granted and rarely accounted for, such as the very existence of forms.

However, I do think that, in some regards, Plato and the Buddha are ultimately saying something very similar; although to me, the Buddha seems more confident, like he's pointing you towards the experience instead of trying to stumble upon it through reason alone. Plato, on the other hand, seems like he's coming at it from a more theoretical, less experiential point of view, almost as if he's unsure it's completely possible.

It could just be that I'm reading too much into his politics thanks to Watt's introduction, which has me seeing the Republic in terms of psychology as well; but the more I read it, the more I find myself moving away from seeing the Republic in terms of a dialogue about social engineering and towards something more, for lack of a better word, Dhammic.