Dualism? What dualism?
A fundamental point of departure for any spiritual work seems to me to get clear on what the relationship between me, the individual, the separate sense of self, and a broader spanning realm of that which is beyond me is.
Pretty much from the start, I reject the notion of a Creator that is separate from me, but has built me in some sense to some spec and sits there and makes the rules. The whole concept of the "man with the big white beard" that comes to judge you seems deeply inapplicable. In this sense, I reject the dualism between God and us humans as it is portrayed certainly by Christianity and other main religions. Even more so the idea of some institution which represents God and his will and has some sort of enforcement order to fulfill seems so fundamentally flawed.
This brings us to an atheist point of view, basically rejecting any form of spirituality, only subscribing to matter and measure as the yard stick for any discussion. This materialism reduces the spark of life simply to a chemical reaction at conception, the consciousness simply to ongoing chemical processes and their epiphenomena (thoughts, feelings, etc.). So, emotions like compassion are simply some accompanying background music to the chemical movie in our brains. This would mean just the right drug could make us compassionate or enjoy an aria by Maria Callas. This clearly is too limiting a view. Quantum physics finally puts this out the game for me as it neatly decomposed matter into sub-atomic spin and quantum probabilities. I am still baffled by the double-slit experiment and its ramifications (who really collapses the wave function? Is that maybe God? Or is it me? Or is that somehow the same? What is me anyhow?). Given that there really is no matter as we seems to know if from our sensory apparatus, a purely scientific, materialist point of view is not interesting.
Enter Buddhism. The basic nature of reality is emptiness. OK. Jives with Planck, but what does it mean? Not really sure yet, but it implies that I am not really as solid piece of matter (or meat) as it seems based on my experiential evidence. There is some sort of consciousness that is not my body, thoughts or emotions. It simply "is". This infinitive "is-ness" permeates through me in some form. Meditation really just allows me to get out of the way of this. So, there is something that is not me (as in "my small material me"), but it also is fundamentally what gives me consciousness. It is the essence of my human "Being". So, is this God then? Is this God in me? Spirit in action? It certainly is no God in an institutionalized sense with rules, guilt and score keeping. It also can't be a God that separates one sentient being from another as the physical boundary between these consciousness is completely arbitrary.
The Hindu tradition has a metaphor which i really like: There are some Gods out there and they cast drops of Consciousness into a temporary form in this world of matter. Then funny enough, this droplets of form start feeling agency, they seem themselves as truly distinct from the other drops. They start fearing the end of their dropness. They fight with other drops, they kill other drops. The Gods must think this is pretty funny as the drops do never have agency, they are the Gods.
So, when I am asking myself about dualism, I am wondering what the true relationship between my current incarnation of matter and any higher, wider ranging form of Consciousness is....
Pretty much from the start, I reject the notion of a Creator that is separate from me, but has built me in some sense to some spec and sits there and makes the rules. The whole concept of the "man with the big white beard" that comes to judge you seems deeply inapplicable. In this sense, I reject the dualism between God and us humans as it is portrayed certainly by Christianity and other main religions. Even more so the idea of some institution which represents God and his will and has some sort of enforcement order to fulfill seems so fundamentally flawed.
This brings us to an atheist point of view, basically rejecting any form of spirituality, only subscribing to matter and measure as the yard stick for any discussion. This materialism reduces the spark of life simply to a chemical reaction at conception, the consciousness simply to ongoing chemical processes and their epiphenomena (thoughts, feelings, etc.). So, emotions like compassion are simply some accompanying background music to the chemical movie in our brains. This would mean just the right drug could make us compassionate or enjoy an aria by Maria Callas. This clearly is too limiting a view. Quantum physics finally puts this out the game for me as it neatly decomposed matter into sub-atomic spin and quantum probabilities. I am still baffled by the double-slit experiment and its ramifications (who really collapses the wave function? Is that maybe God? Or is it me? Or is that somehow the same? What is me anyhow?). Given that there really is no matter as we seems to know if from our sensory apparatus, a purely scientific, materialist point of view is not interesting.
Enter Buddhism. The basic nature of reality is emptiness. OK. Jives with Planck, but what does it mean? Not really sure yet, but it implies that I am not really as solid piece of matter (or meat) as it seems based on my experiential evidence. There is some sort of consciousness that is not my body, thoughts or emotions. It simply "is". This infinitive "is-ness" permeates through me in some form. Meditation really just allows me to get out of the way of this. So, there is something that is not me (as in "my small material me"), but it also is fundamentally what gives me consciousness. It is the essence of my human "Being". So, is this God then? Is this God in me? Spirit in action? It certainly is no God in an institutionalized sense with rules, guilt and score keeping. It also can't be a God that separates one sentient being from another as the physical boundary between these consciousness is completely arbitrary.
The Hindu tradition has a metaphor which i really like: There are some Gods out there and they cast drops of Consciousness into a temporary form in this world of matter. Then funny enough, this droplets of form start feeling agency, they seem themselves as truly distinct from the other drops. They start fearing the end of their dropness. They fight with other drops, they kill other drops. The Gods must think this is pretty funny as the drops do never have agency, they are the Gods.
So, when I am asking myself about dualism, I am wondering what the true relationship between my current incarnation of matter and any higher, wider ranging form of Consciousness is....
Of all I've read of Buddhism, this notion of 'emptiness' is where it stops resonating with me. I follow that the forms we perceive are not quite as real as we imagine, so if the intent is to drive home the point that my sense-perceptions give me a false view of reality, then I understand and accept that.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, what indeed is there besides the false me? Nothing? What does that even mean? Cogito ergo sum perhaps not, but cogito is the only starting place I have.
If we agree that we are not just the mass effect of chemical processes, then consciousness must have some other origin. When you use the term 'Spirit', what do you mean? Is this in some sense God without all the parts you don't like removed? If so, then is the individual conscious entity, who doesn't really exist anyway, defining (i.e. constraining) the only thing that is Real?
I share your difficulties on Emptiness. Some thoughts...
ReplyDeleteWhat is there besides the "false me"? I think "false" me is inaccurate, it is more like "small me" in a sense that there is a "big me" as well. It seems to be more like sitting somewhere in the mountains near a lake on a starry night and holding a small portable TV in your hand. What's going on on the TV set is to some degree real, it is the small, conventional life of small, ego-managed me. It is limited, but also in its own right viable. But it is not the whole story. You can look up and see the trees, the lake, the mountains. Finally you can also see the stars and lastly the stillness of the universe. These things are always there, always true. Does the small me exist? Yes, it does. But is it the only thing? No, there is a bigger backdrop that envelopes everything. In that perspective, it is really not all that important what goes on in the little TV screen. What is important is that both big and small me together are Truth.
Buddhism states that there are no separate entities that exist independently by themselves. Not even an eternal, unchanging God or Creator (as I understand it the argument is leveraging logic saying that if the Creator created in a cause-and-effect way, then it wouldn't be same after the creation than it was before, so it would not be unchanging. Hence there cannot be a causality creation by a separately existing God/Creator). So things are not separately existing, they are co-dependent. And they "arise" from and in this Emptiness. Now here it gets odd and I can't say I fully follow this concept of "co-dependent arising" as it is called. But it is stated that if you awake to this understanding of reality (that nothing is separately existing), your actions are transformed to be pure Compassion and Love.
Now this is where I think God comes back in. What is the point of a God? Is it to overcome lower levels of Consciousness and negative emotional states? What do you think?
So, is Emptiness (aka the Infinite, the Unmanifest, the Universe) the same as what is sometimes called God? Well, that depends on how you answer the question above. To me, God / Spirit / Brahman / etc. are labels that point us at this possibility of deeper Consciousness that transforms our actions. It is something that we can experience, but never explain in words. It is something that we can't deny since it is truly the essence of us. What is your definition of God or Spirit?
Also, I am highly intrigued by your question if the individual conscious entity is the only thing that is Real. You should elaborate on this in new post...