I became a Buddhist seven years ago. A Secular Buddhist. I was attracted by the curiosity and openness with which the Dalai Lama was engaged with science. I found it refreshing. In this article in the New York Times, the Dalai Lama insists: "If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."
I attended a class in Buddhist philosophy in 2004 with Robina Courtin at the Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala, India -- hometown of the the Dalai Lama. Here, I first encountered the concepts of emptiness and dependent arising that are central to Buddhist philosophy. Robina explained that emptiness, which is derived from the Sanskrit word sunyata where sunya literally means zero or nothing, does not imply Nihilism -- that nothing matters -- but in fact, quite the opposite. Emptiness implies that nothing exists independently, but is dependent on many other causes. I found it difficult to understand these ideas. I even tried to access the writings of Nagarjuna, the renowned Buddhist scholar who first wrote about emptiness in 150-250 CE. I remained confused.
Over the years, three books helped me understand Emptiness better. Mark Epstein's Thoughts Without a Thinker , that was given to me by Swati Desai, a psychotherapist and meditation teacher, provided a first breakthrough in my understanding. Adrienne Howley's short, marvelous and eminently readable The Naked Buddha also provided simple and cogent explanations. But by far, the most complete, lucid and compelling treatment is in Stephen Batchelor's Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.
Looking back, I think the reason these ideas sometimes appear impenetrable, sometimes vacuous, and sometimes contradictory, is because most Buddhist writers use the same words, the same jargon, and the same explanations over and over again. I will attempt to explain these ideas using a different language, a different vocabulary, a different methodology, that should be familiar to those who work with mathematical and statistical models.
Let us start with a simple equation:
W = T plus F
where,
T represents what you Think exists or is the truth,
F represents other Factors that are inevitably present, and
W represents What finally arises.
The Buddhist idea of Dependent Arising simply says that F is unpredictable and has a significant presence -- always. So you can never be sure that what finally will arise will be T -- what you think will happen. T and F always occur together. It may be helpful to think of W, T and F as variables that take on real values and F is a continuous random variable with significant variability.
The probability that W will take on a particular value, say equal to some particular value of T, will be zero -- hence the connotation of being empty. However that does not mean that nothing exists. In fact, many values, perhaps infinitely many values, of W are possible. It is precisely because many values are possible, the chances that a particular value will be realized are close to zero.
Furthermore, there is no reason to conclude that everything is completely unpredictable. It is true that because F is random or unpredictable, we cannot say for sure what W we will observe any time in the future, but depending on the extent of the volatility of F, we are likely to be off in our prediction by a certain amount. The volatility of F is not zero but also not infinite. I recently attended a weekend retreat with Martine and Stephen Batchelor at InsightLA run by Trudy Goodman where Martine emphasized this important point. The main content of the WTF model is that we grossly underestimate the volatility of F -- it is much higher than what we think it is.
The WTF model also helps us understand the concept of No-self in Buddhism. The Hindu Vedantic scholars in Indian Philosophy assert that there is a Soul, an Atman which is part of the Transcendental Soul, the Brahman. In the WTF model, this amounts to asserting that there is a true T that can be attained by clearing out the Maya or the confusion -- that is we can drive F to zero. Budhhists argue that F is always there so no fixed W exists (No-self) but in fact many Ws arise because T and F are always together. In fact, it is precisely our strong belief in a particular T, our attachment, that leads to dissatisfaction or unnecessary suffering. Once we cease our belief in a particular T, we open ourselves to the multitude of possibilities of W. Stephen Batchelor writes (on page 34):
The problem lies in the instinctive human conviction that one is a permanent, partless, and autonomous self, essentially disconnected from and unaffected by flux and contingency. This conviction may provide a sense of security and permanence in an insecure and impermanent world, but the price one pays is that of alienation, disenchantment, and boredom. One feels cut off from the life around oneself, adrift in a self-referring world of one's own imagining. ... however, the point is not to dwell on the absence or emptiness of such a disconnected ego, but to encounter the phenomenal world in all its vitality and immediacy once such a conception of self begins to fade.
the changing, functional, causal, and conditioned world, present to ordinary sensory and mental experience, is what is ultimately real. ... Thus a seed, a jug, wind in the trees, a desire, a thought, the pain in one's knees, another person: these are what are real.
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Śūnyatā - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emptiness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wisdom of Emptiness - View on Buddhism
"By ‘ultimately,' you mean..?" In terms of their final or ultimate nature - emptiness - they are exactly the same. Nirvana dependently arises and samsara dependently arises. If it were not conditioned by various factors (if it were inherently existing as what it was), there would be no need to talk about methods for attaining that cessation. When you remove ignorance and delusive obstruction (klesha), nirvana is the term we apply to the state of existence that remains.
"How a Theravadin should read the following from the Nibbana Sutta?"
Very carefully.
"And how should each of the Four Noble Truths, namely Dukkha, the Cause of Dukkha, Nibbana and the Noble Eightfold Path, be interpreted as pointing at?" Sprouts and seeds. The unobstructed gap that remains when you pull out a tooth and the method for pulling the tooth.
"By ‘ultimately,' you mean..?" In terms of their final or ultimate nature - emptiness - they are exactly the same. Nirvana dependently arises and samsara dependently arises. .......
"How a Theravadin should read the following from the Nibbana Sutta?"
Very carefully.
........The unobstructed gap that remains when you pull out a tooth and the method for pulling the tooth."
I can never read anything carefully enough, but discussions do help. ;-)
At the end of that Sutta, the Buddha stated:
“precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.”
What I read this as pointing at is the difference between the “unconditioned” Nibbana and the “conditioned” Samsara. But you are saying that he taught that both these are conditioned and in fact the same. And you reason that were this not so and each had individual natures, there would be no possibility of attaining enlightenment. But the Buddha in the same quote appear to suggest just the opposite, namely that were Nibbana not different in nature to Samsara and required to be known as such, emancipation from the latter would not be possible.
What did I read wrong?
Regarding the Four Noble Truths, do you not see a similar distinction made, namely that of conditioned existence and the cause, distinct from the unconditioned and the way to its realization?
"Regarding the Four Noble Truths..? " Absolutely. However, it is clear that reality already has a nature of impermanence and emptiness, even though you're mind is busy fabricating ignorance, delusion and karmic seeds. The fundamental natures of impermanence and emptiness of all phenomena are the same regardless of whether you are in a samsaric of nibbanic mode of existence.
"Namely that were Nibbana not different in nature..." Prasangika doesn't deny "natures" it denies "inherent natures, essences, self-arising, self-sustaining, existing through the force of a fundamental property or characteristic, etc" Nibanna has a set of characteristics none of which are themselves Nibanna: When you put a bunch of things which are not-Nibanna together, you do not get a new emergent thing called Nibanna. Just as when you put five heaps together that are not-self, you do not get a new emergent thing called a self. That is not to say self and nibbana it does not exist. It is discerned as being what it is just as the Buddha has described above. The validly existing conventional phenomena is a mere designation of a name to a set of parts which are themselves not already that name.
"The sense-making machinery ....makes us see the world as more tidy, simple, predictable, and coherent than it really is. The illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future. These illusions are comforting. They reduce the anxiety that we would experience if we allowed ourselves to fully acknowledge the uncertainties of existence.
but there is a way out of that anxiety. faith
not faith in others beliefs or materialism or religion but faith in Self as an expression of the Infinite.
the uncertainties of existence are the stuff of life. what would life be without variation and those uncertainties of existence?
now this sentence is profound. "the illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future"
very interesting insight into life and its struggles.
"If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."
what planet does this lama live on. those that have accepted buddhism and buddhism being a religion has no intentions of changing its beliefs anymore than christians have any intention of changing their beliefs that someone had to die for them to get to their heaven.
there is much evidence that a soul survives this physical life even qualitative evidence. now the soul is not separate from that that is; the infinite cannot be defined for it is infinite without boundaries. this that that is is not a body or a soul as some buddhist claim that others believe.
even the buddhists fail to understand infinite to claim that to believe in an infinite source of all that is is a soul or a body. infinite vitality and intelligence has no body or soul. it just is without boundaries.
please dont ask for that qualitative evidence, one must do their own research. once one buys into a religion any data or evidence that does not adhere to their religious beliefs will be rejected before any investigation. the human mind is that deceptive.
What the Buddhists miss is that dependent origination and mental formations are effects. They call dependent origination a cause but that is not correct.
Dependent origination is about the problem of suffering not about the evolution of the universe. To the Buddhists it is all about suffering; that was the Buddha’s goal to eliminate or reduce suffering. He did well with his realization that the origin of suffering is ignorance.
Most Buddhists don’t know what he realized and confuse symptoms of ignorance such as attachment and cravings for the origin of suffering.
For those seeking and reading these comments in the Buddhist section please do your own research and in that research, if nothing is off limits in your search you will find we do indeed have a soul that continues on after this physical life ends and most reincarnating to advance in their awareness of reality.
If you are a seeker, ask yourself if dependent origination starts with ignorance; what is the origin of that ignorance and if dependent origination is not about the evolution of the universe than what is?
If you are a true believer of Buddhism then none of this will mean anything to you as you have already turned Buddhism into your religion. Once that occurs with religion or politics, etc; the mind shuts out all information that does not agree with its cherished beliefs.
anyone want to bet who considers themselves a real live zen buddhist teacher that gets it entirely.
I belong to no religion including materialism.
I noticed over these years of my life once we decide to belong we almost always find it difficult to accept anything outside our religious beliefs. the paradigm effect sits in and can become paradigm paralysis.
religion can be a necessary path and some religions maybe better than others, then maybe not.
it is interesting to me what one can discover if they decide to not become a true believer of any religion or political ideology or economic ideology etc..
the buddha warned his followers to be open to new discoveries they heard him not. this is what makes buddhism a religion is its true believers.
I have always stated that buddhism and enlightened hinduism are worth while studies. one of my personal favorite hindu teachings comes from teachings of sri aurobindo. but only one of many favorites not a follower or true believer of any teachings.
there are more advanced spiritual teachings to be found. seek and one can find when the mind is ready.
I have emailed the article to Robina. She is in India, I believe. I hope she will read it and send me her feedback.
I am not arguing that intellectual understanding is a substitute for realizing "real" understanding as you call it. But, it is a process and an intellectual understanding does mean something and helps some of us.
this is very well stated. realization changes our view of the world. realizations are as rare as a duck that does not like water or a white crow. a realization is a degree or level of awakening.
most confuse a realization for an insight or discovery. world of difference between them.
intellectual understanding is a oxymoran. there is intellectual knowledge and it may indeed be a prereq for a realization but I suspect a very weak prereq because intellectual knowledge can often become intellectualism.
intellectualism can hide the underlying reality of appearances the very best. materialists and their belief in chance as the cause of life is an excellent example of this.
ie judge not by appearance as they can be very very misleading.
intellectualism in science can lead to scientism.
She is, in brief, awesome.
While the authors effort is not the best effort, I think it is useful in terms of trying to help people who have no direct experience of Sunyata, and tend to be very rationalistic in their orientation towards the world. IOW, those who tend to be instinctively distrustful of the non-rational...and have to be coaxed out of thinking, and pointed towards being.
If our "existence" is a creation of the brain, a mechanism of the unconscious agent-less intentionality of life, then are not the self and the "phenomenal world" of the same origin? Isn't the self as much a part of the ride as anything else? If the self is fading, then what's doing the encountering?
Sometimes I think Buddhism has an underlying egoism about it, a delusion that we have the power to overcome the conundrum of our so-called existence, rather than taking the more direct path of accepting that we are at the mercy of what is beyond the phenomenal world created by brain, whatever we might call it. There but for the grace of God go I.
Practiced properly, Buddhism does not have any enduring "egoism" (Identification with physical or psychological form). In fact, the Dharma eventually SELF-DESTRUCTS. Leaving behind only a mystery (consciousness) that does not cling to any sort of mental, physical or emotional form...and accepts the present moment in whatever form it takes.
In fact the Four Noble Truths emphasize that there ARE no conundrums of our existence other than those created by how we misperceive Reality....and our stubborn refusal to accept things as they are. One "overcomes" those conundrums only by realizing that they were never real to begin with.
As one "overcomes" a dream by simply waking up.
Emptiness and evolution: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-richard-dawkins-buddhist.html
Particle physics: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/11/quantum-buddhism-buddhist-particle.html
Artificial intelligence and the mind: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2011/06/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving.html
Religious irrationalism vs science: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2011/03/civilization-is-west-history-science-by.html
Reductionism: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/10/reductionism-and-buddhist-philosophy.html
Binary basis of generic images vs Platonic forms: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/10/generic-images-in-buddhism.html
Essentialism in Physics, Chemistry and Biology: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/10/essentialism-in-physics-chemistry-and.html
Psychedelia: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/10/buddhism-shamanism-and-use-of.html
Minds, machines and meaning: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/12/minds-machines-and-meaning.html
Processes: http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/11/buddhism-and-process-philosophy.html
The only intersection between the Dharma and Science that is ultimately meaningful is this:
The True Nature of Reality is ultimately non-dual.
IT is The Primordial End State from which The Beginning of “Sva” or “i” or Self-Awareness is born.
For 1 to be comprehended as a pysicality, there has to be Less Than One. Less than 1 is Zero or “Nothing” - i.e. SHUNYA. Putting it simply, IT is The No-Thing from which All Derivatives originate. Thus, Zero or Shunya is The “VIRGIN” Womb that is The “Father”-“Mother”, so to say, GOD of “That” WHICH IS. Is The Alpha and Omega of ALL That IS. Hidden or Manifest. Born or Unborn. Seen or Unseen. THAT WHICH is “this” and “that”, which, The Human Brain perceives as Creation “here” or “there”.
So, how does The “Knowing One” or Buddha experience “Shunyta” or Nothingness?
As The BEGINNING of SELF.
The “Witnessing” BEING, as a “Physicality”, in Observable Self-Experience, “sees” The Being-ness becoming “shunya”. That is, The “more” falls, as if, into The Womb of THAT WHICH is The Ultimate “Less”. And, in THIS “Knowing” finds “That” WHICH IS.
The SELF of Nothingness. And, Everythingness.
From which ALL “That” is... IS.
This is The “i”of SHUNYA.
The Enlightened One, thereafter, after ALL is “done” & “undone”, observes THIS Ultimate “i” of IT - Shunayta - “RE-BORN” as The SELF of The BUDDHA.
IT is a Physical Self-Experience. Rest is Theory. Is RELIGION. Is our Science, Engineering or Maths.
Is “this” or “that”. Is Less Than “Shunya”.
Is Less Than WHAT IS.
and like the vaccum [upgraded to superfluid vaccum ,now called the unified field which Einstein intuited or Hagelin's superstring field] this innermost emptyness is the origin of everything
and just like the superstring field is beyond time and space [Lagrangian {mathematical equation}of the superstring contains no terms of time and space] or origin of time space and causation, the emptyness [essentially the same as Nirvana and Samadhi or in christian terms kingdom of heaven or Ground of Being] is well beyond or before the realm of human words i.e. it is not understood by thinking but only by transcending the mind in meditation
given we are in the religion section where some efffort is made to speak with sceince : physicists are not able to imagine how the human mind could experience the enormous energy present at Planck scale ; millions times more energy than at the atomic level but jsut like th eatomic enrgy doesnt hurt us because it is containedin its internal force fields so it is with the superstring energies
the catholic church had intuited this difficulty and worried about such enormous energy coming loose it feared it as a devil or the dragon [similar to taming th ebull in meditation]
the answer is learn TM tm.org
that which comes from the real is real but are transient and temporal.
the only real and permanent is awareness, the infinite I.
in religious terms the spirit within.
some view this real as cosmic consciousness but my view is that awareness is primary and consciousness as secondary. we do not evolve to greater consciousness we evolve to greater and greater awareness.
we become more aware of reality. that stillness of the absolute is awareness. the emptiness is the lack of the flow of thoughts which is consciousness.
see that was easy. :-)
the awareness of Being is always an awareness of Becoming. religious terms; god is always creating. the hubble telescope is evidence of this always creating mode of being.
the manifested universe and we as expressions of the Real are the becoming part. :-)
nothing manifested can be permanent. consciousness always changing. ie temporal and transient.
"Our inability to see clearly is not due to some inadequate arrangement of the objects of our vision. Although, as a result of restoring our sight, we shall be better able to rearrange those objects, our first task is to reclaim our full powers of seeing.
"Although there are certainly many things in the world to be put right, we shall not be able to accomplish this humane ideal by mere reshuffling the environment. It will never humanly succeed until we can see and appreciate that environment at its full value, until we can envision all its possibilities with expanded heart and mind so that they may be actualized to the advantage of everyone and everything in nature.
"Men and women, however great their responsibilities, have up to now been reduced to reshuffling the environment to varying effect, just because they have not known how to claim this birthright. As a result, it is becoming commonplace to point out that, in spite of prodigies of technological skill, in spite of explosions of objective information, mankind continues to suffer from collective disasters and individual inadequacies.
"When we resume contact with this deep source of creativity within us, we are able to appreciate all the limits that circumstances impose and see beyond them.
"That source within us from which all change arises, the interior reservoir of creative energy, gives to those who have learned to systematically draw upon it a quiet justified confidence born of inner silence and strength."