Dear Subscribers:

Since the subscriber list to Cup of Nirvana blog is growing, I thought I would offer a brief note on the content of future blogs.

As most of you are aware, I’m presently blogging on topics on eastern spirituality and philosophy and topics related to empirical arguments for life after death.  These are very different topical territories, and my writing style typically varies considerably between the two.  I realize that some subscribers are more interested in particular topics than others. While I will try to rotate topics and be balanced, this is not always possible. The terms of my contract with Palgrave Macmillan place certain constraints on the kind and amount of material I can presently share related to my book on life after death.  Nonetheless, I hope to post something on this in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, I will continue to post on topics in eastern philosophy and spirituality.

Enjoy!

Michael Sudduth

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“I just believe in me…Yoko and me, and that’s reality…the dream is over. . .the dream is over, yesterday I was the dream weaver and now I’m reborn.” – John Lennon

For many years I disliked John Lennon’s song “God.”  Like so many other things in life, my dislike of this song was rooted in the threat its lyrics posed to my vision of the world.  It threatened to awaken me from my “dogmatic slumber.” Such a comfortable place, you know? But the dream has been slowly fading during the past few months.  I now understand this song. Lennon had the wonderful gift to describe awakening in a way that was simultaneously offensive and beautiful. I now see the beauty of it, the beauty of being stripped of all these surrogates of Self: heroes, teachers, philosophies, projects, careers, religions, relationships, and lovers.

In celebration of this, below I have altered Lennon’s lyrics to fit my own life and experience of waking up.  This is my personal confession of non-faith in things and people I once trusted and believed in, but life revealed them to be illusions of varying levels of sophistication that merely perpetuated my co-dependence and kept me from seeing life as it is.  Life is happening right now, right here. Don’t miss it because you’re “in love,” “in hate,” a character in someone else’s neurotic story, or otherwise exiled or unconscious.  Be exactly as you are. Find the natural joy and completeness that is already within you.

If you play the video above you can read my revision of the lyrics to Lennon’s original version of the song.  If “God” speaks to you, I invite readers to write their own version of this song.  It will prove quite painful but beautifully illuminating and liberating.

GOD – THE DREAM IS OVER

God is a Concept by which we measure our pain

I’ll say it again

God is a Concept by which we measure our pain

I don’t believe in Batman.

I don’t believe in Elvis.

I don’t believe in Messiah.

I don’t believe in Calvinism.

I don’t believe in Oxford.

I don’t believe in philosophy.

I don’t believe in Hare Krishnas.

I don’t believe in Survival.

I don’t believe in sugar.

I don’t believe in 12 Step.

I don’t believe in therapy.

I don’t believe in Carmel.

I don’t believe in goddess Shakti.

I don’t believe in Autumn.

I don’t even believe in Zen.

I just believe in me…

Aidan and Me

And that’s reality. . .

The dream is over.

What can I say?

The dream is over.

Yesterday I was the Dreamweaver.

But now I’m reborn.

I was the philosopher.

But now I’m Michael.

And so dear lovers,

You’ll just have to carry on.

The dream is over.

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The dharma is never really “conveyed.” It simply unfolds, and this unfolding takes the form of the teacher and student. Ultimately, there is no teacher to convey the dharma and no student to receive the dharma. What is happening here, in this moment when all else is forgotten, is simply truth dancing.

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The following is a revised short abstract of my book in progress, Survival and the Empirical World. – M.S.

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Most broadly stated, Survival and the Empirical World is a philosophical exploration of the empirical approach to postmortem survival, that is, the attempt to assess the prospects for the survival of consciousness or the self after physical death on the basis of observational data. According to this approach to survival, we can in principle arrive at rational judgments about the possibility, plausibility, or probability of survival based on features of the empirical world that may be discovered and analyzed using the kinds of methods employed in the investigation of the world and as paradigmatically represented by the empirical sciences.

I. Book Focus and Thesis 

In the present work, I aim to critically evaluate arguments offered in support of the contention, shared by many who believe in life after death, that there is empirical evidence that justifies belief in personal survival.  My exploration focuses on empirical arguments in the tradition of philosophers such as William James, C.D. Broad, C.J. Ducasse and H.H. Price.  These “classical” arguments for survival are based on a wide range of empirical data drawn from five kinds of ostensibly “paranormal” phenomena: out-of-body and near-death experiences, apparitional experiences, mediumship, and cases of the reincarnation type.  Many survivalists maintain that these phenomena (individually or jointly) provide good perhaps even compelling evidence for postmortem survival.  I argue that empirical survivalists have not adequately made their case for these claims. Empirical arguments for survival, as traditionally formulated by prominent philosophers and survival researchers during the past century, are unsuccessful at providing a robust justification for belief in survival.  In this way the present work aims to make a contribution to the philosophy of postmortem survival by examining fundamental issues in the logic of empirical survival arguments. 

II. Core Issues in the Empirical Survival Debate

The critical evaluation of empirical survival arguments has usually focused on two kinds of skeptical challenges: the prior probability challenge and the alternative explanation challenge.  According to the first, the survival hypothesis has a very low degree of initial credibility, so low that, even if the hypothesis has the explanatory virtues empirical survivalists attribute to it, the survival hypothesis would still not be justified.  According to the second, the relevant data may be at least equally explained by any number of non-survival hypotheses, so the survival hypothesis is not the best explanation of the data adduced in favor of survival.

Whereas skeptics argue that these challenges, individually or jointly, defeat the empirical case for survival, empirical survivalists argue that this is not the case. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the literature in favor of an empirical case for survival has tended to focus on responses to these standard criticisms.  Empirical survivalists routinely emphasize the alleged defects of various non-survival explanations of the relevant data. They also typically attempt to diffuse the prior probability challenge, either by arguing that considerations of prior probability are not relevant or that purported reasons for supposing that survival has a low prior probability are unsuccessful at establishing this. 

III.  Recalibrating the Empirical Survival Debate

My critique of empirical survival arguments calls for a significant recalibration of the core issues in the empirical survival debate.  While the prior probability and alternative explanation challenges raise salient issues, I maintain that the more fundamental issue concerns the generally unacknowledged role and status of auxiliary hypotheses in empirical inferences to survival.  By “auxiliary hypothesis” here I mean a hypothesis whose content adds something to the simple supposition of consciousness or a human person surviving death.  I therefore propose what I call the auxiliary hypothesis challenge. I argue that traditional issues in the empirical survival debate must constellate around problems essentially connected to the reliance on auxiliary hypotheses.  It’s here that we find the most formidable challenge to empirical survival arguments. Moreover, the traditional prior probability and alternative explanation challenges take on their most potent forms when viewed in the light of the closed-allied problems associated with the adoption of auxiliary hypotheses.

IV. The Auxiliary Hypothesis Challenge

According to the auxiliary hypothesis challenge, (i) the relevant data constitute evidence for survival only if we adopt a number of auxiliary hypotheses about what persons would be like if they were to survive death, but (ii) this auxiliary hypothesis requirement actually generates a defeater for survival arguments in all their current formulations.  The auxiliary hypothesis requirement itself is based on a common feature of empirical survival arguments, namely the contention that the survival hypothesis leads us to expect the relevant data.  All such predictive features of the hypothesis depend on more than the simple supposition that some human persons survive death.  It involves adopting a wide range of assumptions about what persons would be like if they were to survive death.  However, these auxiliary hypotheses are either unjustified or, if justifiable, can only be justified by very liberal principles of epistemic justification that would equally justify other kinds of auxiliary hypotheses that may be conjoined with non-survival hypotheses to lead us to expect the same body of data.

I maintain that the auxiliary hypothesis challenge poses a dilemma for the empirical survivalist, and I show the several ways in which this dilemma constitutes a defeater for empirical survival arguments.  More precisely, I show why the dilemma prevents us from justifiably concluding that the survival hypothesis has a favorable net plausibility, that is, that it is at least more probable than not.  I also show that it prevents us from justifiably concluding more modestly that the survival hypothesis has a favorable comparative probability, that is, that the survival hypothesis is, if not more probable than not, at least more probable than the nearest competitor.

Since it is widely held among survival researchers and parapsychologists that the empirical approach to survival offers grounds for belief in survival that are superior to religion as a source for belief in life after death, my skeptical conclusion undermines this contention and thereby serves as a defense of religiously-based belief in survival.  Neither parapsychology nor survival research has succeeded in offering a viable epistemological alternative to religious grounds for belief in survival.

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Are you seeking enlightenment? What I’m about to say may be surprising: give up this search for enlightenment.  Everyone seeking “enlightenment” ensures only one result, the continuation of his or her own unhappiness.  Your fundamental interest is best served by simply dumping this search for enlightenment into the nearest trashcan.

In the present essay, I would like to deconstruct or demythologize “enlightenment” and explain the central insight of Non-Duality within many of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  This central insight may be concisely stated as follows: you are already awake, and nothing can make you more awake than you already are. As something not already in your possession, not already your present reality, and therefore as something you aim to attain, enlightenment is a myth, indeed a delusion. The search for enlightenment is self-defeating in this way, for the reality you are seeking can never become your present reality because it already is your present reality.  As Zen Buddhist Sekkei Harada has said, “If you make a separation between yourself and what you are looking for, no matter how much effort you make to lessen that distance, that effort will be in vain.”

I.  The Enlightenment-Seeking Game 

Humans have something of a shared project: the search for completion, satisfaction, or fulfillment.  In the material sphere of existence, we seek completion through money, fame, physical possessions of various sorts, drugs, and—if we’re more “evolved”—the right kind of relationship with another person (e.g., friendship, lover, partner). Many people realize at some point, though, that none of these objects or relationships really brings a genuine or lasting completion or fulfillment.  Once we’ve run through multiple unsatisfying relationships or career paths, we may find ourselves, like many others, moving on and seeking completion in an ostensibly transcendent or spiritual object or relationship.  By way of meditation, prayer, or some other spiritual practice, one seeks spiritual awakening or a personal connection with God.  Those lucky enough to find it, inevitably lose it and spend the rest of their lives trying to find it again.

Why?

The search for completion, whether undertaken in the material or spiritual spheres of human experience, is actually one and the same.  It’s the search to be someone or something, to have an identity, and it’s rooted in our shared sense of incompletion and lack of satisfaction.  At the root of the search for enlightenment is the same feeling and belief at the root of the search for completion in the material sphere of existence, namely the feeling of separateness and the belief that I am a separate self and therefore lacking a connection or oneness with others and the world. From this notion of being a separate self arises all suffering or lack of satisfaction.  As long as searching is present, lack of satisfaction is present.  As Francis Lucille has aptly noted, “unhappiness is the search for happiness.”  What must ultimately be uprooted is not the object of the search, but the very search itself.  The reason why our search for enlightenment fails is not because we haven’t found the right object.  It fails because we think there is an object, something outside ourselves and something not already present, that will bring the satisfaction we wish to attain. 

II.  The Dualistic Presuppositions of Enlightenment-Seeking

To hear that the search for enlightenment is misguided is initially confusing to most people.  This is probably because the eastern spiritual traditions are often portrayed as proposing paths that allegedly lead to enlightenment.  Enlightenment is the spiritual equivalent of baking a cake: just follow the recipe, and there are lots of recipes out there for enlightenment. So, for example, by practicing meditation a person is supposed to achieve enlightenment, or by engaging in devotion to a particular god (e.g., Shiva or Krishna) a person is supposed to experience God.  After all, wasn’t the “Buddha” (i.e., the “awakened one”) born only when Siddhartha Gautama achieved special insight while sitting under the Bodhi tree after many years of meditation and rigorous spiritual practice? Didn’t the various Christian saints experience God only after their devotional practice was sufficiently elevated? 

The assumption in this common account of enlightenment is that we move from lacking something (e.g., knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment, connection with God) to possessing it. Our natural condition, or at least starting point, is that of ignorance: ignorance about the true nature of the world and the self.  By following a particular path or spiritual practice this condition of ignorance is supposed to dissolve.  One achieves a new condition of awakening or enlightenment.  There is practice, and there is the goal to which it leads. Practice and goal are two separate things, and the goal is achieved as the effect of the practice as cause.

This common understanding of enlightenment and its conditions is misleading at best, and in at least one sense simply false.  So I call it the “myth of enlightenment.” 

The common understanding rests on the false assumption that there is actually a separation between things, for example, between some goal and the means that leads to it, or a separation between the place you’re in at present and where you should be in order to be “OK.”  Most fundamentally, it assumes a separation between what you are and that which you wish to attain.  The eastern traditions use the word “samsara” to refer to the cycle of death and rebirth, a cycle fueled by our attachments to sense objects (e.g., things, people, relationships).  In samsara there is suffering, as our attachments never bring us lasting satisfaction. Samsara is often contrasted with moksha (liberation from the suffering intrinsic to samsara) or nirvana (cessation of the suffering intrinsic to samsara).  The common understanding of enlightenment suggests a separation between samsara and moksha/nirvana.

The common understanding engenders questions like, where is Nirvana located? What kind of existence is Nirvana?  Do we need to die to get there?  Similarly, it leads seekers to suppose that enlightenment is some exotic experience, some altered state of consciousness.  After all, if enlightenment is a realm outside of ordinary experience, it must at the very least involve a radically altered state of consciousness.  So people end up ingesting some hallucinogenic drug and spending four hours looking at smashed cherries on the sidewalk in the hope of seeing the face of God. 

III.  The Non-Dual Understanding of Enlightenment 

In the non-dual spiritual traditions (for example, in Zen Buddhism and Hindu Advaita Vedanta), the forms of separation or duality suggested by the common understanding of enlightenment are considered false, or at any rate they cannot be the ultimate truth. Therefore, non-dual traditions have a very different understanding of enlightenment and its relation to spiritual practice and our present condition. 

Three famous non-dual teachers illustrate the fundamental point.

Second-century Indian philosopher Nagarjuna wrote: 

Nothing of saṁsāra is different from nirvāṇa, nothing of nirvāṇa is different from saṁsāra. That which is the limit of nirvāṇa is also the limit of saṁsāra; there is not the slightest difference between the two.

Zen master Dogen said: 

You should understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. Nirvana is not realized outside of birth-and-death. . . . Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment’s gap. . . .It’s not that there is no practice and no enlightenment. It’s just that it’s not possible to divide them.

Ramana Maharshi taught: 

The state of Self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been.

It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. . . . Liberation is our very nature.  We are that! 

There is no goal to be reached. There is nothing to be attained.  You are the Self.  You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than that it exists.  Seeing God or the Self is only being the Self or yourself.  Seeing is being.

So where is nirvana? Answer: it’s nowhere; indeed, it’s nothing other than life as it is already present to you.  What kind of experience is it? Answer: it isn’t an experience at all. It’s what is present in all experience, namely the awareness or consciousness at the root of every thought, feeling, and sensation, or what is often called the witnessing background of experience.  As Maharshi repeatedly said, nothing is more evident to us than I am, not I am “this” or “that,” but simply I am, simple consciousness, or the abiding presence of awareness. 

According to the logic of Non-Duality, there can be no ultimate separation between practice and enlightenment because reality as such is non-dual.  Since the mind operates according to dualistic categories, the mind’s grasp of reality is always by means of conceptual and categorical overlay.  We cannot say that the mind is grasping things as they truly are. Consequently, practice and enlightenment become two things by way of mental engagement with reality as it is.  Similarly, no one can achieve enlightenment or awakening because that which is (inadequately) signified by the term “awakening” is already the present reality, indeed the only reality there is.

In considering your alleged “awakening,” simply ask yourself “who is there to be awakened”?  Not your true Self, for your true Self is already awake, just as the sun is already shining and inseparable from its light.  The mind cannot be awakened, for to become awake is to see and be all things as they truly are, as ultimately one.  This is beyond the mind, which can only approach it by speculative and theoretical reconstruction, as an object of inquiry.  A character in a film may intellectually entertain the possibility of being made out of the screen, but he cannot experientially know it. Similarly, the mind cannot know the substratum of pure awareness out of which it is made. 

What is often obscured in this exploration is the distinction between the fact of our essential nature and the mind’s encounter with it or approach to it.  Our essential nature is clear seeing or simple awareness.  More completely stated, it’s the union of being and knowing, and peace is intrinsic to it.  For this reason, in Vedanta the Self is called satchitananda (being-consciousness-bliss). Hence, peace is already the present reality.  However, having judged this reality not to be present, the mind embarks upon the search for it.  Of course, it will not find it for the very reason that it initially judges it absent.  The present reality eludes the grasp of the mind because reality is non-dual, but the mind operates on a dualistic schema, which filters and alters the present reality, dividing it into subject-object and thereby separating being and knowing.  Hence, the peace intrinsic to our very Self is not graspable by the mind. At best, it’s obscurely reflected in the mind it in a filtered, limited form.

A frequently used analogy to illustrate the relationship between the mind and our essential nature as abiding peaceful awareness is that of a dusty mirror that reflects rays of light from the sun.  The mirror can only inadequately approximate the reality of the sun by reflecting its light along the surface of its limited, dusty contours.  Neither the mirror nor the light it reflects is the sun itself. It’s the sun altered or modified in the form light from the mirror.  Similarly, the effects of our essential nature may arise in the mind, veiled and altered under name and form.  In this way, “awareness” – I am – takes the form of a particular I-thought (I am a man, I am a student), I-feeling (I am tired, I am sad), or I-sensation (I am appeared to redly, I am appeared to mountainly).  The latter are all limited names and forms of unlimited awareness.  At best they dimly reflect our essential nature. 

Rupert Spira has nicely summarized enlightenment from the non-dual viewpoint.

Real enlightenment is not an exotic experience.  It’s the natural condition of all experience.  It’s the most familiar thing we know: just the knowing of our own being as it is, and it shines at the heart of all experience. 

IV. Re-Conceptualizing the Enlightenment Experience

What then is the alleged experience of enlightenment?  After all, many people have claimed such an experience.  Two possibilities present themselves that are consistent with non-duality. 

First, they may be referring to the mind’s reflection of the reality that is already present as their essential Self.  Here there is no becoming enlightened.  The mind is always reflecting this present reality, for it is not an experience but the witnessing background of all experience.  What is always present is awareness, I am or I am present.  At the most we can say that something is noticed, in much the same way that we may suddenly notice the screen on the television we’ve been watching for an hour. We’ve been looking at the screen all along as we watch the movie.  But our attention shifts to the screen as that out of which the movie is made.  Periodically there is a blissful experience or some other apparent shift in awareness.  The thing to understand here is that the particular experience is an effect of the deeper reality; it is not that reality itself.  Those who are seeking a particular experience will invariably miss their essential nature.

Alternatively, what is called “enlightenment” may also be conceptualized not as an event in the mind or ego (even as the effect of our essential Self), but as what is left when the separate self or mind has dissolved. This preserves non-duality in a more coherent manner.  When there is a noticing of abiding awareness, it’s the same noticing that is happening all along, except that the hindrance, the mind, has been removed.  The mind does not apprehend the Self, neither directly nor indirectly.  It is knowing that knows, and knowing immediately and infallibly knows itself.  And this knowing is simply non-different from being the Self each person essentially is, in much the same way that the sun’s being just is the sun’s illumination. 

We can, of course, interpret spiritual practice in either of these two ways, as either a polishing of the mirror or as a shattering of the mirror.  But consider practice from the latter viewpoint.  Ramana Maharshi, in recommending the method of self-inquiry, asked his students to trace the I-thought back to its source, which is the Self or Essential I of pure awareness.  In this process, of course, the mind never gets to the source.  It dissolves upon approach, like rays of light reflected off a mirror back into the sun from which they originated. As Maharshi said, “When the ‘I’ is divested of the ‘I’ only the ‘I’ remains.”  So it’s not that the mind achieves insight, either directly or indirectly.  The mind simply ceases to exist.  It’s not that practice polishes the mirror.  Practice breaks the mirror altogether, which is why the understanding that is present in clear seeing is non-different from our very being. Better yet, practice is the celebration of realization as our essential nature. 

Hence, Maharshi says: 

You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.

V.  A Non-Dual Orientation Towards Practice

We can still speak of enlightenment or awakening, though paradoxically there is no one there to be enlightened or awakened.  At the most, we can say there is awakening.  Indeed, there was awakening, there is awakening, and there will always be awakening. There is also no need to deny practice.  What is essential is the attitude towards it.  Any orientation towards practice that loses sight of the abiding presence of awareness loses sight of practice itself, for practice is itself an expression of the awakening that is the Self.

Paradoxically, the best practice for a person will be whatever practice helps relax and dissolve the effort to find enlightenment.  It can be playing the guitar, basketball, writing in a journal, sitting by the ocean, reading a book, petting a cat, making love, eating chocolate, painting a wall, or sitting in a Zendo with your face to the wall.  All these activities can be forms and expressions of meditation, if by this we understand what Krishnamurti said: “in meditation every form of search must come to an end.”  What is crucial is being present, and you are utterly present whenever your activity is undertaken for no reason other than the pure love of doing it. Here you see that meditation is what you are, and it’s merely revealed in the practice.  For this reason, Jeff Foster says, “the end of all seeking is life as it is.”  Here there is clear seeing, of dogs, people, trees, rivers, butterflies, birth, pain, and death.

Of course, life “as it is” is already underway and totally present.  Oneness is not something separate from what is already happening around you and within you.  And you are already seeing life as it is.  Indeed, you are that life!  Therefore, in your essential nature you are already awake, and nothing can make you more awake than you already are. 

Michael Sudduth

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The Sesshin at Jikoji Zen Meditation Retreat Center ended on Sunday July 6, 2014 with my first bite of chocolate in two years.

For those unfamiliar with sesshin, it’s a multi-day period of intensive Zen meditation. We just completed a three-day sesshin at Jikoji. For various reasons, my participation in the sesshin was less than I had anticipated, but something very profound happened at the end.  You might call it enlightenment, satori, or nirvana, or – what amounts to the same – life as it is.  I ended my nearly two-year abandonment of processed sugar and ate a large piece of chocolate.  While this may seem insignificant to many people, it was a profoundly beautiful event I experienced in utter solitude. 

Background. I had a very dear friend visiting me here at Jikoji for a few days. While roaming unseasonably frigid beaches in Santa Cruz, we had some wonderful discussions about our evolving spiritual practices and individual life journeys.  Among our “lighter” topics of discussion was food, and in connection with that what “sweet” thing I should choose to temporarily suspend my now nearly two-year abandonment of processed sugar.  I had decided that it should be extremely expensive, something like a $30 chocolate eclair at a fancy restaurant, consumed with an expensive bottle of wine and the company of close friends, somewhat reminiscent of Socrates being joined with close friends as he drank the hemlock and passed into the world of the gods.

However, on Sunday as I walked into the resident kitchen at Jikoji, in a moment’s realization my former intention struck me as utterly absurd.  It was then that my eyes fell upon a huge block of dark, bitter-sweet chocolate with almonds, sitting on the kitchen table.  I walked up to it, broke off a large chunk, and without a second thought ate it all by myself. I drank it down with a cup of earl grey tea . . . hot. 

I have a feeling I will later look upon this experience and realize that I was “enlightened” at the moment the chocolate entered my mouth. maybe before, or maybe after.  For now, I simply see the experience as one in which I let the river carry me to the ocean.  Perhaps as the chocolate dissolved in my mouth, I too dissolved into a timeless present in which clinging and aversion had temporarily disappeared.

Do I now become a sugar addict again?  Only time will tell.  However, self understanding, which is the only final virtue in life, is worth the risk.  As philosopher Harry Callahan aptly noted, “a good man always knows his limitations.”  Yet sometimes we only discover our real limits but pressing hard against the false boundaries we have erected in our lives. Right now, I’m largely about saying “fuck you” to limits grounded in delusions created by aversion and my former co-dependent relationship with my ex fiancée.

The bite of chocolate is in a sense nirvana: the cessation of a subtle form of suffering, which can only be rooted out and dissolved one bite at a time.  True freedom lies in the ability to say “yes” to whatever places you on the fine line between utter destruction and complete fulfillment. Anything short of this is a life half lived, and any such life is hardly lived at all. 

Michael Sudduth

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Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981)

“When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two.” – Nisargadatta 

Nisargadatta here summarizes one of the central insights articulated in the Upanishads.  He speaks of wisdom or knowledge associated with a negative realization, the realization of what one is not. He also speaks of love associated with the positive realization of what one is. He speaks of his life as a movement between each, for life may be lived in such a way that the wisdom gained by understanding what we are not gives rise to the loving understanding of what we are. Having divested ourselves of the understanding that we are the limited mind, body, or mind-body, we are situated to see that we are a vaster Self present and experienced in all things.

The Path of Exclusion

“To see that one is nothing” doesn’t mean “to see oneself as non-existent.” It’s rather to see one’s no-thingness, seeing that essentially we are not the limited being we believe ourselves to be.  More specifically, it’s to see that the real self is not the mind-body or any of its many manifestations or roles: man, woman, son, father, mother, student, professor, lawyer, American, Californian, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.  I am not what is thought in thinking.  I am not what is perceived in perceiving.  I am not what is sensed in sensing. I am not the body, which appears as the object of my thinking, perceiving, and sensing.  To see that one is no-thing is to dissolve the sense of self that is rooted in attachments to the non-enduring objects of sense experience.  This “path of exclusion” involves a dismantling of a false conception of the self that has arisen from identification with the body-mind.  The Upanishads directs us to this understanding of our essential nature by the phrase neti neti (not this, not that), that is, “I am not this thing” and “I am not that thing.”

Then what?

When the subject is divested of an identity forged in relation to an ostensibly independently existing world of outer objects, the true subject itself is revealed or realized.  I am not my thinking, perceiving, or sensing. I am that which is aware of them. The only enduring feature of experience is the atman, pure awareness, the ever-present, witnessing background of all experience. This is the “I” that remains once the I (of the false ego) is dissolved. In this way, the path of exclusion brings one to the knowledge of the true, enduring Self.

The Path of Inclusion

However, what is given in the knowledge that one is pure awareness is not the knowledge of the nature of this pure awareness. This remains to be explored as a second movement after the path of exclusion. We can speak of it as a “path of inclusion.” Here the Self, initially distinguished from the world, returns to the world and ultimately sees all things as manifestations of the Self.  The return to the world of objects commences with the exploration of our experience.  It is to ask, what is known in the thinking? What is known in the perceiving? What is known in the sensing? It is to see, after careful engagement, that there is nothing in the experience other than the knowing of it.  In the perception of the tree, there is nothing but the knowing of it. In the sensation of heat, there is nothing but the knowing of it. In the thought of one’s name, there is nothing but the knowing of it. Experience itself is made of nothing but the knowing of it.

“To see that one is everything” is just to see that everything is made out of the awareness that is oneself.  However, never coming to be nor ceasing to be, this awareness is ever-present, without origin, and eternal. Having no boundaries, it is boundless. Having no limit, it is limitless or infinite. The Self does not partake of the destiny of either the body or the mind, but is witness to their birth and witness to their ultimate dissolution.

The Path of Love

This path of inclusion may be understood as “the path of love,” and from this love all compassion freely flows.

First, from the viewpoint of the Upanishads, the heart of all suffering is resistance, and resistance arises from subject-object duality. I can only experience resistance if there is the perception of some thing other than myself.  There can be no resistance in non-duality. Thus non-duality is peace, completeness, satisfaction, or the absence of wanting or needing. Otherwise put, suffering arises from resistance born of the separation between the knower and what is known (being).  Ananda (bliss or love) may therefore be understood as the union or non-separateness of knowing and being.

Second, love is the outflowing of one’s being that produces the infinite variety of the objects of experience. They are so many manifestations of the love that is oneself.  But love is also the inflowing of one’s being back into awareness, for in the realization that “the object” is really a form of the “subject,” the object as a mere object dissolves. Love, divested of its object, falls back into the Self from which it originated. Hence, as the Upanishads state, all things arise from love, evolve through love, and dissolve into love.  You are that love, the fountain of compassion guided by wisdom.

Michael Sudduth

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During the past few weeks, I have posted thoughts at the intersection of Zen and Advaita Vedanta.  Here I offer the first of several blogs that I will simply call “Zen Thoughts,” though much of what I have to say reflects the non-dual tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

I begin with three quotes from Zen master Dogen.

“Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment’s gap.”

“Great enlightenment is the tea and rice of everyday living.”

“Beyond enlightenment is the jewel concealed in your hair.”

In the first statement Dogen affirms the non-separateness of the Path and the Goal.  In the second he tells us that what we are looking for in the way of spiritual attainment (Path and Goal) is our present reality.  In the third he makes the same point, with the suggestion that we need to “get over” enlightenment as a goal.

Below I explore Dogen’s wisdom.  The first section is a series of statements about enlightenment as our present reality, the mental conditions under which this present reality is obscured, and human suffering.  The second section is a series of statements about zazen, so-called “Zen meditation.” 

I offer these thoughts not simply from an intellectual standpoint but as children born from me through zazen practice during the past few months.  Ultimately, of course, Zen insight cannot be adequately captured through thoughts or words. You must deeply dive into your experience.

Enlightenment as the Veiled Present Reality

1. The greatest challenge in the search for enlightenment is finding the path that leads to it, and the greatest challenge in the search for the path to enlightenment is realizing where you are at present.  The path you are seeking is actually where you are in your present condition, and the light you hope to find at the journey’s end is already your present reality.  It is shining as your essential Self.

2. The mind veils the Dharma (truth), so it is not seen as your present reality.  The mind veils the Path, so it is not seen as the ground where you are already standing and upon which you already walk.  The mind veils the Self, so that it’s seen to be different from the Dharma and the Path.

3. What is the veil?  The veil is the belief and subsequent feeling that I am this self, this person, that what I essentially am shares in the limits and destiny of the mind-body.  Being this self, I am separate from other things.  Being separate from other things, aversion and clinging to them arises.  In short, the veil is the mind’s story. The central character is the “I-thought” and the plot is the search for enlightenment, intermittently suspended by brief moments of peace in an on-going cycle of clinging and aversion.

4. Ramana Maharshi said, “When the I is divested of the I, only the I remains.”  Here the Big Mind of Zen meets the Abiding Awareness of Vedanta.  Enlightenment, therefore, may be described as a subtraction:  the falling away of the small mind, the dismantling of the false ego, the dissolution of what we take ourselves to be.

5a. The present reality is the perception of the butterfly landing on a leaf, the sound of a passing car, the taste of cashew butter, the smell of oranges, the softness of the cat’s fur as your hand glides upon its back – all an expression or manifestation of life as it is, without judgment, without reaction.  You are that.

5b. The present reality is the perception of the lifeless body of a bird, the screeching sound of nails upon a chalk board, the sourness of a lemon, the smell of rotting meat, and the prick of a thorn that penetrates your skin – all an expression or manifestation of life as it is, without judgment, without reaction. You are that.

5c. The present reality is your struggle, your depression, your anxiety, your sadness, your pain, your suffering.  It’s the impermanence of things; indeed, it’s the no-thingness of things.  You are that.

6. The greatest obstacle in the search for enlightenment is searching for enlightenment, because in this search you might miss the chair sitting in your room.

7.  Don’t worry about enlightenment. It will find you, and there’s utterly nothing you can do to prevent it.  You may be taking a shower, drinking tea, or brushing your teeth.  You may be reading a novel, conversing with a friend, or watching a cat walk along a fence.  You may be laughing, crying, or sleeping.  Enlightenment will find you.

8.  Enlightenment is like breathing.  It’s present and happening all the time but just not noticed.

9. I like this “pleasant” experience. Attachment to it arises. Suffering is invited. I dislike this “unpleasant” experience.  Aversion to it arises.  Suffering is experienced.

10. Unhappiness is nothing less and nothing more than the search for happiness, but the substance of all unhappiness is the very enduring peace we wish we had instead.

Sunset at Jikoji Ridge

On Zazen (“Zen Meditation”)

1.  Zazen is the path. Zazen is the goal.  Zazen is the goalless path. All true. Like enlightenment, zazen is ungraspable because it grasps us.  If you are reaching for it, it has already reached you.  This is your present condition.

2. Having taken the noble posture in zazen, simply sit with whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensations arise in the mind-body.  Simply “watch” the inner movie, with neither clinging nor aversion to the characters or storyline.  Just observe, without judgment, without commentary.   If judgment or commentary arises, be the watcher of these too.

3. In zazen there is no attempt to change or control the mind, no attempt to rigidly fix the attention on some thought, feeling, or sensation.  In fact, there is no attempt to grasp after or get anything, even from the practice itself. There is, therefore, space for all thoughts, feelings, and sensations.  In this way, life as it is may be clearly seen and seen as one’s present reality.  Zazen is simply the direct or immediate encounter with life as it is.

4. Having freed attention from this or that thought, image, or mantra, we are left only to face the self, to trace the “I-thought” to its origin.

5.  If you close your eyes, you easily fall into your thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Open your eyes and always come back to your breath to remain on the “outside” of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.  Always observing.  Know that when judgment is present (“I like this” or “I dislike that”), the mind is speaking.  The witness or observer is awareness.

6. Welcome the unpleasant feeling or thought as much as the pleasant, for they are equally your inner guides. Do not dictate the duration of their stay.  As they spontaneously arise in you, so also they will dissolve of their own accord.

7.  It’s not possible to sit quietly for an extended period of time and not begin the process of peeling away the defenses the mind has created to keep you from life as it is.  This is why few people like to sit still for more than a few moments.  The mind knows the conditions of its own demise.

8a.  Zazen is unconscious work being done on conscious life.  Zazen is conscious work being done on unconscious life.  This is why five minutes in zazen is better than no time in zazen.  What we may describe as “shitty zazen” is zazen nonetheless and on that account entirely efficacious, whether we know it or not.

8b.  If you practice zazen, you may have an experience you call “enlightenment,” or you may not have such an experience. It’s also possible that you will experience enlightenment and simply not know it.

9. The effects of zazen are compassion and wisdom, extended towards oneself and all sentient beings.  Softness guided by insight is a precious jewel.

10.  If you have ever done the dishes, made a bed, or taken out the garbage, you have experienced the whole reality contained in zazen but so cleverly veiled by the small mind.

11. Zazen is a universal “yes.” It is a “yes” to everything, the pleasant and the unpleasant, self and no-self, truth and falsehood, suffering and peace.  This universality, this meeting of every aspect of life, is symbolized in the mudra, the oval-shaped positioning of the hands in zazen. And having experienced this “yes” while sitting, experience it while standing, walking, and working.  Let every action be a “yes” to the world.  In this way, let every action originate from the center.  This center is the vitality of utter presence in your action.  Zazen in silence and zazen in activity is each zazen, each the vehicle of Dharma transmission.

12.  There are many ways of describing Zazen:  the study of the self, the dissolution of the small mind, the peace of being, oneness, life as it is, and so forth.  These words underscore the basic interest of Zen:  finding satisfaction in every moment of life, even the unhappy ones.  However, it’s important to get beyond words.  Only in zazen, whether in silence or activity, is the Dharma directly experienced.

13. It seems paradoxical to offer thoughts on what cannot be grasped by thought, but the whole point of the exercise is to collapse or dissolve the mind to make room for a special kind of understanding.  This understanding is, in the words of the famous Zen koan, “your face before your parents were born.”

Michael Sudduth

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Earlier in the month I responded to author Michael Prescott’s critical comments on my  critique of Chris Carter’s defense of empirical arguments for life after death. After publishing my response on his blog, his readers have offered various counterpoints.  I told Prescott that I would be happy to respond to “highlights” of his readers’ posts.  So here’s my response to the selections he emailed me earlier in the week. Since I don’t provide much background to the various comments, I’d recommend that interested subscribers to my blog first read the comments section in Prescott’s blog where Prescott’s readers responded to my arguments. – M.S.

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Michael:

I’ve read the selected comments you forwarded to me from your readers.  Here are some responses. 

First, some of your readers brought up near-death experiences (NDEs), which I have not directly addressed at this stage.  So here’s a preview.  On my view, NDEs provide prima facie justification for belief in survival for those who have such experiences, and the testimonial data from such experiences may provide an interesting argument against some materialist philosophies of mind.  But I don’t think there’s a good argument for survival from the testimonial data.  In fact, I’d say that arguments for survival based solely on the data from NDEs are the second weakest kind of survival argument, the weakest being arguments from apparitional experiences. In addition to the widely advertised problems with NDE survival arguments, all such arguments will run into the problem of auxiliary hypotheses. I’ll discuss this in more detail in my book.

Second, as far as the alleged consistency of NDEs goes, it’s not clear to me what precisely your readers think this actually proves, shows, or otherwise establishes vis-à-vis the survival hypothesis or my critique.  For reasons I’ll note here, I think the appeal to the consistency of NDEs has limited value within the larger landscape of the survival debate.

(i) As is well known from the analysis of religious experience in the philosophy of religion, it’s relatively easy to find consistent/inconsistent features in different experiences when the experience-type has vague parameters. Given the elastic parameters of NDEs, the acceptance of the survivalist interpretation of NDEs based on their consistency is just as unwarranted as the rejection of the survivalist interpretation of NDEs on the grounds of their alleged inconsistency. Proponents and opponents are equally held captive to naïve ways of conceptualizing the situation. 

(ii) Even if we grant that the descriptions of NDEs are consistent and exhibit various non-trivial coherence relations, what follows? It’s unclear how this shows a “hole” in my argument.  My central argument, even applied to NDEs, is entirely compatible with NDEs exhibiting coherence.  It’s also compatible with the consistency of NDEs contributing to the evidential value of NDEs.  However, until we formulate an argument for survival that is informed by the issues in evidence assessment I’ve raised, we don’t really know the net value of consistency.  This is just another example of survivalists thinking that the demands of serious argument are met by claiming that survival is true because they’ve provided a statement of their subjective degree of confidence in unclear or contentious principles.

Third, with respect to Rouge’s comments about auxiliary hypotheses, I think he’s confused either about what independent testability involves or about how it’s applied in the sciences. 

(i) Contrary to Rouge’s suggestion, the auxiliary hypotheses required to test different evolutionary hypotheses actually are independently testable in the relevant sense.  See Elliott Sober’s Evidence and Evolution (chapters 3-4), where this is demonstrated, for example with reference to common ancestry and phylogenetic relationships. 

But let’s be clear about what independent testability involves. Your readers seem to be operating with some highly inflated and/or idiosyncratic conception.  Roughly stated, for a hypothesis H (proposed to explain observation O) to be independently testable means there’s a procedure that produces a justification for h that does not depend on our being antecedently justified in accepting H, not H, or O.  I’ve provided many examples in my publications showing how this condition is widely satisfied in the sciences and in a variety of everyday applications.  (I direct your readers once again to my “Getting Sober about Survival” blog series where I discussed these issues). So survival arguments fail to secure an epistemic virtue that is widely exemplified across different disciplines and modes of inquiry.  In the light of this, the survivalist appeal to “consistency” looks at best like “last prize.”  This tends to reinforce suspicions about survival arguments rather than rescue them from skeptical objections.

(ii) There’s no doubt that the fossil record by itself, though incompatible with certain theistic-creation hypotheses, is nonetheless compatible with a range of alternative hypotheses of the sort Rouge outlined.  But this strikes me as utterly insignificant.  A single piece of evidence at the scene of a crime may eliminate one suspect but still leave us with three possible suspects.  This is why it’s important to locate “discriminatory evidence,” that is, observations that are to be expected given one hypothesis but not another. And, as I’ve argued, an essential aspect of such a program is locating independently testable auxiliary hypotheses in arriving at predictive consequences for both one’s preferred hypothesis and whatever hypothesis is the competitor. Again, I refer readers to Sober’s discussion (in Evidence and Evolution) of how a hypothesis is to be tested against a competitor.

Fourth, Rouge appeals to the transmission theory of consciousness, apparently to show, contrary to what I’ve argued, that some conceivable survival scenarios are more to be expected than others if consciousness survives death.  This is at least an interesting suggestion. 

There’s some initial confusion in Rouge’s argument, for he begins by saying: 

I would argue that any version of the transmission theory is compatible with the persistence of memory, intentions, skills, and personality, and that the transmission theory in some form is by far the most likely model of the mind-brain relationship.

But, of course, the issue is not whether the transmission theory is compatible with the persistence of memories, etc. (of course it is), but rather—the stronger notion—whether these are to be expected.  Rouge then switches to the stronger conception: 

On the basis of the transmission theory, certain afterlife-related outcomes would be predicted to occur – not invariably, given the individual variations that are natural in any study of human consciousness, but at least in some cases. We would expect some dying patients to show heightened lucidity as consciousness begins to slough off the damaged brain – and there are cases of “terminal lucidity,” vivid and veridical deathbed visions, and NDEs in which thought and perception are heightened far beyond ordinary experience. We would expect mental confusion attributable to a damaged brain to clear up in a postmortem state, and mediumistic communications provide support for this. We would expect the deceased to retain their memories and even to experience them more vividly, and again this is consistent with mediumship, past-life studies, and NDEs (the life review). So I would suggest that, while testable predictions in this area are inevitably less certain than those in (say) chemistry or physics, the transmission theory does provide us with some predictions, and these predictions have tended to pan out.

It looks like Rouge wants to treat the transmission theory of consciousness as an auxiliary hypothesis for the purposes of developing a space of plausible survival worlds from among a larger array of merely conceivable survival worlds. So if consciousness survives death (the survival hypothesis) and the transmission theory (auxiliary hypothesis) were true, then certain afterlife-related outcomes would be predicted to occur, well, at least in some cases.  Since the transmission theory has been independently tested (with success, according to Rouge), we have a survival-friendly auxiliary hypothesis for which there is independent evidence but which leads us to expect the relevant data. 

This is the most interesting suggestion from among the various comments, but ultimately it’s not plausible.

(i) Where T = the transmission theory and O = any of the observational data (noted by Rouge), let’s assume that the value of Pr(O | T)—the probability of O given T—is well defined.  The relevant range of data for survival arguments is considerably broader than O.   Survival arguments require that the Pr(D | S) has a well-defined value, where D = the broader range of data and S = the survival hypothesis.  A well-defined value for Pr(D | S) requires the kinds of auxiliary hypotheses I’ve outlined in detail, but it’s not possible to derive these auxiliaries from T.   So even if Pr(O | T) is well-defined, this would be insufficient to extricate survival arguments from the problem of auxiliary hypotheses.

(ii) However, as it turns out, the value of Pr(O | T) is actually not well-defined. Rouge doesn’t actually show why T should lead us to expect O, but this is precisely what needs to be argued.  And this is particularly important because Rouge has hedged the prediction with an extremely important qualifier, namely in some cases.  So why should T lead us to expect O, yet only in some cases? Which cases exactly?  What are the even approximate parameters here? And is this a consequence of the content of T, or T + something extra? Rouge nonchalantly refers to “individual variations that are natural in any study of human consciousness,” but this is not to be lightly passed over.  Until Rouge can answer these questions, there’s no workable model here at all, and certainly no challenge to my claim that the auxiliary hypotheses required by survival arguments are not independently testable.

On the face of it, Rouge’s assertion of alleged predictive derivations strikes me as more retrofitting.  He’s simply transferred this from the survival hypothesis to the transmission theory.  His qualifier is quite convenient, too convenient.  It allows easy confirmation but makes difficult, if not impossible, falsification.  For example, it allows us to treat verified memory claims as evidence for the theory, but not their absence as evidence against the theory.  If either survival or the transmission theory makes genuine predictions, I should like to know what observations we should expect if the theory is true but not if the theory is false.

(iii) As it happens, transmission theorists have taken different views concerning the degree of psychological continuity there would be between ante-mortem and postmortem consciousness, to what extent unique personality features would carry over, what causal powers would be attributed to surviving “selves,” and so forth.  Understandably so. Simply proposing that the brain “transmits” consciousness rather than produces it is compatible with a broad range of survival scenarios. In fact, the language can be interpreted in terms of multiple models of consciousness.   And this shows again that the value of Pr(O | T) is simply not well-defined even among those who advocate transmission theories.  Indeed, on some views, if we survive death, we should not expect our ordinary personality to survive. See Tart, Charles. 1990. “Who Survives? Implications of Modern Consciousness Research.” In What Survives? Contemporary Explorations of Life after Death, ed. Gary Doore. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 138–151.

Fifth, several of your readers are under the impression that disposing of materialist views of mind/reality somehow renders survival more plausible.  But that’s too quick in point of logic.  At best, disposing of materialism removes an objection to some hypotheses of survival, but removing an objection to a hypothesis is not the same thing as providing evidence for a hypothesis.  And at all events, whether materialism is true or not (or whatever metaphysical theory survivalists wish to advocate) is irrelevant to the problem of auxiliary hypotheses.

Sixth, your readers didn’t properly understand my references to Broad, Price, and Ducasse.  My point there was simply that they, unlike other writers, were cognizant of there being many different conceivable survival hypotheses with varying predictive consequences.  That’s not an endorsement of any of their particular flirtations at this juncture.  Anyhow, any attempt to refute Broad’s “persistence hypothesis” or Price’s “place memory hypothesis” (as alternatives to personal survival) will run right into the problem of auxiliary hypotheses and get caught in the net I’ve cast into the survival debate.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a quote from Elliott Sober that sums up the plight of empirical survival arguments on my view. 

The lazy way to test a hypothesis H is to focus on one of its possible competitors H₀, claim that the data refute H₀, and then declare that H is the only hypothesis left standing. This is an attractive strategy if you are fond of the hypothesis H and are unable to say what testable predictions H makes. (Sober, Evidence and Evolution, p. 353).

This is basically the strategy of argument in most books that try to present empirical evidence for survival, Carter’s included.  They are just so many variations on lazy testing. 

Michael Sudduth

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