Fire is a good metaphorical representation for reality, as well as for all the phenomena occurring in human consciousness. Fire gives a clear visual in the present moment of being in an impermanent and constantly changing state, that is conditioned by external factors, and contains a fixed end to its manifestation that is as simple to see as the running out of wood. A close introspective look at our own subjective consciousness and its contents describes the same findings, and tells us a lot about our neurophysiology which makes up the ground level of our experience, yet is more difficult to clearly see. With fire we can see clearly from each present moment to the next that of changing nature, constantly present energy, moving, and never remaining the same, but with our own subjective identity, or “self”, we may be tricked into seeing something stable, and carried along from one moment to the next, as being the core defining aspect of who we are, or the CEO in charge that is carried over from one day to be next.
Who we are cannot follow different physical laws than fire does, and in fact it doesn’t, we both are part of the same reality, and we can observe that this self that we once thought to be permanent, unchanging, and moving through time without change or without being conditioned, is an illusion in which we were wrong about. Anything in this world that is conditioned, and is dependent on properties for it’s arising, like fire, is subject to change, impermanent, and is liable to end the moment its dependent substances are removed. Consciousness and its contents, in fact everything in reality that we can know, must be understood as it actual is, not as we wish it to be. Wishful thinking is a delusion that hinders an honest search for the truth, while for many it can be beneficial, for him who vows to adhere to the truth, regardless of the cost, it must be eradicated. Like the fire, our subjective experience of consciousness and its contents are in a constantly fluctuating state from moment to moment, also explicitly dependent on conditions. This isn’t only true for the totality of our experience, but for each aspect within it, such as feelings, sensory awareness, or thoughts. Every aspect is explicitly dependent on prior causes, and are able to be changed. The internal state that is best desirable for us would be also dependent on external causes, but I see the highest spiritual goal as something not only to strive to define and understand, but to work towards in a methodical way.
The highest spiritual goal is twofold yet intertwined; that of achieving an understanding of the truth of reality, and that of manifesting perfect wisdom and virtue in any circumstance. Both are impossible, but defining enlightenment in this way is useful, and not deceiving, as any progress on the path to these two things is undoubtedly a good thing. It must be clearly acknowledged that the completion of the task is impossible due to a number as factors such as the very nature of the goals in question are those that can continually be pushed to higher limits. It’s worth noting possible dangers in such spiritual goals that must be avoided in a mindful way, such as the suffering inherit in all craving, even for improvement, or becoming attached to any beneficial ideal, as well as the danger in arrogance and pride once achieving spiritual progress, the wise would do well to keep a mindful awareness that these factors do not manifest themselves as they will hinder any spiritual journey. This ultimate spiritual journey of self improvement both in terms of understanding reality, as well as transcending the historically appropriate Darwinian evolutionary ties, calls for the actualization of potential for an updated version of ourselves which we all have the ability to pursue. This is characterized by becoming compassionate, content, wise and virtuous within every present moment, and should be the ultimate goal of every human not only for their own self interest but for the interest of benefiting all sentient beings. Intention is important. A metaphor for the journey is like crossing a river, a journey to the summit, from the bottom of the sea to the surface, from sleep to becoming awake, as the change that is possible can completely redefine what you see around you, all present within your consciousness and displayed in its contents.
It’s wise to learn from people that have dedicated their whole lives to similar attainments, and to learn the knowledge produced from collective groups of humans in the areas of which are of use in the subject which you are interested in. Knowledge can be acquired through empirical observation and critical thinking, and through the help of others. Once you have knowledge of something in one way or another you have the basest level of wisdom. The next level in the hierarchy of wisdom would be to take this knowledge, such as in the domains of philosophy, psychology, meditation or morality, contemplation or even everyday thought, and to experience the truth or falsehood of the matter in practice. This practice, and training, is the second level of wisdom. It is taking conceptualized ideas and applying them to your life, and through experience, learning of their efficacy. The findings revealed through active testing will give you what I am defining as the next level of wisdom, that of practical wisdom. The third level of wisdom is attained after receiving knowledge, from whatever source, whether subjectively found, or from outside sources, experiencing life and finding the truth-hood or falsehood of claims, and then finding the insight of the nature that underlies the phenomena, penetrating into the source and reason as to why such things are the way they are. This ultimate realization is more useful, more applicable, and easier to call upon in all circumstances, as well as universal in its description. The wisdom of realization is what we are aiming at here, so that we find the truth we’re searching for, prove it to be true, implement it in our lives, and become more virtuous. All in all, the first step in the spiritual journey is acquiring knowledge, whether internally found, or externally, the second step would be that of experientially using the knowledge in your life to find out what’s beneficial or useful, and what’s not, and then realizing the truth of the truth itself, and how and why it works. We can train our minds to better understand reality, to be more virtuous, and to reduce suffering. This training can take place in every moment of our life, through mindfulness, meditation, knowledge passed down through others, and practicing virtuousness in order to train ourselves to be a better person unconsciously. The present moment is available to us at all times, and this is where mindfulness is useful in bringing our awareness to the present moment in order to observe and learn what it can teach us about reality, as well as our own psychology. This present moment is where everything in human experience takes place, and is where training and practice must be carried out.
You are born in ignorance, you don’t know or understand reality (objective understanding), how to react to experience (reciprocity), or how to conduct yourself in a way that minimizes suffering and maximizes happiness (morality). You don’t have knowledge of form, of language, nor of how to conduct yourself in the world. You don’t know right and wrong, and you cannot differentiate or hierarchically organize values. The biological system has values, but these values are merely of genetic inheritance, and as conscious awareness of oneself hasn’t yet developed, and external influence has yet to form cultural and traditional values, we have only primitive values which drive us.
You are taught things, in infant-hood, that form as habits in response to the chaotic environment you have yet to form into order. These volitional formations arise only out of the initial state of ignorance. These become conditional responses in the form of action both physically and mentally. Pavlovian and traditional conditioning take place, and you begin to form neural pathways linking phenomena, still, subconsciously. You become responsive to the phenomena of action and response, of reward and punishment, in the form of pleasure and pain, yet are unable to distinguish the causal chain, acting only on conditioned instinct.
Next arises, dependent on these formations, consciousness, or as is better understood – awareness. Based on the habit forming structure inherent in the human neural makeup, you are provided the six senses, thus you have six forms of consciousness; eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, mouth/tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness, through which you are able to be aware of all experience available to you. All experience is experienced through these six consciousnesses. So when you see your mother you become conditioned through the habit formation of association of her with a certain role, whether it be protection, or nourishment, stemming from the basic drives provided by the genetic makeup at birth.
Next arises namarupa (name and form, immaterial and material) dependent on this consciousness. So you have awareness/consciousness, you’re aware of seeing your mother, due to habituated response to experience, due to ignorance, now you not only are “conscious” of the experience, but are able to recognize her form (material property), and attach her name (immaterial property), onto the phenomenon of “mother”. This identifying and linking between material and immaterial, and conceptualization of both a physical form and a mental phenomenon, arises only after consciousness arisen. The key element in how your experience becomes experienced and conceptualized, is in the arising of contact, dependent on namarupa. If there was no material or immaterial side of reality, you would never be able to make contact with anything, and your experience would never be, you wouldn’t be able to identify a material form, nor produce an immaterial (mental) connotation in relation to the phenomenon. So your eye sees the photons of light reflected off your mother, the enter the retina, the two are combined through “physical” contact, and eye consciousness arises in awareness of the fact, and the meeting of the three, including consciousness, is the contact that is necessary for an experience of vision. Without the previously established identification process you wouldn’t know what it is your aware of, conceptually. From this mental formation attached to the individual of mother, you are able to identify her form, and “name her”, perhaps not using language, yet, but in conception of the association between the form and the result of interaction. The experience of eye consciousness is used in recognizing the form of the person which you have unconsciously been informed of as important to your survival for many reasons (the preservation and reproduction of the genome by getting the individual’s survival machine further into life). This contact is recognizable upon inspection of any experience you have ever experience. Even in thought, your mind consciousness must make contact with the object of thought, the conceptualization in the words or picture of the thought, in order to presently be aware of what it is passing through your mind.
From contact comes a feeling, the type of feeling is dependent on the stimuli you make contact with and its relation to you in your experience. There’s three types of feelings that arise out of this contact, pleasant, non pleasant, or neither pleasant or non pleasant, but no matter what you make contact with, one of the three arises as a result. From pleasant feeling comes craving to have, running towards, or wanting or willing or desiring to be in possession of this object of pleasant feeling. From unpleasant feeling also comes craving, but in rejection or separation from the object, in aversion as a positive form of willing, or desire or willing to not have this object in your experience, in rejection, or pushing away. So from both pleasant and unpleasant comes this craving, or desiring, which is where suffering enters your life. In neither pleasant nor unpleasant experiences of contact the object simply doesn’t have a meaningful effect upon consciousness and its actions, and does not continue to produce the craving and attachment inherent in the other two forms of feeling. Whether the object of desire is wholesome or not, the not achieving the acquisition of object of desire always produces suffering, or unsatisfactoriness, or discontent, the amount of which is characterized as located on a spectrum dependent on the individual and upon his training in mental management. Thus, in our link of dependent origination, suffering first shows itself as the result of feeling, through craving. Your mother walks into the room, she is in the visible field that becomes known through eye consciousness in the link between light bouncing off her, and your eye receiving the transmission, the recognition of her identity becomes known to you through the conceptualization of “mother”, and the form presented. From this contact, this association, and conditioned response, comes a feeling dependent on your current relationship and state of being, this feeling being either pleasant, non-pleasant, or neither. In the case of a pleasant feeling arising in response to the identification, you crave her to stay in the room, if she is walking out, you desire her to return and not to go. If the feeling produced in response to her identification is negative in nature, then you wish for her to leave, and not to stay. If there is no feeling produced, you are indifferent to her existence within that present moment, whether she stays or goes has no meaning and is of no significance to you (perhaps your attention is more readily engaged in another phenomenon). Thus is the nature of desire in response to feeling and the object of contact in conscious experience which gives off a feeling.
Continual desire based on continually feeling pleasant or unpleasant works until the craving becomes attached to the object, and thus arises attachment, which is dependent on this craving, and includes an even greater amount of suffering and delusion. At this stage you hold the physical/mental phenomenon so tightly that any change to it causes you suffering. When it is close, experientially, you want it to stay close, when it is far, you want it to become close, in regards to an object of consciousness that produces a non-pleasant emotional response, when it is close you wish it to be far away, when it is far away, you wish it to remain far away. This goes for all phenomena, not just objects, but feelings, ideas, thoughts, experiences, states of mind, and abstract pursuits such as fame, admiration, or wealth. In the case of something you like, any change, alteration, or distancing causes you immense suffering as you see it as permanent, unchanging, and something you wish to be close to you all the time. The opposite happens when you’re attached to the absence of something, if you dislike something so much that any appearance or closeness of it becomes a problem, due to the continual desire for rejection or aversion to this object of attention, you become attached to the experience of that thing not being in your experience. This can be emotion, poverty, state of social class, any phenomena, because everything meaningful whether positive or negative within our experience conceptually or physically you can make contact with, a feeling arises, you either experience it positively or negatively, producing the effect of liking or disliking it, and therefore anything can become this object of attachment if the desire is fostered long and strongly enough.
The desire which presides over all content of experience, and the attachment thus developed in relation to objects of desire, is the basic conditions from which the state of “becoming” rests upon. This is the becoming or changing into something different than before, as regards to your mental state and mode of being, or character and personality and lifestyle of the individual. While we are always changing, and always in a process of becoming, this stage is differentiated as informing how we come to be based on the conditionality of prior causes. You can become attached to any phenomena through continual craving which is the condition for the becoming of someone new, whose own identity changes and starts to include the identity of the object of attachment as being part of its own. Remember that this example of a person is just a practical example, but the idea here ranges to any form of experience possible, whether it be that of a simple object, a stimulation, an ideology, or state of mind. The person starts becoming inseparable from the concept of the attachment, becoming someone that believes their very Being includes the association with the object of attachment, and in a sense, for all intents and purposes, it does. This is why the drug addict, and his family, sees him become a new person after addiction has set in, and he begins becoming altered as a totality of his character begins identifying with the substance, as it is simultaneously modified by the substance. Yet, unconsciously, a similar pattern emerges in response to any attachment which develops, in that the attachment becomes internalized and part of the character which manifests itself in the content of our experience. This attachment comes from desire, which arises based on the feeling produced by conscious contact with an “object of experience” which we can distinguish as a concept and having a material form, the distinguishing arises from a mental formation which, ultimately, arises from ignorance, since we have no choice in the matter. The arising of each state is necessarily conditioned by the prior, and develops in this way. If the prior conditions are not present, the arising of the next link in dependent origination does not manifest.
After becoming comes birth, this is the birth of a new, mind made entity based entirely on the object which gives a pleasant feeling, initially was craven, then clung to, then, dependent on the becoming, a new “Being” is born. The individual’s very psychological idea of “self” not only is strong and pervading, but it includes as a key component the object of attachment as being part of who he/she is, as it defines his very existence. As always, the last chain in human dependent origination arises, the final step for all who give birth to a new creation, its eventual diminution, fading away, destruction; sickness, aging, death. Death is the end to all who are born, and nonexistence is the fate for all that exists, whether it be an idea, a pursuit, a formation, if it arises, it is inevitable it will pass away, at least in its current conception, it will not last, it will be altered, modified, change, what once was, will no longer be. It does not happen to that which never existed, to that never created, or born, thus it is dependent on this birth, this creation, this manifestation of existence. The conditioned Being that is born out of ignorance, became an entity that is defined by his attachments, is necessarily located in a transient existence, in which he will inevitably change, the ultimate impermanence of any state of Being, even one born in this way, necessarily declines into destruction, as all conditioned phenomena do. The “death”, in this case, merely refers to the ultimate destruction of the mind made association and identity with whatever the individual has become attached to, eventually, the mindset will change, the identity will fall away, and a new being will be born, a new state of mind instantiated, a new version of the “self” conceptualized, based on further desire, attachment, becoming, and birth. In this way the twelve chains of dependent origination produce the suffering of our existence, as we build up narratives, egotistical structures that become powerful enough to define us. Eventually, as everything impermanent does, they die out, only to be replaced by the new desires, and thus suffering, both in the acquisition, and the destruction. So suffering begins with initial ignorance, yet only becomes manifest and more of a problem at the craving level, and gets worse from there. Delusion, negative emotions, and unvirtuous behavior due to the object of desire also grow in manifestation at the same level from craving to death.
These are the 12 steps of dependent origination, and were originally formulated in Buddhist canonical literature, the oldest of which available to us currently, the Pali Cannon. The causality and conditionality for all arising phenomena can be put into this framework, but originally it is formulated in the dependent arising of suffering, which was the Buddha’s true aim in delivering us from. In its primitive form, this twelve-fold linkage of causal conditionality, was in reference to the past life, in ignorance and habit forming, in current life, from consciousness to becoming, and the result, in future life, in birth and death. Here I used the structure not in the traditional sense, but as the entire process can be applied to psychological phenomena within this very life, and not only in reference to suffering itself, but into the various forms of experience which come into being, as seen from this structure. Other content and metaphysical speculations were disregarded as not important, and it is the knowledge of the process and the method of its escapement in regards to suffering that truly drove him to uncover the dharma and thus his teachings which he shared with the world. These 12 steps outline the conditionality of suffering to arise, and how it can manifest itself in our lives. The removal of desire and thus craving and attachment, through a process of developing ourselves along the Noble Eightfold Path, was his solution, and part of Right View, is being aware of the conditionality of suffering and how it develops, as detailed above. For a more philosophical and scientific approach as to the existence of hard determinism, and its universality, see the essay “The Causal Tethers Which Bind Us“. While I make the association between the development of a psychological makeup, these twelve links can be used as a metaphorical tool to apply the totality of our lives.
There are certain states of mind that are exclusively experienced through the use of meditation, each one building upon the last, manifesting themselves out of the previous state of consciousness. These unique states of mind, of course, are relevant to any experience, but the four with which I am granting differentiation and specific classification, are those that are found through Samatha concentrating meditation, and are known by Buddhists as the four jhanas. They are meditative states, and have certain attributes in their experiencing, and certain requirements or preconditions to their arising. It is important to strictly pursue the Samatha meditation with the right intentions, of improving concentration, in focusing upon the present moment, and expanding the mind through practice. Any intention whilst practicing to achieve these states of jhana will hinder your development in their arising, we must practice without the intention to change our current mode of being, if we are suffering, we shouldn’t enter meditation to alleviate it, we should practice with diligence towards the intention of becoming closer to the truth, in becoming more moral, in developing wisdom and compassion, rather than for the egotistical benefit of desiring to achieve some sensual or internal pleasure. These things should naturally follow from the good intentioned practice.
These meditative states are able to be entered through Samatha Meditation, in which the practitioner is focused upon a single object, such as the breath. By one pointed concentration directed towards the experiencing of the object of concentration, we enter into Samatha meditation. As Our mind wanders to different content, naturally, we bring the gaze of awareness back to the object, and if we have gained enough concentration, and effectively cultivated a state of mind which is free of attachment, has been liberated from the ego, and finds pleasure in seclusion from sensual pleasures, then we are moving along the path towards the manifestation of the first jhana, or state of mind cultivated by Samatha meditation. If there has been sufficient cultivation of a wholesome mind, marked in ways listed before, that desires and puts forth effort in abandoning Ill will, delusion, craving and clinging, then with single pointed concentration into the present moment upon the object of meditation, you enter the first jhana. This is marked by a great pleasure of being secluded and in not desiring sensual pleasures. It is a contentment with the present moment experience of consciousness, devoid of external influence as a source of happiness, and a foundation of inner peace based on the inner disposition. This mode of Being is cultivated by prior experience in traveling the Eightfold path and the resultant of concentration within the framework of abandonment of previously mentioned defilements and unwholesome qualities. This pleasure within comes from knowing that you are cultivating wholesomeness, becoming a better person while practicing, so it is working toward enlightenment, or in other words we experience joy, through the practice of cultivating the highest possible form of ourselves. This combines the joy of personal spiritual growth and understanding, with the happiness from virtuous activity, which comes from knowing that the practice will increase wholesome interactions stemming from your own Being with to those you come in contact with (family, friends, coworkers, society, and sentient beings in general). The first jhanas is characterized by removal of five hindrances (Ill will, doubt, laziness, restlessness and greed or sensual pleasure) and experience of five jhanas factors (happiness, one pointedness of mind (concentration), applied thought, sustained thought, rapture). While this is the beginning of jhana development, there still is maintained discursive thought, and while meditating upon the object of attention, we shouldn’t seek to “empty our minds” or remove this thought, we should only be concerned with concentrating upon the present moment and the object which we are focusing upon. We shouldn’t be averse to any thoughts that arise within this state that bring us away from the object, we should only recognize them, and bring attention back to the object of concentration.
The second jhana is characterized by the removal of two factors cultivated in the first, that of sustained thought and applied thought, and is marked by further unification of concentration and gain a pleasurable sensation through the increase in sustained concentration, which is a modified version of positive emotion from the first jhana. You no longer are applying conceptualizations to the content of experience, but are rather experiencing the object of concentration, to a greater degree of sustainability than previously experienced. You can experience the first jhana as pleasure in the thoughts of wholesomeness, and the second in pleasure born of the sustained concentration of the experience without thought, the moment without thinking. This doesn’t mean we should actively pursue the removal of thought, it only means, with enough emersion into the present moment, and enough cultivation of concentration, the thoughts that describe phenomena and the thoughts which move to different phenomena, merely fade away, and the feeling of pleasure is conditioned by the concentration itself, not in the pleasure of being secluded.
The third jhana is characterized by equanimity, also without thought or conceptualization, with an ever increasing concentration and emergence into the phenomenon which is the object of awareness, but with an understanding and acceptance of the body as it is, acceptance and appreciation of the life happening within, which doesn’t include a thought stream but maintains a strict awareness within the present moment. The joy comes from this equanimity and contentedness within the present moment, no matter on the situation or experiences surrounding your life. It is the effective detachment from the content of experience, and the peace that arises from this detachment, is born of acceptance of the present moment regardless of its content. This equanimity is the crucial part of the third jhana, and constitutes the middle path, neither excessive self torture, nor in sensual pleasures, but restraint in not going to either extreme, and the contentment and happiness found in that mode of Being located between the two. Neither desiring or running towards fame, wealth, or immortality, nor being repulsive or running from the states of unpopularity, poverty, or death, is equanimity. Neither pleasure in being a wholesome state of consciousness, or non-pleasure in being in an unwholesome state of consciousness, whether experiencing a positive emotion such as love, or a negative emotion such as anger, the equanimity marked by emergence in the third jhana fosters a state of mind that is not perturbed by any content arising in the mind.
In the fourth jhana the ability to be equanimous in the state of pleasure or pain, is replaced by pure mindfulness and equanimity, in which there is no longer an experience at all arising of either pleasure nor pain. While equanimity and contentedness began to develop in the third, in the fourth the pleasure is replaced by a calm, clean, purified consciousness that is ultimately equanimous, without thought, without the emotion of positive joy or negative dissatisfaction. So the pleasurable sensation which was concurrent throughout the first three leaves us, the thought which was present in the first is no longer there, the full emergence into the present with undivided attention, not being broken by any distracting phenomena is attained in the fourth. The first jhana destroys the five hindrances, and begins concentration, and happiness from thinking of the mind in this state. The second removes the thought attached to the concentration, and focuses on the concentration itself. The third is an increase in happiness and concentration, and the beginning of developing equanimous feeling. In the fourth the happiness is replaced by a pure emergence in the awareness in the present moment while concentration and equanimity becomes a constant.
It is said that from the fourth jhana stems psychic powers, to this, I can offer no experiential evidence, nor logical reasoning to its existence. What is known, is that there are different states of Being that are able to be cultivated through sufficient concentration, and their delineation is possible to be characterized by these four classifications. In practice, the transition from each state of mind, in each person, I would assume, is most likely a very hard thing to pin down, especially in the present moment. But in a retrospective analysis as to what was experiencing in Samatha meditation, if sufficiently analyzed and meditation effectively practiced, we can conceptualize the experience as containing the above states, that is, if they were attained. It must be remarked that our experience is changing in degrees, and a strong “line that is crossed” in reference to the successive jhana states is never experienced, we merely move from state to state in degrees, along a spectrum of experience, each state doesn’t appear in its entirety in a concrete step. Experience flows, and we can mark of the jhana by the retrospective analysis of experience as it flowed, and make the distinctions listed above. All in all, the jhanas are not to be experienced for the pleasure and states that they can provide us while experiencing them, but our intention should always be to merely practice concentration, with an aim to character development, and inner expansion. Any unwholesome intentions will not only bar us from experiencing the jhanas, but will also contaminate any attempt of mental training or cultivating of character traits.
In the traditional Theravadan Buddhist tradition, it is commonly told that every moment can potentially be a moment for practice, for training. This practice is fostered by a mindfulness into the content of conscious experience, and, as every moment we hold the potential for being conscious of the content that arises, we can continually push our attention towards that content, and in doing so gain insights and cultivate a character of a certain nature, that follows from the practice. The essential characteristics that are developed in pursuing a mindful awareness of the conscious content within the present moment, are those of equanimity, and of understanding the nature of consciousness. If we better understand the mind, and the experience with which we are emerged in every moment, and its essential characteristics, we are better able to deal with that experience, for we recognize from which it arises, how it fades away, and understand the method of dealing with it which produces the most wholesome response to novel situations. This necessarily is included under wisdom, as we gain in experience in recognizing and differentiating phenomena that arises in consciousness, we gain the experiential knowledge of how best to respond to situations, and the set of all situations, and the path towards a mind that is calm, content, and free of desire (mostly), marked by equanimity, virtuosity in conduct, and thus providing a better experience of life for ourselves, and for those in our expanding circle of influence.
The Buddha pointed out key contributors to this nature of our conscious awareness, for which we are urged to discover ourselves. These key points are namely of threefold nature, and are categorized as the three marks of existence, from which we can extrapolate coinciding foundational truths which describe the nature of all sentient systems. The three marks which permeate the substratum for our psychological experience, are those of suffering or unsatisfactory nature, impermanence, and non-self.
This unsatisfactory nature is necessarily underlying all experience, as we constantly desire for things to be different, we desire something more than what we are, whether it be material or external gain such as career success, relationship optimization, health, youth, fame, or the desire for immaterial, or internal change, whether it be a better mode of being, a better experience of the present moment, if we are sad we desire to be happy, if we experience an unpleasant sensation we crave a pleasant one, if we are happy, and things apparently are going good, we desire for them to continue doing so. This desire, and lack of the object of desire, necessarily is conditioned by the unsatisfactoriness we contain in the present moment. If we were content, we wouldn’t desire, if we wouldn’t desire we wouldn’t suffer. Now on a practical note, the urge we contain to desire is necessary for survival, and is altogether inescapable. But the content of what is desired, and the ranging degree of wholesome or unwholesome desires which drive us, can be altered through training and practice, and more importantly, our response to the arising of all desires is what we can work to optimize. We must learn to distinguish which things are worthy of pursuing, which things aren’t, what is beneficial and useful to us and others, and what is merely the product societal or cultural influence that could be detrimental to our wellbeing. While our desires are spontaneously produced by the neural network that drives our nervous system in ways in which it believes are optimal for the organism, many times these urges are contradictory to our consciously conceived values, and in such cases, we must direct our gaze towards the things that are consciously considered as meaningful to us, and react to unwholesome desires, states of mind, and in general, those things which do not promote the wellbeing of us and of the sentient beings in our expanding circle of influence. While we cannot escape desire, we can recognize its place in creating the suffering which marks our existence. In its recognition, we can work to optimize the desire system, to make our desires range of interest less, and point in directions which we wisely intuit as being more meaningful to us. It is in the practice of present moment awareness that we can recognize our desires arising, the content and object they wish to pursue, and in being aware of the desire, discriminate whether or not it would be in our best interest to pursue such content. In remaining equanimous, and not spontaneously reacting to the content that arises, we can better direct our lives and our mental state to a place which we potentially contain, that marked by wellbeing, virtue, or whatever value you have uncovered as being important to you.
The insight of impermanence is recognized through the Buddhist practice as pervading all conditioned phenomena. It doesn’t take much looking to realize that all phenomena are conditioned, or determined on prior causes, that due to certain conditions, every phenomena arises, and if those conditions were not present, then that phenomena wouldn’t ever manifest itself. That being said, all phenomena in the present moment, necessarily is the cause or condition for further phenomena. Nothing stays the same, no matter how much the illusion of permanence appears to us to be real. The flux of existence, and of our mental content, is easily recognized if we pay sufficient attention to the content of our experience. The next moment holds new content, and the previous moment’s content slips way. Anything that appears to be, is merely arising now, and fading away now. Nothing ever lasts. As time moves, our consciousness moves, and the content within it, changes. The recognition of this fundamental mark of existence has implications that are vast, a few of which I’ll name here. For one, once we recognize that all phenomena are impermanent, we simultaneously realize that not only is no mode of being, or state of consciousness, is worth attempting to hold on to, but that it is impossible to hold on to. As in mental formations, so too in material. Modern physics clearly demonstrates this to us, that matter is always undergoing constant transformation, and as we necessarily are that matter, which appears to us as being that experience of Being which is consciousness, “we” too are constantly undergoing change. If we see that experience is transient by its inherent nature, in the same way that the natural world is, we not only can recognize there is no inherent difference between the two, that they are one in the same, but we can extrapolate this insight into practical matters in how our lives are conducted. When we enter into a negative, unwholesome, or undesired state of mind that we are naturally averse to, we must not complain, be averse to it, or falsely believe it will last forever. It is not permanent, it will change, and the conditions for its change are available to us dependent on the amount of experience we have in dealing with the causal nature that conditions experience. If we are in a positive state of mind, we too need to accept with pure equanimity that it too will not last, so when it fades, and it will, we will not be disheartened by the change in the mode of being, and the experience that it produces. If we are able to see all states of mind, all emotions, all thoughts, experiences in this manner, through the lens of impermanence, we better are able to remain equanimous, and undisturbed in peace of mind regardless of the content of our experience. This doesn’t mean we don’t care, or don’t experience emotions, or don’t have a full experience of life, to the contrary, not only are we better able to experience life (through greater ability to be mindful) but we are better able to deal with both the ups and down of temporal life, we are better able to navigate the psychological landscape, as we can recognize its transient nature, and respond in better ways which produce more wholesome, beneficial, and useful experiences, through greater penetration into the insight of what is causing change, and the effect of such content.
The third mark of existence is that of non-self, which can be tied causally and into the same world view, as the previous two. The three naturally exist within the same world, and like the other two, the truth of non-self supports their existence, as well as is available to us to experientially realize ourselves. The non-self doctrine is a bit tricky to intuit without sufficient practice in mindfulness, as we all act under the presupposition that we are “this being” which we use language to distinguish as ourselves, and which we point out others, all as being individuals. Our language and intuitions in this regard are useful in a conventional and practical sense, but they do ultimately hinder us in understanding the nature of our own mind. When Buddha taught non-self, it directly contradicted the Hindu notion of Self, and what he meant by it isn’t that there aren’t people, it isn’t a doctrine of non-personhood. There are beings, with which we mentally categorize as individuals, and that doesn’t change. What he points to is the feeling that there is a concrete, unchanging, controller of our own conscious experience. The intuition that “we” or “I’m” the driving force of my own experience, that “I” as an entity, command the next content of consciousness into existence, is the illusion which the Buddha rightly points out is an illusion, to which we all can realize. I hope this language is intuitable for the content it represents! As pointed out before, the content of experience is merely arising in consciousness, “we”, or, who we think we are – a self – is not directing the next content of experience to arise, nor are we directing the next thought to arise, or the next words which come out of our mouth, or the next actions we undertake. These things merely are happening. This doesn’t mean that as an organism we don’t have choices, and it doesn’t mean that the experience of consciousness doesn’t exist, it just means that there is no center to this Being commanding it. The Buddha points out that what we really are is the aggregation of five principle classificatory groups, which can be used to further distinguish who we actually are. When I say we, or you, or I, it isn’t meant in this ultimate, fundamental sense, but in a practical sense in which language as we know it differentiates people. The five aggregates are those of perception, name and form, feeling, mental formations, and consciousness. All experience is differentiated into these categories by the Buddha, and none of them, by themselves, constitues who we are. In other words, “we” are not our thoughts, nor our perceptions, nor the concepts and identifications we give to objects, nor are we the habits our survival organism acquires, nor are we the awareness that is able to witness the content of experience, and it seems to make sense that people don’t necessarily identify with any of these phenomena. Any search into a single factor of defining “who we are” will result in us deciding that, “no I am not that”, on all accounts, and a generalization of the Self residing within all experience, or the source form which all experience originates, also points to a lack of control and permanence, as we don’t choose the content “supposedly” stemming from this “Self”, leading us to believe that we too, “are not that”. As we don’t choose the content to arise, and there is a multitude of content and type of content arising into consciousness, we cannot pin the self down to any one of them, nor to the totality of them. There is nothing concrete, that is permanent, carrying over from moment to moment, as we initially intuited before introspection. What we are, is our experience, made up of the aggregations of very different content, and it is constantly changing, meaning we are constantly changing, and therefore, there is no permanent self carried over from moment to moment. There is no controller, there is no Being – which we think we are – directing the show, there merely is the show, and it is marked by these three fundamental truths, that experience is driven by desire and the unsatisfactory nature which underlies all content, that the content is impermanent and constantly subject to change, and that it arises from subsystems, it arises in the present moment, and is not directed to arise.
That being said, our thoughts can and frequently do proceed actions, and the conscious recognition of wholesome values does influence our actions, this makes us able to make choices and decisions, and to form better or worse responses to novel situations in which we find ourselves in. The non-self doctrine doesn’t bar us from making choices, it just helps us notice that on an ultimate level, these choices are not made by ourselves, that they are conditioned and thus determined by prior causes. This recognition and insight allows us to better pursue the things we value, as we better come to understand the preconditions for the arising of phenomena that we desire to arise, and with more experience, and greater knowledge, we become better able to navigate life.
Faith is defined in many different ways, but the most prominent definition is of complete trust or confidence. In terminology that is less religious, it would be a belief, or something that you intuit or come to the conclusion of – being true, a belief that is held as certain, or of extremely high probability. Faith is a risk we take, which I should, before continuing, state that I am completely against, at least in terms of absolute certainty. For reference to this topic – see essay “Benefits of Fallibilism”. In Buddhism, as well as monotheistic religions, there is a high value on faith, but I think that word is highly misleading. If we take the naïve definition that faith is merely the belief in the face of a lack of evidence, we really aren’t differentiating the term faith from belief, and, if this definition does hold to be descriptive of the term, it merely is stating something which, in practicality, doesn’t exist. In other words, you cannot believe in something without some rationale, without some form of experiential knowledge. In order to place absolute confidence or trust in something or someone, or God, or a higher power, you must necessarily pass through a succession of belief probability enhancements. We do not come to absolute trust or certainty without passing through stages of evidential proof in reference to the belief, which, must be rational. This doesn’t mean that the thing we place certainty in, in the end, is actually true, more so, it appears to be something we can be certain of. The mere appearance of having undeniable infallibility does not mean in actuality that it is so, whether that be in reference to an idea, scientific evidence, supernatural entity, or any other truth claim we can make. While I argue that it is more beneficial, in terms of alignment with the truth, and for openness to personal knowledge growth, to remain always fallible in our truth claims, there is a potential benefit to placing faith and confidence in others, which, we can temper by not adhering to absolute certainty, yet still reap the benefits of an evidential and rational approach to faith, which, we do so, despite the many claims against faith as it being “based on a lack of evidence”, which is merely a non-starter. Trust based on the absence of evidence, in something, necessarily means the conceptualization of “something”, which, whether we like it or not, requires the subject to have an ideal version of what that something is, and a reason why it is more likely to be true than its antithesis. Whether its emotional based, habituated teaching, or culturally defined, the mere conceptualization requires some sort of value judgment, and this is evidence as to why we believe something to be so, or why we believe something is worthy of placing our trust or confidence in.
The more data we acquire in respect to a certain teacher, training, or concept, the more likely we are able to discriminate the long term effects of adherence to such teachings through the instrumental use of faith. Seeing character traits embodied by the adherents of certain principles, enables us to see what the results of believing in a similar manner may promote in ourselves. If there are character traits, or abilities, or skills, that are exemplified by the teacher, that are of a nature of being something we wish to acquire for ourselves, or improve in ourselves, then the data acquired in reference to the teacher or adherents in containing these traits can inform us as to if we would like to pursue similar pathways of training or adherence so we too can attain similar results. This goes for beliefs, values, skills, in addition to character traits. In general, the more information and content the teaching has that is in line with our current value structures, the better informed we are to desire to pursue a similar pathway towards our own personal attainment of such characteristics. If we can intuit that adherence to such teachings would be beneficial to us than the placement of confidence in the practice, which would be faith, or confidence in the teachings ability to result in similar effects, would be warrant-able in relation to the content of the evidence we have to its manifestation in said desired traits.
There is a use for this, and in the Buddhist tradition, faith is important. Placing faith in a certain teacher, or teaching, or practice, is essentially saying at least one the following: “I will believe that this is true, that this is good, that adherence to this would be beneficial and useful to me, that confidence and trust placed upon the teaching, or teacher, will result in an improvement in the quality of my experience, my wellbeing, and reduction of suffering.” For a beginning practitioner of Buddhism, who wishes to experience what the religion has to offer, based on some idealistic view of the resultant of practice, or on some intuition that its teachings are an effective way of navigating life, or solely for the experience of what it would mean to be a practicing Buddhists, it would be beneficial to place a limited confidence or trust in the dharma, or teachings of the Buddha. Just like any other thing we place confidence in, or wish to embody (for whatever purpose, whether academic, experiential, or even egotistical), I argue, we should first vigorously examine the landscape of potential teachers, religions, and content, which we wish to embody, before making the choice, as confidence or emergence into a framework will alter experience, in one way or another, and we need to make sure that the domain is something we have a valid rational explanation for attempting to experience, before we continue down the rabbit hole. We should never be certain of somethings beneficiality, but as we grow in knowledge through any specific training, we should constantly reexamine the path we are on, not only to recalibrate our lives with new information, but to decide if continued belief in such practices are truly what we value, or are the most optimal in reference to our current range of perspectives. For someone who has directly intuited the more optimal representation in novel truth claims, in reference to previously held truth claims, it no longer is faith which carries the belief, but it is experiential knowledge, but for him who hasn’t yet intuited these things, it takes an active pursuit of the truth to attempt to indulge in novel teachings form different perspectives, which doesn’t require faith, but could potentially be, in order to experience (whether in practicality or in the form of knowledge) a more optimal method of navigating life or of defining an aspect of reality.
We will continue with the Buddhist practice as an example, as it is something I believe to be beneficial and useful for most people to engage in, at least at some point in their lives. At first someone may just believe that it is true, based on a rational belief, or thought, in its coherence to the reality one has already experienced, but after practicing mindfulness, and exploring the claims in firsthand experience, you can come to experientially realize the truth or effectiveness in revealing aspects of our nature to ourselves. In this way you can move from simply believing something is probably true, to a degree, to knowing that you have experienced it and know it is true, in the practical result of its carrying out. For example, moral shame and moral dread being the foundation for morality. Once we have recognized that we experience the horrible feeling of shame after an unwholesome thought, or spoken word, or action, this feeling can lead us to wish to not make the mistake again. In future situations, where the inclination may naturally present itself to repeat the offence that manifested moral shame in the past, we now feel a moral dread towards its repetition, and henceforth are convinced by the memory of negative emotion produced prior, to not repeat the action. Thus a sense of moral shame and moral dread can lead us to moral improvement, and we can experientially understand the purpose and perspective given by the Buddha’s teaching. Whether or not we think it is the most optimal way of representing such phenomena, depends on our knowledge up to the point of the realization, but that we can experientially understand it as a way, to better or less optimal degrees, is clearly present to us. This ability to experientially realize the usefulness in conceptualizing moral prerogatives in this way, moves from a mere rational conclusion, to one that takes the form of a certain type of practical truth, in that, in practicality, it has presented itself as truly being in reference to phenomena which we experience.
In a similar way, the four noble truths, we’re taught, are all within us. At first we may contain the logically coherent belief, or reason applied to information which we don’t have absolute faith in (certainty, or complete trust), yet, based on a rational contemplation, as it appears conceptually to be in line with an abstract view of the content of our experience, we can see the utility and accurate alignment with our prior experience. This belief or rationally held coherent explanation for psychological suffering, its root, and its cessation, and path to its cessation, appears as useful knowledge, but it isn’t until we experientially recognize it as manifesting itself in our lives, that we come to the true knowledge of its coinciding as a framework which truly applies to our lives, and we come to a place where we can practically employ it in a useful manner. The more data we have in support of such conceptualizations of psychological suffering, the more we realize the application of Buddhist principles in the reduction of suffering, the stronger the belief becomes. That being said, and it may be contrary to the fundamentalist Buddhist traditions teachings, absolute certainty, or complete faith, in my view, should be avoided at all costs. Even the experiential knowledge of the true practicality in certain knowledge, doesn’t make it infallible, it simply points to it being an accurate way of conceptualizing and acting in the world from one point of view, it doesn’t move it into the domain of the best possible way of Being, or mode of Being, which we should conceptualize as a goal worth striving for but ultimately never attainable. I believe this way of thinking about practical, experiential, and objective truths, is ultimate the most beneficial way to not close ourselves off to the possibility of better answers, or modes of being, which we may eventually uncover.
A liberating experience is one in which you have direct insight into the truth of reality, we can become liberated from ignorance, in certain domains, through the faith in certain teachings, transferred into either experiential knowledge, or disregarded as contrary to the subjective experiential evidence we contain in our conceptualizations of reality. What we must safeguard is attempting to spin a teaching to be in alignment with a perspective of reality, as we can do so with almost any teaching. In this way the intellect can be both our friend and our enemy, as we are able to rationalize views to coincide with the image of reality we may have. The greater the intellect someone possesses, the greater rational, and logical proofs one is able to make for the existence of a perspective to align with reality, therefore, we should be very careful as to the content of our language in representing knowledge of reality, as almost any description can be, whether metaphorically of scientifically, interpreted to align with reality through the use of language. We must do our best to safeguard our conceptualizations of reality from confirmation bias, and seek to discover what actually aligns with reality, rather than what we can bend and view from a skewed place to align with it.
In the western world most people have a scientific grasp on what the Buddha meant by dependent origination, or the law of sufficient reason as acclaimed by Schopenhauer, basically that everything has a reason, that everything is the way it is now due to past causes. In the modern age most people understand this naturally, as we have indoctrinated the youth with knowledge of science, physics and so forth. But what most people don’t connect is that this law doesn’t only apply to phenomena outside of ourselves, but as Buddha said, all conditioned phenomena, i.e. everything. This includes ourselves, our psyche, our thoughts, speech and actions. For a long time, I was a proponent of free will as the cornerstone of my philosophy, but occasionally I would experience cognitive dissonance when trying to make sense of a reality that includes both free will and dependent origination. Free will is intimately tied up with a sense of ego, or self, on a way that we have pride of our accomplishments, and disparage others for their shortcomings. We feel good about the things we do, because we believe that who we are, as a permanent controlling self, did them. So stripping away the self, this ego, this pride, is extremely hard, and appears to go against our subjective experience of life. This is where the dissonance sets in. You understand outside of yourself, objectively, that all the world came from prior causes, yet subjectively, you believe your consciousness and “decisions” do not follow the same law. This believing in a false self, that is somehow in control, yet understanding that everything is due to prior causes, is a contradiction and causes confusion. Now most humans live believing they have freewill, and are happy doing so. But for someone seeking the truth, it matters not how the truth will affect you emotionally, or what modification to your subjective experience may take place as a resultant of the truth, or what pride you have in your ego. What matters is the truth itself, and moving closer to it. Liberation comes when you understand that this self, this ego, this pride, does not exist, that it is merely a manifestation of a narrative which may prove useful or beneficial evolutionarily, or even societally in the capitalist world we live in, but as far as being conducive to wellbeing, and the reduction of suffering, I argue, that it is not the optimal path. What you are liberated from, is a false view, or ignorance, and what you are liberated by, is a higher resolution image of reality as it actually is. It doesn’t mean that you now have hold of the most accurate conceptualization of reality, but rather, you have removed one false view of reality, in this way, we can become liberated, or free from, ignorance, in steps, as we move towards more and more accurate depictions of reality through knowledge.
The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is useful in revealing certain aspects of our experience that would otherwise go unrecognized. In consciously directing our awareness towards the content of consciousness itself, within the present moment, we care realize the truth claims which the Buddha made in reference to non-self, impermanent nature, and the ever pervading unsatisfactoriness inherent in our Being. If you think you are in control or that reality is fully deterministic, only one of which is true, the belief you have is only due to prior causes. It wasn’t until I experienced directly the arising and fading away of mental phenomena, with causes outside of my conscious control, that I began to see free will as a mind fabricated illusion, which, we can see, developed for good purposes. The view of the self as permanent and subsisting through time as a source from which experience comes from, isn’t the best way to view our experience, once we realize the constant change of experience manifesting itself into conscious awareness, prior to conscious decision for it too. Even the conscious thought of attempting to direct the next thought, merely arises itself from a subconscious place. This content of consciousness which we can become aware of, commonly called “mindfulness practice”, presents us with content that is arising and fading away, constantly changing, and is not itself directed by “us” as an agent. These descriptions of experience which we realize, are exactly what the Buddha proclaimed as being fundamental within our experience, thus, if we were to place confidence in the Buddha, or have “faith” in him, before attempting to be mindful, we would be lucky in regard to these teachings, that the claims actually aligned with our experience.
If one happens to place faith in a certain teaching, the risk lies in the actual utility of the teaching as being in alignment with reality as it is. We can clearly miss the mark, and do so quite reliably, anytime we place faith or confidence in anything outside ourselves, we make that risk. But in the case that the risk proves to be beneficial, and the confidence well placed, it’s possible for the strong belief of confidence or trust can move to actual experiential realization, internal understanding, and thus to knowledge. I argue faith in certain Buddhist teachings can offer this pathway, as I have experientially realized the truthfulness involved in the beneficial and usefulness in seeing things from the Buddhist point of view, at least in regards to dependent origination, non-self, determinism, and morality. But could I recommend to someone to place confidence or trust in a certain system? Not necessarily in a system, or a religion, or in anything supernatural, but in the case where I believe I may have some beneficial knowledge that could aide someone, I would definitely be able to confidently vouch for the content of my own personal convictions, but it would only be in the case where I authentically believe it would provide a truly beneficial and useful advantage over the individual’s current conceptualization or wellbeing. This is generally why I don’t criticize advocates and apologists of the Christian faith. Many people view them as obnoxious in their attempts to alter someone’s life, belief system, and values, through active campaigning of their ideals. While I disagree with the truth claims they make in regard to supernatural phenomena, such as heaven and hell or “God” in the strictly Christian sense, I can tell their intentions are pure in attempting to lead and aide others towards a place they truly have faith in and believe would be beneficial for the other person. While I’m no proponent of Buddhist supernatural claims, I do, often, believe it could be beneficial for many people, at certain points in their lives, to at least take some time in exploring the ideas, as they could be useful to the individual. Is this even faith at this point? Not necessarily. The point is, that placing faith in anything, can yield better or worse results than in other things. The opportunity cost is ultimately too high to place complete or absolute faith in anything, and the loss which we could experience in embodying a mode of certainty, in respect to any truth claim, is ultimately less optimal than maintaining a fallibilist point of view. If we have some reason and logic and work to apply conscious direction towards the content of which faith can be placed, then we can, potentially, grow through faith in that certain domain, as long as we, at all costs, do not move the definition of faith to complete certainty, and merely regard it in an optimistic sense of trust and confidence, and maintain a realistic world view of the potentiality for it not to turn out the way we hoped.
Feelings, consciousness, matter, thought, in short, Being, and Reality, are all empty. They are all impermanent and do not exist independently. They all depend on something else, they have a cause, and therefore the thing itself is always in constant change. Being in constant change, doesn’t make it not real, or not existing, but makes it empty of a permanent nature. Our current linguistics make this hard to recognize, as we classify things and perceive them as being stable and permanent, they “are” the name we give them, while this is appropriate conventionally, in an ultimate sense it is actually the antithesis to the truth.
This “emptiness” is devoid of any label you can put on it, since a word doesn’t accurately describe as it is in the moment, it’s an illusion we use to refer to it. All material things you put a name to, such as a chair, don’t describe it as it is in itself, just as a mental connotation, a conceptualization that forms as a way to represent the item and distinguish identities for practical purposes. When viewed down to a microscopic level, the chair itself is more empty than having an actual solid molecular existence. This is true, but just an example, that the reality we are viewing using words isn’t one that accurately describes it conclusively, only to a degree of the preciseness and articulation of our speech. Based on any phenomenons subjection to continual change, the object, as a permanent entity, doesn’t “Ultimately exist” in a concrete manner, in reference we are more accurately depicting its true nature through the connotation of emptiness, or not as we think it is. What we think something is, is necessarily contained in a perceived image, or conceptualized thought formation, and is based on the filtration of our neural and conceptual system in its formulation, it is merely a representation, in a way that is practical to our usage, of defining or envisioning the phenomenon. Its existence within this moment is dependent on the infinite number of factors that are at play within the universe at any given time, the “object” is conditioned in this way, always, every “object” is only in its current state due to other conditions being present. It is not something itself, it is codependent. This goes for all phenomena, not only is anything material that exists empty of an inherent nature, impermanent, subject to change, dependent on conditions, but the mental phenomena we experience in consciousness contains the same characteristics. This is the nature of sunyata, or emptiness. Emptiness sums up all these factors in reference to any phenomena we can point out, in a manner depicting the “ultimate truth” rather than “conventional truth”.
Understanding emptiness empowers us to not be attached, or cling, or hold as important, things in the material realm, or people, or anything that is taken in through the senses, due to it all being impermanent, subject to change, and having a cause and cessation. Such as, if I’m feeling angry now, and I think “I am angry” both the “I” and the “angry” are constantly changing, empty of anything concrete, thus convincing yourself of such a conception as being concrete, you will hold on to the negative emotion and draw it out for a longer length of time than you would if you were to see it as it is, merely a mental formation that is subject to change, empty of any permanent nature. As soon as you attach a concrete identity to a phenomenon, and fail to see it as impermanent and empty, you become entangled in the illusion that it is something with a concrete nature. The correct way to view this would be acknowledging that the emotion is taking place, and be the viewer of the emotion on your body, recognizing it as something impermanent that will change, and something that has a cause, and an end or cessation.
In this context the ego is a mental formulation of a way to describe who we are, such as a story of our past or the person we think we are. The true “self”, or the space in which our consciousness is revealed to us (contains all our experience) is not explainable, it is the one who can view the ego. Understanding emptiness allows us to pull away from our ego, to not need to project power over others or to “show off”. The ego is that which seeks to define who we are using a narrative that we ourselves view as appealing, or descriptive, in a manner that limits the scope of its true nature, and is driven by the desire to be respected or admired by others. The “true self”, or the conceptualization of the Being that encapsulated the totality of our experience, is not explainable, “we” as in, not a permanent being, but in a conventional sense, are just the viewer of the content of consciousness as it arises in the world. None of these things composing of our false self are permanent, they all change, and one day will die, or cease to be. Therefore, the false self and the true self are two different things. This false self has never truly existed, and never will, that is, in actuality, its existence is that of an illusion we create, it is in our belief that this false self matches up to reality that we err. The “true self” in this context, is merely the recognition that what we are is devoid of a permanent, unchanging nature, it is merely the recognition of emptiness as being the defining characteristic of the core of any state of Being which encapsulates “our” experience. It can never just be, it is impermanent and changing. The true conceptualization of ourselves, in this manner, needs to negate this ego, this false self, as being empty, as being without any true essence, and not worth holding onto, similar to an emotion. It is something we can watch, and it is something that our we can choose not to act upon, like anger. Removing the false self whenever it emerges, or attempts to manifest itself in instantiating thought, speech, or action, is part of the process of realization the fundamental characteristics of who we truly are. The removal, albeit, never permanent removal but merely temporary, or something which is subsumed by Correct View in its removal, necessitates the emergence of not only a higher state of understanding ourselves, but opens a doorway to a better experience of wellbeing.
The state of being characterized by insight into the empty nature of all phenomena, is coupled with the realization of non-self, and, once it is in reference to this “mode of Being” that many mystics attempted as defining as encompassing paradise, or heaven, or Nirvana, as an internal state of mind, that we all have, lying beneath the illusion of the ego. According to this view, we all are “enlightened”, or we all have the potentiality for peace within, that can be instantiated through Correct View in regards to the fundamental attributes of existence. This peace lies beneath the delusional view that our biological system has good reason for creating, for practical purposes, as a natural means to understand the world. Seeing not only the conventional sense of reality, but the ultimate nature in its fundamental characteristics, as relayed by concepts such as sunyata, or emptiness, allows you to see two sides to the same coin in reference to the reality which we face every day. The practical application of language towards our everyday life, is useful for navigating in the world, and the ultimate truth available through direct insight, is useful to our internal understanding of the actual nature of reality which produces this conventional reality.
Be wise and discerning in sharing yourself, understand the audience, and their perspective. Many things people won’t be able to understand, or they will judge you negatively based on what you tell them due to ignorance of the nature of the situation, and that’s alright, and not a terrible thing, people have different perspectives and understandings, and predicting the effect of our speech is important in discerning what we should say. All speech that is withholding, often denoted as a “white lie” is not exactly dishonest, but can at times be appropriate. White lies become immoral when the information withheld would be beneficial and useful to the observer, more so than detrimental, the discerning of such effects is clearly quite a task to carry out, but, with experience and greater understanding of people’s psychology, we can better predict the resultant effects of speech. Every situation, every person, every moment, contains within it the possibility of good and bad, and what we say, or reveal, contains the same possibility. Intention and desired outcome is important, the reason why we say something is something that truly should matter to us, and we should look to understand why we want to say certain things to certain people, and in this way we can better understand our own nature.
Correct speech is based upon honesty, but also usefulness and beneficiality, some things said, although they may be factual, are not the best way of teaching or helping another. At times it is easy to assume that it is always a good thing to tell the truth and if something really happened or if we truly are thinking about something in the moment, then there is no crime done in sharing it with someone. This isn’t as obviously useful and beneficial as it may initially seem, and often times, this line of thinking does not lead to an optimal outcome. There is a way to remain honest, and display an idea, without involving the ego, without causing suffering. There are many times when a certain form of honesty can be unvirtuous, in those words which are truthful yet hold bad intentions, or intentions solely focused on painting our own image, or those utterances stemming from an unintegrated part of the psyche, such as the persona. This doesn’t mean that the flip side isn’t true. There isn’t anything wrong with helping someone else get to know us, and our intentions can still be pure in doing this, if we are mindful of it and deem it wise to do so. This is more beneficial than just letting the ego run wild in building a picture of ourselves to impress the other person, such as in persona dominance, but genuinely sharing information that is pertinent to the other person getting to know us, because they have told us they wish to do so. In many cases there are two sides to one coin, and we should look to integrate both sides into one overarching view, in all subject matters of importance.
In practical usage, we must be careful with our speech, to the degree we do so, the better our experience. In Buddhist doctrine, Correct Speech is characterized by a number of factors that, in each individual distinction, we can see the benefit of, but in the totality, may be “perfectionist” or stressful to uphold. The idea here isn’t to stress ourselves out, but rather, strive to perfection, and see how we can better use our speech towards beneficial and useful means. In Buddhism correct speech is characterized by the complete abstinence of any speech that is not beneficial and useful, not conducive to aiding the other person, or yourself, in alleviating suffering and providing wellbeing. Speech must be unequivocally true, and based on intentions towards the wellbeing of others. Speech that is untrue, unbeneficial, promoting unwholesome actions such as violence, stemming from ignorance, “Wrong View” or not in alignment with the dharma, “Wrong Intentions” or ill-will, speech stemming from negative emotion, such as anger, speech characterized as gossip and even idle chatter, are all considered “Wrong Speech”. Speech that is of other people, who are not around, in a way that criticizes their character, such as in gossip, is prohibited in Buddhist Correct Speech. While in our lives the criticism of another person can serve to aid the person we’re in conversation with by providing them useful knowledge, the gossiping that is here listed, is of a nature that is merely out of hate or ill-will for the person we are gossiping about. This type of speech creates division between people, rather than union, we should aim at bringing people closer together in harmony, rather than creating separation. Any speech that springs from bad intentions, that merely looks to paint ourselves in a deceptively “good” light, through the admonition of another, is considered wrong speech. But the Buddha expands to even more restrictive ends in his conceptualization of Correct Speech. Talk that is for entertaining purposes, talk of popular people, of events, of “village talk” or “idle talk” such as about politics, or inconsequential speech that doesn’t serve the purpose of alleviating suffering, or providing the truth about a better way to live, truth that is merely neutral in content and neither useful nor detrimental, is also admonished in the Buddhist conception. Any speech that is of a harsh tone, or stemming from anger, frustration, or negative emotion, rather than from a calm, peaceful, loving mind, is also to be stifled with mindfulness, and he states we should work to make our speech come from a place of love, while maintaining a soft, non-aggressive tone. In my opinion, this aspect of Buddhist Correct Speech is not optimal, always, as a general rule, it is practical, but there are situations in which I believe a harsher tone is necessary to convey the message, in times when the optimal solution or teaching must be characterized by some tough love, where our tone may be more aggressive. As long as the intentions are pure, the content is true, and the message is beneficial and useful, I believe the speech can be presented in a less than harmonious way. We ought not always embody trait agreeableness, there are times when being disagreeable is in our best interest.
Being mindful of the content of the present moment, in paying attention to what manifests itself as a precursor to our action in communicating using language, we can identify speech that is of any of the above admonished speech, and seek to consciously promote that speech which is wholesome. Mindfulness of the thought precursor behind speech may be hindering in “over thinking”, yet, until our character is sufficiently grown so that it’s spontaneous manifestations are in accordance with our value structure, we must promote the beneficial habit forming practice of being mindful of what we say. Until the source of speech is purified, we ought not respond spontaneously in conversation, that is, if we wish to cultivate the character trait of being able to produce Correct Speech. Mindfulness in regard to our current state of being, including our emotional state, can also inform us as to the source from which our speech is coming from. Any state of being that is characterized by negative emotion, and not one of good-will towards the conversant, ought to be mindfully avoided at the first sight of its recognition, in this way, we can use the Buddhist practice of paying attention to the present moment, to modify the speech which we produce, through being aware of our current state and its implied inclinations.
We should seek to be more careful and articulate in our speech, to be wise in everything we do or say. We may sometimes feel like we want to share something, for our own gain, and a lot of times this is okay, but also, a lot of times this is not the way to fix a problem, or to accept what has happened to us when the content is specifically producing negative emotions within us. Many times another person cannot solve these problems for us, we must seek to conquer our own demons before unleashing them upon the world. They are ours, and our responsibility, only with someone truly ready, truly a seeker, with little dust on their eyes, can we reveal the whole truth to. We must be wise in who, how, and when.
As far as following universal maxims, or dogmatic rules from which to follow in the use of Correct Speech, I think such rule following is quite dangerous, as novel situations need be handled with tailored responses, and often universal maxims fail to take into account extreme cases where they are less than optimal. When the stakes are highest, and the effect of true speech in terms of violence, or profound suffering results, we must be conscious of employing ulterior methods than the general values we have listed above in producing speech. Lying, deceiving, speech from ill-will, while generally are in fact beneficial, are not all inclusive to every situation we may find ourselves in, and in extremely rare cases, their implementation may be optimal towards the saving of life, or the preservation of life. If you still think along the lines of “I’m going to tell the truth, regardless of its content, it’s virtue,” then you are thinking to shallowly. There is so much more nuance to truth telling, sometimes the truly best thing to say is not the exact objective truth, but rather metaphorical truth, or the lesson learned from it. There are truths to useful way to operate in the world, and this itself can aide others in the navigation of their lives, we shouldn’t limit truth to purely objective and scientific truth, but expand it to the knowledge which would aide in progressing another person toward their goals, or in opening them up to the potentiality of a different perspective, or way to be in the world. While this may seem opinionated, if we look from the objective standpoint of better or worse solutions to alleviate suffering and provide lasting wellbeing, or better or worse ways of being to improve one’s journey towards a desired end, we can categorize, morally, the beneficial and useful nature of some content of knowledge in proportion to another, the revelation of this, would be metaphoric truth, or truth which can be used for practical purposes, insofar as it is an objectively better way of navigation towards a desired outcome. As in all else before, discerning when and how to reveal metaphorical truth is a task of prudence, and experiential knowledge of effects of certain concepts and ideas can better serve us as data points to use as reference to know the proper speech given a situation.
Events and experiences need to be filtered through the language of the audience, in order to have a meaningful connection. The language we use should be tempered by the person we are in conversation with, we wouldn’t explain a concept the same way to an academic colleague as we would our child, although the same “truth” may be present in each, the way we go about articulating the idea, the terminology and form of rhetoric we use in conveying it, must be appropriate so that the knowledge conveyed is in terms understandable to the audience. Be yourself, but be wise, and don’t follow a simple maxim. We should constantly be updating our articulation of concepts, and ideas, so as to better be able to represent them symbolically in the speech we use to convey them, as well as, obviously, to sharpen up our conceptualizations into a more useful format. The way we do this with our speech, it has been argued, creates the thoughts which fill our experience, so a more precise and articulate way of conceptualizing, for ourselves, produces a greater ability to categorize and judge reality as we experience it, modifying our experience and shaping the way we see the world. As we become more articulate, and better able to clearly conceptualize reality, the clearer we can make distinctions, and the better teachers we come, effecting our speech positively. Look deeper, think harder, doing and saying the right thing isn’t easy, because its implications can be long lasting and significant. Its effect can change more than we can calculate, and anything that comes from us we must take responsibility for. This doesn’t mean over analyze every word, but in general, we must work to ever improve our speech, if we wish to live our best potential lives, and to aide others in their journey. It’s not always in telling someone the answer that teaches them, but sometimes the question, or the journey, is more valuable.
Seek Truth 