You

Thinkers think thoughts.

Thoughts produce thinkers.

Thoughts are about things.

Things are not thoughts.

Thoughts are not things.

Both thoughts and thinkers are unreal.

Things are not unreal.

Abstractions are thoughts about what’s real.

You are not an abstraction.

You are a real thing.

Thoughts about you are not real.

What is real is not a thought.

You are real and not a thought.

When you think, abstractions appear.

When you stop thinking, you appear.

Think about this and you’ll be lost in thought.

Don’t think about this and you’re ready, 

for the next thought.

The rule of what's real?

Image via Wikipedia

More than anything else, Buddhism is a practice of reality. What is real? Are things exactly as they are, without addition or subtraction? Or perhaps they are incomplete and need further embellishment and refinements, which we call discrimination. 

Do we believe we can refine what is already perfect—that without our ego-centric preoccupations, reality is needful? Within the true mind, all Buddhas, all-everything is complete, pure, whole, perfectly integrated without division and alienation, which we refer to as unity. Nothing within that realm is lacking or needful.

And yet we exist, apparently as separate individuals with no discernable link to other life forms. It is a profound paradox that, on the one hand, seems eminently reasonable and, on the other hand, insane. Dependent origination is supremely flawless. Nothing comes into existence alone, out of nothing. As soon as one thing arises, another arises at the same time. Light and dark arise together. Up and down arise together. Good and evil; strong and weak; man and woman; mother and child; thinking and thinker—everything is originated dependently. Nothing escapes this provision. And yet our rational, thinking mind tells us otherwise.

So what is real: The gilded lily or just the lily? You see, there is the essential dilemma: We are beings who think, reason, and imagine. And these functions are extremely useful in everyday life. But these are just tools we use for abstracting, manipulating, and imagining life. Tools are not life. They are tools.

When we use mundane logic within the framework of the toolset, certain rules apply. One number plus another number equals a particular sum. Two plus two always equals four, and it doesn’t matter if you speak Chinese, Russian, or English. 

Mundane logic is universal. When we operate within this abstraction box, we agree to play by defining the box. But there is another form of logic that transcends abstraction and is called “supra-mundane” logic with a different set of rules that contains (but is not limited to) mundane logic. It is impossible to solve certain problems within the abstraction box because of the fixed rules that define its existence. 

Take the thinker/thinking problem, for example. How can there be thinking without a thinker who thinks? This problem can’t be solved with mundane logic, and the reason is that both thinkers and thoughts are abstractions—imaginary. If both are abstractions, there is no place for reality to alight. At least one of the two must be real to solve the problem, and when that condition applies, the “rules” of abstract limitations are broken. 

And here is the secret: Dependent origination rules, not abstraction. This overriding rule says that abstraction must be balanced with reality. It takes something real to abstract. Abstractions produced by other abstractions are a mirage. A thinker is an abstraction, and a thinker’s product is just an extension of the unreal abstraction. In truth, there is no thinker and, thus, no thinking. Both are the products of the imagination and thus have no permanence. Everything in temporal life is constantly changing.

Reality is understood in different ways. The most popular way depends upon tangible measurability. Physics completely embraces this understanding. A different metaphysical understanding is permanence. From the perspective of mortal life, nothing is permanent and must be seen as unreal. Life as we know it is both temporal and permanent. One aspect is tangibly measurable (form), and the other aspect is permanent yet unmeasurable (emptiness). How can something wholely empty, by itself, be transformed into a form unless it is paired with a form? Abstractions and reality arise together (dependent origination). These are just variations on the theme of form and emptiness. Form is a manifestation of emptiness just as an abstraction is a manifestation of reality. It is reality that is thinking, not an imaginary thinker. This is what Bodhidharma called “Mind essence”—the co-joining of form and emptiness.

“Mind essence” is a challenging notion to wrap our thinking around since thinking is about abstractions, and this “Mind essence” is authentic yet unseen. We lust for forms of reality to put our hands and thoughts around, but the mind doesn’t allow either form of grasping. The odd thing is that we use our minds continuously without defining what, where, or how the mind exists. If we decided, for even an instant, that we wouldn’t think any longer until we grasped the “what, where, and how,” we would be dead in a flash. So we don’t think about the mind. We use the function without knowing how it functions. We don’t need to know how it functions, just that it does.

In the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra the Buddha said we know things two ways: Either through outer signs or through fathoming. To know something through outer signs is like seeing smoke and deducing fire. We don’t see the fire but know it’s there because smoke and fire are linked through dependent origination. It is the same with the mind. We don’t see the mind, but we know it’s there because we use it. This is an example of touching the real through abstraction. To know something through fathoming is to know directly, by-passing abstractions. The first—outer signs—is an example of mundane logic. The second—fathoming—is an example of supra-mundane logic. We don’t know how we know; we know that we know.

So what is real—in the fullest sense? We are here in bodily form. That is an undeniable fact of tangible verification. That’s a part of what’s real. The body is born, grows, becomes attached, suffers, gets old, and dies. That’s a part of what’s real—tangibly verified. What is not tangibly verified is what we can’t see. We can’t see what moves us. We can’t see the mind. We can’t see the spark of life that activates or originates us. We can’t see beyond the grave. 

Yet without these unseen dimensions, which we use every moment throughout life, the body couldn’t function and move. How can we deny these dimensions just because we can’t see them? They, too, must be a part of what’s real. Whatever name or names we use to convey and communicate about this unseen dimension is not relevant. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” We can’t see the fragrance, but it smells sweet nevertheless. This is another way of seeing the unseen.

Crisis—Danger and Opportunity

Who am and who are you? To answer those questions, let’s go try a virtual experience. In your mind’s eye, I want you to see yourself in a movie theater.  You are there sitting next to your favorite movie-going buddy, and the main attraction begins. Make it your favorite of all time. Wow! This is a great movie. You are really engrossed, almost like you are in the film, except for one thing: You aren’t (in the movie). As much as you might be enjoying the experience of watching, you always know you’re not “in the movie.” The film is on the big screen across the room, and you are there in your seat. Two separate things: you (the watcher of the film) and the movie (projected onto the big screen).

If you were to describe that experience to your therapist you’d probably be prudent to avoid saying that you were in the movie. If you did say such a thing your therapist might give you a new name, like nuts and start making out some papers with labels of “delusional.” Please avoid such a report.

Now prepare yourself because I’m going to tell you something too incredible for it to register and you’ll probably want to start making those papers out for me. Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a Buddhist—at least as far as I know. Maybe he was. But he did say something very Buddhist. He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” which paraphrases a statement by The Christ in The New Testament. Many very intelligent people say smart things regardless of affiliation and labels. The occasion was the Republican State Convention on June 16, 1858. The place was the statehouse in the Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln had just been chosen as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate to run against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. The details of what, where, and when are not particularly germane to my point but I throw them out for you to get the picture. What is germane is what he said during his acceptance speech: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln was of course referring to the Union and the looming cessation by the Southern states. And his point is applicable to who we all are as people.

Many Buddhist sages have said pretty much the same thing but meant it as a definition of reality—all of reality, but in our case, applied to people. Our house—our beingness—also can’t stand when divided against itself. There is no division separating our nameless essence from our physical and psychic being. They are a single, indivisible thing. We are not some name or a nameless essence. We are not a function or a nameless essence. The division is a phantom. It doesn’t exist, except in our illusionary minds, but never in fact. 

The very moment (down to an unmeasurable dimension of time) there is a watcher and there is what is watched. The instant there is something watched, there is a watcher. Watched and watcher arise together. Instantly. Not one first and then the next. They are flip sides of the same coin. And the opposite is true. When one vanishes, so does the other.

Ladders and Walls come into being and cease from being in a flash. They are bonded eternally together as partners and can’t be separated. So what’s this got to do with movies and who we are? Simple—but actually not so simple to put our heads around. What we normally do is imagine our identities, as separate and independent things (rather than linked, interdependent things). We are thinkers thinking thoughts—illusions lost in illusions. We have all kinds of ideas about ourselves. We imagine and label ourselves with Lao Tzu’s “ten thousand things.” And all of these ideas come to be who we think we are. 

When we meet someone we may be asked to introduce ourselves and how do we respond? “I am so-and-so”—we provide a name. What we don’t say is “Oh I am Ms. Nameless.” Either named or a name we call “nameless” is not who we are. We are both—an indivisible house. We are ladders with walls and it can’t be otherwise. You are real. You are not a fleeting and vaporous thought. Vaporous thoughts are just that: thoughts that vaporize. But you are the indivisible Union (Lincoln’s term) of essence and non-essence, otherwise known (in Buddhist terminology) as emptiness and form. They arise and cease together instantly.

One of the central Sutras in Buddhist practice is the Heart Sutra which says “Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness.” Essence and form are glued together. Maybe you prefer to name essence as God. That’s okay so long as you don’t try to conceptualize God as an imaginary being. God is transcendent—beyond defining characteristics (meaning nameless), so whatever handle you use is irrelevant. What is transcendent is bonded together, not two but One. God doesn’t come and go. Coming and going implies movement from one place to another. If you are essence—God is essence—there is no place that you are not, so how can you come and go? 

You’re already here. It is an illusion to imagine these as separate matters like sitting in the movie theater with our movie-buddy, watching a movie. There is no watcher without what is being observed. Nor is there something watched without a watcher. And to watch at all is not possible without the animating spirit of essence. Otherwise, we’re just talking about flesh, bones, blood, and everything that comes along for the ride.

But what happens in normal “everyday life?” We get caught up in our home movies (buzzing brains) and stop being. We replace being with thinking about being. We don’t eat cake. We think about eating cake and eat the illusion. We don’t just sit. We think about sitting and sit on an illusion. We love to multitask and think we are efficient and productive. 

Actually, we are being distracted with no focus. We don’t work at our jobs (which we may hate), so we think about hating the job and think about where we wish we were. We don’t work with our spouses to manage difficulties; we think about everything that is wrong with them and why they don’t do what we want them to. 

Nothing is scared that way. While we are thinkers, we are not be-ers, and there is nobody at home. And because we do that, we experience fear and anxiety. At the deepest part of our essence, we experience separation and lack of intimacy. There is no way we can be intimate with someone we don’t even know, and I am speaking about our own identity—our real SELF, not the illusionary one.

What we need is integration and what we get is self-created division. We have a primordial knowing about our unity (and lack thereof). When our sense of being is based purely on a fabricated self (otherwise known as ego—home movies), we are rightly fearful because that is shifting sand with no stability, just like one-legged ladders without a wall.

When our identities are tied purely to the shifting sands of life, we know we are vulnerable; nobody has to tell us. We know, and it fills us with anxiety and fear. It can, and often does, paralyze us into inaction, like a deer fixated on the headlights of an oncoming car, frozen with fear, desiring to know the next moment and not able to be in the only moment we’ll ever have: The present one. When identity crises arise, there is both danger and opportunity. We can stay in trouble, like the deer, or we can come to our senses and grasp the opportunity. So how do we get out of this trap that has dominated all of humankind since we first arrived as a species? That’s a matter for my next post.

Seeing you Seeing me.

The amount of energy and consideration which routinely goes into the notion of personal identity is huge. It’s taken as a given that we know ourselves but even though the matter is of paramount importance it is questionable that anyone really “knows” themself. And if nobody knows themself how is it possible to truly know someone else?

When we meet someone for the first time, we want to know something about them and they want to know something about us. So we say, “Tell me something about yourself.” And then they begin to tell their stories—Name, job, interests, family, etc. And then we tell our story. The question—the only relevant question is: Are we nothing more than a name or a job or any of the other characteristics we share? Names can change. Jobs come and go. Interests shift over time and sadly families die just like we do. All of these objective measures are in a constant state of change. Objects are impermanent. They are like a suit of clothing that gets put on and taken off. Do we in fact have a permanent identity? Something upon which we hang those objective, impermanent clothes?

It isn’t something we think about very much but perhaps we should because if we did we might discover an essential truth which explains the cause of much suffering. There is a beauty that comes with getting old and I’m not talking about impermanent clothes; not even my objective body which is not what would be called “beautiful.” That part of me would be called decrepit but that is Okay because it is not who I am.

A long time ago I studied grammar and learned about such things as subjects and objects. I don’t remember much beyond that but just knowing the difference between a subject and an object is very helpful in nailing down this matter of identity. As I’ve aged I’ve noticed what changes and what hasn’t. Everything has changed except one thing: Me—The subjective me; the me who sees the changes, hears, smells, tastes, touches, and thinks. So I like everyone else who has ever lived identifies with that subjective me—the one inside my changing, objective skin. There is just one little problem with that view: When I objectify my subjective me, and by that I mean when I imagine that me inside and convert it from a subject into an object called an ego or a self-image. When that conversion takes place that too then undergoes change and becomes subject to suffering.

Here is the truth: A subject can’t be seen. Only objects can be seen. We want to be true to ourselves and to others but it is very difficult to be true to what can’t be known, objectively and that applies to ourselves also. So to meet that mental challenge we create an objective surrogate which we then take to be who we are. If you want to conquer suffering you’ll take the time to understand this piece of mental sleight-of-hand. WE SUFFER BECAUSE WE BOTH “REIFY” OBJECTS AND OBJECTIFY WHAT IS REAL. I write these words in capitals because suffering boils down to that. It is just that simple. So what does this word “reify” mean? It means to imagine life where there is none. And of course, to objectify something means to mentally convert life into a stone.

The Buddhist definition of reality is most exact. Accordingly, reality is understood as something which has substantial, intrinsic, independent status and the opposite is true as well. Something is unreal which does not subscribe to that understanding. Therefore “subjects” are considered real and objects are not. An object (any and every object) is dependent and has no intrinsic substance yet we can see objects. So here is where this understanding solves the suffering problem: If you can see (or perceive in any way) something, know that it is unreal and has no power to harm the real subjective you. That true you is beyond harm or suffering since it is eternal and hasn’t changed a whit during your entire life. Yes of course our bodies (the objective us) experience pain, but suffering is not pain. Pain is unavoidable but suffering is a spiritual/mental issue. If we can hold that understanding as our reality then when we see thoughts and feel emotions percolating up from our memories we can see them as objective residue rather than reality.

The essential matter is not who we are subjectively but rather who we aren’t objectively. When we confuse this identity issue not only do we not know ourselves but we mistake our real nature for an objective ghost.

A Reflection

It may be a good idea to pause and reflect at this juncture before proceeding on down The Path. We must get the first two steps correct since these two form the basis of what follows.

There is a risk of presumption inherent in discussing anything. We assume that we know what certain things mean and proceed based on that presumption, which is never a good idea. To ensure that we do not proceed down the primrose path with flawed presumptions, we’ll briefly pause to reflect on a vitally important matter: reality—how do we define reality?

The Buddhist perspective on reality is particular—upside-down from our ordinary understanding—and is defined as dependent origination. According to these criteria, something is real if it has “Intrinsic Substantiality,” meaning independent status, separate and apart from anything else. If it doesn’t meet that requirement, by definition, it’s not real. We could quibble about whether or not we like this definition, or even if the definition is accurate. Still, we’d miss the important point by so doing—this is the definition understood within Buddhism. Nobody says you must accept this definition, but you need to accept it if you want to make sense of the Eightfold Path. So, accordingly, what would be “real?” Absolutely nothing within the realm of conditional existence.

By conditional existence, think causal linkages. Nothing just pops into existence without prior conditions unless we’re talking the “Big Bang”—singularity, and in truth, there may have been a prior causal link even to that. There is growing scientific theoretical evidence to support this “before” perspective. But put that issue aside for the moment and think everything following then. And finally, when you hear the expression emptiness you must think, “not independent.” Emptiness is just the necessary partner of interdependent form. It does not mean vacuity/nothingness, which is, unfortunately, the common-coin understanding, which becomes a problem when you’re sitting looking at another person (or yourself in the mirror) and thinking, “I’m looking at a phantom.” A bit of a credibility problem arises from that piece of ignorance.

Now the dharma (teaching) of dependent origination says that everything has a counter-point that arises with events. Thus a mother arises with the counter-point of a child, instantly—not one then the other. There is no such thing as a “mother” without a child since, by definition, the term “mother” implies off-spring. Light arises with the counter-point of darkness. A self arises with a non-self. Form arises with emptiness. Emptiness arises with non-emptiness. Conditional reality arises with unconditional reality. These are all examples of simultaneous, interdependent arising. The list is without end. 

The causal links between phenomenal things, interdependently, creates karma like a cue-ball striking the eight-ball and sending it into the corner pocket, or a Zen master answering a novice with a wise answer—Book-ends. These forms are variations on the same theme of dependent origination, which denies the myth of independent, unlinked causal conditions. Every cause results in a measured response mandating “expedient means,” which is another way of saying one thing matching another—an appropriate response dictated, in wisdom, to a particular cause.

Why is this such a big deal? Let’s look at a real-life example. You get up in the morning feeling grumpy, and your teenage daughter makes some snippy comments. What happens next depends on whether or not you really “get it.” 

Variation # 1 would be to take offense and send a scorcher back at her, which she then fields and launches World War III. 

Variation #2 is not to respond in kind but to exercise forbearance and wisdom, taking into account that (a) your grumpy mood is not real but is rather a mental/emotional perception which is rooted in a “self” which is likewise not real (return to the definition of reality, please) and (b) that what is true for you is likewise true for your daughter. Variation # 1 is what we will do in ignorance and without being mindful of “reality.” 

Variation #2 is the flip side. In the first case, you feel forced to make a nasty conclusion that your daughter is just an independent-itch with a genetic streak, which she obviously got from your spouse (but not you) and that you are just having a bad day (but with some justification which escapes you at the moment). So both you and your daughter set off about the business of the day of creating some pretty bad karma that all begins with a distorted sense of reality and flawed perceptions.

So when we hear such statements as those in the Diamond Sutra which say, “Subhuti, no one can be called a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a self or who creates the perception of a being, a life or a soul,” we need to pay attention to this word “perception” and the definition of reality. Why? Because there is no such thing as an independent self, being, life, or soul and even if there were (which is impossible, given the Buddhist understanding of reality), what we perceive is a distortion. If you doubt this last statement about perception, just reflect on the example about your teenage daughter. What we perceive colors everything. And if we’re not extremely mindful and careful, our empty-perceptions will result in causally linked bad karma for which we must pay sometime down the road.

Our outlook on life (Our View) is either “Right”—which is a reflection of reality, unencumbered by flawed perceptions (as defined by dependent origination), or it is a reflection of ignorance. And this Right View flows (causally linked) into Right Intentions. Everything that follows is set in motion based on how we proceed from these two important first steps.