I hated this book with a passion when I first read it. On the pages where it talks about emptiness, I furiously wrote in the margins “What to do then? Stop being active?” When the author told the story where his wife said that his voice sounded better after one of his meditation retreats, I thought, “You better be! Who do you think took care of the kids, did all the chores, and picked up your prescriptions, while you spent TEN whole days in a retreat?”
I was angry, and I was cautious of anything that preaches that one thing or one group of people is better than the others. I thought there was a very fine line between evolutionary psychology and Social Darwinism, and was suspicious that words such as “liberated” or “enlightened” indicate another form of elitism.
Fortunately, that was not the best way to interpret this book or Buddhism. This book is nothing about justifying idleness or egotism but rather the exact opposite. It is about how to perceive the world, including ourselves, and therefore take better actions towards it. Furthermore, I realized how difficult it is to articulate these intricate Buddhism concepts effectively while describing personal experiences with meditation, whose best part is mostly inexplicable by nature, is even more demanding. And the book does a good job in both aspects.
Much of the book is based on the concept of not-self. My teenage self from high school would be shocked to find out that “I think, therefore I exist” which was the foundation of Decartes’ First Philosophy and what I strongly believed in at the time, was too much assumption to begin with. First, “I” barely think — thoughts think themselves in most cases. Our minds are made up of modules that evolved from the early days of human existence and constantly fight for control to decide our moods and behaviors. There is no CEO to decide the next best action for us in the long run — just the historical artifacts taking advantage for themselves. It is also a bit problematic to say that “I” exist. The usual perception of the “self” being a continuous, autonomous, precise machinery is obviously inaccurate. My thoughts are unreliable for the reasons above, my memory is a fraud, and when I say “I am a red wine person”, what I actually meant was probably “the microbes in my digest system prefer red wine”. So the natural move here is to disown my thoughts, stop identifying with them, and simply observe them like clouds drifting in the sky.
So here is what I had a problem with. I know this strategy works — from my experience with Christianity we give up ownership and attribute it to God. Glory goes to God, suffering goes to God, and what makes up ourselves goes to God. Since God is loving and perfect, how can we be broken? Here following a similar logic, if neither my thoughts nor myself exist, why would there be a problem, to begin with? But at the same time, it also sounded like an escape route, a perfect excuse to avoid responsibility and initiative. To me, what is lacking here is a way to deal with real-life problems. Letting go of obsessive thoughts about what a terrible father I am doesn’t resolve the fact that my children cope poorly at school. I also wrote in the margins “What about thoughts that lead to crimes?” Shouldn’t people pay the price for what they do wrong or fail to achieve?
My confusion was actually two-fold. On the one hand, I took the assumption that “not self” meant giving up ownership and doing nothing. But instead of being an escape route, mindfulness, or realizing “not self” is actually taking away the escape routes. It brings us an understanding of emotions such as self-denial, rejection, frustration, or anger that often stand in the way of finding the right solution to situations at hand. What we were running away from was those emotions, and with mindfulness practices taking away some of those emotions, we can see matters more clearly and handle things in a better way. On the other hand, I was apparently too obsessed with the past. I believed that everyone should always be burdened by its shadow. But just like what Siddhartha learned from the river, time does not exist. In his words, “The river is everywhere at once, at its origin and at its mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at the same time, and for it only the present exists, no shadow of the past, no shadow of the future.” So breathe. Focus on the moment. The past is an illusion; the present is all that matters.
Extending the “not self” concept to the world around us produces the idea of emptiness. I’ve always been interested in the idea of the ship of Theseus — over the years, after all the components have been replaced on the ship, is it still the same ship or not? But there’s more to it than its ephemeral nature. It seems that any form of language is an abstraction, and we lose some part of the truth when we describe the ship with words or try to give it a name. By calling it “the Ship of Theseus” we assume that there is an essence in its existence, even though its composition changes constantly, like pretty much everything else in the world. We also tend to invest feelings in things, labeling them as “good” or “bad”, “fancy” or “average”. Would the awe and nostalgia we feel towards the ship persist as the remnant wood is turned into recycled tissue paper?
Dropping the illusion that everything has an essence leads us closer to the truth. A few times I stopped labeling things or perceiving them through the utilitarian value they retain. I was greatly moved by the realization that everything exists beautifully in its own way. I also started to feel the comfortable coexistence between myself and everything around me, knowing that we are all interconnected through molecular exchange or through causation. What I had a glimpse of is known as “independent co-arising” in Buddhism. This much-used term basically means that nothing is self-sufficient and everything is at most one thing. If this exists, that exists. Boundaries are also an illusion.
Once you can see the world more clearly, as the book says, you are also liberated from suffering. I appreciate that the author describes both Enlightenment and Liberation as a process rather than a state. The latter would mean that some people are enlightened while others are not, and might even indicate some progress measure to quantify the amount of Enlightenment in people. No, that would be against the very idea of it. I do not believe that one person could be more enlightened than the other, or have better perspectives. Reading more books, or going through more experiences doesn’t guarantee wisdom. For example, the fact that we all have been children before does not grant us the same enthusiasm or creativity that children have. When we hike to the summit of the mountain, we forget the view of the valley. At the same time, it’s not a better perspective, just a different one.
But Enlightenment means losing perspectives. It is the realization that the summit and valley exist at the same time, both of them and myself being a small part of a whole world that is interconnected. If it is the same truth for everyone, how can it be measurable or comparable? I believe Enlightenment happens at the moment we see clarity, and that it is an end in itself rather than a gateway to somewhere else. It is also within everyone, requiring nothing like talent or power but our own free will. There’s a popular quote allegedly from Confucious (although it doesn’t sound like Confucious at all) that goes like this “We all have two lives. The second begins when we realize we only have one.” Maybe it can be interpreted like this: we all have the illusion of two lives, one of the physical, and one of the mind. Via Enlightenment, we realize there is only one, and that’s where real life begins.
I do have some confusion though: when I write, or when I talk about Enlightenment, who is this “I” here, given that the self does not exist in the first place? Is it the “watcher” part of me, or the collective noisy committee of modules that run my body? Maybe it’s the latter one.
Lastly, here’s a little poem by Rumi who never fails to instill bliss in my heart:
Things are such, that someone lifting a cup,
Or watching the rain, petting a dog,
Or singing, just singing — could be doing as
Much for this universe as anyone.
Citations:
Wright, Robert. Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.
Rumi, Jalal al-Din. The Purity of Desire: 100 Poems of Rumi. Translated by Daniel Ladinsky. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2012.