גלות רוחנית : spiritual exile

This short post is a continuation of my Introduction to Buddhism. It deals with the emergence of the Buddhist not-self doctrine in the Indian setting and prepares the ground for the next chapter, which is significantly longer and deals with Buddhist doctrine.

In the essence of Buddhist thought lies the belief that personal transformation is possible. It is also believed that transformation comes about by practicing the dharma and realizing truth through experience. Only when one sees with one’s own eyes (metaphorically speaking) things as they really are, one gains the kind of knowledge that liberates from suffering (Skr: duḥkha; Pali: dukkha). For these reasons we can say that Buddhism is primarily about individual freedom, which is associated with personal experience. It is concerned with the mind because mind mediates experience and it requires active practice because it does not rely on external grace or godly intervention. The Buddhologist Paul Williams writes:

The primary orientation of Buddhism, therefore, is towards the transformative experience of the individual. Buddhism is thus also concerned first and foremost with the mind, or, to be more precise, with mental transformation, for there are no experiences that are in some sense reliant on the mind. This mental transformation is almost invariably held to depend upon, and to be brought about finally by oneself for there can also be no transformation of one’s own mind without, on some level, one’s own active involvement or participation. (Williams & Tribe, 2000 p.3-4)

Buddhism has been always fascinated by the mind for the mind has major role in dictating our happiness and misery. This interest is part of a metaphysical shift from cosmology to psychology in ancient India. The Brahmanical religious practice was based on the notion of cosmological order and the practical way to manipulate it as chiefly expressed in the Vedas, the ancient Indian hymns. This is a complex issue that cannot be addressed in detail in the current framework, but one thing should be noted. According to the Vedas the cosmic order is maintained by precise ritualistic performance of sacrifice. The sacrifice is designed so that it yields a specific result. The sacrifice is a way to control the world and the gods. When it is performed correctly, as described in the religious manual, the world must comply. This is the law of significant action and its result, or in Sanskrit: karman and phala.

The Brahmamic religion of the Vedas was a householder’s practice. In this system the social order reflected the cosmological order and as long as one maintained the exoteric practice of sacrifice, according to one’s position in the system, the order has been kept. The Upanişads, a later text to the Vedas, record a shift in attention from physical ritual to the search for a hidden principle that governs the relationship between action and the world. The influence of ritualistic performance on the world is explained by mean of identification. In the Paul Williams‘ words: ”The action which takes place here in the space of the sacrifice is seen as a microcosm which magically corresponds to — is magically identical with — actions, events, which the sacrificer desires to bring about in the macrocosm“ (2000 p.10). Eventually the most significant of all identifications emerges as the esoteric explanation regarding the identity of Self (ātman) and the Universal Essence (Brahman). It leads to the notion that knowing and controlling one’s Self, results in knowing and controlling the universe.

Directing the attention inside into the search of the Self marks the primacy of psychology in Indian thought. The doctrinal change in Brahamanical thought came together with the emergence of a new religious group and practice - the śramņas, or ”drop-outs“, who left society in the search of the ultimate way of manipulation that leads to final liberation from the bondage of the world, the bondage of life and death. Their practice leads to gaining the most important knowledge, that which results in complete transformation of experience, and leads to final liberation of the knower from suffering and continuous rebirth and re-death. This description is partly true for Buddhism as well.

The Buddha-to-be was a renunciate, a śramaņa (or samaņa in Pali). He left home in the search for liberation from suffering and, if we believe the Buddhist traditional account, he studied various esoteric practices before rejecting some of them and developing his own understanding of the way to liberation.

It has been stated already that Buddhism is a soteriology that is based on knowing and seeing reality. As such it clearly belongs to Indian śramaņa tradition, which also sees knowledge as central to liberation. But Buddhism promotes a different kind of knowledge than the knowledge of the Upanişads and posits an opposition to various philosophical doctrines and practices of the time. Most importantly, it rejects the identification theory of ātman and Brahman, and internalizes and ethicizes the notion of karma.

The search for the Self, ātman, has some common features with the Western traditional preoccupation with the Soul. In the past 50 years Cognitive Science has provided an arena to explore an alternative way for dealing with soul, mind and selfhood. Without overruling the differences between the Buddhist rejection of ātman and the scientific rejection of the soul, there are some important similarities that I plan to explore in the near future.

Books mentioned in this post:

Williams, P., & Tribe, A. (2000). Buddhist Thought: a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge. Buy it with Amazon