Empty Cup

The defining characteristic that separates humans from animals is that humans tend to be very self-congratulatory. We humans think of ourselves as being the ‘bees knees’ in the grand scheme of things. We are at the top of the food chain, we have no natural predators, we control our environment, and basically we are the masters who are calling the shots.

This is precisely what I’d call the height of self-delusion. Being the self-proclaimed and self-appointed masters of the universe, we are indeed the most arrogant living beings, period.

So what is it exactly that we humans are so incredibly proud of? What is our crowning achievement that sets us so high above any other living beings?

Is it perchance our ability to think in abstract terms? Let’s watch the video clip below depicting a human being engaged in an exercise of abstract thinking and reasoning. The subject is given a brief glimpse of five randomly distributed single digit numbers (each number unique, in this case the numbers are 1, 3, 4, 6 and 9). The numbers then get masked by opaque squares, and the subject is challenged to touch the masked numbers, from the lowest to the highest. The exercise then gets repeated, each time with different numbers distributed differently around the touch screen:

Ouch! That was quite bad. Let’s now watch the video depicting a chimpanzee attempting to pass the same test:

Yowza! Monkey business indeed!

There’s plenty of more similarly revealing videos coming from the Japanese research lab, underlying the chimps’ superiority over highly educated humans.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so self-congratulatory anymore. Nor do I feel so self-important anymore.

In our next installment, we’ll probe a bit deeper into what appears to be the obvious difference between humans and chimps. The results are quite revealing.

You can now go and tap yourself on the shoulder for being so superior to other living beings.

It would be ludicrous to expect any person to voluntarily sign his or her own death warrant. And yet, that’s what true Buddhist practice expects from us.

Of course, no one is ever going to do such a thing, and consequently we have this Buddhist practice that is put in place in order to slowly ‘cook us’ and prepare us for signing the much dreaded death warrant. In that respect, the Buddhist practice must be a bit sneaky, so that it can slowly and imperceptibly creep up on us and deliver the final blow when we least expect it.

Cycles

According to the Buddhist way of thinking, everything is subject to cycles. When it comes to issues concerning the human predicament, these cycles appear to be determined by the particular quality of mind each individual brings into the game. For example, one observes people who are subjected to extremely short cycles. Such people can typically be found among acute addicts, such as gamblers or drug and alcohol addicts, violence addicts, etc.

Upon observing the behavior of such short-cycle bound people, one cannot help but be forced to conclude that such people are extremely selfish. For example, a serious gambler, when finding himself in a pickle, would think nothing of selling his own family’s future just to have another go at it. In his mind, life is absolutely not worth living unless his selfish desire to go for a ride (meaning, to bet his money on a particular horse, for example) gets to be instantly fulfilled.

Similar observations and conclusions can be made about the drug addicts, for example. A typical crack-head or a heroin addict sees nothing, knows nothing when it comes to getting the next fix. The cycles that govern his existence are extremely short, and the selfishness resulting from such short cycles is extremely pronounced. It would be difficult to find more selfish people than among those who are ensnared by the extremely short and tight cycles.

Moving away from such extreme cases, we find regular, everyday folk who appear free from being enslaved from such short cycles. Instead of being governed by the cycles that keep rearing their ugly head every 20 minutes or so, common workaday folk are more enslaved by the longer cycles that could usually be described as ‘from paycheck to paycheck’. It should not come as a big surprise to learn that most people today live their lives from paycheck to paycheck, consequently finding themselves ensnared by the weekly or biweekly cycles. Most of these people do not and cannot see anything beyond this one or two weeks horizon. And consequently, their mindset is also quite narrow.

Not nearly as narrow as the mindset of a serious gambler or a crack-head, of course, but nevertheless quite narrow. A person who cannot see beyond the two week milestone cannot possibly be expected to be very broad-minded.

Broadening our horizons, we may find another group of people, the business people or proprietors, whose cycles tend to stretch beyond the two week horizon. Typically, business people view their world in terms of quarters (which coincide with the quarterly financial reports). Such businesses live and die based on their performance tied to a particular quarter.

If we then leave the narrow-minded world of addicts, paycheck winners and business people, we may encounter people whose cycles get to be longer thanks to tying their horizons to the cycles found in nature. This mostly pertains to the natural seasons. These seasons govern the lives of farmers, fishermen, hunters, gatherers, etc. These people have somewhat less selfish outlook on life, thanks to their somewhat broader view on life’s cycles.

Finally, it is possible to get in touch with people who have managed to leave even the world of seasonal cycles, and to arrive at the outlook which encompasses their entire lifetime. These are the people who have withdrawn from everyday affairs to devote their lives to serving some supernatural force, such as god etc. They typically belong to some community of priesthood or something similar, and are serving a very specific role in the overall structure of the society.

These religious devotees gaze at a much longer, wider cycle than most of their fellow humans. The cycle they are focused on encompasses their entire lifetime. Thus, their mindset is much broader than the mindset of an average person, and their level of selfishness is usually much lesser than that of an average person. They view their entire life as a journey which will culminate with their death, at which point their actions and deeds will get evaluated by some higher, supernatural being, and they will get rewarded/punished accordingly. This faith influences the outlook these people may have on the cycles of existence.

All of the above examples deal with cycles of existence that vary in length. The length of these cycles depend on the horizon any given person is engaged in. The narrower the horizon, the shorter the cycle, and consequently the harsher the selfishness.

However, regardless of the respective length of the cycle one is engaged in, there is a limit to that cycle. And that limit is determined by the longevity of that person’s identity. At the minimum, it is driven by the immediate selfish impulse, which the person engaged in the cycle cannot perceive in any other way but only as something of utmost urgency and importance. At the maximum, it cannot exceed that person’s physical existence.

A notable exception to this worldview is the Buddhist view, which helps stretch those cycles even beyond the boundaries of the individual lifespan.

The Maker and the Making

According to the Buddhist teaching, it is not possible to have an action without an agent who would execute such an action. And conversely, it would not be possible to have an actor, or an agent, who doesn’t do anything. Action and actor performing it define each other and cannot appear independently, in a similar way that we cannot have ‘left’ without having ‘right’ at the same time, nor can we have ‘up’ without having ‘down’ at the same time.

Furthermore, in the Buddhist world there are no coincidences. Unlike the scientific picture of the world, which treats pretty much every occurrence as a mere coincidence until it can be demonstrated that such occurrence complies with some elegant underlying theory, in the Buddhist world every occurrence happens for a very good reason. There are no capricious, whimsical events, nor are there any events that would be a handiwork of some supernatural being (such as god).

How do things happen according to the Buddhist teaching, then? Simply put, things are governed by the Law of Causality. Anything that happens must bear fruit. There is no possibility of an ‘orphaned’ event, that is to say, in the Buddhist world every event results from some other event. And furthermore, every event will result in some other event. So, the Buddhist Law of Causality portrays the world as being one enormous Matrix.

But where is the Primary Mover, then? Where is the event that put all this matrix in motion? In the Buddhist teaching, there isn’t such a thing as a beginning. In other words, the world is beginningless.

The most important outcome of this teaching is its ethical, or moral component. Since nothing happens without a cause, it is impossible to wiggle out of this chain of cause-and-effect. Any deed, performed by an actor (or, a doer), must, according to this teaching, bear fruit. But the crucial teaching is that this fruit cannot be tasted by anyone else by the original doer. Thus, there simply is nowhere to hide in the Buddhist world. According to the Buddha’s teaching, it would be impossible to cheat the system and to duck the responsibility.

Another important aspect of this teaching is the fact that it is impossible for someone else to taste or experience the fruits of our actions. This then guarantees the absolute fairness of such Buddhist universe, where everyone reaps whatever they sow.

The Buddhist Cycles

Buddhist practitioners live in the Buddhist universe, as described earlier. They know that anything that happens in their lives is caused by something they did previously. They also know that everything they do right now is going to bear fruit, and that fruit is going to be experienced by them, and no one else.

Knowing this, they realize that, once they die, they inevitably leave behind the legacy of their own deeds. This legacy lives on, as the Buddha taught that there cannot be an ‘orphaned’ event, the one that will not bear fruit.

The only problem, then, is — who is going to taste the fruit of such acts, once the original doer disappears (that is, dies)?

And the only meaningful answer to this question is that the original doer will continue to kick around, and will be brought by the Law of Causality to taste the fruits of his or her previous actions.

This being so, it becomes evident that the Buddhist cycles have the capacity to stretch beyond the limits of an individual lifetime. As such, these cycles bring with them an unprecedented broadening of the horizons. The trifle selfishness and the small-mindedness of the everyday person, who can barely see beyond his/her paycheck, let alone beyond his lifetime, now gets slowly replaced by the open-mindedness of the typical Buddhist practitioner. The broadened horizons help appease the innate fears that make most people completely incapacitated.

Being an anti-dogmatic discipline to the core, Madhyamika teaches that any unexamined assertion must be taken with a skeptical frame of mind. Anything that gets accepted at face value, without examining the solidity of the offered conclusion, is a good candidate for the Madhyamika brand of dialectic investigation.

Dogma usually springs from two sources: either a sample of the untutored perception is taken for granted, or the authority of some sacred scripture gets taken for granted.

There are three categories of typical Non-Buddhist dogmas that need to be examined:

1. Materialist worldview
2. Substantialism
3. Modal worldview

The Materialist View

For materialists, the only reality is what appears to the raw perception. According to their way of thinking, all things and events we are able to perceive are based on the materialistic grounds.

By adopting this worldview, materialists only accept direct perception, while rejecting inference, as a source of valid knowledge. Thus, when asked about past and future existences, for instance, they express their disbelief. They do not accept the possibility of past lives, nor the possibility of future lives. The reason for this is that such states are not directly perceived by the senses, and consequently there is no evidence for them. If a common person cannot directly perceive past or future lives, where would the evidence that such things exist be?

Madhyamika Refutation Of The Materialist View

To this conviction Madhyamika presents the following question:

Is this non-perception of past and future existences a direct perception or not?

If it is not a direct perception, on what grounds then can the materialists decide whether those unperceived things exist? The materialists have established that, according to their rules, direct perception of an object furnishes the only grounds for belief in the existence of that object.

If, on the other hand, the materialists answer that this non-perception of past and future existences is a direct perception, that gives rise to a completely new problem. If it is possible indeed to directly perceive the non-perception of something, then it follows that even a nonexistent thing is directly perceived. And the moment the nonexistent thing gets directly perceived, and according to the materialist rules, the nonexistent thing becomes existent.

Thus, the existent and the nonexistent things meld into a single irrational something, which cannot withstand any analysis, nor can it support the materialist thesis.

However the materialists choose to answer the question whether non-perception is a direct perception or not, they invalidate their own system. We are therefore forced to reach the conclusion that their fundamental rationale is based on pure unexamined dogma, or, put another way, their system is based on completely irrational grounds.

More to come…

Humans have a tendency to value knowledge as a tool used for dealing with life’s challenges. The history of human civilization offers countless examples of the quest for knowledge about the world – how does it work, what does it consist of, how does it all hang together, etc. This precious tool has always been desirable, in all ages and under all circumstances. We love to acquire knowledge, to accumulate it, to amass it, and so on.

A much more rare and unusual quest is the one for acquiring the knowledge about knowledge. Acquiring the knowledge about the world is what we’re all naturally drawn to. But seldom do we ever stop and think abut the knowledge itself. What kind of a thing is it? What makes it tick, how does it all hang together, what is it made of?

Recent developments in the field of epistemology (knowledge about the knowledge) have truly pushed the focus from investigating and learning about the world to investigating and learning about the learning itself. In the past hundred years or so, we’ve witnessed increased activity in the field of logic, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and in general, in the field of cognitive sciences.

Limits Of The Language

One of the most influential twentieth century philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951), attempted to first and foremost draw a limit to what is expressible in language. Thus he proposed we divide things into two camps – on one side we place all the things expressible using language, while everything remaining on the other side will result in nonsense.

As a corollary to this arrangement, anyone who tries to say something about the other side of the boundary (i.e. beyond the limits of language) will inevitably produce a statement that has no meaning.

Although Wittgenstein claims that any proposition about something that is inexpressible is necessarily meaningless, his own propositions about those same things are somehow supposed to be sensible. However, if one actually understands those pointed propositions (furnished by Wittgenstein) about something that is inexpressible, it follows that these propositions are not nonsense.

Thus, what Wittgenstein proposed ended up being contradictory. But, when we attempt to wiggle out of that controversy, we find that it’s really impossible to do so. Thus, we’re faced with a particularly nasty paradox.

Russell’s Paradox

Back in 1902, famous philosopher Bertrand Russell stumbled upon a very significant paradox. That paradox is perhaps the easiest to understand by using the following illustration (a hypothetical example from real life):

Imagine that you’ve been hired as a librarian. On your first day at work, the Senior Librarian gives your first assignment. He explains it to you like this:

In this library, we have many books that refer to themselves. For example, there are books that mention something like this – ’see page 42′, or something similar to that. Now, what we would like you to do is to examine all the books in the library, and then create two new books. In one book you’ll enter the titles and the ISBN numbers of all the books that refer to themselves, while in another book you’ll enter the titles and the ISBN numbers of all the books that do not refer to themselves.

Once you finish this task, you’ll be faced with one final decision – where should you enter the titles of the two new books you’ve just created? If one of the two new books (let’s call it “Catalog A”) contains entries for every book that does not reference itself, and if the other book (let’s call it “Catalog B”) contains entries for every book that references itself, then where should the entry for “Catalog B” go?

Since “Catalog B” does not make any reference to itself, it should be placed in “Catalog A”. But then, where should “Catalog A” be placed?

Russell thus encountered an indeterminate situation, which he formalized as follows:

• R is the set of all sets that are not members of themselves
• Is set R a member of itself or not?

The outcome of this impasse is that any sufficiently complex, consistent logical framework cannot be self-dependent.

Further Investigations

Other modern-day thinkers tried to deepen and elucidate on Wittgenstein’s ideas. Willard Van Orman Quine (1908 – 2000) tried to enrich our understanding of the limitations of language by positing that meaning exists only in its relationship to behavior. Thus he established that our expressions in language lack determinate meanings outside of our conventions (or, outside of consensus).

Again, although Quine tried really hard to liberate our considerations of the limitations of expressiveness from the tangles of paradox, he couldn’t avoid acute contradiction. If we are to accept his view, we must realize that his own statements sorely lack determinate sense. So we can’t be sure if we understood him or not.

This problem that something is inexpressible and yet that something is nevertheless expressed, was also tackled by Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004). Derrida accepted that nothing has meaning in and of itself, but only in relation to, and in opposition to, other things. These relative meanings are constantly in flux. Thus the meaning has no ultimate mode for grounding itself.

But again we see that Derrida expresses something that he shows cannot be expressible. The limit of expressibility is again reached. However, the closure is, as in other cases, marred in contradiction. If meaning is constantly in flux, perhaps it is not possible to express anything at all.

In Derrida’s work, what he seems to be telling us is that his own writing is meaningless, yet we somehow understand him, and are forced to admit that the meaning was expressed, after all.

Naming The Unnameable And Expressing The Inexpressible

Such investigations, that started emerging during the twentieth century in the West, are actually nothing new. Even 2,500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha began teaching these concepts, and had successfully founded and launched one of the world’s greatest and most vital philosophic/religious systems. His teachings on these topics were most successfully expressed 700 years after his death, in the works of the Buddhist Master Nagarjuna.

The crowning achievement of the Buddhist philosophy is found in the seminal work by Nagarjuna Mulamadhyamakakarika (”The Treatise on the Middle Way”), written around 200 CE. In this treatise, we find the following statement:

What language expresses is nonexistent.
The sphere of thought is nonexistent.

(XVIII. 7.)

In stating this, Nagarjuna seemed to have been trying to express something similar to what Derrida was after (see explanation above). Language expresses something that, in and of itself, doesn’t exist. It only appears to be existing in relation to and in contrast with other, equally non-existing “entities”.

Both Nagarjuna and Derrida go beyond the limitations posited by Wittgenstein, who allowed for the existence of things that are expressible using language.

However, Nagarjuna seems to go even beyond Derrida, in stating that not only is language caught in this mire of expressing something that does not exist, the thought itself is not only incapable of expressing anything, it actually doesn’t exist at all!

What on earth could he actually mean by saying that?

To Nagarjuna, and, for that matter to any other accomplished Buddhist practitioner, all things may be seen in truth or in delusion. This twin-identity is the essence of the Buddhist teaching. Seen correctly, the ultimate, the inexpressible gets expressed and the unnameable gets named. Seen incorrectly (that is, erroneously), the ultimate appears as all-concealing truth.

All phenomena are thus the contrived, resulting from erroneous, miscalculated apprehension. As such, all phenomena are nothing but “all-concealing” truth.

Note that phenomena, contrived and erroneous as they are, are still regarded as truth by the Buddhists. This is because they are the basis of the consensus, or conventional agreement. But ultimately, phenomena, the “all-concealing truth”, are nonexistent, have no identity, are unproduced.

Language expresses phenomena – their phantom apparent existence, their phantom apparent identity, their phantom apparent production/cessation. As such, language necessarily expresses what is nonexistent.

The sphere of thought, on the other hand, corresponds to the arising of the “all-concealing truth”. It is where the consensus is formed. The apparent reality, the apparent substantiality of the erroneously perceived unnameable, inexpressible “that”, reveals that the sphere of this activity is nonexistent. It is an imagined field of activity.

More to come…