Can You Trust Your Mind? Does Your Brain Deceive You?

Does the brain have its own selfish agenda?

If the mind is nothing more than the brain, and the brain has evolved solely to ensure the survival of our stone-age ancestors, then how do we know that it can reliably do anything beyond the range of competence for which 'survival of the fittest' selected it?  

Natural selection cannot select directly for true beliefs, but only for advantageous behaviors.

So is the brain giving us a picture of the world that is being dictated by selfish genes, rather than one that represents some true underlying reality? 

Is the brain just a propaganda machine for our genes, telling us to preserve and propagate them?

And, observing it all, is there a non-physical mind that is being deluded by the physical brain?

Researching the Doors of Perception

Darwin had his doubts

Charles Darwin himself doubted whether the brain can give us an unbiased representation of reality:

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"    
- Letter to William Graham, 1881 

A Biological Scam

So who or what is being deluded by this biological scam?   

Free agent?

If we aren't just the products of our genes, then what are we?  How is it possible for us to think of ourselves as potentially non-deluded, non-mechanistic, non-biological free agents, who can see beyond the tricks the brain plays on us?    Is there indeed an immaterial mind that can be trained to penetrate the delusions and discover ultimate truth?  

Is this ability to see beyond the brain's self-serving propaganda the change in awareness that Buddhist meditations aim to bring about?


Read the full article at Evolution, Emptiness and Delusions of the Darwinian Mind

Time and Impermanence in Middle Way Buddhism and Modern Physics

Victor Mansfield

Here's an article from the archives, but well worth revisiting. It's by the late Victor Mansfield, Department of Physics and Astronomy Colgate University Hamilton, based on a talk given at the Physics and Tibetan Buddhism Conference,  University of California, Santa Barbara January 30-31, 1998

Excerpts:

'I hope to show that understanding a little about time in modern physics helps us more deeply appreciate some of the most profound ideas in Buddhism. Furthermore, I will also suggest that some appreciation of Middle Way Buddhist ideas could aid in the development of physics. Thus a nontrivial synergy between these two very different disciplines is possible, one that results in deeper understanding and more compassionate action. While time may be a devouring tiger, appreciating these ideas might help us attain equanimity and encourage us to act more compassionately toward each other and the planet...."

"I’ll review the principle of emptiness within the Middle Way Consequence School (Prasangika Madhyamika, which I abbreviate by Middle Way) through a little story. Nearly thirty years ago a very holy man gave me some fresh carrot juice to drink. What a tasty elixir! I returned home determined to grow some fresh carrots of my own on our little farm. (Actually, I was determined to get my wife to grow them.) However, the soil in my part of the world is heavy and stony, and the carrots that first year were stubby and misshapen. I thought, "If only I had a garden tiller, I could whip that heavy soil into the most beautiful carrot bed." I could not afford one of those fancy tillers that a delicate ten-year-old girl can operate with one hand. My rototiller is a test of my manhood, a bucking bronco requiring strength and stamina. Of course, time destroys both people and equipment, and my tiller soon suffered from a long list of woes. It requires the patience of an advanced Bodhisattva to start, it only works at the deepest setting, it no longer has a reverse, and it cannot run in place and so bolts ahead . . . when you can manage to start it. However, I only use it a few hours a year, so I suffer with it and consider it a perverse sort of challenge.

One beautiful spring day a few years ago the rototiller was taking me for my annual ride while it bathed me in the blue smoke of burning oil. I was musing on carrots and rototillers and suddenly had a tiny enlightenment. The second of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths tells us that suffering is caused by desire. My desire for that delicious carrot juice had chained me to this rototiller for a quarter of a century! A desire for fresh, sweet carrot juice initially seemed innocent and "spiritually correct," in that good health is an aid to practicing dharma, but look where it led. Desire does generate suffering. However, those blue clouds bellowing from the burned out muffler along with that shattering noise and vibration urged me to deeper reflection. Upon what is that carrot-desire based?

Objects of Desire

The Middle Way clearly answers that desires and aversions are based upon the false belief in independent existence, the idea that beyond my personal associations, relationship, and names for carrots, there is a real, substantial, inherently existent entity. This substantially existent object, that entity that "exists from its own side," is the basis upon which we project all our desires and aversions, all our craving for and fleeing from objects.

This innate and unreflective belief in inherent existence divides into two pieces. First, that phenomena exist independent of mind or knowing. That "underneath" or "behind" the psychological associations, names, and linguistic conventions we apply to objects like carrot or rototiller, something objective and substantial exists fully and independently from its own side. Such independent objects appear to provide the objective basis for our shared world. Second, we falsely believe these objects to be self-contained and independent of each other.[2] Each object being fundamentally nonrelational, it exists on its own right without essential dependence upon other objects or phenomena. In other words, the essential nature of these objects is their nonrelational unity and completeness in themselves.

Since it is so critical to identify inherent existence carefully, let me say it in other words. Consider the carrot stripped of its sense qualities, history, location, and relation to its surroundings. All but an advanced practitioner of the Middle Way believes that this denuded carrot has some unique essence, some concrete existence that provides the foundation for all its other qualities. This core of its being, this independent or inherent existence, is what the Middle Way denies. The carrot surely has conventional existence; it attracts rodents and makes great juice. It functions as a food. However, it totally lacks independent or inherent existence, what we falsely believe is the core of its being. In other words, the object or subject we falsely believe independently exists is not actually "finable upon analysis." When we search diligently for that entity we believe inherently exists, we cannot actually find it. It’s independent being does not become clearer and more definite upon searching. Instead, phenomena exist in the middle way because they lack inherent existence, but do have conventional existence.


While reifying carrots, I simultaneously reify the one who desires carrots and consider him as inherently existent too. Out of the seamless flux of experience, I falsely impute or attribute inherent existence to both the subject and its object of desire and thereby spin the wheel of samsara. In this way, perception is a double act that simultaneously generates a false belief in inherently existent subjects and objects, gentleman farmers and their carrots. Then our time is occupied with cherishing our personal ego, putting its desires before all else, pushing others aside to satisfy those desires, and running after objects we falsely believe inherently exist. We think those objects will make us happy, but in fact they can never satisfy us. Perhaps time "is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." Was not this the point of the Buddha’s fire sermon?

According to the Middle Way, we can put out the fire by deeply appreciating the doctrine of emptiness, the lack of inherent existence in all subjects and objects, in all phenomena. This requires not only an intellectual formulation as given here, but a profound transformation of our whole being at many levels—a process that usually takes many life times..."

The description of emptiness given so far is negative, a thoroughgoing denial of what we wrongly believe is the core of existence. Next, let me turn to a more positive description of phenomena, including carrots. If phenomena don’t independently exist than how do they exist? 

The Middle Way tells us that they dependently exist in three fundamental ways. First, phenomena exist dependent upon causes and conditions. For example, carrots depend upon soil, sunlight, moisture, freedom from rodents, and so forth. Second, phenomena depend upon the whole and its parts. Carrots depend upon its greens, stem, root hairs, and so on and the totality of all these parts. Third, and most profoundly, phenomena depend upon mental imputation, attribution, or designation. From the rich panoply of experience, I collect the sense qualities, personal associations, and psychological reactions to carrots together, and name them or designate them as "carrot." The mind’s proper functioning is to construct its world, the only world we can know. The error enters because along with naming comes the false attribution of inherent existence, that foundation for desire and aversion.

For the Middle Way, dependent arising is a complementary way of describing emptiness. We can understand them as two different views of the same truth. Therefore, contrary to our untutored beliefs, the ultimate nature of phenomena is its dependency and relatedness, not isolated existence and independence.

One of the difficulties in understanding emptiness is that we can easily assent to the importance of relatedness, while falling prey to the unconscious assumption that relations are superimposed upon independently existent terms in the relation. In fact, it is the relationships, the interdependencies that are the reality, since objects or subjects are nothing but their connections to other objects and subjects.

We might ask what would phenomena be like if they did in fact inherently or independently exist. The Middle Way explains that inherently existent objects would be immutable, since in their essence they are independent of other phenomena and so uninfluenced by any interactions. Conversely, independently existent objects would also be unable to influence other phenomena, since they are complete and self-contained. In short, independently existent objects would be immutable and impotent. Of course, experience denies this since our world is of continuously interacting phenomena, from the growth of carrots nourished by sun, rain, and soil, to their destruction by rodents. From the subjective side, that we do not independently exist implies that it is possible to transform ourselves into Buddhas, exemplars of infinite wisdom and compassion.

Critics of the Middle Way often say that if objects did not inherently exist, they could not function to produce help and harm. Carrots lacking independent existence could not give sweet juice or make soup. The Middle Way turns this around 180 degrees, and answers that it is precisely because objects and subjects lack independent existence that they are capable of functioning. So the very attribute that we falsely believe is at the core of phenomena would, if present, actually prevent them from functioning.

Now how does all this relate to the Middle Way notion of time? As I mentioned above, if phenomena inherently existed then they would of necessity be immutable and impotent, unable to act on us or we on them. Since, in truth, phenomena are fundamentally a shifting set of dependency relations, impermanence and change are built into them at the most fundamental level. That the carrot exists in dependence upon causes and conditions, its whole and parts, and on our attribution or naming is what makes it edible, allows me to experience it and be nourished by it. 

More important for impermanence, these defining relations and co-dependencies and their continuously shifting connections with each other guarantee that all objects and subjects are impermanent, ceaselessly evolving, maturing, and decaying. In short, emptiness and impermanence are two sides of the coin of existence and therefore transformation and change are built into the core of all entities, both subjective and objective. In this way, the doctrine of impermanence is a direct expression of emptiness/dependent arising. 

Because I lack inherent existence and am most fundamentally a kinetic set of shifting experiences, with no eternal soul, as we normally understand it, then "Time is the substance I am made of." Borges’ compact sentence seems like a Middle Way aphorism. Being substantially of time guarantees my continuous transformation and death. Indeed, time "is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." These philosophic truths of emptiness and impermanence are central to Buddhist practice, and I return to them later. Now let us turn to physics and its view of time.

Time in Modern Physics

As mentioned in the introduction, we all have a natural belief in the absoluteness of time, meaning that, for example, one minute is the same for all observers. Let me again proceed by way of example... "   continued, read the full article at Buddha Net


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Sutra and Tantra in Buddhism

Tara

Sutra and Tantra

It's sometimes thought that Sutra and Tantra are two completely separate Buddhist paths, with Sutra being philosophical and tantra being 'mystical', 'esoteric' and 'devotional'. But in fact Tantra follows logically from Sutra.


Arising and reborn out of emptiness
The discussion on emptiness showed that all functioning phenomena are free from inherent existence, that is they are not definable in terms of themselves, but are dependently related to other phenomena. The same line of reasoning can be applied to our own identities, for if we search hard enough for our Self or Ego - we find it isn't there!

This may sound a bit scary to anyone unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy, because we normally regard our sense of selfhood as something absolutely basic to our security and continued existence. Even scarier and weirder is the fact that Buddhist meditators deliberately cultivate the realisation that there is no basis for the Self or Ego. Why on earth should anyone want to deny their own identity?

Well, it isn't quite like that. The meditators are trying to clarify the basis of imputation of the Self by clearing away all the socially-conditioned and biologically-contingent accretions. Their intention is to become aware of the clear emptiness, the formless mind at the centre of the individual's existence. This realisation leads to liberation from the round of rebirth and suffering, and is the basis for embarking on the Tantric path.

Existential angst

Of course some Western philosophers, such as the 1950's existentialists, have also come to the conclusion that the individual's identity is unfindable, but they have tended to regard this as a cause of depression and angst rather than as a source of celebration. This culture of 'Existential Angst' probably occurred because the philosophers had discovered the emptiness of the self, but at that time they lacked the meditational tools to build upon it.

To Buddhists, the realisation of the emptiness of the self is a cause for celebration rather than depression, because a meditator whose mind has no unchangeable essence also has no constraints, and may choose to change the basis of imputation of the self in order to realise her ultimate potential . In other words, a Tantric practitioner who has realised her emptiness can change the basis of imputation of her Self from the biological realm to the Buddha realm. (We all have biological nature, but also Buddha seed)

Guan Yin

Meditation on the emptiness of the self
The meditation on emptiness of the Ego takes various forms, but most involve the gradual stripping away of everything and every relationship that makes us who we are.

We may start with the intellectual realisation that there is no permanent basis for our identity, by considering how the physical, mental, emotional and social bases of imputation of the Self changed as we passed through kindergarten, elementary school, adolescence, college, first job, parenthood, etc.

We then meditate by stripping everything away that determines our identity:

• My job isn't me, if they fired me tomorrow my existence wouldn't be diminished (though my bank balance might)

• My name isn't me. I've already changed it three times to avoid the attentions of the Inland Revenue.

• My academic qualifications aren't me. I had forgotten half of what I'd learned within two weeks of taking the final examination.

• My genes aren't me. I share 95% of them with chimpanzees.

• My physical and chemical composition aren't me. The atoms that make up my body are constantly being lost and replaced (more than replaced judging by the bathroom scales). In any case they're supposed to turn over completely every 7 years.

• My family relationships aren't me, they're constantly changing. When I was younger I had neither a spouse nor children.

• My car isn't me. I know they say a man/woman is what he/she drives, but my car is going to end up as a pile of rust in the junkyard, hopefully before I reach the same state.

And so we continue along the via negativa - examining everything that could possibly be the root cause of what we are, including our beliefs, expectations, attachments, memes, mental processes, habits, evolutionary history, instincts, memories, childhood traumas and so on - and discarding each in turn. Eventually, when all things and all relationships have been exhausted, we become aware of the emptiness of our Self. It isn't nothingness that we become aware of, it is pure formless mind, which is empty of any defining or determining essence.

Tantra
The basic principle of Tantra is that once we have realised that we are ultimately empty of fixed existence, we should also realise that we are free from any constraints to our potential.

Tantric meditators start from where meditation on Emptiness left off. Having learned that we aren't obliged to use a biological body and evolutionary-detemined instincts as the basis of imputation of the self, we can use something else, for example a Buddha.

In Tantric practice we visualise our self as an Enlightened Being. (This is a meditational practice known as 'bringing the result into the path'. It has recently been adopted by some of the more 'New Age' schools of personal development where the practitioner visualises herself actually going through the process of achieving her goal).

Green Tara

We employ rich symbolically-charged visualisations to experience ourselves arising from the state of emptiness as a Meditation Buddha, such as Tara. Meditational Buddhas are known as Yidams in Tibetan practice.

The practice of Tantric visualisations is said to hasten us along the path to enlightenment, and decrease our attachment to being reborn in the biological realms and other states of craving and suffering.



The Kadampa understanding of tantra
"...The way all four tantras work is the same:  we observe an object that would otherwise normally give rise to attachment.  When that occurs, we usually generate some sort of pleasant feeling in our mind.  We then consider how the pleasant feeling does not come from the object, but rather comes from inside our mind.  We then try to dissolve the object which gave rise to our attachment into emptiness while preserving the pleasant feeling.  When we do this, the pleasant feeling transforms into a pure feeling that is a similitude of the mind of great bliss (pure inner peace).  We then hold that mind for as long as we can, trying to stabilize it.  Once stabilized, we can then turn our attention to meditating on the emptiness of this mind of great bliss.

In all tantras, we first generate ourselves as the deity we are going to practice.  It is inappropriate to maintain our ordinary body and mind when engaging in Tantric practice, so we do so as the self-generated deity.  In action tantra, we imagine we look upon a beautiful deity.  In performance tantra, we imagine that she is looking at us in an enticing, seductive way.  In yoga tantra, we touch, kiss, etc., the deity.  And in highest yoga tantra, we engage in union with the deity.  Each of these is a higher level of attachment, and so therefore a stronger feeling of bliss, which we then realize the emptiness of in the way just described.  We cannot engage in qualified highest yoga tantra without first being able to do qualified yoga tantra.  We cannot do qualified yoga tantra without first being able to do qualified performance tantra, and so forth.  But we can’t do any of these without first being able to generate ourselves as the deity in a qualified way.  Our ability to generate ourselves in a qualified way depends upon (1) a motivation of bodhichitta, in other words a solid practice of Lamrim, (2) a solid foundation of moral discipline, in other words training in all of our vows and commitments, and (3) a clear understanding of emptiness.  So our focus at this stage should not be on trying different methods for generating bliss, rather our focus should be on Lamrim, moral discipline, the wisdom realizing emptiness, and self-generation practice."  Read it all.



MORE ON TANTRA





For full detailed information on Sutra and Tantra, download this eBook (in three volumes Vol 1 Sutra, Vol 2 Tantra): 

Modern Buddhism:  free eBook downloadable for Windows, Mac, Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook and Android

Read more at Buddhist Philosophy
 

- Sean Robsville

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Existence, Impermanence and Emptiness in Buddhism

There's a common misunderstanding of the concept of emptiness in Buddhism - namely that "Buddhists believe that things don't (really) exist" or, "Buddhists believe that nothing exists".

Emptiness really means 'empty of inherent existence'. In other words no phenomenon contains the reason for its existence within itself. All functioning phenomena arise from ever-changing relationships with other phenomena, including the minds of the observers.

The teachings on emptiness are concerned with HOW things exist, not IF and WHETHER things exist (UFO's Unicorns and Yetis) or WHY things exist (because God, The Devil or the Spaghetti Monster made them).

Language influences our thought. Let's consider how we use the words  'Exist(s), Existed and Existence'. Maybe 'Existence' itself is an arbitrary concept. Maybe 'Existence' is a convenient, conventional truth.

We don't normally say that an explosion exists or existed (though there's no logical reason not to say so). And we don't normally say that the universe occurs. Yet an explosion and the expanding universe are similar entities, just operating on different timescales.

From our point of view an explosion is a transitory event, but the universe is 'permanent'. An explosion happens, the universe exists.

We don't normally say that an eclipse exists, and we don't normally say that Stonehenge happens. Yet both phenomena are the temporary coming together of masses in a geometrical configuration. In one case sun, earth and moon in a straight line, in the other case, stones arranged in a circular pattern.

Relative to our lifetime an eclipse is a temporary phenomenon, whereas Stonehenge is more permanent (built to last 4000+ years).

But there is no absolute distinction between phenomena that exist and phenomena that occur or happen. The distinction is arbitrary, based on the following considerations:

(1) The universe consists of myriads of particles in a constant state of movement.

(2) These particles form aggregates which hang together for a time and then disintegrate.

(3) Aggregates that hang together for more than a substantial fraction of a human lifetime (eg a car) 'exist'. Aggregates that hang together for a tiny fraction of a human lifetime (eg a flash of lightning) 'happen' or 'occur' .

Yet although I think my car exists, it is actually a series of events. The car I arrived home in tonight is not the car I set out in this morning. It has rusted a bit. Its gears are worn. Its spark plugs are increasingly burnt. Its tyres are slightly less legal. Its windscreen-wipers are more knackered.

There's a Buddhist concept of 'subtle impermanence' which states that nothing whatsoever remains identical from one moment to the next.

So to say that something exists is ultimately an arbitrary statement. All we are saying is that its rate of disintegration is negligible on the timescale of our lifetime. In reality, all functioning phenomena are impermanent - it's just that some are more impermanent than others.

All 'things' are impermanent, and so all things are in reality processes. Things do not stay the same from one millisecond to the next. Anything composed of atoms is composed of parts in a constant state of flux. Existence is merely impermanence viewed in slow-motion.

Boxiness and trayfulness
To find the true and unchanging essence of a box you would have to find the unchanging essence of a process, which is a logical contradiction.

The nearest thing to finding a box-essence would be to say that these pieces of wood in this configuration perform the functions of a box. But that recognition comes entirely from your own mind (or from the collective minds of box-users).

It we were to cut the sides of a box down it would perform the functions of a tray.

If I say "I'll get a box to put this stuff in", then most people will understand that I'm going to fetch a container which performs the conventional function of a box, i.e. holds things. To do this it must have a bottom and at least three sides (like some chocolate boxes), though usually four. A lid is optional.

The box exists from causes and conditions (the box-maker, the wood or wood-pulp from which it is made, the trees, sunlight, acorn, soil, rain, lumberjacks etc.)

A box exists dependent on its parts (bottom and three or more sides).

The parts exist dependently on the box (otherwise they'd just be flat sheets of cardboard).

The box also exists because I and others decide to call it a box, not because of some inherent `boxiness' that all boxes have as a defining essence.

If it were a big cardboard box, and I cut a large L-shaped flap out of one side so it hinged like a door, then I could turn it upside down and it would be a child's play-house.

If I cut the sides of a wooden box down a centimeter at a time, then the box would get shallower and shallower. At some point the box would cease to exist and the tray would begin to exist. Or maybe the essence of `boxiness' would miraculously disappear and `trayfulness' would jump in.

Where does box end and tray start? I don't know. Maybe there's an EEC directive forbidding the construction of boxes with insufficiently high sides, or perhaps there's a Tray Descriptions Act. But whichever way, as well as existing in dependence on its parts, and on its causes and conditions, the box exists in dependence upon our minds (or the collective minds of the EEC Box-Standards Department) - imputing box over a certain collection of parts.


 See also  Buddhism and Process Philosophy


- Sean Robsville



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Sunyata - the emptiness of all things

The teachings on emptiness (Sanskrit sunyata or shunyata) find their most articulate development in the Kadampa branch of Mahayana Buddhism (Madhyamika Prasangika philosophy). To the Kadampas nothing exists 'inherently' or 'from its own side'. All functioning phenomena exist in dependence on three factors -


(i) their causes,

(ii) their parts or relations with other objects, and

(iii) their imputation by the mind of a sentient being.


And the sentient mind is NOT a physical construct or epiphenomenon of matter. The mind is clear and formless and has the power to know phenomena in a qualitative way [KELSANG GYATSO 1992], and hence give meaning to them.


To Kadampa Buddhists all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Consequently all things have no fixed identity ('inherent existence') and are are in a state of impermanence - change and flux - constantly becoming and decaying. Not only are all things constantly changing, but if we analyse any phenomenon in enough detail we come to the conclusion that it is ultimately unfindable, and exists purely by definitions in terms of other things - and one of those other things is always the mind which generates those definitions.


Buddhists regard the persistent delusion of 'inherent existence' as a major obstacle to spiritual development, and the root of many other damaging delusions. One of these delusions is the materialist belief in an objective reality existing independently of mind. By asserting that the universe exists inherently as a brute fact, materialism denies that subjective experience has any relevance to or influence on the universe, or indeed any existence at all.


The delusion of inherent existence is deeply ingrained our our culture. It was embedded into western philosophy by the Greek philosopher Plato, who was born about sixty years after Buddha's death. Plato's view of reality is that for any class of objects there is a defining ideal form which is fixed, permanent and unchanging. All physical instances of objects tend to be imperfect. For example the wilting, mildewed roses in my garden are imperfect instances of an ideal rose which exists in a perfect realm of eternal forms. It is only by reference to this authoritative 'specification' that my mind is able to identify and name the transient physical phenomena, which 'participate' in the ideal form's attributes.


Buddha died in 483 BC. Plato was born in 428 BC. Yet it is most unlikely that Plato was aware of his predecessor's teachings. In those days there was little contact between Greek and Indian philosophy. This had to await the eastward advance of Alexander the Great around 328 BC. The first recorded contact between Greek civilisation and Buddhism is the conversation between the Greek King Milinda of Bactria, and Nagasena, a Buddhist chariot dismantler [CONZE 1959].



Empty vehicles

King Milinda was a Greek and an experienced soldier who thought he knew a chariot when he saw one. But Nagasena demonstrated that if Milinda's chariot were gradually dismantled - knock a spoke out of a wheel here, a plank off there, then a bit of the frame and so on, there was no way for Milinda to decide at exactly what step in the procedure he should stop imputing 'vehicle' and start imputing 'heap of firewood'.


Nagasena said this was because the chariot had no power to define itself from its own side. Nor was there any ideal chariot form 'in the sky' which engaged and disengaged with the timber at definite stages of assembly and disassembly.


Milinda's mind was the only thing that could make the distinction between vehicle and firewood. And there were no logical rules, stepwise procedures or decision trees for Milinda to decide when to cease imputing one thing and impute another.


As with chariots, so with cars. Everyone knows what a car is. A car is an assembly of parts. But what makes those parts into a car is surprisingly difficult to pin down. At what stage on the production line do the components finally become a car?


Does it temporarily cease to be a car when it's in for repairs and the transmission is several yards away from the rest of the vehicle? Is my car still a car when I wake up one morning to find it supported on bricks with the wheels missing?


Or, could I say that the essential feature of a car is that it performs the functions of a car? So does it cease to be a car when it won't start? And does it return to the state of being a car when I cure the problem by spraying the electrics with moisture repellent? Does the true 'essence' of a car therefore reside in an aerosol can?




Emptiness of natural things.

Maybe we can rescue Plato's ideas of the inherent existence of perfect forms if we assume there is a strict demarcation between man-made and natural objects, with the former existing in dependence upon the 'judgement' of the observer, but the latter existing 'from their own side'. For having come to accept that man-made things such as chariots and cars owe some of their existence to dependence on our mind, we may suspect that this is somehow because they are originally products of the human mind - as first conceived by the designer.


We find it more difficult to accept the natural things in the world, such as flowers and trees are dependent upon our minds. A rose would smell as sweet by any other name. A rose bush is a rose bush is a rose bush, and is different in its inherent nature from a plum or a cherry tree. There is no continuum between these three species and thus no necessity for our mind to make a judgment of the borderline. But is this really the case?


From a long term evolutionary perspective, there is (or was) a continuum of form between all living things. If we were to examine the fossil records of the ancestors of cherry trees and plum trees we would find that they diverged from one common ancestor. Looking back through the fossils we would seen a continuous gradation of characteristics from the ancestors of the cherry to to the ancestors of the plum, leading back to a time when they were indistinguishable. But the decision as to where ancestor ended and plum or cherry began would be totally arbitrary. And if we were to trace the common ancestor of the cherry and plum we would find convergence with the ancestors of the rose, strawberry, raspberry etc.


What Darwin did for creationism he also did for biological Platonism - the biological species concept does not encapsulate any underlying truth [BROOKES 1999], and each individual species is unfindable. The 'species' being a snapshot of a population at a particular time in its evolution.


The ultimate unfindability of the real nature of all phenomena - their lack inherent existence, is usually referred to by English-speaking Buddhists as 'emptiness', which is a translation of the Sanskrit word Sunyata (sometimes spelled Shunyata). According to David Loy the English word emptiness has a more nihilistic connotation than the original Sanskrit. The Sanskrit root su also conveys the concept of being swollen with possibility [LOY 1996]. It is therefore most important not to confuse emptiness with total nothingness. Emptiness implies the potential for existence and change. The mathematical analogy of emptiness is not zero, but the empty set.


The conclusion that all things are empty of inherent existence and appear only in dependence on our minds is not an obvious truth. So deeply ingrained is the idea of inherent existence and authority in Western culture that even when we have analysed all things as dependent on causes, and dependent on parts, we still hold back from the most subtle truth of dependence on mind. We think there ought to be 'something out there', or someone 'authoritative' who prevents the real world from being so much dependent upon our judgement.

On first meeting teachings on emptiness the western mind often suspects it is the victim logical trickery or mere playing with words. Fortunately it is possible to demonstrate the true and all-pervasive nature of emptiness by examining the mode of existence of fundamental particles, the building blocks of all things in the material universe.



The participation of the observer.

According to the Kadampa school of Buddhist philosophy all functioning phenomena exist by dependence on other phenomena, which are themselves dependently related to other phenomena and so on. No matter how deeply or far back we search, no functioning phenomenon can ever be found which is fundamental or a 'thing-in-itself'. Neither the observer nor any observed phenomenon exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined. This viewpoint is known as dependent relationship.


Geshe Kelsang Gyatso [KELSANG GYATSO 1995] states that there are three levels of dependent relationship:


(1) Gross dependent relationship - causality.

(2) Subtle dependent relationship - structure and spatial interrelationships.

(3) Very subtle dependent relationship - the dependence of phenomena on imputation or designation by mind, sometimes known as 'intentionality' or 'aboutness'.


All functioning things exist in these three ways. The very subtle dependent relationship - existence by the mind's designation - is the most difficult one to understand, especially since for most ordinary phenomena this view of existence is masked by the two grosser levels of existence. This subtle mode of existence is always present, but only becomes apparent in those circumstances where the grosser levels do not dominate.


If we have problems with the terminology of gross and subtle, we may think of this as the degree of apparent objectivity of dependent relationship . The most gross is the most objective and the very subtle is the most subjective (or participatory) type of dependent relationship.


The existence of a thing in dependence of its causes (except in the special case where we were involved in making it ) appears totally objective and does not require our participation. The causes of a car are the geological processes which produced coal, iron and copper ores. Then the miners, metalworkers, designers, component manufacturers and assembly line workers who transformed the raw material into the finished product. Unless we happen to work in one of these industries, the causal mode of existence does not depend on our participation.

Existence in dependence on structure is more subjective. We may view a car as composed of a chassis, an engine and four wheels. Or we may take a more detailed view with the engine being seen as pistons, cylinder-head, carburettor etc. These too can be analysed into subcomponents, all the way down through atoms of iron and carbon, to the fundamental particles such as protons, electrons and the photons which shine from the headlamps.


Our perception of dependence upon structure is very much determined by how we choose to subdivide the whole. The mind has to participate by applying analytical effort to generate the view of existence in dependence upon parts and assemblies. A spark-plug is only a spark plug because we know what it does and where it fits. If you were to show a spark plug to Isaac Newton, he would not be able to give it a meaningful name.




Quantum sunyata

It's when we get to the final stage of perception of dependence in terms of the fundamental building blocks of matter that the very subtle (most participatory) level of dependent relationship,  designation by mind, becomes  most evident.  Experiments in quantum physics seem to demonstrate the need for the participation of an observer to make potentialities become real.  The observer is part of the system.

The mathematical equations of quantum physics do not describe actual existence - they describe potential for existence. Working out the equations of quantum mechanics for a system composed of fundamental particles produces a range of potential locations, values and attributes of the particles which evolve and change with time. But for any system only one of these potential states can become real, and - this is the revolutionary finding of quantum physics - what forces the range of the potentials to assume one value is the act of observation. Matter and energy are not in themselves phenomena, and do not become phenomena until they interact with the mind.

Read more at Buddhist Philosophy

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REFERENCES:


[KELSANG GYATSO 1992] The First Panchen Lama, cited by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in Clear Light of Bliss, 2nd Edition page 146 (London:Tharpa Publications, 1992, ISBN 0 948006 21 8).


[CONZE 1959] Conze, Edward (tr) Buddhist Scriptures p 146 ff; (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books Ltd , 1959)


[BROOKES 1999] Brookes, Martin, Live and Let Live , New Scientist p 32 -36, 3rd July 1999.


[LOY 1996] Loy, David in the afterword to Swedenborg, Buddha of the North , page 104, (Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester Pennsylvania, 1996, ISBN 0-87785-184-0)


[KELSANG GYATSO 1995] Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, 2nd Edition - page 349, (London: Tharpa Publications, 1995, ISBN 0948006 46 3)




My old btclick scimah Buddhist Philosophy site manifested the impermanence of all compound phenomena some years ago. Fortunately it had been archived before its demise.

However, as the original articles are no longer editable, this blog is my attempt to update some of them and present them in a more modern format, together with occasional new articles which may or may not have any relevance to the original site.