WHO AM I? (A ZEN STORY)

‘Who am I?’ Have you ever asked yourself that question? What was your answer?

Here’s a famous Zen story on the point. I often use this story in my counseling work. What it says about who we really are forms the cornerstone of Buddhist psychology as well as other forms of psychotherapy such as self illusion therapy.

A distraught man approached the Zen master. ‘Please, Master, I feel lost, desperate. I don't know who I am. Please, show me my true self!’ The teacher just looked away without responding. The man began to plead and beg, but still the master gave no reply. Finally giving up in frustration, the man turned to leave. At that moment the master called out to him by name. ‘Yes!’ the man said as he spun back around. ‘There it is!’ exclaimed the master.

When someone sees you they see you, that is, the person that you are. However, when you see and experience yourself you do not see and experience the person that in truth you are. Instead, you see and experience any one or more of a number of self-images held in your mind. At one point in time you may see and experience the ‘little me’ or the ‘frightened me’ or the ‘inferior me.’ At another point in time you may see and experience the ‘confident me.’ These ‘me’s’ are nothing more than self-images in your mind. They are images felt and experienced as real, that is, as the real person that you are. Because there is a feeling component to these images many of them can be quite strong and persistent over time. (Their persistency over time only reinforces the mistaken belief that these images are really you, and also makes change seem very difficult indeed.) However, none---I repeat none---of these felt self-images are real. They are not the real person that you are. Having said that, these ‘me’s’ constitute in whole or in part your sense of who you are. Whichever image is most dominant in your mind at any point in time will constitute your sense of ‘me’ (that is, what to you, in you, is you---at least at that point in time).

At the risk of repeating myself, while you experience these ‘me’s’ as real, the truth is they are just images in your mind that you feel and experience, by choice or otherwise, as you. Now, as I’ve already said, these self-images will change over time but some are more durable than others. Take, for example, a person whose parents constantly told her, when growing up, that she was a failure. It is more probable than not that this person will grow up with self-images such as ‘little me’ and ‘useless me.’ So, what can she do in order to overcome her sense of self as a failure? First, she needs to know that it is possible to let go of these false selves (note: they are false because they are not who she really is). Secondly, she will change for the better---sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly---when she learns to live her life relying solely upon the power of her personhood, which is a power-not-oneself that we all have. Then, and only then, will she come to experience herself as a person among persons as opposed to one or more of those false and illusory selves with which she so closely identified herself for so many years in the past. In short, the woman hands over---that is, surrenders her false selves---to what she, as a person, can do.

Now, back to our Zen story. The distraught man wants to discover, that is, experience, his ‘true self.’ The teacher refuses to answer the man. The man pleads and begs, but to no avail. Finally, giving up in frustration---note those words ‘giving up,’ for they are so very important---the man turns to leave. At that moment---yes, at that exact moment---the master calls out to him by name. (The teacher was very smart, for he realized that the man had 'let go' and was therefore now ready to know and experience the truth.)  ‘Bill Taylor?’, he says. ‘Yes!’, says the man as he turns back around. ‘There it is!’ exclaimed the master.

You see, for the very first time in his life this man came to see and experience himself as he really was---as a person among persons. He experienced enlightenment. That means he---woke up! Yes, he woke up to what in truth he really was. He was not those many false selves (‘me’s) which in the past he mistakenly believed to be the real person that he was.

This is a very powerful story. Never forget it. More importantly, never forget the ‘moral’ of the story, namely, that what to you, in you, is you is NEVER what in truth you are.

Real personal transformation come when we get real, that is, when we start to think, act and live from our personhood as a person among persons. And remember this---there is no human problem that is not common to other persons among persons.

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MINDFULNESS, SUPERNATURALISM, THEISM AND SPIRITUALITY

Mindfulness, whether of a Buddhist or non-Buddhist kind, does not depend for its efficacy upon any notions of supernaturalism or of a creator or interventionist God. In other words, mindfulness is entirely naturalistic and in that sense secular and non-religious (but not inherently anti-religious). I call it 'transreligious,' but that's another matter.

Naturalism and ‘supernaturalism’

For what it’s worth, my world view is entirely naturalistic and non-theistic. By ‘naturalistic’ I am referring to the rejection of any notion of there being different levels or orders of reality, irrespective of whether those levels or orders are higher and lower or otherwise of two or more kinds in some way co-existing or interpenetrating each other. By naturalistic I am also rejecting any appeal to so-called supernatural revelation or authority. By naturalistic I seek to desupernaturalize but at the same time remythologize those parts and aspects of traditional religion that are couched in supernatural terms, language and thought forms. (Years ago I read some of the writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, and it changed my whole approach to religion and stance on life. Ditto the writings of Professor Samuel Angus.) 

I make no apologies for saying, or doing, any of the foregoing. If religion is to survive ansd have any meaning at all for future generations, then the choice is clear what we have to do---in the light of the discoveries of modern science, the damaged state of our planet, the divisive and tribal nature of much of traditional religion, and otherwise. Supernaturalism is the enemy of all true religion and all that is good and meaningful in it.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it is impossible to validate supernaturalism empirically. Why? Well, for a number of reasons, perhaps the main one being that supernaturalism---whatever that term actually means (assuming it can be given any intelligible meaning at all)---has no distinctive or even special empirical traits that would enable us to distinguish ‘it’ from naturalistic alternatives. In addition, despite the efforts of Christian apologists such as William Lane Craig (pictured below right), it is also impossible to validate supernaturalism philosophically. Why? Again, for a number of reasons, perhaps the main one being that any quality, trait or attribute that supposedly pertains to the purportedly supernatural that is asserted by proponents of belief in the supernatural to be ‘necessary’ to account for some naturalistic occurrence or event can always more reasonably be said to be attributable to the natural world itself or to be simply not necessary at all. 

I will have a bit more to say about the so-called supernatural later in this post. Suffice to say I have spent a fair bit of my life arguing against the idea of supernaturalism, and my PhD thesis sought to establish, among other things, that there can be real and meaningful religion without supernaturalism.

Non-theism

By ‘non-theistic’ I am referring to the rejection of all notions of traditional theism including the idea of a supernatural personal or super-personal being who, supposedly, is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and everywhere present. (According to the Christian scriptures, this Being is said to have taken human form uniquely in the person of Jesus Christ, who, it is asserted, was both fully human as well as being divine.) I am, however, open to the idea of panentheism and what is known as predicate theology. I accept an amalgam of those ideas as a working hypothesis, but nothing more than that.

Allowing for such a worldview, what, then, is of ultimate importance or significance, assuming for the moment that there is anything that is! Reality, that’s what. What is reality? Well, reality is … what is … that is, life … that is, living things living out their livingness from one moment to the next. What could be more ‘ultimate’ than that? You see, if, as I think is the case, there is nothing over, beyond or outside of life itself (in the sense just described), and nothing against it or in any way in opposition to it, we must be dealing with something of supreme, indeed, ultimate importance, which transcends everything else in terms of importance and lasting value.

The ‘spiritual’

Now, the word view I have just described can, for the most part, be described and explained by reference to psychological mechanisms. I say ‘primarily’ because I take the view that there are some processes in the human psyche and go further---I did not say ‘beyond’---psychology as that term is ordinarily understood in Western psychology (but not Buddhist psychology). I refer to those processes as being ‘spiritual’ in nature.

Now, please understand that when I use the word ‘spiritual’ I am not referring to the so-called supernatural. Not at all. The word ‘spiritual’ is used, perhaps for want of a better word, to refer to those processes that cannot be described, or fully described, by a rational mind alone. Spirituality refers to non-physical and non-transient things such as faith, hope and charity as well as states of affairs or human consciousness which, going ‘beyond words’, are only partially (if at all) graspable by human concepts. We are talking about ‘things’ that cannot be seen but which are otherwise capable of being apprehended, if not fully understood. 

Here are some spiritual ideas. Perhaps the most important one, at least insofar as personal growth, transformation and recovery are concerned, is the idea that ‘self cannot change self.’ Then there’s the associated idea that only a ‘power-not-oneself’ can overcome the bondage of self. Even more fundamental is the idea that ‘self is an illusion.’ Traditional Western psychology has great problems with that idea. Indeed, the idea would appear to be inconsistent with the general thrust of Western psychology. 

Now, none of the ideas to which I have just referred, and which are the subject of many posts on this blog, require or depend upon any notions of ‘supernaturalism.’ Listen to these words from the late Australian Liberal Catholic bishop Lawrence W Burt (pictured left):

 
In a universe of LAW there can be no supernatural. There may be the super-physical, or super-normal, but there can be no super-natural. You cannot transcend Natural law, nor suspend it. [Original emphasis]

I don’t particularly like the words ‘super-physical’ and ‘super-normal,’ but I think I understand what the bishop is saying. I prefer the words ‘transnatural’ and ‘transrational’ [see below], but the important thing is that we need to eliminate the word ‘supernatural’ from our vocabulary. As I have said many times, it is simply impossible to conceive of there being any existence, or other order or level of reality, other than our ordinary ‘natural’ existence, that is, the way in which ordinary things exist in space and time. Any notion of there being different orders or levels of reality or truth is contrary to the very nature and possibility of discourse. It is unspeakable. Even the evangelical Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar N T Wright takes the view that the word 'supernatural' is highly problematic and dubious. Indeed, Wright has sought to avoid altogether notions of supernaturalism because he is so acutely aware of their inherent problems. He has written:

The great divide between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’, certainly in the way we use those words today, comes basically from the eighteenth century, bringing with it the whole debate about ‘miracles’.

Wright went on to say that anything that occurs or that is capable of occurring, whether perhaps under some conditions but not others, must be said to be ... natural! Even a so-called 'miracle' (not that I'm a believer in the latter, but that's another story).

The notion of a ‘higher power’ … or a ‘power-not-oneself’

Many people, especially those in 12-step programs, use the expression ‘higher power’ to refer to the ‘power-not-oneself’ that is invoked to relieve a person from the bondage of self. I personally dislike the term 'higher power' for two main reasons. First, because the term implies, if it doesn’t expressly necessitate, the existence of higher and lower levels or orders of reality---a concept which, as already mentioned, I find myself unable to accept. Secondly, the concept of a ‘higher power’ carries with it overtones of both supernaturalism and traditional theism although I accept that the concept certainly need not be construed in those terms nor do all who use the term accept or embrace those ideas.

Call it a ‘higher power’ or a ‘power-not-oneself’ (I prefer the latter)---in a sense, it doesn’t really matter. As J.Krishnamurti (pictured right) said many times, ‘The word is not the thing.’ It is the reality behind the word that is the important thing. You can call ‘it’ God if you like, but the problem with a word like ‘God’ is that the word has many unfortunate overtones for a great many people.

The ideas to which I refer are not in any way ‘supernatural’ as that idea is ordinarily understood. The ideas may, if you wish, be described as being transnatural or transrational. In that regard, Sir Julian Huxley, in an essay entitled ‘The New Divinity’ in his compilation book Essays of a Humanist, had this to say about the word ‘divine’, after first reminding his readers that ‘the term divine did not originally imply the existence of gods: on the contrary, gods were constructed to interpret [our] experiences of this quality’:

For want of a better, I use the term divine, though this quality of divinity is not truly supernatural but transnatural---it grows out of ordinary nature, but transcends it. The divine is what man finds worthy of adoration, that which compels his awe.

I like Huxley’s description of the ‘divine’---something that is ‘transnatural’ in the sense that it ‘grows out of ordinary nature, but transcends it.’ The spiritual ideas to which I have just referred pertaining to the self and a power-not-oneself come from a ‘place’ (ugh) that is much more powerful than the rational mind, Call it transnatural or transrational, it is anything but irrational or (heaven forbid) ‘unnatural.’ The ideas ‘work’ psychologically, that is, in and through the medium and mechanisms of human consciousness, even if some aspects of the ideas or mechanisms involved are or at least appear to be oxymoronic or at least counter-intuitive in nature.

Now, what if it be the case that you, the reader, embrace supernaturalism and maybe also the concept of a traditional God or gods? Can mindfulness ‘work’ for you? Of course, it can, if you are prepared to do what is required to live and act mindfully. If you choose to believe in the 'supernatural', that does not prevent you from practising mindfulness. The latter does not require any beliefs at all. For what it’s worth, I think mindfulness works best without any beliefs at all, as beliefs operate as a barrier to what would otherwise be a direct and immediate experience of reality---but that’s a matter for each individual to grapple with.

Don’t try---let!

Recently, a friend of mine---let’s call her Nancy (not her real name)---said to me, ‘I’ve tried mindfulness---it’s not my cup of tea.’ Now, Nancy is very well-educated and extremely skeptical (which is OK with me), but I’m not sure she really understands what mindfulness is all about. You see, mindfulness means simply being and staying awake at all times ... from one moment to the next. Mindfulness is living---and being aware at all times that you are living, and not just existing. Another thing---you don't ‘try’ mindfulness. If you ‘try’ to do this sort of thing you will fail. You must let it happen. It's a spiritual process. For Nancy to say, 'I’ve tried mindfulness---it’s not my cup of tea,' is like saying, 'I've tried living---it’s not my cup of tea.' Mindfulness is simply living in the moment, from moment to moment. I said to Nancy, ‘Mindfulness is actually just living---with your eyes open at all times---and any sensible, rational person like yourself would want to do that at all times.’

Actually, in a very profound sense mindfulness is not something you ‘do.’ It simply happens when you remove the barriers to it happening (eg judging, analyzing, etc). Mindfulness is not a 'thing' at all. It is 'no-thing', that is, letting life unfold from one moment to the next. All you have to do is ... stay awake ... watch ... observe ... and be choicelessly aware of what is unfolding as your life experience. It means being aware that you are actually aware. 'To be awake is to be alive,' wrote Henry David Thoreau. I love those words.

I also love what the Zen master said to his then not so-enlightened student (who had asked the master what he had to do in order to become enlightened), 'Whatever you do, don't think of the white monkey.' Of course, you know what happened then. All the poor student could think of was---yes, the whote monkey. You see, thinking about not thinking about the white monkey is the same as thinking about the white monkey. Trying not to think about the white monkey results in your thinking about the white monkey. Now, how did I get onto that? Forgive me.

So, never, never ‘try’ to ‘do’ mindfulness. Just ‘let’ it happen---and ‘let go.’ Few things are more important than that.

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YOU ARE AN AGGREGATE---YES, A HEAP!

Yes, you are an amalgam---a heap. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very flattering, but as the American comedian Jimmy Durante [pictured left] used to say, ‘Them is the conditions that prevails.’

The historical Buddha saw the human being as simply an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence. It is written that Buddha had this to say about the matter:

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones does not regard material shape as self, or self as having material shape, or material shape as being in the self, or the self as being in material shape. Nor does he regard feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness in any of these ways. He comprehends each of these aggregates as it really is, that it is impermanent, suffering, not-self, compounded, woeful. He does not approach them, grasp after them or determine 'Self for me' ['my self']--and this for a long time conduces to his welfare and happiness.

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones beholds of material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness: 'This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.' So that when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise there arise not from him grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair. (Adapted from the Samyutta Nikaya.)

The Buddha thus makes it clear that the so-called ‘self’ is only an ‘aggregate’ or ‘heap’ of perceptions and sensations. It is, in the words of Manly Palmer Hall [pictured right], ‘a summary of what is known and what is not known’. We are not a ‘self’; we are persons among persons. However, when it came to attempting to explain the conventionally accepted concept of ‘person’, the Buddha referred to various psycho-physical ‘elements’ at work in a person---the ‘five aggregates’ (skandhas [Sanskrit], khandhas [Pāli], ‘aggregates’ in English)---which are said to serve as the basis (or rather ‘bases’) of what we ordinarily designate as a ‘person.’

These ‘five aggregates’---‘aggregates’ being ‘facts’---are said to be nothing more than ‘constantly changing conglomerates of moments of materiality, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness’ (R C Lester, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia, 1973: 26). The ‘five aggregates,’ which are also known as the ‘five hindrances,’ are as follows. 

First, there are the aggregates of corporeality or materiality, that is, matter or bodily form, and more specifically the physicality of the sentient being or person, being the gross physical body, gross form, together with the six sense organs (organs of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell---and the mind)---all objects regarded as being compounded entities.

Secondly, there are the aggregates of sensations and emotions (or feelings), and more specifically the physiological processes resulting from the contact of matter with matter, sense organs with objects of sense, including the five ordinary bodily senses as well as mental feeling with ‘feeling overtones.'

Thirdly, there are the aggregates of perceptions, more specifically, those of recognition and perception---being mental discriminations born of sensations, the recognition of objects and, more specifically, the capacity and power to perceive as well as recognise and distinguish between physical objects of all kinds, including the ability to comprehend the specific marks of phenomenal objects.

Fourthly, there are the aggregates of predispositions, more specifically, those of ‘dispensational’ or mental formations or factors (eg fixations and conclusions of the mind such as attitudes, beliefs and opinions), and more specifically volitions which are said to be primarily responsible for bringing forth future states of existence.

Fifthly, there are the aggregates of consciousness, that is, consciousness in the fullest sense of the word. The aggregates of consciousness are composed of moments of awareness as well as awareness of awareness (or mindfulness). Although not an ‘entity’ as such, the aggregates of consciousness binds the varied sense and feeling elements of the individual---physical awareness, bodily feeling-tone, and mental constructs---into a personalized unity, that is, the person among persons that each of us is. Moreover, these aggregates remain more-or-less continuous throughout unceasing change, until death comes with the disintegration of all the aggregates.

The Buddha, ever the empiricist and realist, acknowledged the important distinction between our perceptions or sensations of things and the things themselves, stating that ‘the senses meet the object and from their contact sensation is born’ (Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha, 2002[1894]: 54). Also worth noting are these words attributed to the Buddha and quoted above---‘when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise.’ In other words, the same event or situation can bring about different effects, and it is also the case that different events or situations can bring about the same effect. It all depends on the ‘field’ of context (the so-called ‘causal field).

The spiritual philosopher J Krishnamurti [pictured left], although not a Buddhist, articulated a number of distinctive ideas that have much in common with Buddhist thought and teaching. For example, Krishnamurti wrote:

In uncovering what one actually is, one asks: Is the observer oneself, different from that which one observes---psychologically that is. I am angry, I am greedy, I am violent: is that I different from the thing observed, which is anger, greed, violence? Is one different? Obviously not. When I am angry there is no I that is angry, there is only anger. So anger is me; the observer is the observed. The division is eliminated altogether. The observer is the observed and therefore conflict ends. (J Krishnamurti, The Wholeness of Life, 1987[1978]: 142.)

Now, you may well ask, ‘What does all of this matter, assuming for the moment that it is true?’ Well, as I see it, it is very important. True, lasting, in-depth psychological transformation can only take place when there is, firstly, a realization that self cannot change self because self is ‘illusion,’ and secondly, there is a reliance upon a power-not-oneself. That power-not-oneself can take various forms, one of which is the personalized unity that is the person among persons that each of us is. The ‘self’ cannot change the ‘self,’ but the person can change---even if that person be little more than a heap, that is, an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence.

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How well do you know your ‘self’? Well enough to know that your ‘self’ does not exist? Please read on.

More and more psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors are drawing upon the insights of Buddhism to better understand the nature and activities of the human mind. In my own therapeutic practice, I apply, quite eclectically and unashamedly, ideas and teachings from a number of different traditions, both Eastern and Western. A pragmatists, all I am interested in is results---and changed lives.

When we turn to Buddhism we discover that its ideas, teachings and practices espouse a psychological realism that expressly acknowledges the reality of cognitive and other mental processes. The mind is seen as both relational and ‘extended’ to situations in the external world. Yes, mentality belongs to the spatio-temporal world along with everything else such that a person’s mental things and processes are not wholly internal to that person.

In addition, Buddhism views a person as being a human body-mind as a whole, that is, an autonomous and dynamic system that arises in dependence upon the natural world as well as human culture. So-called ‘consciousness’---not so much an entity in its own right but a dynamic, ever-changing process---emerges when the mind and the body cohere. The physical body is essential for the emergence of the mental, but having said that, Buddhism has never regarded the body and the mind as being separate. Mind is said to ‘extend’ into the body, with the body also ‘extending’ into the mind.

When Buddhism uses the word ‘illusion’ it does so in a special way. Referring to a thing as an ‘illusion’ does not mean that the thing does not exist. It simply means that the thing in question has no separate, independent, unchangeable and permanent existence. Buddhism psychology aims to treat what Buddhism often calls an 'illusory [or a 'false'] mind' (that is, a mind characterized and dominated by wandering, oppositional and discriminatory thoughts) with a view to bringing into manifestation a 'true [or 'pure'] mind' (being a mind which is not in opposition to itself).

Buddhist psychology teaches the doctrine that ‘self is illusion,’ and that belief in the existence of some supposedly permanent and substantial ‘self’ or soul is a delusion. t There is no actual ‘self’ at the centre of our conscious---or even unconscious---awareness. The ‘self’ does not exist---at least it does not exist in the sense of possessing a separate, independent, unchangeable, material existence of its own. In words attributed to the Buddha, whether ‘past, future, or present; internal or external; manifest or subtle...as it actually is ... “This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am’” (Majjhima Nikāya I, 130). Buddhist scriptures are very firm on this teaching of ‘not-self’ (anattā):

Even as the word of ‘chariot’ means

That members join to frame a whole;

So when the groups [the ‘five aggregates’] appear to view,

We use the phrase, ‘a living being.’  (Milindapantha, 133.)

Just as the word ‘chariot’ is but a mode of expression for axles, wheels, chariot-body, pole, and other constituent members, placed in a certain relation to each other, but when we come to examine the members one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no chariot; … in exactly the same way the words ‘living entity’ and ‘Ego,’ are but a mode of expression for the presence of the five attachment groups [again, the ‘five aggregates’ (see below)], but when we come to examine the elements of being one by one, we discover that in the absolute sense there is no living entity there to form a basis for such figments as ‘I am,’ or ‘I’; … .   (Visuddhi-Magga, 133-34.)

Our so-called consciousness goes through continuous fluctuations from one moment to the next. As such, there is nothing to constitute, let alone sustain, a separate, transcendent ‘I’ structure or entity. We ‘die’ and are ‘born’ (or ‘reborn’) from one moment to the next. Whence comes our sense of ‘I-ness’? To quote Robert C Lester, author of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia:

The ‘I-ness’ or selfhood of man, perceived as unchanging --- his sense of individual being in time, having experiences --- is an unwarranted extension or assumption from experience to experiencer, from knowledge to knower, thought to thinker.

No wonder Jesus exclaimed, ‘I of myself can do nothing’ (Jn 5:30). Perhaps he understood the illusory nature of the ‘self.’

To be continued.

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THE HEART OF BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY

Most thinking people---and even a lot of 'unthinking' people---want to know more about themselves and the human mind. Buddhism has a lot to say about the human mind. That should not come as a surprise, since Buddhism is more a system of psychology than a religion or a philosophy.

Consistent with an overall empiricism, the Buddha, and Buddhism generally, reject the idea that consciousness is an entity at all. Buddhist psychology recognises the following four functions (as opposed to ‘mental entities’, which they are not) of the mind: consciousness (viññāna), perception (sañña), feeling of body sensations (verdanā), and reaction (sankhāra). Now, the Buddha reportedly said:

Whatever suffering arises

Has a reaction as its cause.

If all reactions cease to be

Then there is no more suffering.

    [Sutta Nipata III, 12.]

We experience, for example, a ‘sensation’, which may be physical or mental. If we react to that sensation with ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’---that is, with craving, attachment or aversion---that is karma (kamma). The word karma means 'action'---in this case, mental action in the form of a mindless, involuntary reaction to some input. The result? Pain, suffering or distress. However, if, on the other hand, we simply allow ourselves to be dispassionately and choicelessly aware of the sensation---note, we should not try to ‘know’ (let alone judge or analyse) the sensation per se---then there is no ‘cause’ to produce any pain, suffering or distress. In other words, no reaction, no cause---and no effect. 'Like attracts like.' So, Buddhism takes the cause-and-effect process back one step earlier. In Western popular psychology, the primary emphasis is on avoiding negative thinking and the like, in the belief that as negative thoughts lead to negative results, so positive thoughts will inevitably lead to positive results---an obvious but debatable proposition. However, if we go back a step, and when something happens we simply do not allow a reaction (eg disliking) to arise in the first place---in other words, we simply let the sensation (input) be---then there will be no opportunity for any negative thought to arise at all.

Consistent with Buddhism's methodological and ontological emphasis on the need for direct observation, Buddhist psychology asserts that the ‘best’ way of obtaining psychological knowledge about oneself is by direct, objective observation of one’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions as well as one’s bodily sensations---without any identification of ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations arise and pass away by natural laws of cause and effect. They wax and wane. They arise and vanish. In Buddhism, reality---what is---is that which comes and goes, waxes and wanes, arises and vanishes. However, with careful observation and choiceless (non-judgmental) awareness we are able to discern and understand those laws. Now, in order for there to be an immediacy and directness about our moment-to-moment experience of life, three events need to occur more-or-less simultaneously. Those three events are: touch (or sensation), awareness, and mindfulness. If those three events are not simultaneously experienced, what will be experienced will be nothing but the past, for the reality of the immediate experience will already have subsided. Indeed, any consciousness of it will be in the form of an after-thought or a memory, as we glance back to re-experience, and (sadly, yes) evaluate, a past experience. I am reminded of something the Scottish-born Australian philosopher John Anderson (pictured below) wrote in his landmark 1934 journal article ‘Mind as Feeling’:

Progress in psychology may therefore be made by the actual discovery of the emotional character of sentiments or motives, i.e., of what is in our minds, as contrasted with what is before our minds. [In Studies in Empirical Philosophy (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962), p 75.] 

Specifically, the Buddhist 'system of deliverance' treats what Buddhism often calls an 'illusory [or a 'false'] mind' (that is, a mind characterized and dominated by wandering, oppositional and discriminatory thoughts) with a view to bringing into manifestation a 'true [or 'pure'] mind' (being a mind which is not in opposition to itself). It has been said that, for the first time, the Buddha taught that not only was self-deliverance (or self-liberation) possible, it could be attained independently of an external agency. He said, ‘I have delivered you towards deliverance. The Dhamma, the Truth is to be self-realized.’

Buddhism has something distinctively unique and, I think, very meaningful to say about ‘disease of the mind’, and it is this: the root cause of our disorder, distress, sorrow, anxiety, stress, tension, insecurity, discontent, frustration, and general ‘unsatisfactoriness’ (dukkha) is attachment, craving, grasping and clinging of various kinds (collectively, upādāna), especially, clinging to ‘mind stuff’ in the form of, among other things, ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions and prejudices. All of this ‘mind stuff’ we then turn back on itself and on ourselves. That is tantamount to insanity but we are all very good at doing it---most of our waking hours (if not whilst asleep as well). Instead of living by reason and direct experience (sanity), we are driven by emotional compulsion. Worse, we cling to the ‘self’ as self, and we even manage to convince ourselves that we ‘belong’ to that self, and that we are those myriads of I’s and me’s that make up our waxing and waning consciousness (the latter simply being the function consisting of apprehending the bare phenomenal world, that is, cognition):

Whenever there is a functioning sense-organ (eye, ear, tongue, nose, body and mind), a sense-object (visual form, sound, taste, smell, touch and thought) entering into the field of the sense-organ then, with these brought together, there is the manifestation of the part of consciousness referring to the specific sense-organ. [Majjhimanikāya, i, 190.]

Now, when it came to attempting to explain the conventionally accepted concept of ‘person’, the Buddha referred to various ‘elements’ at work in a person---the ‘five aggregates’ (the skandhas [Sanskrit] or khandhas [Pāli, ‘aggregates’ in English], also known as the ‘five hindrances’), namely, the ‘illusions’ arising from matter or bodily form, emotion or feeling, recognition or perception, mental formations (eg fixations and conclusions of the mind such as attitudes, beliefs and opinions), and consciousness. (Consciousness is regarded as an ‘aggregate’ more because ‘it’ tends to intensify ego-fixation as opposed to its being a ‘thing’ in itself.) The ‘mental’ is anything but a unitary agent. Consistent with the overall pluralism, we are talking about a plurality of complex interacting forces, that is, distinct but connected, pluralistic complexes grounded in spacetime.

The Buddha, who saw a human being as simply an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena of existence, had this to say about the matter:

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones does not regard material shape as self, or self as having material shape, or material shape as being in the self, or the self as being in material shape. Nor does he regard feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness in any of these ways. He comprehends each of these aggregates as it really is, that it is impermanent, suffering, not-self, compounded, woeful. He does not approach them, grasp after them or determine 'Self for me' ['my self']--and this for a long time conduces to his welfare and happiness.

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones beholds of material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness: 'This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self.' So that when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise there arise not from him grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair. [Adapted from the Samyutta Nikaya, trans L Feer, in J Kornfield with G Fronsdal (eds), Teachings of the Buddha (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993), pp 23-24.]

The Buddha makes it clear that the so-called ‘self’ is only an ‘aggregate’ or ‘heap’ of perceptions and sensations. It is, in the words of Manly Palmer Hall, ‘a summary of what is known and what is not known’. We are not a ‘self’; we are persons among persons. The Buddha also acknowledged the important distinction between our perceptions or sensations of things (the fact that on certain occasions certain things are perceived by us) and the things themselves, stating that ‘the senses meet the object and from their contact sensation is born’.

Consistent with his rejection of any ‘unitary’ view of the human mind, Buddha refers to the ‘four establishments’ (cattāro satipaţţhānā), that is, one remains established in the observation of the feelings in the feelings, the observation of the mind in the mind, the observation of the objects of the mind in the objects of the mind, and the observation of the body in the body. For example, when one’s mind is desiring, the practitioner is aware, ‘My mind is desiring.’

There is a refreshing directness about the Buddha’s approach. You see, we never know ‘ideas’ or ‘feelings’ but rather independent things or states of affairs. In other words, what is ‘thought,’ ‘felt,’ ‘sensed,’ etc, are real-world objects or situations. Buddhist psychology ‘works’, not by calling upon people to retreat from the world or to treat the world as an illusion, but by pointing out that the solution to one’s problems is to be found in the directness, immediacy and actuality of ‘things’ themselves. Don’t retreat, but engage. Don’t fear, just look and see and come to understand.

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