HOW AWARENESS OF YOUR BREATHING CAN HELP YOU IN THIS CURRENT PANDEMIC

Some of the most satisfying work I’ve done in my career was lecturing in mental health law at what is now referred to as the mental health portfolio of the Health Education and Training Institute. When I lectured there the body was known as the NSW Institute of Psychiatry.

Our mental health is so damn important. Sadly, the current COVID-19 pandemic is resulting in elevated rates of stress, anxiety, loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, self-harm and suicidal behaviour. Now, in serious cases professional help will be needed but there are some things we can do by way of self-help. One of them, the subject of this post, involves simply being aware of our breathing.

Now, there’s a saying, ‘Your breathing is your greatest friend. Return to it in all your troubles and you will find comfort and guidance.’ How true that is. What happens when you are stressed? Well, a number of things. Among them, your heart rate increases, and so does your breathing which ordinarily becomes more shallow as well.

At the first sign of your becoming stressed, immediately become aware of your breathing. Don’t try to change it. Don’t try to slow it down or deepen it. Indeed, don’t ‘try’ at all. Sometimes effort defeats itself, and this is such a case. Simply be aware of your breathing where your breath is most prominently felt. Perhaps that’s in your nostrils, mouth, throat, lungs or abdomen. This varies from person to person. Wherever your breath is most prominently felt, simply be aware of the sensation—and stay with the feeling. Don’t attempt to change this in any way. Just observe and be aware.

Does your breath feel warm? Cold? Fast? Slow? Deep? Shallow? Again, don’t attempt to change any of these things. Forget all about judging yourself. There’s no right or wrong here. Things just are.

Simply observe, be aware, and stay aware, of your breathing for 5, 10 or 15 minutes—that is, for as long as it takes for your breathing to slow down as well as deepen.

That’s right. Stay aware of your breathing until it slows down and deepens of its own accord. Your awareness of your breathing will result in your breathing slowing down and deepening. How is this so? Well, awareness is non-resistance—that is, non-judgmental self-observation. Awareness is letting be and letting go. Yes, awareness effects positive changes in your body and mind. The Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh, pictured, writes:

Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used. 

Now, if at any point in time during your awareness of your breathing you become mentally or emotionally distracted by some troubling thought, feeling, idea, memory or sensation, gently — please note that word ‘gently’ — bring your awareness back to your breathing.

One more thing. Don’t forget to breathe. Some people, when they become consciously aware of their breathing, forget to breathe. I am sometimes guilty of that.

Conscious awareness of your breathing will bring you relaxation and comfort. Try it.

Note. This post is a slightly reworked version of a previous post, ‘Your Breathing is Your Greatest Friend’, published on July 5, 2015.

Photo credit. The photo of Thich Nhat Hanh is by Dana Gluckstein. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

A POWERFUL PRAYER FOR OUR TIMES

The word ‘prayer’ troubles me a bit. I neither believe nor disbelieve in God. The belief-disbelief spectrum forms no part of my worldview or mindset, so even agnosticism is not an option for me. Besides, the traditional concept of God is contradictory, and I reject, as totally untenable, all notions of there being some all-powerful Creator to whom we can talk and who supposedly listens to, and will answer, our prayers. So, not surprisingly, I reject all forms of theistic, petitionary prayer.

However, there are many forms of prayer including affirmations of various kinds. We all pray, in our own way--even the atheist. In the words of an old hymn, ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed.’ Thus, if you really want good health for yourself or some other person, or world peace, that is your prayer.

Does prayer work? Well, if sincere, a prayer can change the pray-er, and if he or she changes for the better, change may occur elsewhere as well. It all begins with the individual.

Here’s a prayer of sorts that was written by Dr Annie Besant [pictured above right] in 1923. I have made very slight changes to the original wording in the interests of gender inclusiveness:

O hidden Life, vibrant in every atom;
O hidden Light, shining in every creature;

O hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness;

May all who feel themselves as one with Thee,

Know they are therefore one with every other.

What powerful words!

We start with ‘life’--the fact of existence itself. Life is everywhere. It is omnipresent. In a very profound sense, life is omnipresence itself. Is it ‘hidden’? What is hidden about life? Well, we do not really see life itself. What we see is the out-picturing—the outpouring—of life. Life takes shape in innumerable forms. What we see are living things living out their livingness from one moment to the next. However, the essence of life—the very ground of being itself—is invisible to the eye. The dynamic, creative, inexhaustible and ineffable life-principle animates and sustains all living things—including you and me—but it cannot be seen. Yet it is ‘vibrant in every atom’.

And this word ‘Light’. When life becomes visible, in the form of innumerable living things living out their livingness, it is right to describe it as ‘light’. What is hidden about light? Well, as with the word life, the real light cannot be seen. It is in the nature of pure consciousness itself. Consciousness is non-physical, immaterial, and spiritual. A spiritual substance is something which, although real, is not perceptible by the senses. We only know 'it' by its effects. We cannot see electricity, but we see the light emanating from the light bulb. This inner light shines in every creature, including you and me, and it radiates outwards in a visible manner.

‘Love’. What is love but the givingness of life to itself so as to give rise to more life. The self-givingness of life. All around us we see the effects of the self-givingness of life in action, but the self-givingness itself is invisible to the eye--hence, once again, the use of the word 'hidden'. We see the phenomenon at work everywhere, whether it is in our garden or in the maternity ward of a hospital. This love does indeed embrace all in oneness. I am not advocating monism or pantheism. When I say that life is one, I am trying to say a couple of things. First, a single logic applies to all things and how they are related to other things. Secondly, all things exist on the same order or level of reality, and on the same ‘plane’ of observability. Call it the ‘interconnectedness of all life’ or, if you like, ‘InterBeing.’ The latter wonderful term comes from the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh [pictured above left]. I love that word ‘Interbeing.’

The bottom line is this. There is only one life manifesting itself in all things and as all things. The one is constantly becoming or giving birth to the many, but the one is inexhaustible. It is both manifest and unmanifest. Visible and invisible. Yet it embraces all multiplicity in oneness. In the words of Alan Watts, 'Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of Nature, a unique action of the total Universe.' And not just every individual, but every thing in existence.

The ‘Thee’ referred to in the invocation is not in the nature of a personal God. Annie Besant certainly did not believe in a God of that kind. She rejected all notions of an anthropomorphic God. And so do I. ‘Thee’ is not something or someone to be petitioned in the hope that He/She/It will answer our prayers. However, if you chose to believe in such a God, that is your business. The ‘Thee’ referred to in the invocation is the ‘Hidden Life’, the ‘Hidden Light’, and the ‘Hidden Love’. Those three things are a triplicity of sorts—different words for the same ‘thing’. The ‘thing’—actually, it is not a thing at all as we ordinarily understand that word—is the livingness, consciousness and self-givingness of life. When we come to feel—note that word ‘feel’—ourselves as one with that dynamic, creative life principle, in time we come to ‘know’—this is no intellectual knowing—that we are therefore ‘one with every other’. 

This ‘feeling’ is no warm and fuzzy thing. The word ‘feel’, as opposed to ‘think’, is used to denote a choiceless awareness of what is. There is no judgment, analysis or interpretation. Just choicless awareness. It’s the same with that word ‘know’. As I just said, it is not a matter on book knowledge or reasoned analysis. This knowledge is transrational. Not irrational, but transrational. As we read in The Voice of the Silence, ‘The mind is the great slayer of the Real.’ There is a place for the use of reason in our lives—a very great place—but the use of reason can never bring us to an understanding (again, not an intellectual thing) of what is truly ‘real’.

We live in a very troubled world. Has it ever been any different? We see politicians—well, some of them, at least, who are very much in the news at the present time—who seek to divide and pit one group of persons against another. That is not the way to world peace and harmony. It never was the way. I see plenty of division and conflict in our world but I also see plenty of evidence of an ever-growing group of people who, recognizing their common humanity with all other people, are working for the good of all and for the very survival of our damaged planet. They are the ones who rail against bigotry, racism, sexism and all other forms of discrimination. They are the ones who think deeply before following their nation’s call to take up arms against other peoples of the world. They are the ones who believe that climate change is real—which it damn well is—and who are advocating for climate change action at all levels. They are the ones for work for justice and equality for all, including refugees and all displaced and homeless persons. They know the truth of Dr Besant's prayer, even if they have never heard of her or the prayer the subject of this post.

Yes, these are the people who, often without any connection to formal religion of any kind, are ‘praying’ this prayer. They are praying in the only way that really matters—with their lives.

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YOUR BREATHING IS YOUR GREATEST FRIEND

There is a saying---some say it is a Buddhist proverb---that states, ‘Your breathing is your greatest friend. Return to it in all your troubles and you will find comfort and guidance.’ How true that is.

What happens when you are stressed? Well, a number of things. Among them, your heart rate increases, and so does your breathing which ordinarily becomes more shallow as well.

Here is something the Eastern masters have taught for centuries that can help you to deal effectively with stress. At the first sign of your becoming stressed, become aware of your breathing. Do not attempt to change it. Do not attempt to slow it down or deepen it. Just be aware of your breathing where your breath is most prominently felt (eg nostril, mouth, throat). Be aware of the warmth or slowness of your breath. Be aware of its rate and frequency. Be awareness of its shallowness. Again, do not attempt to change any of these things. Simply be aware, and stay aware, of your breathing for 5, 10 or 15 minutes---that is, for as long as it takes for your breathing to slow down as well as deepen.

That’s right. Stay aware of your breathing until it slows down and deepens of its own accord. It’s amazing---well, it’s not so amazing really---that your awareness of your breathing will result in your breathing slowing down and deepening. Some readers may find this idea counter-intuitive, but it’s not. Awareness is non-resistance. Awareness is non-judgmental self-observation. Awareness is letting be …. and letting go. And awareness effects positive changes in your body and mind.

Listen to these words of wisdom from the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh (pictured):

'Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used.'

Now, if at any point in time during your awareness of your breathing you become mentally or emotionally distracted by some troubling thought, feeling, idea, memory or sensation, gently---note that word ‘gently’---bring your awareness back to your breathing.

One more thing. Don’t forget to breathe. Some people, when they become consciously aware of their breathing, forget to breathe. Watch that. It is self-correcting---a good thing it is---but it’s still better to avoid it.

Yes, conscious awareness of your breathing will bring you relaxation and comfort. Try it.

ALL THINGS ARE NOT ONE

We often read or are told that all life and all things, including all people, are one. It’s a nice, comforting, New-Agey idea … but it’s not true. Not at all.

Now, look. Nothing in this world is simple. Whatever exists in this universe is complex and has internal differentiation, involving numerous differences and relations. Each thing is ‘a multum in parvo plurally related,’ to borrow a phrase from William James [pictured left]. ‘Things are with one another in many ways,’ wrote James, ‘but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything.’ 

Not only that, whatever exists does, however, do so in situations. Those situations are themselves complex and are also in complex relationship to other complex situations, and all these complex situations exist in the one space-time, belong to the one order of being, and exist under certain invariably complex conditions. For example, a table consists of wood, nails, glue, etc, not to mention the carpenter with his tools who ‘made’ the table. The table sits on the floor of the room. The floor is supported by the foundations of the building, and so on. Yes, whatever exists does so in situations which are in complex relationship to other situations.

In realist philosophy this state of affairs is known as ‘situationality.’ Yes, everything that exists has some relation with some other thing that exists, but it is not true to say that everything is related to everything else nor is everything one in some overall monistic sense, and nothing in quantum physics proves otherwise. Co-existing situations often comprise or constitute a system, and some systems are very much connected to other such situations. However, while some situations have connections with other systems, not all systems are connected to all other systems. We know all this to be the case.

Traditional Buddhism, for the most part, is empirical and realist in its overall thrust and content (even though you will find in many places a considerable amount of superadded superstitious nonsense). A cardinal, perhaps the core, teaching of Buddhism---arguably the only thing that holds all Buddhist teachings together---is this: all phenomena are arising together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. This is known as the teaching or principle of interdependent relations. 

Perhaps even more importantly, this teaching more accurately states that things arise dependent on conditions and cease when those same conditions cease. Buddhism sees causation as a complex phenomenon going far beyond mere constant conjunction in the nature of some ‘regularity’ theory. The emphasis is on causal connections, or the relationship, between two events that are separated in space-time. (Note. At the sub-atomic level phenomena such as quantum entanglement show that connections can at times survive even physical separation, but it remains the fact that those connections exist under certain conditions even if we don’t fully understand the nature, extent and scope of those conditions.)

Causation is never a simple thing. Invariably, multiple factors are necessary to produce any given effect. In light of this complexity and plurality, it is never as simple as selecting one such factor from a set of jointly and severally sufficient conditions and taking that factor to be the cause of the particular effect, for we are dealing with a complex system whose parts, as previously mentioned, are at least to some extent interdependent.

Buddhism goes further and seeks to distinguish causes and conditions In that regard, the English word ‘conditionality’ encapsulates essence of the Buddha’s teaching of (in Pāli) paţicca-samuppāda (in Sanskrit, pratītya-samutpāda), or ‘dependent arising’. Now, conditionality and causality are not the exact same thing. Conditionality is a much broader concept of causality. When we speak of the ‘cause’ of some event we are referring to something that is directly and immediately responsible for the occurrence of the event, whereas the word ‘condition’ is wide enough to embrace supporting and contributing factors as well. Buddha Shakyamuni is reported to have said on many occasions, ‘This being, that becomes.’ In other words, the most general quality or a thing is that it is the condition for another. More fully, the Buddha would say:

This being, that becomes; from the arising of this, that arises;

This not being, that does not become; from the ceasing of this, that ceases.

This conditionality---that is, all things are ‘conditioned things’---was said by the Buddha to be universal, underlying all of reality, irrespective and quite independently of anyone noticing it.

Now, there is a sense in which all life is one. I am not advocating monism or pantheism. When I say that life is one, I am trying to say a couple of things. First, a single logic applies to all things and how they are related. Secondly, all things exist in the same order or level of reality, and on the same ‘plane’ of observability. If these two things were not the case, it would be impossible for us to be attentive to, and otherwise aware of, what happens from one moment to the next, let alone speak meaningfully about things. Just think about that for a few seconds, and it should be obvious to you that such is indeed the case.

Call it the ‘interconnectedness of all life’ or, if you like, ‘InterBeing.’ The latter wonderful term comes from the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh [pictured right]. I love that word ‘InterBeing.’

The bottom line is this. Although all things are not one, there nevertheless is only one life manifesting itself in all things and as all things. And if that be the case, we owe each other certain ethical duties. Those ethical duties (for example, the golden rule) do not depend for their existence on any religion---not even Buddhism, for which I have the greatest respect. They flow naturally and inevitably from the very nature of existence itself.

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InterBeing

HOW TO EXPERIENCE LIFE IN ALL ITS FULNESS AND IMMEDIACY

Do you want to live more joyously and freely? Of course you do. We all do. But how do we go about it?

Well, for starters, don’t ask how. Yes, I know, it was I who posed the ‘how’ question, but I did so deliberately to make the following point---a point I’ve made many times in my posts. When we ask ‘how’ we are asking for a method, a technique, a formula, a concept, but all such things are someone else’s version of truth or reality. 

But there is an even worse problem than asking ‘how.’ You see, in order to live joyously and freely, we need to experience life directly, that is, without conditioning, filtering, fettering, and the mediation of others. Now, in order for there to be no fettering of our experience of life, we must learn to experience life non-conceptually, that is, with the use of non-conceptual cognition.  Non-conceptualization is an important teaching in Buddhism but it can also be found elsewhere. I will try to explain. (Ha! How does one try to explain non-conceptualization except through the use of concepts. A horible dilemma!)

Have you ever eaten, say, a raisin without actually thinking about the eating of the raisin? Have you ever drunk some tea or coffee without actually forming a concept in your mind of the experience of drinking? You probably have, but I bet that you don’t do it very often. Nor do I.

To live non-conceptually is to have a pure, direct, unmediated, unfiltered, unfettered, and unconditioned ‘now’ experience of life. It is what the Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh [pictured right] refers to as ‘a direct and living experience of reality.’ In his book Zen Keys Nhat Hanh writes about non-conceptual experience in these words:

… It is not a concept. It is only when you think about [the experience], when you remember it, or better still, when you make a distinction between it and other former experiences that this experience becomes a concept. To be more precise, the concept of this experience is not this experience itself …

At the moment of the experience you and the taste of tea are one. You are not different from the tea. The tea is you, you are the tea. There is not the drinker of the tea, there is not the tea that is drunk, because there is no distinction between the subject and the object in the real experience. When one starts to distinguish subject and object, the experience disappears.

Please note that last sentence. ‘When one starts to distinguish subject and object, the experience disappears.’ Yes, the experience dies on you. Now, when we first become aware of something, there is an ever-so-brief (just for a couple of nanoseconds at a time) moment of pure awareness just before we begin thinking about the experience or the thing being experienced. Yes, we analyze, compare, contrast, interpret, label, judge, and discriminate---that is conceptualize. However, it is possible to have a pure, direct, non-dual, non-conceptual experience of life.

One of the many things I like about Buddhism is that all its teachings are directed toward helping us to experience life without concepts. Concepts restrict. They bind. They limit. Like beliefs, they become a barrier between us and the word around us.

I must admit that the notion of non-conceptual existence was for me not an easy notion to embrace. My philosophical and legal training as an Australian realist, which makes a rigid distinction between the person (subject) who experiences a thing (object), the thing experienced, and the act of experiencing the thing----three separate things none of which is constituted by its relations to any of the others nor dependent on any of the others---has made it hard for me to live non-conceptually.  I have 'died hard,' so to speak.

Now, don't get me wrong. The realist philosophical stance is indeed true up to a point, that is, in terms of pure, physical form. It is also true on a conceptual level, and Nhat Hanh acknowledges the truth of that proposition. He says: '[T]he distinction between the one who tastes the tea and the tea that is tasted ... are two elements basic to the experience of the tea (a single experience without subject or object) ... .' The Zen master's reference to 'a single experience without subject or object' is also an acknowledgment of the realist's epistemological principle of non-constitutive relations (aka doctrine of external relations) which says that nothing is constituted by or is dependent upon, nor can it be defined or explained by reference to, the relations it has to other things.

Be that as it may, our actual experience of life---please note that word experience---if it is to be fulsome, joyous, and free, must go beyond form. It must penetrate the substance of life. It must go beyond mechanical and mind-made notions of subject and object. You see, if we continue to live from a mindset that is forever making and perpetuating a rigid distinction between subject and object we will never know what it is like to have a pure, direct, non-conceptual experience of ‘the now.’

So, the next time you have tea or coffee, or eat a raisin, or go for a walk, enjoy the pure, direct, unmediated, unobstructed experience of the act. Yes, live non-conceptually for a change. You might even enjoy it.

One more thing. Don't try to live non-conceptually. Never try. If you try to do it, you are still locked into thinking, that is, conceptualization. Just do it---effortlessly.

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THERE WAS NO FIRST CAUSE---AND NO NEED FOR ONE

The ‘great’ monotheistic religions---Judaism, Christianity, and Islam---are indeed strange. Very strange. Each one of them postulates the existence of, and the need for, a so-called ‘first cause,’ God being that ‘first cause.’ Yes, God---who supposedly ‘is because He is’ (cf Ex 3:14)---is said to be the ultimate ‘necessary’ Being on whom or on which everything else depends for its existence. After all, is it not the case that whatever cannot account for its own existence must depend on something which can. That ‘something’ is God.

One of the many problems with the assertion that God was the first cause is the problem of infinite regress. If God made everything, who ‘made’ God? (There is a problem as well with that word ‘made,’ which presupposes a ‘maker.’) The theist will reply, ‘No, I am not saying that everything which exists must have been made by someone. I am saying that there must be something which is not made.’ Why must there be? There are no ‘musts.’ I repeat---there are no 'musts.' In any event, with a word like ‘made,’ how in the world is it possible to conceive of something ‘unmade.’ It is unintelligible. It is unspeakable. Yes, it is the case that everything in the world is limited and dependent. However, it does not necessarily follow---indeed, it does not logically follow at all---from the fact that everything in the world is limited and dependent that everything is ‘made,’ nor that there must be someone or something who is ‘not made,’ whatever that means.

Now, there are certainly states of interdependence throughout the universe. That much is clear simply from observation or perception alone. The Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (pictured left) uses the expression ‘InterBeing’ to refer to this state and process of interdependence, that is, the interdependent relational nature of things. Hanh, in his book Zen Keys, gives the example of a table. We recognise its existence ‘only when the interdependent conditions, upon which its presence is grounded, converge.’  Certain interdependent conditions or factors---for example, the wood, the saw, the nails, the carpenter, and so forth---come together, that is, converge, to produce the table. Some of those factors are more directly connected with the existence of the table than others, the latter being more indirectly connected. Nevertheless, all are ‘necessary’ to bring the table into ‘concrete’ existence. In a sense, the table existed ‘before being there’---at least in potentiality. Of course, we are unable to recognise its existence before all the above mentioned conditions are brought together,

However, let’s get one thing perfectly clear. Everything is not present to everything else in ‘one vast instantaneous co-implicated completeness’ (to use words penned by William James [pictured right]). Yes, there are interrelationships throughout nature, but there are also innumerable cross-currents and conflicting forces. What we find are partial unities but there is no one, vast, overarching total unity of all things. Not at all. There is no one system, completely unified, that unites all the subsystems.

However, this much is true---a single ‘logic’ applies to all things, for all things exist in the same ‘level’ or plane of existence and observability. In addition, everything has some relations with some other things; that is to say, there is no entity which is independent of all other entities. Each 'thing' is a cause of at least one other 'thing' as well as being the effect of some other 'thing,' so every thing is explainable by reference to one or more other things.

Thus, all theological talk of the supposed need for some 'first cause' is, well, nonsense. Empty words. As Professor John Anderson pointed out, 'there can be no contrivance of a "universe" or totality of things, because the contriver would have to be included in the totality of things.'

There was no first cause---and absolutely no need for one. This is just one of the many areas where Buddhism has the edge over the monotheistic religions.

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BUDDHISM AND THE PLURALITY OF ALL THINGS

Image of the Buddha in the garden at Asakusa Kannon Temple
(also called Sensoji), the oldest temple in Tokyo, Japan.
Photo taken by the author.

One of the reasons I embrace Buddhism is this---Buddhism, at least in its more early, uncluttered forms, espouses a realist view of ‘things as they really are.’ I like that, for I am at heart a realist, an empiricist, and a naturalist. I reject all supernaturalistic views of reality.

Buddhism, consistent with an empirical view of reality, affirms that whatever exists are ‘occurrences’---or ‘situations’---in one space-time. Things exist ‘in situations.’ This is known as situationality. Further, at any ‘point’---for want of a better word---in space-time there is always (yes, always) a plurality of space-time interacting situations or occurrences (‘complexes’). Indeed, there are literally countless such pluralities, and all these situations exhaust the whole of reality. There is nothing else ... or supposedly 'beyond' or 'above' all this. Things may be distinct---indeed, they are---but they also connected in space-time, and these connections are very real. The Buddha reportedly said:

Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute.

Situationality and plurality---such is the nature of reality. Never forget that!

The third Zen patriarch Seng-Tsan described situationality and plurality in this way:

One thing, all things:

Move along and intermingle,

Without distinction.

Truth---reality---is never static but always dynamic. The Buddha is also reported to have said that ‘things are different according to the forms which they assume under different impressions’. One could substitute the word ‘situations’ for ‘impressions’ without distorting meaning. Here is a typical saying attributed to the Buddha:

The thing and its quality are different in our thought, but not in reality. Heat is different from fire in our thought, but you cannot remove heat from fire in reality. You say that you can remove the qualities and leave the thing, but if you think your theory to the end, you will find that this is not so.

The author at Asakusa Kannon Temple (Sensoji).

People waft smoke over their bodies from the bronze incense burner
before worship. Some believe that the smoke can heal
or prevent illness. I'm skeptical---naturally.

 

Buddhism recognizes the existence, at any ‘point’ in space-time, of a plurality or multiplicity of interacting factors that can, at any time, produce a certain effect. We are talking about a complex, ever-changing, dynamic system whose parts are mutually dependent. In the ‘Fire Sermon’ (Aditta Sutta), the Buddha is recorded as having said:

The eye, O monks, is burning; visible things are burning; the mental impressions based on the eye are burning; the contact of the eye with visible things is burning; the sensation produced by the contact of the eye with visible things, be it pleasant, be it painful, be it neither pleasant nor painful, that also is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you that it is burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.

The ear is burning, sounds are burning, … The nose is burning, odors are burning, ... The tongue is burning, tastes are burning, ... The body is burning, objects of contact are burning, ... The mind is burning, thoughts are burning, all are burning with the fire of greed, of anger, and of ignorance.

The Fire Sermon presents, albeit in a highly lyrical way, a plurality of multiple situations that are in continuous process. That is causation---processes continuing into one another. Such is life ... wandering, wandering, waxing and waning. We live and die from moment to moment. 

The Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh uses the expression ‘InterBeing’ to refer to this state and process of interdependence. It is important, however, to note that Buddhism is not monistic. No form of Buddhism affirms that all things are in reality one. Nevertheless, a single ‘logic’ applies to all things, for all things exist in the same ‘level’ or plane of existence and observability.

All of this is very profound---but also very simple. Delightfully so. Truth is like that, you know.

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