[Buddha-l] Acting on emptiness

[alx437 at charter.net]

     I did some work on this topic a long time ago, when I was an undergraduate, and have thought about it periodically ever since. I think one handy rule of thumb in dealing with this issue is that if you think you understand it, you most likely have it wrong. 

   That being said, my take on it has to do with the idea of frames of reference. With regard to descriptions of reality, or whatever it is that is going on, there are many different possibilities. We all tend to agree on the main features of our world, inasmuch as we share the same language. But as there are different languages, so there are different ways of understanding what is going on, and if we want to follow the advice of William James, one of my personal heroes, the frame of reference that we adopt will be the one that allows us to accomplish what we want in any particular situation. As this will vary according to circumstances, so should our perspective vary. The ultimate truth, or ultimate reality, is just that there are many different conventional or superficial truths or realities, each useful for its own purposes, but no one of them able to encompass all different possibilities. There is no human language that contains all other languages. We can talk about a realm outside of or beyond language, but that quickly becomes tricky or confusing, because having said that it cannot be described, we have pretty much exhausted that topic. Buddhist like to use the simile of the finger pointing at the moon, implying that language can point us in the right direction if we are careful in how we use it, but it cannot grasp the moon itself. Another feature of language is that it is designed for social use, between and among people, and thus by its nature is a shared phenomenon. Therefore language tends to ignore or gloss over the fact that our individual experience contains an element of subjectivity. I see a chair, you see a chair, we talk about the chair, it’s the same chair, and so forth. Yet you and I do not experience the exact same thing when we look at that which we call “chair.” I’m standing in one place, you’re standing in a different place. Neither of us sees the entire chair, all of its sides, top, bottom, and so forth. Also, each of us have different associations with the concept of chair, so what we talk about is a generality that makes communication possible by smoothing out the differences in our unique personal perspectives. The difference between pratyaksha, direct perception, and anumana, or inference, comes in here. Anumana is the realm of language, intersubjectivity, but pratyaksha, unmediated by concepts, is the ultimate.   

     I think Nag and Cand are slightly different than this, however, because they want to deny the reality of any difference between the two. The ultimate truth is that there are many different conventional truths which compete for our allegiance. There is nothing that can be described which corresponds to that which is beyond language and concept. Even saying it exists, doesn’t exist, and the other two alternatives of the catushkoti is no good. J.Z. Smith made a distinction which is famous in religious studies circles by saying that map is not territory. Here we have a situation in which there are only maps, not corresponding to any territory, but each showing something not found in the others. 

    Well, as I said, I probably have it wrong here, and certainly I would bow to the superior status of someone like Garfield, whose ideas are much more likely to be an accurate reflection of how this topic has been understood within the Gelugpa tradition. 

    Now, as for the question of how one would act if in possession of such realization, I confess I have no good ideas here. Acting like a psychopath is certainly one possibility, though displaying fear might also be appropriate. In a Buddhist context, or more particularly Mahayana, a course of action would be dictated by the vow made to liberate other beings. Lacking sufficient meditative training to have developed clairvoyance, ignorant folks like me cannot infer someone else's state of mind simply from observing their actions, at least not with any degree of certainty. To me this relates to the crucial question of how to pick a guru. I think you would want to study someone pretty carefully for an extended period before you were ready to decide, and make the best judgment you could based on the evidence available, unless you wish to follow the example of Milarepa who seems to have experienced some flash of intuitive certainty when he first met Marpa. 
 
    Well that will do it for now from me. 

                             All the best,      Alex Naughton