A Higher Teaching: Consciousness

Dharmachari Seven and Amber Dorrian, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

(lifehack.org)

   
How could consciousness (or anything) be a self, a soul, an "I"? It is constantly passing away and utterly dependent on the other groups of transient phenomena (forms, feelings, perceptions, and formations) mistaken for "self." 

   

Seeing oneness (nonduality) is wonderful! To see us ALL united, as in the same boat, as made of the same thing, is beautiful! But it is not enlightenment. 

   

Dukkha: annoyance to agony (superiorpics.com)

So long as one is still identifying and clinging in ignorance to things like views, one is far from the way things really are -- dharma. One is not on the path to being freed from suffering and rebirth. This may seem like a fine or useless distinction. But it is the key to enlightenment.

  

How can one let go to see things as they really are? One cannot directly let go by an act of will. (The hand will open, yet the heart will still cling). But it can be done indirectly. 

   

By turning concentrated attention -- intensified by four states of absorption or "right concentration" (samma samadhi) -- by being mindful of objects conducive to insight, the heart/mind lets go. This is described in the "Four Foundations of Mindfulness" sutra. The mind/heart pulls back like a feather or plastic dropped into a flame. And one is liberated by wisdom. 

  

Self did not do this, and the question "Who just got liberated?" does not arise, does not occur to the mind. The paradox we feel so certain of in ignorance is resolved:  freedom is but not the one who is freed.

  

Instead, what is clearly known-and-seen is that, "Suffering [stress, woe, ill, trouble, disappointment rooted in ignorance] arises, and just this suffering passes away."

 

All insight is good. All epiphanies (satoris) are thrilling. All spiritual achievements are a partial liberation from the tyranny of materiality and the illusion that what is seen all around is all there is. There is more, much more. The normally unseen world is much bigger than the normally seen world we cling to.

  

Do all religions teach the same thing?

To confound ancient Brahminical/Hindu notions with what Shakyamuni Buddha taught is a mistake. To call those dharmas "the Dharma" after the Buddha rejected them is tragic. Most Mahayanists neglect to capitalize the Sanskrit word dharma, which is good because then it can equally refer to any "teaching" or "doctrine." 

  

Dharma is capitalized to distinguish the Buddha-Dharma from competing doctrines in India like Vedic Brahmanism, modern Hinduism (which calls itself the sanatan dharma, the "eternal law"), and Jainism.

     

Confounding Buddhism with other wonderful Eastern philosophies is to say that the Buddha contributed nothing new or unique.

   

Issa (Jesus) is said to have come not to change one iota of the Old Law (Talmudic Judaism) but only to fulfill it (and apparently make a new deal or covenant). The same might well be said of Hindu avatars. But a buddha comes to reinstate what has been lost, neglected, fallen into darkness, utterly forgotten. He does not revive an existing tradition.

  

The Buddha was not born a Hindu, as so many say. He was born into the warrior caste when Brahmins considered themselves the elites. They tried to monopolize spirituality and transcendental wisdom, but they could not corner the spiritual market. There were always wanderers, independent seekers who rejected convention and tradition.

  

Would anyone say the world and religion were just fine, and a fully enlightened teacher (samma sambuddha) arose to merely repeat what others could see and were teaching?

   

A Higher Teaching

No, he proclaimed something profound, something subtle, something extremely very hard to see, sublime, marvelous, and incomprehensible by way of mere reasoning. 
   
A part of what he taught was based on the realization of what came to be known as "Dependent Origination" -- the timeless truth that every "thing" that arises depends on its constituent factors. It is not independent of them (including the self) and does not govern the process.

   

When Ananda said this particularly subtle teaching made sense and was clear, the Buddha admonished him: 
  
"Do not say so, Ananda! Do not say so! This Dependent Origination is profound and appears profound. It is through not understanding, not penetrating this dharma [timeless truth] that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string, covered as with a blight, tangled with something like coarse grass, unable to pass beyond states of woe [destinations inferior to the human plane], the ill-destiny, ruin, and the round of birth-and-death." 

    

Is there or is there not a self?

Of course, there is a "self" -- with form (a body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness -- BUT what is the nature of this "self," the nature of these constituent-parts referred to as a self? 

  

Body and mind, the psychophysical organism, is what we cling to as self, soul. We identify with it, derive our identity from it.

The astonishing thing is that it is impersonal (not self), impermanent (constantly becoming something else), and disappointing (unsatisfactory). That is to say, this collection of groups (these materials that form a body, these sensations, perceptions, formations, and knowings) are not at all what we usually assume. Rather than self, they are not self.

  

And when the mind/heart sees that, it lets go and pulls away. This allows insight to step in and uproot the fetters, defilements, cankers, taints, hindrances. One is instantly freed of illusion and suffering.

  

Clinging to illusions drags one and drowns one, as every experience is regarded as personal and happening to "me." It is "my" problem, a danger to me, a delight for me, something for me to hold onto.

  

The truth shall set [...] free. Set who free? No one in an ultimate sense. It is an unraveling or unbinding of a functionally-integrated set of conditional, unsatisfactory, ultimately not-mine factors that cling to themselves as if they were a real and reliable "self." They cling. 

  

But, but...

It is on account of wrong view (miccha ditthi) that the idea of a separate self or essence (independent of constituent parts) arises, conventionally speaking. Who feels? Ultimately, feelings feel. Who perceives? The process of perception perceives. Who wills? Formations (such as volition) will. Who is conscious? Consciousness is conscious.

   

This is NOT a truth to "accept" or place "faith" in. It is a liberating teaching to realize. Until it is realized, there is no end to suffering. For all suffering, ultimately, is grounded in ignorance. And enlightenment is the solution to ignorance the Buddha pointed out.