Confusion
Buddhist teachings contain prerational views, rational and deductive reasonings, paradoxical mandalic visions, and also purely transrational disclosures. "Prerational" signifies, in structural sense, as Jean Gebser has defined, arhaic, magic, and mythic horizons. "Rational" covers the mental and relativistic stages, while paradox opens the way into post-rational, highly sofisticated integrative structures (holistic, integral, super-integral etc.). Each of these structures produces a semantic horizon. In each of them awakening is possible, in each of them it is expressed, explained and taught differently.
A student of Buddhism (or any authentic wisdom tradition) living today unable to distinguish clearly between vertical structures, meditative development, and awakening to the absolute, is in serious trouble. Having a teacher unable to make such distinctions is also problematic. Now, the Buddhist tradition itself gives criteria as to the character of various teachings, so that views and practices are classified as definite and indefinite, and also according to various sets of stages (e.g. five periods and eight teachings in Lotus tradition, ten stages in Shingon tradition, nine vehicles in Tibetan Nyingma school, and even Zen has five varieties according to Tsung-mi). These stages, however, refer to levels of interpretive complexity (i.e. doctrinal subtlety) and to horizontal depth (what in IT would be called state-stages), not to vertical growth (i.e. structure-stages), because the structural evolution of mind through worldviews is one of modern discoveries. Therefore, some of the most advanced teachings may also contain magical and mythical material, that often goes accepted naively even by highly educated people, leading to a new literalism.*
(*Some find safety in carefully selected parts of Theravadin Tipitaka or in Zen stories, but not for long: even there the rich allegorical and metaphorical context cries for adequate interpretation, and adequacy has to do with culture, history and geography... )
For these reasons, premodern teachers could not and would not admit that the Dharma itself was developing. Instead, they would explain that later teachings were taught by earlier masters, usually all the way back to Gautama Siddhartha, even a thousand years after his death, or - more elegantly - simply place the source of their teachings outside historical time altogether. It's a complex issue, with ramifications at the level of magic, myth, rational etc. but it's obviously something to ponder by every practitioner for quite practical reasons.
The principles of dependent origination and karma, may be expressed in various ways with more or less subtlety, but then these may be interpreted according to levels or structural horizons. Traditionally, dependent origination is understood at levels of increasing depth: matter (uttu), life (bija), mind (citta), ethics (karma) and spirituality (dharma). However, we find no understanding of prerational, rational, and post-rational within the mind category, although that has a huge impact on the way the other categories are understood. Also, almost nothing is said on the difference between individual and collective karma, indeed very little is given in terms of actual ethical intersubjectivity, or the products of social, political and economic systems. Hence, what IT (or, more precisely, AQAL) recognizes as quadrants (i.e. subjective, objective, cultural, social), we find pre-differentiated and fused, even con-fused, in traditional teachings as different facets of consciousness, all a byproduct of one's previous acts of body, speech and mind. We even find elaborations as to which environmental (objective) conditions are fruits of which karmic (individual subjective) actions, quite literally. Not very helpful.
The two truths provide a sound framework for this re-calibration. If one holds Dharma is indeed good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, then one is bound to make these distinctions and develop sound interpretations at every step. The alternative is con-fusion.
In short, refuge, precept, vow, samadhi, samaya, buddha-nature, nairatmya, shunyata, dharmata, trikaya, guru, mandala, lineage, initiation and empowerment, even samsara and nirvana - all these wait to be reframed in the post-metaphysical horizon.
A student of Buddhism (or any authentic wisdom tradition) living today unable to distinguish clearly between vertical structures, meditative development, and awakening to the absolute, is in serious trouble. Having a teacher unable to make such distinctions is also problematic. Now, the Buddhist tradition itself gives criteria as to the character of various teachings, so that views and practices are classified as definite and indefinite, and also according to various sets of stages (e.g. five periods and eight teachings in Lotus tradition, ten stages in Shingon tradition, nine vehicles in Tibetan Nyingma school, and even Zen has five varieties according to Tsung-mi). These stages, however, refer to levels of interpretive complexity (i.e. doctrinal subtlety) and to horizontal depth (what in IT would be called state-stages), not to vertical growth (i.e. structure-stages), because the structural evolution of mind through worldviews is one of modern discoveries. Therefore, some of the most advanced teachings may also contain magical and mythical material, that often goes accepted naively even by highly educated people, leading to a new literalism.*
(*Some find safety in carefully selected parts of Theravadin Tipitaka or in Zen stories, but not for long: even there the rich allegorical and metaphorical context cries for adequate interpretation, and adequacy has to do with culture, history and geography... )
For these reasons, premodern teachers could not and would not admit that the Dharma itself was developing. Instead, they would explain that later teachings were taught by earlier masters, usually all the way back to Gautama Siddhartha, even a thousand years after his death, or - more elegantly - simply place the source of their teachings outside historical time altogether. It's a complex issue, with ramifications at the level of magic, myth, rational etc. but it's obviously something to ponder by every practitioner for quite practical reasons.
The principles of dependent origination and karma, may be expressed in various ways with more or less subtlety, but then these may be interpreted according to levels or structural horizons. Traditionally, dependent origination is understood at levels of increasing depth: matter (uttu), life (bija), mind (citta), ethics (karma) and spirituality (dharma). However, we find no understanding of prerational, rational, and post-rational within the mind category, although that has a huge impact on the way the other categories are understood. Also, almost nothing is said on the difference between individual and collective karma, indeed very little is given in terms of actual ethical intersubjectivity, or the products of social, political and economic systems. Hence, what IT (or, more precisely, AQAL) recognizes as quadrants (i.e. subjective, objective, cultural, social), we find pre-differentiated and fused, even con-fused, in traditional teachings as different facets of consciousness, all a byproduct of one's previous acts of body, speech and mind. We even find elaborations as to which environmental (objective) conditions are fruits of which karmic (individual subjective) actions, quite literally. Not very helpful.
The two truths provide a sound framework for this re-calibration. If one holds Dharma is indeed good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, then one is bound to make these distinctions and develop sound interpretations at every step. The alternative is con-fusion.
In short, refuge, precept, vow, samadhi, samaya, buddha-nature, nairatmya, shunyata, dharmata, trikaya, guru, mandala, lineage, initiation and empowerment, even samsara and nirvana - all these wait to be reframed in the post-metaphysical horizon.
Labels: buddhism, integral, spirituality
2 Comments:
We are discussing this topic at the I-I zaada pod. Could you please provide specific examples of how traditonal Buddhist formulations are pre-rational and/or not postmetaphysical? Thanks.
theurj
hi, theurj. There are actually many examples for prerational, and even more for postmetaphysical. Actually, Buddhist traditional teachings, with all their analysis and logical edification, are an example of metaphysics at work. But here let me give just one illustration, namely, the basic teaching of karma.
The situation in which I find myself now is partialy a product of a past action, or more specifically, of a past volition (skt. cetana). The huge problem of discontinuity between a long gone cause and later conditions giving rise to an effect felt at present, including an impersonal rebirth sequence, has never been solved to a degree that would satisfy any critical mind, including a Buddhist one. That doesn't mean "karma & vipaka" is not at work, just means that no-one really knows how it really works. Well, it is widely claimed and taught as fact that awakening entails a full disclosure of the workings of karma, including the details of other people's karmic dynamics. So it's not karma as a general principle, but as a specific cause-effect. By those standards, it's a serious question whether anyone has ever realized such an awakening and demonstrated such an understanding.
Later in Buddhist history, karma has been subsumed into more general causation doctrines, such as those based on emptiness, or on dharmadhatu, but even today it is often used to "explain" or "address" with authority the specific conditions of one's present situation. This is a profoundly metaphysical strategy, reminding me of scientists who give us the "we are soon to discover that" reply whenever confronted with inconsistencies in their present knowledge.
It's very important to distinguish between intuition of principle and knowledge of specific detail, and treat each of them accordingly.
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