Living with the Devil

by Stephen Batchelor

  Buddha regarded consciousness as contingent not only on sensations, feelings, perceptions, concepts, and choices but also on illusions and conditioned behavior. The human organism is instinctively prone to reify the experiencing “I” as a separate conscious entity and to behave as though the world were a domain for gratifying its desires. While modern biology understands this illusion of being an independent and permanent “I” that is always on the verge of finding happiness as an evolutionary strategy conferring survival advantages, Buddha saw how it condemned us to anxiety and frustration.

  To assume the way the world instinctively appears to us to be true is to succumb to the trickery of Mara that is built into the structure of the organism itself. As soon as human beings aspired for more than mere physical survival, they found themselves opposed by entrenched habits of perception and behavior that ran counter to the realization of their cultural and spiritual ideals. To undermine the innate impression of being a fixed self in a constant world that promises happiness, Buddha taught his followers to pay sustained attention to the transient, unreliable, and selfless “marks” of existence. He discovered that the key to well-being lies in understanding how this shifting, uncontrollable world is incapable of providing such well-being. Since such practices and insights go directly against Mara’s “stream,” we find ourselves distracted and obstructed each time we seek to apply them.

  As a healer of the human condition, Buddha was interested in consciousness only insofar as that an understanding of its contingency would help free us from the illusions in which it is embedded. For him, the problem with consciousness was the way it appears to be the irreducible core of oneself. Even before we indulge in the religious conceits of being a pure awareness or an eternal soul, consciousness already seems strangely disassociated from the body and world it seems to inhabit. This innate sense of being apart from the flux of life was, for Buddha, one of the root causes of human isolation, alienation, and anguish. In paying mindful attention to how consciousness emerges contingently from fluid conditions, one starts to dissolve the fixed sense of “I” that it seems to enclose. In breaking down the isolation of the alienated self, such awareness reconnects us to the endless play of interacting, mutually creating processes. For Buddha, consciousness, like everything else in the world, was no more stable or real than the flicker of a shadow or the bubbling froth of a brook.

  14

  This Body Is Breathing

  YOU ARE A PARTICIPATING observer of these words. Light from a window or lamp reflects off a line of printed text, generates an image on your retinas, which flashes along optic nerves to neurons in the brain to appear as an intelligible phrase or sentence. Whether the words intrigue, irritate, or bore you, this very experience is where the path to freedom begins. We tend not to see this. For “ordinary men are deluded,” remarked the twelfth-century Korean Zen teacher Chinul:

  When donning clothes they only understand that they are donning clothes; when eating they only understand that they are eating; in all their activities they are deceived by appearances. Hence they use the sublime functioning of the mind every day but do not realize it; it is right before their eyes but they are not aware of it.

  In taking the everyday details of life for granted, we fail to appreciate the extraordinary fact that we are conscious at all. Like a fish that spends its time swimming through the oceans in search of water, we assume the deepest truths to reside in some transcendent realm beyond the mundane clutter of daily existence. But for Chinul “the sublime essence of nirvana is complete in everyone.” In keeping with Zen tradition, he is not proclaiming an abstract truth. Here and now, he insists, Buddha’s pristine awareness quivers through the fingers that feel the texture of this book, the eyes that behold these words, the thoughts that puzzle over their meaning.

  “The way,” said Chuang-tzu, “is in the ant, in the broken tile, in dung, in mire.” Nirvana is found not by forsaking the world but by probing its dark and fleshly depths. To break the spell of the body’s appearance, imagine making an incision with a scalpel from your forehead to your belly, then peel away the layers of skin, fat, flesh, and sinew until bone is visible. Observe the heart’s valves pumping blood through veins and arteries, the stomach processing half-digested food, glistening viscera: liver, kidneys, intestine. How swiftly is that image of oneself, preened in every passing mirror, replaced by revulsion at the human animal.

  Those acts of which we are most embarrassed in public—weeping, vomiting, urinating, defecating, copulating—are what least define us as persons. The well-dressed ego struts and displays, but we are ashamed when our common bestiality is exposed to others. This leaking frame is an inescapable reminder of the fragility and impersonality of our condition: its decay, smells, aches, seizures, and breakdowns a cruel mockery of the self-contained personality we struggle to preserve.

  “If, possessed of such a body,” said Buddha, “one thinks highly of oneself and despises others—that is due to nothing other than a lack of insight.” This carnal organism, born from a mother’s womb and destined to end as dust, is the great equalizer of beings. Dissect a cat or dog, bird or fish, and beneath the skin you discover flesh, blood, and bones just like your own. That sense of being a cut above the rest is but a shimmering flicker on the surface of the sublime animal that we are. Break down the organic matter further into proteins and genes, and we reach our common heritage with everything from sea grass to bacteria. Analyze the genes into molecules, atoms, and quarks, and we touch what we share with pebbles and comets.

  We find ourselves in flight not only from the precariousness of a contingent world but from the demands of an animal’s body. We become fixated upon a seemingly eternal self-consciousness, severed from nature, enclosed in a disembodied space. As we read these words, we do not feel the workings of the lungs, heart, and nervous system that make reading possible. The body’s delicate tissues and organs are a brute reminder of our mortality. Its need to breathe, eat, and evacuate waste is proof of our embeddedness in nature. Yet to turn attention away from the self’s narcissistic preoccupation with its own image and contemplate instead the physical, emotional, and mental conditions from which the play of self emerges is, for Buddha, “the direct path . . . for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of nirvana.”

  To experience in depth the natural unfolding of life, Buddha suggests returning to the heart of nature herself: “to the forest, to the root of a tree or to an empty hut.” Bearing no trace of human presence or dominion, the anarchy of wilderness is a selfless realm. Trees, shrubs, and creepers sprout, flourish, and wither unimpeded by human design. The poignancy of an empty hut—already perhaps half smothered with foliage—is a stark reminder that no one is there. In contrast to a world saturated with marks of ownership and ambition, nature effortlessly and unintentionally discloses the exfoliation of the same life that pulses through our veins and fills our lungs.

  To dwell in the solitude of nature or withdraw to an empty room is not in itself sufficient to still the mad rush of thoughts and emotions that prevent one from settling in contemplation. As Pascal and Montaigne discovered, such solitude tends only to amplify the mind’s restlessness. Mara cannot be overcome simply by removing oneself from situations one finds disturbing. Initially it might seem as if retreating from the world makes one more distracted. The “runaway horse” of the mind needs to be harnessed to an activity to which one can constantly return. For Montaigne, this was the discipline of writing essays; for Buddha, it was the practice of attending to the inflow and outflow of the breath.

  Breathing meditation renders you intimately aware of a primal rhythm of your physical existence. Rather than imaginatively dissecting the body to examine it from without, one feels one’s way inside to explore it from within. Having found a stable posture in which the back is upright, bring the totality of attention to the physical sensation of the breath as it enters the nostrils, fills the lungs, pauses, contracts the lungs, is exhaled, pauses, and s
o on. Do not control the breath; just rest with calm curiosity in an awareness of the body breathing. If the breath is short and shallow, then notice it to be short and shallow. If it is long and deep, notice it to be long and deep. There is no right or wrong way to breathe.

  Breathing is a self-regulating motor function of the body. For the most part we draw and exhale breath as effortlessly as a plant turns toward the light of the sun. This natural process happens of its own accord. But as soon as one pays attention to it, its free flow tends to be inhibited by the grip of self-consciousness. Even though you try not to control the breath, the very act of paying attention to it seems to impose a degree of control. The trick is to learn how to remain fully aware of the breath without that awareness impeding its natural ebb and flow.

  One way to do this is to wait for the breath to happen. After each inhalation and exhalation, there follows a brief pause as the muscles change gear, as it were, before releasing the pent-up air or drawing a fresh breath. The self-consciousness of breathing is most pronounced at these two moments: suddenly it feels as though “I” must exhale or inhale. To dispel this sense of agency, during each pause remain a disinterested observer, curious to notice when and how the muscles will engage of their own accord to initiate the next inbreath or outbreath. Just wait for the next phase in the breathing to kick in: with no expectation as to when it should start, no preparation for it to be deep or shallow, no anticipation for it to be forceful or gentle.

  In this open space of alert but disinterested waiting, the organism will suddenly be felt to exhale or inhale on its own. With practice, one learns how to refine one’s role as a participating but noninterfering observer of one’s breath. In paying careful and sustained attention to the rhythmic sensations of breathing, not only does the mind become more still and focused but one becomes aware of the subtlety and complexity of the process. Any notion of the breath as a quasi-mechanical bellows action of the lungs is replaced by a keen sense of the breath as the body’s tidal rhythm, its vital link with the world beyond its skin.

  This steady, reassuring rhythm of the breath is the anchor to which one returns each time the mind is snatched away by daydreams or memories. Its fluctuations—from long, serene draughts to brief, jagged gasps—serve as a barometer of one’s mood. The breath opens the door to a heightened awareness of the body’s inner life: the pulsing, trembling, rushing, itching, tingling, straining, hurting. In probing this medley of sensations, we recognize it as the fabric of which emotion and feeling are woven. A pang of anxiety or a rush of exhilaration appears as a contraction or eruption at a precise location in the body. More diffuse moods such as sadness or contentment seem to be spread like a mist through the entire system, while a gnawing sensation in the solar plexus provokes a familiar but unnameable disquiet. Even the most fugitive thoughts seem to race and sparkle within the bounds of the flesh.

  Once settled in the perspective of a still, open awareness, then slowly widen the field of awareness to encompass the texture of clothing against our skin; the polyphony of sounds within and around us; the shifting patches of light, shade, and color; the lingering tastes on our palate; the smells that waft our way. Just as the flame of a candle illuminates a room more vividly when its restless flickering is stilled, so does the mind illuminate experience more clearly when it settles into a calm and equanimous repose. The stillness of mindfulness is not one of trancelike absorption, where attention remains locked on a single object, but an expansive restfulness in which a radiant and supple clarity attends to whatever appears.

  And whatever appears, disappears. The closer one attends to the unfolding of life, from thoughts that flit through one’s brain to the serene blue canopy of a cloudless sky, the more the inconstancy of things becomes apparent. Everything that presents itself to us through the senses is in motion. A thought races by with such speed that we barely catch it, and the sky changes color with such stately slowness that it seems immobile, but both are equally in flux. Whether it be due to the organism’s preference for perceptual constancy or our anxious craving for stability in an uncertain world, we consistently fail to notice this. It is as though our resistance to impermanence is a reflex of that deeper resistance to death. Not only is Mara the resistance, he is the impermanence and death as well.

  An eternally vanishing world will never stay fixed in place long enough to satisfy the desires of a self or society for permanent stability and well-being. Yet we instinctively look to such a world as though it were capable of providing such happiness. This deep-seated utopian longing would appear to have biological as well as psychological origins. The evolutionary success of human beings is in part due to our conceptual capacity to anticipate and plan for a future in which we, our kin, and offspring will thrive and prosper.

  The success of this strategy requires the notion of an enduring self that is not destroyed by the flux and turbulence of life. Only in this way can “I” and “we” still be around to enjoy the fruits of our efforts when the future arrives. But as we carefully examine the unfolding patterns of life within and around us, no such self can be found. Although this nugget of “me” might feel at times more solid and real than anything else, it evaporates like a mirage as soon as we seek to pin it down. Contrary to expectation, the self lurks neither among the swirling play of events nor apart from them in a realm of its own. As one settles into a contemplative acceptance of the selfless flux of experience, one discovers that, just like the breath, it too happens of its own accord. Even the observing awareness is a momentary consequence of sense data impacting the organs of a complex nervous system capable of representing those data as “things-observed-by-me.”

  After years of struggle, Buddha discovered how a still and penetrating observation of the transient, painful, unreliable, and selfless nature of experience can release that anxious grip on self and world that lies at the root of existential anguish. The release of the grip (even for a few moments) is nirvana—while the grip, of course, is Mara. In the same way as Buddha needs to conquer Mara in order to be Buddha, so nirvana needs the stilling of samsara in order to be nirvana. And just as Mara haunts Buddha, so samsara haunts nirvana.

  15

  Learning to Wait

  IF THE DEVIL’S CIRCLE spins consoling fictions of a self and world that are unambiguous, controllable, and self-evident, then nirvana, as the stilling of that spin, discloses a self and world that are ambiguous, uncontrollable, and perplexing. The release of nirvana rests in a serene astonishment at a fleeting self and world that simultaneously reveal themselves and withdraw. “Do you know who it is,” asks Lin-chi,

  who right now is running around searching this way? He is brisk and lively, with no roots at all. Though you embrace him, you cannot gather him in; though you drive him away, you cannot shake him off. If you seek him, he retreats farther and farther away; if you don’t seek him, then he’s right there before your eyes.

  No matter how deeply one probes life, no matter how much one knows about it, will it not still remain a question for you? Will not something about it forever elude your grasp? Could not the most precise scientific equations, the sublimest music, poetry, and art, the profoundest teachings of the world’s religions and philosophies be but tufts of cotton thrown into the wind of the question: “Why is there anything at all?”

  When the monk Radha asked, “What is the purpose of nirvana?” Buddha replied:

  You have gone beyond the range of questioning, Radha. You weren’t able to grasp the limit to questioning. For the divine life, Radha, is lived with nirvana as its ground, nirvana as its destination, nirvana as its final goal.

  As a crack in the edifice of samsara, a momentary loosening of Mara’s grip, or the unimpeded ease of each breath, nirvana comes unbidden. We are shocked out of habitual certainties into a sense of the world as uncanny and unreliable. This perplexity is the first hazy intimation of nirvana. Its intensity does not agitate us but is cradled in a strange stillness. Whether it crystallizes into a qu
estion like “What is this thing?” or coagulates into a gnawing sensation of doubt in the belly, it becomes the source and ground of a path.

  In contrast to the anguished restlessness of samsara, the release of nirvana is experienced as ease. Such ease is a feature not merely of Buddha’s inner life but of the effortless unfolding of life itself. “Whatever is contingent,” says Nagarjuna, “is naturally at ease.” This nirvanic ease is already present in the selfless, unimpeded play of the natural world: the unfurling of a leaf, the spring of a cat, the trickle of a stream. To symbolize his conquest of Mara, Buddha touches the earth. Nirvana is not located in a remote celestial realm; it is rooted in the ground of our own being. However solid, opaque, and resistant this ground might at first seem, as we calmly attend to it, it opens up as a groundlessness of infinite depth and ease. As a result, says Shantideva, “living beings are naturally nirvanic.”

  Perplexity is an appropriate response to this ground whose groundlessness is like an abyss from which all things spring forth. But to call this ground the “Sublime” or “One Mind,” “Emptiness,” or “God” is to risk being ensnared once more by Mara. For rather than resting in the boundless unknown that animates perplexity, we return to the safe bounds of a concept that we believe we understand. Instead of embracing the ineffability of our existence, we scramble for the consolation of a manageable religious or philosophical idea. One must be prepared to relinquish even the minimal consolation of a “groundless ground.”