by Greg Goode
The disagreement between these two statements, as well as the other oppositions brought about by the Pyrrhonist modes, lead to an impasse, an aporia. Instead of taking on either of these statements as a belief, try to suspend judgment. You don’t have a horse in this race. See if you can feel the relief and relaxation that immediately follows.
Of course, not having a belief doesn’t mean that you can’t become a neuroscientist. It doesn’t mean that you can’t pursue a form of non-dualism. But your involvement will be light-hearted and free from anxiety about whether the statements ever turn out to be true or not. Notice that you do not even have to believe that they will one day turn out to be true, or that they will never turn out to be true. You withhold assent from all such statements. Try not to assent intellectually to either side of the disagreement. Can you feel more freedom when that happens?
Meditation – I’m Not Enlightened
For this one, we will use several of the Agrippan modes together to bring out the impasse that this statement leads to. And, by the way, “I’m not enlightened.” is a realistic subject for investigation. In working with people in non-dual inquiry over the years, I (Greg) have had several conversations with people who have gone through the progression of (1) through (7) below.
(1) “I’m not enlightened.”
Where does this get its support? If it is just a feeling, then it has no support and so falls into the Hypothetical mode. It’s just a bare assertion. Other contrary assertions can be opposed to it and there is no way to establish one over the other.
Let’s say that support is offered:
(2) “I sometimes feel like a separate entity.”
This is a belief about feelings in the past and future. How can it support (1)? What is the connection? Usually the person who believes (1) and (2) will also believe an implicit link between them. Let’s make it explicit:
(3) “If you never feel like a separate entity, then you are enlightened.”
OK, now where does (3) get its support? If it has no support, then it too would fall into the Hypothetical mode, and we could easily suspend judgment about it. But let’s say that support is offered:
(4) “This is the teaching of my teacher.”
So this teacher has taught that enlightenment means never feeling like a separate entity. The Pyrrhonist does not try to show that this definition of enlightenment is false. Rather, the idea is to look for support for the statements made. So, does (4) have any support? Why should we believe the teachings of this teacher? If there is no support, then (4) could fall into the Hypothetical mode. And it may also fall into the mode of Disagreement, where you can find very different statements from other teachers about enlightenment and about feeling like a separate entity. But let’s say that that support is offered for (4):
(5) “My teacher is enlightened.”
There is a subtle link here between this statement (5) and the earlier statement (3) about enlightenment meaning that one never feels like a separate entity. Let’s make this link explicit as well: “If one is enlightened, then their spiritual statements are true.” In other words, statement (5) implies that we should believe (3) because of the effects of enlightenment. There is abundant opportunity for more Pyrrhonist investigation here, but let’s choose one particular direction. That is, how can we be sure we should believe this teacher unless we know what their enlightenment consists of in the first place?
Let’s say that a statement of support is given about the enlightenment of this teacher, which will help us understand and accept this enlightenment and then believe this teacher’s pronouncements. Let’s say the statement is this:
(6) “My teacher never feels like a separate entity.”
And let’s say we ask, “OK, so why does this make the teacher enlightened?” Let’s say that the answer given is this one:
(7) “If you never feel like a separate entity, then you are enlightened.”
This series of statements has now fallen into the Reciprocal mode and we can suspend judgment about the entire chain from (1) to (7)!
According to the Reciprocal mode, there is circular reasoning involved. This circularity is similar to the earlier example about the Bible in which “The Bible is the word of God” was the statement to be proved, but was also offered as the proof itself.
So let us recap the present case to bring out the circularity.
This meditation began by my saying that I wasn’t enlightened. I wanted to inquire into support for this statement. I began by accepting a definition that linked enlightenment to not feeling like a separate entity. When I asked why I should accept this definition, I was given a teacher’s authority. When I asked for support for the teacher’s authority, I was given the statement about the teacher’s enlightenment. When I asked for support for the teacher’s enlightenment, I was given the statement that the teacher didn’t feel like a separate entity. And when I asked for support for why this was so important, I was given (7), the very same statement that had occurred in (3). This statement relied on subsequent statements that in turn relied on it.
So that is the circle. Logical and evidential support for the original statement (1) “I’m not enlightened” have not been found. We can withhold assent to the original statement as well as to all the statements given in support of it.
The Agrippan modes can be used together as a powerful tool. Together, they act as a net, able to catch any statement or belief that purports to be about things in themselves. The result is ataraxia, a very sweet peace of mind in matters of belief.
Spiritual Teachings – Self-Guided Meditations
Here are some meditations that you can do on your own. These are a little bit different from the guided meditations we did above. These are more abstract. They can be called “meta”-statements, as they are statements about teachings, such as “My teaching is the highest.” They are not so much statements from within teachings (of course, this distinction breaks down if we look closely, since many teachings contain meta-statements too).
These meta-statements are especially important to look into because, as beliefs, they can be held even more tightly than regular spiritual statements. These meta-statements can actually cause more anxiety than statements about God, reincarnation or consciousness, because they express our background beliefs about life, knowledge, truth, enlightenment and other large issues. If these metastatements are very tightly held as beliefs, we actually don’t allow them to change when we encounter spiritual teachings. Instead, we may expect the spiritual teachings to conform to these metastatements. So it is very helpful to look into these meta-statements as well.
We have heard most of the meta-statements below uttered in various spiritual contexts. Some of these statements can be found in Google. Before using the Pyrrhonist modes on the statements below, try to take some time and come up with your own meta-statements, especially ones you feel strongly about.
“My path begins where your path ends.”
“The path of [fill in the blank] gives the most accurate description of reality.”
“The Western psychological model is the most accurate model.”
“The holographic model of reality is the most accurate.”
“Quantum physics is the most accurate model of reality.”
“If science and spirituality conflict, then science will win.”
“The highest teaching is given in silence.”
“The highest teaching is awareness.”
“The highest teaching is emptiness.”
“The highest teaching is that of Dzogchen.”
“In essence, all teachings say the same thing.”
“There is no God other than my God.”
“There is only one God.”
“There are many Gods.”
“You don’t have to convert to this path [fill in the blank] or adopt any new beliefs – but this path will help you understand your own path more deeply.”
“The teacher [fill in the blank] has a higher level of enlig
htenment than other teachers.”
“As you get closer to enlightenment, you become less interested in reading books.”
“The fastest way to non-dual realization is to be devoted to a teacher who has already attained this state of mind in her or himself.”
“Paths that give you practices only exacerbate the original problem.”
“Paths that do not give you practices are not effective.”
CHAPTER 18 – LIVING A JOYFULLY EMPTY LIFE
In this chapter, we’ll discuss what it’s like to live the empty life. Where does the emptiness journey go? What does it mean for me in the end? Does it even have an end? What is it like to have done a lot of emptiness meditations? What are the results? Does it also affect my ordinary life? Do I need to become a Buddhist now? Or how about a psychologist, philosopher or postmodernist? Will I be forced to live now in a “spiritual way,” for example, live a life full of compassion or self-sacrifice? This chapter answers these questions.
Have You Noticed Anything So Far?
If you have been doing some of the meditations in this book, they may have had an effect on you. Perhaps you’ve noticed some changes.
For example, you may have noticed that a negative label or sad truth you believed about your life (such as “I don’t deserve love”) is far less solid than it seemed. Perhaps there are “facts” that you had structured your life around (such as “I’m inside my head and the world is outside”) that can be totally accounted for as social conventions and make no sense as inherent truths. For me (Greg), feeling undeserving of love was never an issue, but the “inside/ outside” idea was extremely strong and oppressive in me. For much of my life, it made me feel lonely, alienated, and totally disconnected from people. I can say from experience that when I realized how this idea lost its sense of objective groundedness, it was like the Berlin Wall coming down. Love can surge out in every direction. Things get better with more emptiness meditation.
And if you haven’t noticed any major effect yet, just keep going with the meditations. The effects will come as you spend more time with them.
It Works!
Before we get into more detail, we can say one thing. This stuff works. Based on our combined experience with emptiness teachings, as students, practitioners, teachers and observers of others going through the process, we can definitely recommend them as powerful tools for spiritual transformation. If you had to take only one point with you from this chapter after reading, we’d like it to be this:
The emptiness teachings are a powerful tool for transforming your experience of the world. They bring about freedom, lightness, ease, joy, and openness of heart. The self and the world are not denied or flattened out. Instead, they are transformed and liberated.
Of course, you will have to try this for yourself!
The Empty Life – Buddhist and Non-Buddhist
The Buddhist tradition has many inspirational accounts of what it is to live an empty life. There are sutras, commentaries, teaching traditions, popular books and websites that describe life as it proceeds to and through this awakening.
There are even different Buddhist perspectives on this. The very traditional Mahayana interpretations take many aspects seriously that other interpretations omit. For example, some accounts tell about karma, rebirth, ascended bodhisattvahood, heavenly pure lands, stages of realization requiring numerous rebirths, and full transcendental, omniscient Buddhahood. There are other descriptions considered to be agnostic, which describe life in modern, human, even urban terms. There are interpretations which focus on the health-related benefits of Buddhist teachings and meditations.
These various presentations of the goals of Buddhism are so plentiful and perhaps familiar that we don’t need to summarize them at this point.
But What If You Aren’t Buddhist?
We would like to describe the empty life in a way that doesn’t require a Buddhist vocabulary. At the same time, we don’t want to use terms that are positioned too far into any of the other special (mostly Western philosophical) vocabularies in which emptiness, in the broad sense as we conceive it, is taught. Of course, we have to use some set of terms, and no terms are neutral, transparent or exhaustive. A vocabulary that regards itself as neutral or objective is merely a vocabulary that hasn’t become aware of its own emptiness, of its dependencies on other things. So instead of trying to privilege a specialist vocabulary (as wonderful as they are!), we’ll try to use what passes for modern everyday talk. We know that this one isn’t neutral either, but we hope that you can find commonalities between these terms and the way you like to express things!
Enlightenment, Awakening – Is There an End?
Does one ever stop with the emptiness meditations? Does the process ever come to an end? Some spiritual teachings, such as some of the more modern paths inspired by Advaita Vedanta, do posit an absolute endpoint. They posit a point of enlightenment after which there is (i) nothing that needs to be done and (ii) nothing that can be done. You actually discover that nothing needed to be done in the first place. This sense of finality is a large part of the appeal of certain paths. People in today’s busy era don’t have too much time to work on these things. Many people want to be done and go about life.
The emptiness teachings also give you a way to be done, if you would like to be done. Of course, the catch is, you can’t land on “being done.” As Karl Brunnhölzl reminds us, while discussing the Mahayana Buddhist sutras on emptiness, there is also an ethical point to not landing:
[T]hese sutras warn: “Do not get inflated by anything, not even by your lack of being inflated.” In this way, emptiness ... [is] the safeguard of the bodhisattva path, being the sword that punctures the balloon of ego-inflation.
Brunnhölzl (2012)
Emptiness meditations, in conjunction with other things you do in life, can bring you to the point where you have lost the pivotal misunderstanding about yourself as something fixed, independent and inherently existent. At this point, you’ll notice it – the fundamental dissatisfaction with life is gone. You can live life happily, enjoying the connection with community and compassion vis-à-vis others. You can stop with the emptiness meditations and go about life merrily.
The Stopping Point That Can Be Surpassed
But you can continue, if you’d like. There is no need to stop. If you continue to integrate emptiness meditation into life, then life will just become richer, freer, lighter and more joyous. You will discover more surprising ways in which you are related with things and other people. This in turn increases your sensitivity and connectedness with others. You discover a greater clarity and subtlety in compassion, and a more intensified wish that others fare well.
The surpassable stopping point also maps to the Mahayana Buddhist path. Mahayana Buddhism posits the idea of bodhicitta (bodhi – awakened, citta – mind or that which is conscious). Bodhicitta is a frame of mind which wishes others well. It prompts you to continue even after your own suffering is gone. You could stop at any time as far as your own state of mind goes, but you are continuing for the sake of others.
It may begin where you meditate for your own awakening. The benefit of others might seem far off. But the two motives can both be present in different strengths. With more practice, more realization, greater wisdom and compassion, the balance shifts towards others (there are more of them!). When the motive to benefit others is paramount, and when it is seasoned with the deep understanding of emptiness, this frame of mind is called ultimate bodhicitta. At that point, you continue to meditate on emptiness (and perform other meditations as well) even after your own suffering has come to an end. Continued activity along these lines brings about greater wisdom and more effective practical skill in helping others, who are deeply seen as empty, and not nonexistent. This is the Mahayana Buddhist approach.
The Inner Logic of Surpassing
Whether or not you choose to take the Mahayana Buddhist approach, you can nevertheless surpass the stopping point. In the emptiness appro
ach, there is never any necessity or social pressure to stop. The stopping point and the distinction between “before” and “after” are not a big deal as they are in some other teachings. As you proceed with emptiness teachings, your own motivation becomes softer and more diffuse, as though it begins as a solid object and passes through the states of liquid and vapor. So it is not “non-dually incorrect” to continue to do the meditations. Whether you are studying the emptiness teachings for your own sake in order to come to the end of the conception of inherent existence, whether you are helping others, or whether you are (co)-creating a more joyful self and the world, the emptiness teachings can help.
There is a very good reason for this, which has to do with the inner logic of emptiness. One of the powerful ways of realizing the emptiness of something is to realize how it is thoroughly dependent upon other things, with no independent or essential component left over. And those other things are dependent on still other things. Nothing stands on its own.
There are lots and lots of ways of seeing dependence. The relations to other things are multidirectional and multivaried. Because of human creativity, we can continue to discover more and more diverse kinds of interdependence. There is always another possible story to be told about how something that seemed objective and mind-independent turns out to be dependent upon other things. There are dependencies on causes and conditions, dependencies on pieces, parts and components, and dependencies on purpose, background, other human beings, culture, language and our interactions with things. There is no pre-inscribed endpoint on the number or character of dependencies between one thing and another. We both can say that in our experience, life becomes richer, lighter and more joyful as one continues realizing how things are dependent upon each other. And it doesn’t get boring!