A Weird Spiritual Dilemma (Weird to Me Anyway)


"You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of infinite being and then weep that you are but a finite creature. Then you take up this or that spiritual practice to transcend the non-existent limitations. But if your spiritual practice itself assumes the existence of the limitations, how can it help you to transcend them? Hence I say know that you are really the infinite pure being, the Self. You are always that Self and nothing but that Self." —Ramana Maharshi



     This post deals with an issue that I have been brooding over recently, and which has bothered me occasionally in the past also. It is based on my understanding of reality, which I suppose I should explain, at least a little bit.

     I’ve written about my not-entirely-Buddhist Theory of Everything in a few old essays on my first blog, here and here. But for those of you who do not desire the inconvenience of clicking on other essays and reading them before you read this one, I will attempt a shortish synopsis of what it is about. It all started when I was standing in a Burmese forest washing my bowl by a pond, and the thought arose unbidden in my mind: “The entire Universe is contained within a single point which has no dimensions.” The thought intrigued me, and so I tried to work out the implications out of curiosity. One of my first attempts to visualize such a Universe was imagining a sheet of paper totally covered with black ink: It contains every page of every work of literature within that ink, all on a single page. But the flatness and blackness made the simile seem less than satisfying, so I changed the image to an uncarved block of marble.

     So let’s say there’s a block of marble of purely arbitrary size. There is nothing else nearby to compare it with, so it is effectively sizeless. Now within that block of stone is literally every statue ever created. Michelangelo’s David, Laocoon and his sons being devoured by snakes, every Aphrodite, every bust of a Caesar…everything. An infinite number of statues that have never been made before are also in there, just waiting to be liberated from the surrounding stone. Every molecule in each statue is already there, in exactly the correct position, with only the extraneous rock having to be cleared away, at least in one’s imagination. That uncarved block of stone, containing in virtual or potential form every possible statue—and they’re all really in there, just waiting to be distinguished—corresponds to Ultimate Reality: formless, sizeless, containing all possibilities within it. Mystics who have glimpsed this uncarved block have called it Tao (and the Tao Te Ching really does refer to Tao as “the nameless uncarved block”), Brahman, the Dharmakaya, the One Mind, God, Plotinus’s the One, Hegel’s pure Being, Eckhart Tolle’s Being, etc. etc., and mystically inclined Theravada Buddhists might call it Nibbana-dhatu or some such…although of course the Theravada Buddhists tend not to reify the Absolute and if they refer to it at all as an It, it is often referred to negatively as Voidness. But it is from this Voidness, or whatever you want to call “it,” that the entire universe of phenomenal forms arises.

     What happens is that some of these virtual statues contained in the formless block (which itself transcends both existence and nonexistence, both and neither) are so complex that they become self-referential and self-aware…and seize upon the idea that they exist as distinct and real individuals. All of us are like this, forming not only individual self-aware moving statues, so to speak, but also members of group sculptures, all at the same time, though time itself is just another imaginary dimension through the block.

     So that, in a nutshell, describes, more or less, my answer to Stephen Hawking’s question of why the phenomenal universe “bothers to exist.” The primordial delusion of “I am” possessed by a complex, self-referential virtual subsection of formless infinity, is the fall away from infinite perfection (assuming that it can be even said to exist, having no opposite) of Ultimate Reality, and the whole root of Samsara. If you would like a longer, more patient explanation of the case, I refer you to the two old blog posts cited above. But that is where the force of logic, exercised on an arbitrary thought that I found intriguing, has led me. All conscious experiences are like an infinitude of Leibnizian monads, all superimposed one atop the other. Anything not self-conscious would remain merged in the uncarved block, unless conjured up or singled out by one of the (deluded) self-referential possibilities.

     Practically from the beginning I was aware of some unsettling implications of this particular theory. For example, since the formless Absolute (which neither exists nor doesn’t exist, nor both nor neither) contains within it all possibilities, every conceivable version of me is in there, and I suppose in its own way is just as “real” as “I” am. Furthermore, it has to be that way, no matter what “I” do or don’t do. So even if I become a fully enlightened saint in this life, there will still be an infinite number of versions of me dying of AIDS in a ditch, being stabbed or tortured to death, being addicted to heroin or self-mutilation, marrying the wrong girl at the age of nineteen, joining the Navy and becoming a nuclear technician, being eaten by zombies, becoming one myself, and so on ad infinitum. My own enlightenment would not diminish the suffering of the universe at all, largely because infinity minus one still equals infinity—and the one that is subtracted is only virtual anyway. These are unsettling thoughts, and they lead to another unsettling thought: It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do in the grand scheme of things, because nothing really changes. Nothing really CAN change. Nothing that changes is real. Furthermore there will ALWAYS be an infinite number of (virtual) unenlightened suffering beings—hell, there will always be an infinite number of unenlightened suffering versions of me. Which leads to a dilemma: What’s the point?

     Fortunately I am not the first person to confront this problem, or virtual problem. In fact many spiritually advanced beings have acknowledged this situation in one way or another; and, maybe fortunately for everyone, they still advocated a life of morality and wisdom.

     First of all, this world—all worlds really—may be considered to be generated by delusion anyhow. Furthermore the Buddhists teach that there is no self. So there is no real suffering from which to escape, and nobody to escape it. Enlightenment isn’t so much the escape from some samsaric phenomenal universe but rather the realization that the whole notion of samsara, and escape from it, is delusional. Nobody escapes from anything by being enlightened, even according to the testimonies of some of the beings who allegedly have escaped. So just realizing this seeming dilemma is a step towards liberation, or rather a step towards no longer identifying with anyone who needs liberation.

     Even within the delusional context of Samsara, no path really leads to liberation or enlightenment—or rather no path ends there. One must leave all paths in order for the highest goal to be attained, because the goal is at a different level of reality from paths anyhow, just as the uncarved block of marble is at a different level (essence, substance) from the infinitude of virtual statues (form) contained within it. Enlightenment or liberation is itself a kind of paradoxical paranormal event which arises through the cracks in our self-imposed prison of rules and limitations. Cookbook methods really can’t touch it…though the cookbook methods may be helpful in generating these cracks. But still, the block must contain every possible statue, no matter how horrible, and nothing real really changes. One simply stops identifying with one of an infinite number of imaginary scenarios, but that scenario remains, and they all remain, in the same virtual form that we are in now. No virtual statue can be removed from the block.

     So why bother to strive for virtue and wisdom? It’s all illusory and a madman’s errand anyway, right? Well, there is still one reason that seems adequate to justify the holy life, or any life that favors virtue and wisdom: It at least causes us to seem to suffer less at the local level. We may not really exist, and the beings around us may not either, but we still seem to exist, and to suffer, and so at least there is less misery at hand by cultivating virtue and wisdom, both for us and the beings who come in contact with us. Or seem to, because it’s all the Matrix anyway, all shadows flickering on the walls of Plato’s cave.





Comments

  1. There is no Samsara to renounce and no Nirvana to attain beyond. The Path and the Result are non-differentiable.

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    1. Sounds like a modernist demon who has been listening to that Satanic/Maranic John Lennon song too much.

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    2. That path is physical celibacy and making the mind match it. Mediation is merely a servant/tool in that process. But most people approach it as if meditation is intended to make them omniscient and as if omniscience is the goal.

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  2. "the Buddhists teach that there is no self"
    Yes, but the Buddha didn't. All he taught was "this is not the self, that is not the self..." but nowhere in the suttas he said "there is no self".

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    1. One of the 3 marks of existence is Anattā or "no self," and also there is one famous sutta in which the Buddha declares the five khandhas, none of which is a self, to be the entire cosmos.

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    2. I gotta back up OP and say that Anatta is better translated as "not-self", which is a characteristic of all conditioned things. "Not-self" is significantly different from "no self", in that the former is not an ontological statement. Ontologically, the Buddha indeed never affirmed or denied the existence of a Self.

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    3. Nevertheless, the Vedantic idea of an absolute Atman is also rejected in the suttas. It is really amazing to me how vehemently some folks, maybe even western Buddhists, oppose the Buddhist idea that we have no intrinsic selfhood. It may be that "we" have something like the Vedantist Self, which nevertheless is completely Off the Scale of samsaric existence like Nibbana is off the scale of samsaric existence, and a few very ancient texts imply neither self nor not self, but the fact remains that, according to orthodox Buddhism, everything in the perceptible universe is Not Self.

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    4. "One of the 3 marks of existence is Anattā"

      One of the 3 marks of PHYSICAL existence.

      Even Theravadan translators who are considered "orthodox" don't translate it "All things are impermanent...sufffering...non-self" but rather "All things-in-the-world are imperament...suffering...non-self." Only the silly writers of dumbed down Buddhism for Atheist-Materialist-Scientismist style Buddhism for Total Retards type Introduction books dare misquote it merely as "All things" as if its all things without any exception for spiritual things.

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    5. "Nevertheless, the Vedantic idea of an absolute Atman is also rejected in the suttas. "

      And is brought back in Mahayana essentially.

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    6. Oh man, the original Pali is "sabbe sankhārā," which means all conditioned things, everything that is phenomenal, essentially everything that is not Nibbana or possibly empty space. It certainly involves mental states, and anything that is perceived or distinguished, so it would certainly be every "thing."

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    7. The way I think of Nibbana is that identifying it as Self or Not-Self is like putting a square peg into a round hole. Being completely beyond conditions means being completely beyond definition.

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  3. "It certainly involves mental states"


    "Mental states" is just a fancy non-phrase for thoughts, and it goes without saying that thoughts are impermanent and not you. You think the thoughts. It doesn't even need to be pointed out.

    Do you also agree with the asine translation of kusala and akusala as wholesome and unwholeome or skilful and unskillful that results in linguistic garbage for instance with right energy:

    And what o monks is right engery? Rousing energy to get rid of arisen bad thoughts and prevent the arising of bad thoughts yet unarisen...etc..

    turns to:

    And what o monks is right engery? Rousing energy to get rid of arisen unskillfull mental states and prevent the arising of unskillful mental states yet unarisen...etc..

    Lol. They translate like this just to keep people kissing their asses and having to have every phrase explained in lectures because they make it as close to unreadable as they can and still make a buck off of it.

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    1. Drawing from the previous Madhyamika system the Yogacarins explained that emptiness=consciousness=nirvana. It doesn't sound very dissimilar from what you are talking about, except for the fact that the apophatism of the nairatmya view is more congruent with the practice of detachment than the intricate speculation the atma view seemingly implies.

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    2. All this technical insider talk makes my head spin. Is there no simple, straightforward, trustworthy translation of the pali writings to be found?

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    3. There are some good, relatively precise translations of Pali texts into English, for example those of Bhikkhu Bodhi, despite his ultraliberal politics. Ajahn Thanissaro's translations are based on deep technical knowledge, even if the poetry in particular has some weird renderings.

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  4. Ven. Paññobhāsa it sounds like there are a bunch of ignorant and conceited individuals in here trying to justify their selfhood, soul, spirit, or whatever they want to call it.

    Sounds super gay to me. All these passionate self-sexuals being all obssessed about "themselves". That's like homoselfism. Mad gay, bro.

    Alright, peace! Soulless chad signing off.

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    1. If you don't exist, you just smoked too much dope.

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    2. A conventional 'you' does exist. This 'you' is not the self. If it were the self, this 'you' would have chosen what it looks like, how deep it's voice is, how big it's dick is, how long it gets to live for, etc.

      'You're' desire to make supposedly clever comments is not the self. Too many God-worshipping little bitches is what ruined America (and the world). Imagine having the opportunity to investigate reality as it and instead deciding on "God works in mysterious ways" or saying we came out of nothing and are annihilated after death.

      It is difficult to have compassion for people like this, but I once thought like this, and that makes it easier.

      Samsara is super gay anyway. Like I'm pretty sure there aren't any homos in Nibbana, so that's where I want be. Away from the gay. Because I'm a straight man . But if you want to be stuck in Samsara with all these gays, that's up to you. Maybe 'you' like that.

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    3. I'm really struggling to understand the doctrine of anatta.

      Nothing phenomenal is immutable, imperishable, unconditioned, absolute, or self-contained. So nothing phenomenal has the nature of a self or a soul.

      But if there is nothing in me which is transcendent/non-phenomenal (a self or a soul in something like the Christian sense of the word), what's all this fuss about? Why the endless series of births, and what is reborn if not some transcendent self or soul?

      There are references to the 'deathless' in the Dhammapada.

      Evola states in The Doctrine of Awakening that the Buddha never explicitly denied the existence of such a transcendent self or soul, but I doubt that Evola's knowledge of the Pali Canon was comprehensive. A number of his interpretations (such as his non-literal reading of rebirth) strike me as being attempts by Evola to read his own philosophy into the texts.

      I hope that none of this comes off as critical of Buddhism or as presumptuous in tone or content.

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    4. From the Buddhist perspective all that is reborn from one existence to the next is a constantly changing stream of karma, which is the momentum of our mental states. But even that is not ultimately real, unless maybe you're an Abhidhamma scholar.

      The thing that most people aren't getting is that ultimate reality is transcendental, and completely transcends the samsaric system of "is" and "isn't." It is avyākata, or "indeterminate," neither is nor isn't nor both nor neither. Early Buddhism simply does not reify the Absolute (unless, again, maybe you're an Abhidhamma scholar).

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    5. "From the Buddhist perspective all that is reborn from one existence to the next is a constantly changing stream of karma, which is the momentum of our mental states."

      And that is an exceedingly difficult proposition for me to even begin to understand. Doesn't the existence of mental states presuppose the existence of that to which they belong (namely, a self)?

      "The thing that most people aren't getting is that ultimate reality is transcendental, and completely transcends the samsaric system of "is" and "isn't.""

      My first encounter with an idea similar to this was in a summary treatment of Plotinus' philosophy. He placed The One beyond being and non-being. At that time (being a very arrogant 19 year old) I thought, "That's absurd. Being and non-being are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive".

      Maybe someday I'll understand.

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    6. Mental states do not logically necessitate a self who has those mental states, much as the elements of a flame do not necessitate an intrinsic selfhood for that flame. All it requires, at the phenomenal level, is conditioning causes. "Flame" is just a convenient term to describe a constantly changing assemblage of elements. (Explained at the level of Theravadin orthodoxy; from a deeper perspective even the mental states/elements aren't intrinsically real.)

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    7. "Mental states do not logically necessitate a self who has those mental states,"

      Fish don't necessitate water bro.

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    8. Nice word tricks bro...NOT! Your example does not work because fish and water verifiable exist.

      Mental states DO exist, but a self DOES NOT.

      You are a HERETIC and the nearest INQUISITOR has been informed of your HERESY! We will not suffer those who serve CHAOS!

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    9. Fish and water are both directly perceivable. Their (conventional) existence is not inferred.

      Many things exist which are not even indirectly perceivable. We establish their existence indirectly through experimentation, reasoning, or some combination of the two.

      IF (and this is a big if) it can be shown that the existence of mental states necessitates the existence of a self in which they inhere, then it would follow logically that selves do indeed exist (since mental states obviously exist).

      Denying the existence of selves neatly does away with certain problems, but for every one it eliminates, it raises several more.

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    10. Mental states with no self is impossible because you have your mental states and I have mine. Hence our mental states are contained to our individual selves. Just like fish in this pond vs fish in that pond.

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    11. All the most recent anonymous has done is beg the question with some very shabby logic. "There are selves because you have a self and I have a self." If even the mental states are not ultimately real, then the "selves" they supposedly necessitate wouldn't be ultimately real either.

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    12. This may appear circular, but it seems as though insisting upon the not-self is something the self would come up with. This is quite the rabbit hole from coming here for Trickster-related content, but I feel I must relate my disagreement even if I cannot provide appropriate justification at the moment.

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    13. Insisting on Self or Not Self causes the situation to degenerate into a conceptual one.

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  5. "Evola states in The Doctrine of Awakening that the Buddha never explicitly denied the existence of such a transcendent self or soul, but I doubt that Evola's knowledge of the Pali Canon was comprehensive. "

    Its only denied in Digha Nikaya 1. Everywhere else, people import it by misinterpretation and mistranslation because they read Mara's manifesto called Digha Nikaya 1.

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  6. How is it a spiritual delimma when you deny there is any spirit? Its a quantum energy materialist's delimma.

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  7. In regard to the block of marble there is that which knows the marble...

    In the legend of king Arthur, young Arthur had to pull the "Sword" from the stone. This is like some kind of story of initiation I believe... Anyway, I have contemplated it in my meditation of the 5 aggregates... Which I suppose I could see as this block of marble also... Their (5 aggregates) possibilities are endless and always in flux in accordance with Nature...

    Interestingly, I once saw a Mahayana Buddha Rupa with a interesting mudra where he held his index finger (or maybe his thumb) in his other fist. The fist of five fingers being the 5 clinging aggregates and the one finger I guess is the "knowing element"...

    Some would say this cannot be because they would say such a "knowing element" goes against the doctrine of "No Soul" / Anatta but perhaps it fits... The Buddha denied both soul and no soul actually but a liberated citta is totally off the map because that knowing element typcially is bound up with clinging aggregate material. If it is released then what?

    I like this analogy of the block of marble. This is just what comes to my mind after contemplating that analogy.

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  8. In regards to the block of marble:

    “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

    ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

    Everything was always there, because everything simply is, and is not.

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    1. The core of the dhamma is suffering and the end of suffering. Recall Buddha 's parable of the man shot with an arrow.

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  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ca4miMMaCE

    Your idea of the universe being contained in one point with no dimensions seems to be similar to the explanation of the 10thdimension in this video.

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