Joana Stella Kompa Meditations about Buddhism: The Deep Sigh of the Soul

In this more personal essay I am reviewing some key-concepts of Buddhism in the light of global society and scientific advances. It is elaborated upon how there are more sources of happiness than we may currently be aware of and why reincarnation is not a suitable concept for modern societies, at least when understood from a traditional perspective. It is outlined how Buddhism is intrinsically woven into our socio-political fabric and that it has a lot to say on the topic of abuse of power

January 1

2012
Critical Reflections

Joana Stella Kompa

Meditations about Buddhism: The Deep Sigh of the Soul

1. The Roles of Happiness & Suffering in Life
Buddhas first noble truth is that life involves suffering. There is nothing wrong about the truth itself and it is a universal phenomenon that suffering is perhaps the central theme in all human life. It involves suffering but is not identical with suffering as suffering is one experience of many. Very little has been however voiced out explicitly about the other side of life in Buddhism: the joy of living as well as the love that human relationships create including the rejuvenation of the world by children. There are three sources of happiness in our word: the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life and all three types counter-balance the experience of suffering. In a Hegelian manner of Aufhebung, which implies a transformation by opposites meeting each other, happiness in our world transforms suffering within our world. The innovative power of Buddhism lies in its approach to understand human suffering as a universal experience without involving Gods (such as Shiva, Vishnu or Ganesh in Hinduism) or a monotheist, singular God as a mean to explain or deal with it. However, why should we only focus on suffering and its avoidance where we find (independently from suffering) active, positive forces in our lives? According to Prof. Martin Seligman (University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Christopher Peterson, (University of Michigan) we encounter three fundamental types of life that provide for different types of happiness. They are as follows: Firstly, the pleasant life should not be misunderstood and devalued prematurely as a simple hedonistic approach to life since it encompasses the reflected treasure of material beauty in all of sensual phenomenology. This entails for example the culinary joys of good and healthy food, well-crafted design, enjoyment of un-spoilt nature or the appreciation of the arts. In reflection and practice, transitional joys can turn into transforming experiences. Secondly, the good life refers to our social, networked life and includes family and friends: the roles in life that we play for others and our influence on society, nature and the spiritual world. Motherhood is probably the most underrated role for the good life in global society. The good life is the engaged life. And lastly we have the meaningful life, which is probably the longest lasting source of lifes happiness; the fulfillment of purpose in life, the epistemological assurance of our role in positive change. I would argue that the primary focus on the relief suffering in Buddhism in the Four Noble Truths is lop-sided and that in choosing the Middle Way we need to see both, our suffering but also the joy and love that we find in our wordly existence as indicated. Both are fundamental experiences of life and not belief-states. This perspective is of greatest consequence as it binds us to the world. The mere focus on suffering will lead to concepts leaving our world to relive suffering. So we have the choice between a concept that embraces our being within the world or, alternatively, a concept that tends to seek relief from suffering by drifting conceptually outside this word. 2

Happiness Threshold: Research has revealed that above a specific comfortable level of material existence happiness does not vary greatly. Contrary to common belief people with far more money are hardly happier than people with moderate income. So it is true that money does not buy happiness. However, below the poverty line people do get profoundly unhappier: lack of access to Higher Education, medical services and, as a result, lower life expectancy and a higher rate of illnesses make life objectively unhappier. It is true what George Bernard Shaw once stated: The lack of money is the root of all evil.
Reference study: High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being Daniel Kahneman1 and Angus Deaton, Center for Health and Well-being, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 August 4, 2010

There is also a third way that crosses directly to happiness: for many people in Thailand, for example, the logical consequence to diminish suffering is to look out for the happiness of others. I suggest extending the first noble truth to: Life involves suffering but also love and the joy of being. It is easy for suffering to destroy happiness and it is of utmost difficulty to make love and the joy of being last. It is the fragile status of all that is good in this world that we need to be aware of. Since it is so much easier to destroy than to create, creation is always of greater meaning and value. We could call this notion the semantic prerogative of creation.

2. About Birth, Death and Reincarnation

In Buddhism the Platonian concept of an eternal soul does not exist. Rebirth means transformation, so we are perhaps being reborn as an animal or a completely different human being on a new level of karma, depending on the deeds accounted for in our previous life or lives. Life and death are illusionary since they are neither the absolute beginning nor end of actual existence. We could argue that this idea is closer to folk beliefs than an actual useful concept for a deeper understanding of our ontology. I suggest that the idea of reincarnation requires refinement. Awareness, consciousness and subsequently our capability of understanding are properties that all human beings share, regardless of the time we are born in. It is as if the same spirit takes on infinite material forms in each stage of human history and cultural evolution. We are unique vessels carrying the same river. In consciousness we all seem connected, albeit human consciousness actually evolves historically, so there must be more to the story. Best starting point for framing a developmental concept for an evolving and creative universe is perhaps Spinozas natura naturata nature in its creation (Spinozas Atheist God which was also Albert Einsteins God by the way), rather than a repetitive cycling of consciousness. In terms of Heraklits Panta Rhei, every flows, but also everything evolves.

Another argument against reincarnation is the relation between biological and mental evolution: we can reconstruct how our own consciousness has derived from a long line of ancestors whom we may perhaps describe as pre-conscious or aware, given that they are capable of focus, but who are lacking the full capacity of experiencing Aboutness which defines human conscious states. Consciousness has developed gradually and by studying, e.g. octopi, dolphins or primates we find that any level of consciousness is closely related to the physical evolution and level of integration of different types of brains and nervous systems. We also understand that consciousness is most likely to evolve further, so it would be ignorant to assume that our state of consciousness is the highest possible and conscious evolution ends in the here and now.

Referring back to the traditional Buddhist notion of reincarnation we take on now two possible perspectives and I shall call this the dual concept: One view is that death is never absolute. Our lives exist in transition in every possible way. The only complete way to understand our short lives is to see them in context of the generations before and after us, the stream of spirits materializing in this world, the historical and autobiographical context (or historical dialogue, how Hans-Georg Gadamer might have put it hermeneutically). The other view that results from the proposed dual concept is that each human being is as transitional as it is unique. The individual form of spirits is what makes them so precious and we talked about creation versus destruction and death. Once lost, a spirit will never enter the world in the same form. Grief is real although death is not an absolute. To overcome grief and sorrow depends on our ability to let suffering go lovingly which requires time, meditation and a profound transformation of soul by those who grieve. Dealing with suffering is never an easy task and therefore, those who deal with it, are blessed beings that deserve our empathy. Loss is real. The dual concept says that we have two options: the first is to look at us as finite beings woven into an infinite process. The second is to look at us in our specific historical and autobiographical context. The first perspective transcends being and the second actualizes it. Hamlets famous question of whether to be or not to be might be concluded by the answer that it is both. In some way we are emerged in Being, in another we transcend Being. We live indeed in two different states simultaneously. In our mortality we are as connected to all others as in consciousness and both phenomena seem to define each other semantically. But we cannot just speculate about death and reincarnation without having examined the significance and status of birth. Intriguing is the Balinese belief that children are heavenly creatures for the first 200 days of their lives. We are born as heavenly creatures, finally we assume human form and we end up as dust. Children are more than recycled souls (apart from carrying their parents DNA) and there is no default metaphysical connection between a new life and an old life. Children rejuvenate our world in a very profound manner and they can, as new and omni-potent spirits, unwritten lives, undo a lot of suffering of previous generations. With each generation there is a renewed hope that our world can improve and be given a new chance. The concept of reincarnation is valid in the sense that children grow up in the environment of their parents and thus it is not the karma of individual spirits, but the Dharma of society which is passed on into the childrens lives. What we also learn from children is that the default human state is being happy and free.

Dharma is the way of our nature, so it is action: it is what and how we speak, it is how we behave towards others, the sum of our actions. Karma is the effect of Dharma, so how others react towards us as a result of Dharma. This is a very tangible concept which has, contrary to folk belief, little to nothing to do with supernatural powers and paths. It is the simple chain of action and reaction, cause and effect. Many of our actions and reactions exist in a network structure similar to a Bayesian network, governed by probabilities of likely and less likely outcomes. The subsequent choices on which we decide on evoke in parallel the responsibilities we inherit. Responsibility literally means to take personal charge of responses.

3. About Suffering Imposed by Others

Buddhism says not much about suffering imposed by others, mainly because Buddhas main focus was on individual suffering such as suffering from disease or old age. In todays connected world the abuse of power has become a major source of suffering for people all around the world in the most different ways. The suffering is continuous as long as the social and institutional structures that allow the abuse exist. Individuals are in such cases powerless to evoke change for the better. This requires an extension in our understanding of the situation: we never suffer alone, but when it comes to political and social abuse of power we need to be aware that we belong to communities of sufferers. Only by organizing social and politically-aware movements, the suffering caused by others has a chance to cease. The bad dharma of the oppressors and those who abuse power can logically not be countered by a bad Dharma of the oppressed and therefore, all Dharma needs to be non-violent. We need to be aware that much misery and violence in society is created by intentional political manipulation; this is groups of society powerful enough to find ways on how to establish successfully the functioning of their group-egoism. Mahatma Gandhis Satyagraha is a cornerstone for practical future liberation in a post-globalized world and I believe that Gandhi showed us a way like very few others ever did. Some folk beliefs in Buddhism assume that suffering is mainly an individual phenomenon and they assume that all is just a matter of accepting fate and finding ways of how to relieve suffering without acknowledging the concept of the interdependent arising of phenomena, the Prattyasamutpada. We cannot be ignorant of suffering imposed by people onto others once we accept this premise. The old question why bad things happen to good people is easy to answer: if the Dharma of society is bad, one cannot escape its negative effects. The logical consequence of this understanding is that for any culture to be sustainable at the lowest level of human suffering it has to be built on mutual love and respect and therefore, non-violent principles. The problem with some folk beliefs in Buddhism is that poorer people admire wealthy people as they attribute their power and money to having performed good deeds in their previous life. Any critical thinking about their own society and issues of justice and fairness stops here. This is where a misunderstood interpretation of cycling Kharma prevents social progress, empowers cycles of poverty and turns the Buddhist paradigm to diminish suffering in this world upside down.

4. Philosophical Conclusion
We are children of two worlds, the finite and the infinite. We are the interface, the nexus between these worlds and this is what defines human existence and makes it so special. For Hegel the Absolute was not simply the idea of the infinite, but the totality of the infinite and the finite taken together. More precisely we could say that we live in the physical space-time of our universe and the propositional space of our minds which create an infinite plethora of future states and paths. It is the force-field between these worlds that engage our morphology. We are torn between the conditional and the unconditional, the absolute and the relative, the ultimate search for the truth and the temporary compromise. Since we mediate between two worlds we have no choice but being mindful and to open our thoughts to others to avoid harmful Dharma. There is one suffering that Buddhism says little about, but which became a leading theme in the poetry of Friedrich Hlderlin. This is the suffering from being overly sensitive about the difference between the two worlds we live in. Our mind exists as projection and the more beautiful and truthful our projections are about what could or should be, the less the physical and social world can catch up with them. In the dilemma of choices we may refer to the next best in a very abstract connotation. Hlderlin wrote a poem titled Das Nchste Beste (The Next Best). The openness created by the tension between the worlds we inhabit is one of the most curious conditions of human ontology to which there is no principal solution. Perhaps, in the principle of Buddhas Middle Way, we need to adjust our lives in order not to be torn away by the forces of either world. The amazing richness of our Inner World, the Self, is necessary to negotiate between our individual spirit and our environment. As a conclusion, it is the fulfilled Self (that identifies in its history with others), but not empty Selflessness, which is the agent for positive change. Courage and taking on responsibilities requires a strong and mature Self. Actual selflessness would render itself, by contrast, epiphenomenal. What we really mean by using the term is that we are not selfish and in our actions always keep the effect that our actions have on others in mind. In my interpretation I have allowed for these little modifications to Buddhism to make more sense in the light of emerging global experience. In the non-violent nature and also the dictum of kindness to others and oneself, I have found an essence that provides peace in my path along worlds. This is why I consider myself Buddhist, although certainly not in a traditional and orthodox manner. In reciprocal relationships, there is no space for absolutes.

5. Summary and Closing

Buddhist philosophy is probably the closest spiritual system compatible with the most significant experiences in my life. As for many spiritual systems the local cultural interpretations differ tremendously, e.g. when we compare Buddhism in Tibet, India, Thailand or China. This was not the theme of this little paper. Buddha himself was an individualist who not only studied human experience without subcontracting ideas to metaphysical entities; he also experimented with ways of dealing with the human condition.

From what has been elaborated I advocate for the following amendments in Buddhist philosophy: The focus on the avoidance and relief of suffering needs to be balanced by a focus on forms of fulfilled life and happiness since the perspective on suffering differs greatly between a person capable of establishing a positive life-model and a person who isnt. Reincarnation is not a suitable concept any more in this day and age. It requires some severe critical revision and reinterpretation on evolutionary and developmental level. A nave belief of reincarnation may do more harm than good. Buddhism is intrinsically woven into social and political contexts and is not a system exclusively restricted to individual and private moral guidance.

Author contact: [email protected]

Postscriptum (thanks to Joachim)

1.Buddha and Childhood

During his enlightenment under the Bodhi-tree Buddha remembers moments of his happy childhood. As a child he felt connected to all creation and without burdened by thought. The famous sentence All things have their origin in Buddha nature derived from this experience. It was a break from the tradition of Brahmanism which saw the individual human soul (Atman) only as part of the world-soul (Brahman). Atman cannot see to be part of Brahman since impurities of Kharma inhibit Atman from realizing its true nature. Brahmanism, which served as the blueprint for Hinduism, has individual soul attached to this negative concept. It was Buddhism which freed the idea of original being from this default sinful and impure state.

2. Self and Non-Self critically revisited

Buddha mentions the importance of the Non-Self since the Self is an illusion. Detachment and humbleness are only possible by relating to our Non-Self. A critical notion here: the child-like Non-Self is still in a relation of dependency to its parents. Only as the Self develops, so does human autonomy as a mature and adult type of new freedom. We could call this the secondary type of Non-Self which is being invited by the Self to set its own importance aside: in the narratives of others we find our Self again. Western tradition has not developed any of such concepts as the Self assumes naturally the central role of its universe.

3. The Incompleteness of Experience and the Violent Powers of the World

Buddhas quest for absolute truth (which he finds in Enlightenment) does not seem to leave room for lifes imperfections and weaknesses. Montaigne e.g., makes similar observations as Buddha, but derives at different conclusions: we can approach truth better if we do not pretend to possess it. The state of Enlightenment as an Absolute seems to contradict the transformational philosophy of Buddhism itself. Likewise the classical idea of reincarnation contradicts Buddhas own re-living of childhood: if childhood is indeed Buddha-nature, free and pure, then reincarnation cant be. In terms of incomplete experiences there is more to add. Buddha did at no stage experience suffering imposed by others: Buddha never experienced torture, ill-treatment of body and soul or discrimination against his own person. As a noble prince and wandering scholar he always stood eloquently above the material world. The confrontation with violence that hard-wires extreme pain to ones neurological circuits (and the phenomenon of subsequent permanent damage and suffering), is not Buddhas experience. Therefore Buddhas experience is like everybody elses: human and necessarily incomplete. The collective narrative canon of societal experience is overtaking and is transforming individual perspective. The Self negotiates itself between the space of its voluntary Non-Self and societal identity.