Tags
Chan/Zen 禪, consequentialism, Epicurus, Four Noble Truths, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, natural environment, Pali suttas, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), T.R. (Thill) Raghunath
Every human life ends in death. A long time ago I noted that we often forget this fact; and we shouldn’t. But granted that we acknowledge that we are all going to die, just how significant is the fact of our deaths? A little while ago I treated it as a significant problem, whether for an egoist or for one seeking the good in politics: whatever we achieve comes tumbling down in the end.
There’s a strong philosophical allure to consequentialism, the view that the best actions are those that produced the best consequences (of whatever sort). But a problem with consequentialism is that consequences, by definition, happen in the future – and eventually there will be no future. A traditional Buddhist will believe there are potentially infinite futures ahead; but if we do not get reborn, and I do not think we do, then our lives come to an absolute end. At that last moment it is foolish to do anything for one’s own future, for there is no future left. One must live in the present. Even a few seconds before that moment, it would seem strange to act for the sake of the very last one, when one has so few left. At that point if not before, egoistic consequentialism is completely futile.
A similar point applies even to altruistic consequentialism, of which utilitarianism is a species. The future we can affect is always short-term, when we look at the big picture; even the greatest world-builders will someday be forgotten. The time from the ancient Egyptians to now is a blink of an eye in geological terms; the ecological lessons we have recently learned, about the fragility of the systems on which human life depends, should give us reason to believe that human life will not last forever. A life lived solely for the future, one’s own or others’, seems unsatisfying. Thus a major part of the appeal of ascent philosophies, which seek to take us beyond the transient world of change and death and connect us with something that endures.
In his comment on the earlier post, Thill properly questioned whether this way of thinking is justified. Our life achievements and enjoyments have value, he says, even if impermanent. “We don’t cease to enjoy a song because it has an ending!” Such a claim would certainly be disputed by the Buddha of the Pali suttas – the impermanence of conditioned things is central to their being unsatisfactory, dukkha. But I don’t agree with him; if I did, I’d be a monk now.
Still, there’s room for further reflection on the role of time in human ends. I had once asked why the Epicureans’ philosophy, one of the few in history that depends neither on politics nor the promise of an afterlife, had not lasted; later I referred to death as a possible answer. Now historically that could be the case – it could be that Epicurus’s answer to the big questions did not resonate with the wider world – but we must note that Epicurus still had an answer. It is the answer that Pierre Hadot, explaining Epicurus, quotes from Goethe: “only the present is our happiness.” The Epicurean theory of happiness is eons away from utilitarian maximizing: a single moment of happiness is as good as an eternity of it. Where a consequentialist examines every action with reference to the future, the Epicurean considers only the present – as with Thill’s reference to the song we enjoy despite, or even because of, its ending.
And that Epicurean view takes me back to the East Asian Buddhist tradition of sudden liberation – the view, as I understand it, that we can be liberated in a single moment. As I noted before on the subject, I used to dismiss this idea but have begun to come around to it. Now the liberation that is spoken of in sudden traditions must be quite different from that spoken in the earlier, gradualist Buddhist traditions. Nibbāna to a Theravādin or nirvana to Śāntideva is not something you can lose; those eons of effort pay off forever. Sudden liberation, on the other hand, disappears; for those who have attained it so often slip back into their old bad habits. I’m not quite sure I’m giving an accurate portrayal of sudden liberation as it is described in Ch’an or other traditions; but what I’m describing strikes me as a good and helpful picture of self-improvement. I previously expressed my skepticism about the Third Noble Truth: I’ve never met anyone I would consider to have attained nirvana, a fully liberated one. But the idea that one could be fleetingly perfect just for the space of one vanishing instant, that one could get everything right just at that time: now that makes sense to me.
A while ago I felt I didn’t really understand Epicurus for these very reasons. If only the present moment is our happiness, why bother with any spiritual practices of self-cultivation? Why build an Epicurean garden if you can just go ahead and carpe diem right now?
Well, because it’s not as easy as all that. Being happy and embodying virtue even within one fleeting moment is pretty tough. The same critique can be, and has been, made with respect to Buddhist sudden liberation: why bother with Ch’an practice, or any other, if you can be liberated right now? Those who’ve studied East Asian Buddhism in more detail than I have tell me that even the advocates of the sudden path typically admit that supposedly sudden liberation usually only comes after a long period of significant effort. There’s a gradual path leading to sudden liberation; the two are not as far apart as they might first seem.
Thill said:
This post is fruitful and raises issues worth discussing for many months if not years. In this response, I’ll just identify What I think are the central issues.
1. Does the fact of our mortality imply any value judgments? If so, what are they?(What about the fact that our mortality is subject to contingency? What value judgments does that imply, if any?)
2. Is ethical consequentialism undermined by the mortality of the self and others? (What is the significance, in this context, of Epicurus’ Last Will and Testament as preserved by Diogenes Laertius?)
3. Does impermanence itself cause Dukkha? If so, how? Or is it the desire for permanence, or clinging to that which is impermanent, which is the cause of Dukkha in the face of impermanence? If we did not seek permanence, or if we did not cling to that which is impermanent, would impermanence still produce Dukkha?
4. “X is impermanent, but I am fully enjoying X while it lasts!” Is there anything irrational in this judgment? If so, what is it?
5. “You can fully enjoy X only if you don’t think about its impermanence and evaluate it in those terms. Such thinking only interferes with your ability to throw yourself into fully experiencing X.” Is there anything wrong with this thinking?
6. What is he explanation of the waning of Epicurean philosophy? Did the rise of anti-hedonistic Christianity play a role? Did the rejection of prayer and supplication of the Gods, central to the teaching of Epicurus, play a role?
7. Compare the four noble truths and the teachings of Epicurus. Which is more adequate or inclusive? What are the possibilities of criticism of the 4NT’s from the standpoint of the teachings of Epicurus and vice-versa?
8. Is the present necessarily the source, locus, or bearer of greater value than the past or the future? Why? Why can’t present pale in significance or value in comparison to the “remembrance of things past” or in comparison to the anticipation of future pleasures?
9. Doesn’t the doctrine of impermanence undermine the notion that the present is a stable slice of time? If so, doesn’t this undermine the present as a source, locus, and bearer of greater value than the past or the future?
10. Apropos the idea that human life will not last forever because of environmental changes on earth. Is it plausible to think that human life will persist for a vastly greater span of time if humans manage to colonize other habitable planets? Add to the limitations of anthropocentric view what I would call “terracentric views”, views which assume uncritically that human life and civilization will always be confined to the earth.
11. Again, even in the context of the mortality of the human species itself, does the fact that this mortality is also subject to contingency, e.g., an asteroid impact which wipes out human civilization, have any value implications?
12. If impermanence is a source of dukkha and disvalue, wouldn’t “sudden liberation” experiences such as “Kensho” or “Satori” moments also be tainted with dukkha and disvalue given their fleeting nature?
13. How can we becertain that consciousness comes to an end with death? If we say that this or that item of even common sense knowledge is “uncertain”, how can we then consistently also maintain that death is certainly the end of the individual consciousness?
14 What is the argument for thinking that rebirth or reincarnation is improbable?
Thill said:
Two more issues:
15. “I previously expressed my skepticism about the Third Noble Truth: I’ve never met anyone I would consider to have attained nirvana, a fully liberated one.”
Which criteria do we employ to determine whether someone is “fully liberated”?
16. “But the idea that one could be fleetingly perfect just for the space of one vanishing instant, that one could get everything right just at that time: now that makes sense to me.”
What is the value of this fleeting instant of “perfection” either to the subject or to others? In other words, what is the value of “sudden liberation” if it is so fleeting? In fact, how is it really “liberation” if it is so fleeting? And why is it not a fleeting illusion?
Charlie said:
9. Doesn’t the doctrine of impermanence undermine the notion that the present is a stable slice of time? If so, doesn’t this undermine the present as a source, locus, and bearer of greater value than the past or the future?
Hi thill,
IMHO
It is the eternal here and now, ever changing.
It can only be known in the same sense that one can can “know” they have a pain in thier arm.
We can only deal with the past and future by employing abstract thought.
Can anyone re-experience last years mosquito bite?
Can anyone taste tomorrows dinner?
We can “talk” about these things in the present, but all of this talk is the vocalization of abstract thought.
(now where did I put my flak jacket and helmet?)
charlie
Ramachandra1008 said:
I am unclear on Amod’s position on religion. I think he is on record stating that he doesn’t believe in God. That would take Judaism, Christianity, and Hindu theism out of the picture. He has also stated that he is doubtful of the third noble truth, or the notion that liberation from suffering can be attained. So, the traditional Buddhist concept of enlightenment goes out of the picture.
He also denies the probability of life after death and reincarnation. This would certainly take Buddhism and Hinduism out of his world-view.
So, what is his position? What is he really committed to?
Why defend religious practice if you think the central beliefs, e.g., liberation from the cycle of births and deaths, on which many of those practices are based, are not plausible?
Amod Lele said:
Ramachandra, my position on “religion” may be found in a number of past posts, especially here, here and here. Briefly, I think “religion” is a pseudo-concept that obscures more than it reveals, and we would be better off without the term. In those posts where I use it without further comment or criticism, I use it merely for convenience’s sake in response to others who do so, and frequently in scare quotes – so that the debate in those cases may focus on substantive questions rather than semantics. Asking me to take a position for or against “religion” (as a supposed phenomenon and not merely a concept) is like asking me to take a position for or against qkcousgzcxuby.
Ramachandra1008 said:
I thought you might respond in this way. That’s why I mentioned specific religious traditions. If you reject some of their central beliefs, e.g., belief in God, reincarnation, enlightenment, etc., as implausible, you are essentially holding that the practices are baseless.
The range of denotations and connotations of “religion” are reasonably well-understood. Every dictionary carries some definition of the term. It is still employed widely in so many forms of discourse in the humanities and social sciences. So, it strikes me as rather peculiar to hold that it is an unintelligible concept.
JimWilton said:
Why does it follow that if I disagree concerning one central tenet of a religion that I must necessarily believe that all of the religion’s practices are baseless?
For example, why couldn’t an atheist acknowledge that a Christian practice of giving to the poor and comforting the sick and dying is a useful practice?
I appreciate that one might have the view that truth is a more important value than expediency. To use the old rope and snake analogy — maybe realizing truth (that the snake is a rope) is the highest value. But if removing the rope from the room relieves fear, couldn’t that be an interim step that is still compassionate?
Ramachandra1008 said:
I had the thought that this would be a response to my question: the notion that even if religions have implausible or absurd beliefs, they retain value because of their moral motivational function or force.
But, a great deal, if not all, of this moral motivational force is dependent on subscribing to those beliefs, e.g., commandments issued by God or Jesus, obedience to those commandments as a precondition for entry into heaven or avoiding eternal damnation, following the eightfold path as a means to liberation from suffering, following ethical precepts as a precondition of attaining Moksha or receiving the grace of Isvara, etc.
All this already implies the primacy of soteriology over ethics in these religious traditions since the latter is a means to salvation, moksha, enlightenment, etc. Since the soteriology is constituted by belief in the reality of the goal, e.g., the reality of grace, God, moksha, enlightenment, etc., how does one countenance the ethics independently of or in exclusion to the soteriology?
JimWilton said:
First, it is not accurate to lump dozens of systems of thought together and to label them all soteriology.
That having been said, the view or context in which action is taken is important. But if a tradition has methods that over time tend to make adherents to the tradition gentler and more compassionate — then it has a lot to recommend it over belief systems that lack these methods.
Why should we be concerned anyway about what other people believe? If they are interested in learning or having a conversation — then fine. If they are reasonably content and have a tradition that allows them to cultivate virtue, what’s wrong with that?
Are we so insecure about our own view that we need to have converts and affirmations from others that we are correct? Are we full of pride at our intellectual achievement and wanting to recreate that moment over and over? How sick is that? Even if we are motivated by compassion in wanting to share our understanding with others — then certainly, to be effective, compassion needs to be combined with intelligence and take into account whether another person is listening to what we have to say.
Amod Lele said:
Jim gives the first important part of the picture: practice has a value that does not wholly depend on the underlying beliefs. This is not only or even primarily a matter of “moral motivational force.” Buddhist meditation techniques, for example, are often designed to clear one’s mind as a preparation for understanding ultimate truth. But even if one doesn’t buy that idea of ultimate truth or even want to look for it, clearing one’s mind can be valuable for a whole bunch of other reasons. In that sense “religious” practices can be important techniques. I think the idea of technique can be a double-edged sword, but a double-edged sword still has a good edge.
But it’s not only a matter of technique and practice. Far from it. The beliefs themselves are interesting and valuable. This is why I think it’s important to bring up the critique of “religion” as a concept, despite the fact that you name particular traditions and not just the general concept. Traditions are vast and complex entities; reducing each one to a single “core” belief, or a small number of such beliefs, is a gross oversimplification. Yes, the beliefs you mention show up a lot in each tradition. It is a non sequitur to assume that therefore there is little or nothing of value in that tradition to someone who doesn’t believe those particular beliefs.
The content of my blog posts should do a lot to answer your question of why I look to “religion” without accepting certain core beliefs. I draw an enormous amount of ideas from each tradition, and the connection to beliefs I don’t accept can be established on a case-by-case basis. This post is as good an example as any: not merely Ch’an practice but the very belief in sudden liberation is helpful for thinking through the role of present and future time in a good life.
JimWilton said:
“Our life experiences and enjoyments have value, he says, even if impermanent. ‘We don’t cease to enjoy a song because it has an ending!’ Such a claim would certainly be disputed by the Buddha of the Pali suttas, the impermanence of conditioned things is central to their being unsatisfactiory, dukkha.”
Amod, this is misstatement. The cause of suffering is not impermanence but attachment. If you take the view expressed above (which is not the view of any school of Buddhism), it is not surprising that you reject the Third Noble Truth — because how can there be an end to the impermanence of conditioned things?
Amod Lele said:
Jim, this is an interesting point – as I understand it, there are debates within Buddhist tradition about the extent to which things themselves have an effect on our well-being (I touched on the point here in a somewhat different context). My sense, though, is that in this case the two are usually understood to fit together – it is because things are impermanent that our attachment to them causes so much trouble. One of the common descriptions repeated in the suttas is that conditioned things are anattā, anicca, dukkha: non-self, impermanent, unsatisfactory, suffering. Nirvana is different from conditioned things in that these do not apply to it.
JimWilton said:
I agree with you that there is a relationship between impermanence, attachment and suffering. In an odd sense, I think we can only become attached because conditioned things are impermanent — otherwise, our relationship to the permanent thing would be fixed and immutable such that you couldn’t even say that there was enough separation for there to be attachment.
However, I think blaming suffering on impermanence is grasping the wrong end of the stick (at least from the Buddhist point of view). The conventional way of addressing suffering is to try to stabilize an impermanent world — to hoard riches and food, to maximize pleasant experiences and to avoid unpleasant experiences. One of the key insights of Buddhism is to understand that this is, at best, only temporarily effective and, at worst, is counterproductive to the extent it increases habits of attachment. The effective approach is to deal directly with attachment, the mental and emotional states that cause suffering — through meditation, contemplation and other skillful means.
Ethan Mills said:
Could you be a consequentialist who seeks to maximize the possibilities of moments of happiness or enlightenment by creating the right conditions for the greatest number of people to have these experiences? A sort of combination of utilitarianism, Epicureanism and sudden enlightenment Buddhism? Maybe this is what Engaged Buddhists try to do?
Amod Lele said:
In his recent book, Charles Goodman interprets Buddhism ethics in general as consequentialist, following a line of reasoning quite similar to this. I have a significant amount to dispute about that interpretation of the tradition, but that would be a longer discussion (I started discussing it here). It could be a viable constructive position to take, though, whether or not it’s an accurate interpretation of the historical tradition.
skholiast said:
If only the present moment is our happiness, why bother with any spiritual practices of self-cultivation?
Because, as you note, the present moment is an elusive thing, and it takes practice to be in it.
I really believe this is the crux of the matter. And why, incidentally, questions of time are the most vexing of all philosophical conundrums. A tradition cultivates a body of practices (and I include doctrines as practices) that is meant to direct one to the thusness of things. Those practices work. But by virtue of the fact that they work they tend, inexorably, to attract attention for their own sake, and so– they stop working, not because they break, but because we stop using them aright.
But here’s the thing: it isn’t a simple matter to correct for this either. Precisely because the experience is ineffable, all injunctions to “wait” for it seem like question-begging. What exactly is one “waiting for”? What exactly does this “waiting” entail, and why? Where is the evidence that your twiddling your thumbs, or counting beads, or attending to your breath, etc etc., while you wait, gives you this thing you don’t even deign to describe? (No help that people like me blather on about it with only the tiniest shred of a claim to have experienced “it” — if it is “one thing”, a conclusion of which I’m not at all sanguine — in any case!)
No theory can really be adduced for this. It all amounts to a kind of pious discourse, and it is absolutely vulnerable to such critique. Nonetheless, we find the traditions continually reinventing such discourse, always with a thread of irony that winds through it. These aspects sometimes gets seized on as the whole thing — Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity; Rinzai Zen’s admonistion about killing the Buddha; etc. — but they really only work in the context of the tradition as a whole.
My favorite koan on this comes from Lewis Thompson: “You can escape in a moment; but only in a moment.”
Amod Lele said:
Thanks, Skholiast. This is helpful. I think I’m slowly realizing more and more just how important the idea of sudden liberation is – it had really befuddled me before. I think your comment eloquently gets at reasons a gradual path is needed despite the importance of sudden liberation. Which is something I think I sort of knew theoretically before but had never really cared about in practice, because I hadn’t understood the opposite side: why it is important for there to be sudden liberation even on a gradual path. The idea of sudden liberation seemed too much like the easy New Agey kind of path I tended to embrace around my undergrad days: you’re perfect just the way you are, you don’t have to work at making yourself better. I saw soon enough the kinds of things that happened to people who thought that way, and I wanted no part of it. But after years of actually trying to be better, I begin to see now the importance of that approach as well.
Ramachandra1008 said:
Re: “sudden liberation”: if you are sitting in a prison and you are suddenly transported out of it for one unique minute and then you are back again in it, isn’t this sufficient reason for doubting whether you were really transported out of the prison or only dreaming or imagining it?
michael reidy said:
We need perhaps to discover our inner pagan and carpe diem. Leave off the pursuit of the unmixed, the changeless, the one without a second which are not in any case to be experienced. We flourish by the contrary emotions that live their opposing signs through us. Parting is such sweet sorrow, our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. We snatch a fearful joy. We’ll always have Paris. As a device the oxymoron is loved by the rhetorician because it bypasses the logical gates of non-contradiction straight to the heart. Oh yes they can take that away from us but what they couldn’t take away is not to be enjoyed.
I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
I here importune death awhile, until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay up thy lips.
Jesse said:
Pointless discussion. It has no ultimate consequence. ;P
Ethan C-F said:
The thing that struck me about your post is that it considered the very very short term (stuff that happens before you die) and the very long term (thousands of years since ancient Egypt) but not much in between.
We live our entire lives in the consequences of people who have come before us. The consequences of their actions don’t “come tumbling down” at the moment of their death. Maybe I personally won’t experience all the benefits (or harms) of what I do in the world before I die… but I know what it’s like to live in the world I inherited, and I have some inkling about the things that were done in the past that contributed towards happiness and or pain.
A more traditionally theological way of saying this might be that I live in my great-grandparents’ afterlife, and that my great-grandchildren will live in my afterlife. While I’m alive, I can work to make that afterlife into heaven, or into hell (and most likely, a little of both.)
Maybe 4000 years from now people won’t care much about the ‘pyramids’ I constructed, but maybe what heaven I can leave will compound itself. I can’t ever know whether or not my actions will have the intended long-term consequences I want… so to act in a just and loving way requires faith. Not faith in an anthropomorphic supernatural being, but faith that what I think and feel is right IS actually right. That means the primary act of faith is letting go of attachments to the measurable consequences of your actions and focusing on the value/compassion involved. That’s a theme that comes up repeatedly in describing saints and Bodhisattvas; they created a little more heaven on earth, and we have the unearned privilege of living in it.
Amod Lele said:
Ethan, thank you and welcome. You are right that what we might call the medium-term legacy of our actions is an important point to consider; previous generations’ actions make a difference to us, and ours can make a difference to future ones. The question then comes to depend on another, deep and meaty, question that deserves multiple posts of its own: to what extent should we be altruistic, especially insofar as that altruism has no potential consequences for our own happiness? (More or less by definition, the ways in which we benefit others after our death cannot do this.) The closer we tie altruism to our personal well-being, the less what goes on after our death matters; but the further removed the two are, the harder it is to find a motivation or even a reason to be altruistic.
JimWilton said:
I don’t understand why “by definition, the ways in which we benefit others after our death cannot [have potential consequences for our own happiness].”
First, if we are dealing with definitions, it seems to me that altruism would exclude much focus on the type of reflection that you are referring to (What’s in it for me? Does this altruism affect my happiness?). It is altruism precisely because another’s benefit is the goal.
Second, altruistic (or generous or selfless) acts ironically create enormous benefit for the actor — and the benefit is immediate — it does not require that the beneficiary of the act even knows of the act or that the consequences of the act may not be realized for many years. In fact, just forming the intention to be generous or selfless is very transforming. There are whole Buddhist practices of Lojong (mind training) such as tonglen that are entirely devoted to breaking habits of selfishness and cultivating compassion for others.
It is clear that these practices benefit the practitioner as well as others the practitioner may come in contact with or form the intention to benefit. And I don’t mean benefitting others in the way that some people might think that intercessionary prayer benefits others. It is simply that when the mind is developed through cultivation of virtue, it has immediate effects on speech and actions and benefits others.
Ethan C-F said:
Regarding sudden liberation: My understanding of that idea was that just because such an opportunity presents itself doesn’t mean we’ll be ready to receive it or enter into it. I thought the idea of spiritual practice (meditation, prayer, etc.) was to prepare ourselves for those fleeting moments when that door is open, so we can see it and peek through it.
And who knows, maybe the more we prepare ourselves, the more opportunities for enlightenment present themselves, and those extremely rare Buddhas are people who are so well-prepared, they see it in everything.