Buddhists are wrong about a "witnessing mind"

OK, admitted: my previous post about a Speculative Non-Buddhism essay was pretty damn intellectually intense for summer reading. 

I thought of writing about something lighter today, but decided to make another attempt at conveying what I like about what little I know about what those guys at Speculative Non-Buddhism seem to be up to.

(Hope that last sentence conveys my uncertainty about what their goal is; these are the most articulate, deep, philosophically-sophisticated Buddhists-who-aren't-really- Buddhists I've ever come across; hard to fathom them after just a little reading.)

First, a note about my own split personality toward Buddhism. Part of me loves it; part of me hates it. Sometimes I think Buddhism is the best non-religious religion there is. Other times, it strikes me as just as supernaturally deluded as other religions are.

I've put up numerous posts here concerning how unlikely it is that something like "pure awareness" exists. The brain is a highly sophisticated collection of 100 billion or so neurons, all connected in vastly complex ways. 

Out of this, almost certainly, human consciousness emerges. Where and how the notion of "pure awareness" fits into neuroscientific reality is beyond me. 

Though I used to believe that it was possible for consciousness (or soul) to be a detached observer from above, so to speak, this now strikes me as religious dogma. So I resonate with another Speculative Non-Buddhism post, "The Myth of the Witnessing Mind, Or: It's Thinking all the Way Down."

This is an easier to understand take on the same general subject addressed in my previous post: there is no getting outside socially, culturally, and I guess, genetically conditioned ways of looking at the world. 

What we see is what we've learned to see; been guided to see; evolved to see from among countless alternative ways of seeing. There is no absolute vision; no objective perception of reality; no mountaintop of consciousness from which the varying slopes of awareness can be discerned at a glance.

Before sharing some excerpts from "The Myth of the Witnessing Mind," here's an explanation of x-Buddhism:

“Buddhism” suggests an abstract, and abstractly static, One.  A study of this One would show it to be of the (abstract) type of cultural-doctrinal systems (religion, philosophy, mythology) that claim grand authority concerning human knowledge. “X-buddhism” means to capture a crucial fact about “Buddhism,” the abstract One: it loops incessantly.

We could study the x. Such a study would be historical and comparative.

We could compile a descriptive catalogue of Buddhist schools from a (atheist) through m (Mahayana) to z (Zen), graphing their relations and tracing their divergences. In so doing, we would discover differences concerning, for instance, each x‘s version of the means and end of the One’s grand authority. From such a study we would begin to see that the One, Buddhism, breeds infinite interpretation not only of the world, but of itself. Hence, Buddhism splinters into unending modifiers, x.

With that background, here's the excerpts -- which actually amount to most of the essay. Or, jump to the full essay. 

I want to present a comment that Tom Pepper made in response to questions posed by Matthias Steingass. I think that both the questions and the response constitute a brilliant crystallization of recurring, and quite stubborn, issues in contemporary x-buddhism. The issues hover around the interplay of self, no-self, person-formation, ideology, and meditation. But first, some background.

Perhaps the gravest criticism of contemporary x-buddhism we make on this blog is that its proponents refuse to adequately think through the very postulates that comprise their x-buddhism. Sometimes this refusal manifests as blatant hypocrisy.

Patricia Ivan’s previous post on the shunning practices of x-buddhist figures is a good example of this. The people she mentions there are typical x-buddhist examples in that they preach values such as compassionate engagement, the wisdom of doubting, and having the courage to be proven wrong, yet routinely shut down dialogue that genuinely and robustly tests their commitment to those values.

While such hypocrisy is unconscionable, it is at least correctable. Even darker consequences follow from the x-buddhists’ refusal to think through their premises. I am speaking of the x-buddhist penchant for reacting against and obscuring the very teachings they aim to disseminate.

One such teaching is the sine qua non Buddhist principle of anatman. This principle holds that there exist no self-entity over and above the socially-linguistically-constructed networks of discourse within which we are embedded. This principle has extraordinary and far-reaching implications for the ways “Buddhism” might contribute to a clear-eyed assessment of what it is to be human.

And yet, as many essays on this blog and at non + x have shown, x-buddhists refuse to dispense with atman, positing at every turn some version of a transcendent self. These essays have typically been met with (i) confused, convoluted, and desperate “arguments” to the contrary, (ii) hostility, or (iii) silence (see above). You can see for yourself that the beating heart of atman is being well-preserved by x-buddhist figures.

It’s all over the place–as mindfulness, non-judgemental awareness, the silent observer, the witnessing mind, pure awareness, Buddha mind, not to mention the traditional formulations of rig pa, tathagathagarba, mahamudra, and so on ad nauseum. It’s one of the places where the conservative-traditional forms of x-buddhism join at the hip of the liberal-secular varieties.

...Tom Pepper. Matthias: I’ll offer my thoughts on this problem. When you say “I know that I think,” you are reproducing the error that produces belief in the atman. If you think you are attending to the content of your thoughts, you are, of course, attending to some of them, but not to the thoughts about that content.

These thoughts – the belief that I can passively “watch” my thoughts arise and dissolve – is just another set of thoughts produced in a discourse, socially produced, but which we are taught to mistake for an unproduced “true self.” In the “mindfulness” practice of watching your thoughts with detachment, you are actually participating in a socially produced discourse of “mindfulness” and not realizing it.

The mind always and only thinks, and consciousness is always and only in socially produced symbolic systems produced between multiple individuals.

Can the body act without thought? Sure it can – have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off? Sometimes they can walk about and respond to stimuli for hours. But there is no mind there. Even a brain-dead body can be stimulated to orgasm, but there is not mind that “has” the orgasm, except in a symbolic system which gives the bodily response meaning.

...My original understanding of Vipassana meditation, years ago, was that it was an attempt to recognize exactly this – the real causes and conditions of all the thoughts we believe “we” are having. We then realize, like Hume when he “looks within,” that there is no self, only another discourse (not the term Hume would use, but..) which is always produced socially.

Even the “looking within” is just a socially produced discourse. Then we lose the need to find the directing “will” deep within. Instead, we see that the “self” is socially constructed, and we can begin, also in “sati” meditation, to examine the causes and the effects of this particular construction of conventional self, and determine (again, in a collectively produced discourse) what actions might produce a better “self.”

Of course, Vipassana as I’ve encountered it over the last couple of years has become the opposite of this – it is now an attempt to produce a discourse in which we are fooled into believing we DO have a core transcendent mind that is undetermined by discourse and social formations, and this is what they now call “anatman”: the mistaken belief that this “witnessing mind” is NOT created by the discourse/practice of retreat buddhism. 

Comments

[777]

You are absolutely right

It somehow a pity
that only a few enter the extraordinary non-thinking state & most of them cannot read
and who can speak hardly

and when they do they take to the poetics
so the ignorents do not ridiculyse° immediately

[cc]

Whether there is a "non-thinking" state is arguable because if there's no memory of it, you can't know that it ever happened.

[Sandra]

"Whether there is a "non-thinking" state is arguable because if there's no memory of it, you can't know that it ever happened."

cc - great comment!

Whenever I am reading such smart and obvious inferences I ask myself
why I didn't see the evident before my eyes? And then I am so happy that there are other people who reason better than me and share their perceptions so that others have the possibility to participate.

By the way - I am very glad about my ability to think, so I can't understand why I should aspire not to think?
By trying so (not to think) where do people think (!) or hope to get?
I have the strong suspicion that IT IS IN THE (VERY HUMAN AND VERY WORLDLY) INTEREST OF THE GURU THAT HIS DISCIPLES DON’T THINK. In this manner they are exploitable more easily.

[Roger]

"It somehow a pity
that only a few enter the extraordinary non-thinking state.........."

---Notice, on a few enter

and then,

the extraordinary "non-thinking" state. Same ole BS.

[Turan]

During meditation there appears to be moments when there are no thoughts, but there is no awareness of this until a few seconds later when thought arises again and begin thinking about this 'no thought' moment.

Is it not possible that something can occur that does not leave a memory yet somewhere in the brain it is registered?

On the couple of occasions when I have been unconscious, on recovery I knew I had been unconscious - and all I could recall was that 'that was quite nice'.

Is it perhaps that at such moments the ever active construct 'self' is absent giving the poor old brain a momentary rest from having to process its 'self' maintaining data?

During sleep there are periods when the self-conscious 'self' is not active. There are other times too as when the body/brain is in survival mode.

Is enlightenment then perhaps simply the felt sense of the brain experiencing a bit of a rest?

[cc]

"Is enlightenment then perhaps simply the felt sense of the brain experiencing a bit of a rest?"

Yes, enlightenment is the relief of comprehending something you've been puzzling over.

[777]

.
Let's not call It enlightenment
whatever that means

The best comparison is, -and the known Saints like Augustinus,
Hafiz, Rumi, never dared saying-

is an extended orgasm ABOVE THE EYES
while the body is not participating

I said already : mysticism goes in
cycles and waves on an up-going spiral when y have good fortune

So with lovely karma, this comes back
over and over again
and really It's a terrific state
and a Super Saint might experience that
every hour
and even without meditation at all
as said while cleaning his car

and blessed is the guy who brings Him the water

saintdom is so totally different than everything said here
the faqir included
and in all books with the exception of the Adi Granth

This phenomenon over-rises with ease
a big bang
and even looking to such a person in a mirror at a mile distance
on a screen
will change you destiny completely

Isaac Hayes
"The look of Love"

[Roger]

“X-buddhism means to capture a crucial fact about “Buddhism,” the abstract One: it loops incessantly."

---Could someone give a further clarification of what x-buddism means? What would be an example of a crucial fact?

[Roger]

"On the couple of occasions when I have been unconscious, on recovery I knew I had been unconscious - and all I could recall was that 'that was quite nice'. "

---During the period of recall, you would have been conscious. You concluded, during being conscious, that the period of unonsciousness was quite nice. So, the quite nice-ness is being compared to what?

[Roger]

"During meditation there appears to be moments when there are no thoughts, but there is no awareness of this until a few seconds later when thought arises again and begin thinking about this 'no thought' moment."

---At the time, a few seconds later, and thoughts are arising, is this still a meditation period of activity? Can "no thought" moments occur without the use of meditation? What is it, that begins the thinking 'about it' period?

[the9thGate]

777: The Isaac Hayes rendition is a fantastic cover but you should check out the original by Dusty Springfield.
On a different note...I have enjoyed reading you. You come across as quite an intoxicated soul.
On the subject of orgasms above the eyes...is it possible to have multiple ones?
But seriously....Is the orgasm you are referring to a chemical experience, something visual or something auditory like listening to Sade Cherish the Day?

[cc]

"During the period of recall, you would have been conscious. You concluded, during being conscious, that the period of unonsciousness was quite nice. So, the quite nice-ness is being compared to what?"

During sleep when the mind is dreaming, it is unconscious of what it's doing, but the dream is recorded and reviewed consciously after the fact. There is no "quite nice-ness" of unconsciousness unless there's a record, a memory of the experience.

Psychotics and alcoholics have black-outs wherein their behavior goes recorded and what they did is unknown to them, but meditators and enlightenment seekers are even more unaccountable for pretending they can have it both ways.

[Turan]

No need to compare feeling ‘quite nice’ to anything. I can say though that such feelings are perhaps quite common to all of us as I suspect so are the moments of ‘no thoughts’. But don’t get hung up on these statements, it is just the ever active habit of the mind in maintaining its ‘self structure’ through identification with its contents.

The main thing as I understand it is to see that the ‘self’ is a construct and although a very useful one can be the source of many of our problems in that its very nature is isolating and divisive. We only have to look at religions for example to see how we have built ‘self’ identities around systems that cause conflicts (within ourselves as well as among others).

So, these moments described as ‘quite nice’ and ‘no thoughts’ are simply moments when the ever comparing, mind (or brain) created ‘self’ is quiescent. They are of course fleeting moments and if we choose to pursue them through meditation or whatever, perhaps it is an idea to see if it’s just another tactic that the ego/self is employing to maintain its assumed specialness and separation.

[777]

Roger
It's not like after a dream or after being unconscous at all !

The first time it happens and yes after the numbness of the body is 99%,
you are so flabbergasted that
you walk one meter above the ground for three months

Concerning memory :
There is part of the mind that registrated it and also enjoyed

Therefore the comparison with orgasm is great

I cannot speak for others but there is also a moment - even a lenght of time that the mind quits its activity
the more pure the love is , . . the longer these moments

And yes everything is a waveform
at least in my case :
but when you approach the source , the center
suddenly you can be frozen, chilled out, . . extasy is a good word
but not to use in this group :)

and thena period can arrive, will arrive
that you go to the movie and you have this phenomenon lightly
present for hours, for days

I think also that these martyrs had no difficulty at all to endure
when in this state

Also
Any explanation is rather futile and many come
to the conclusion that I shouldn't have been so happy
for half a century now 24/7 each second
thanks to RSSB :)

This path is the reason YOU started your tripp
of many shapes in many times

777

ps
Before birth through our mothers chakra tunnel
we knew what was going to happen
and signed for it
with very tiny modifications possible
depending on the individua

[777]

cc
the9thGat

Thanks for Dusty

Roger
"that was quite nice" :-)

So, the quite nice-ness is being compared to what?"

Cocaine

and this will invoke many of you
to come up with the chemical theory
and why not - are we not chemical : . . the body

a satsangi lady said that to me and she was in the know about Coke
she used for years long ago

but no negative side effects, She said
and a free Dealer She said
some months after initiation

She was special , heard the sound
the moment she got the words

No reason to be jeolous
Think about Solopism

A nice side effect concerning these diffirent Souls/Jeevas/Dharmas
is
UP there near the center
you will not only enjoy your own Dharma experiment
but also those of all who "made it"

It just an enormous Love generator this God
against being bored in eternity,

YOU are That
and GDS following orders, YOUR orders

777

[Roger]

"No need to compare feeling ‘quite nice’ to anything. I can say though that such feelings are perhaps quite common to all of us as I suspect so are the moments of ‘no thoughts’."

---During the moment of 'no thoughts' is there the feeling of being quite nice? Can one have a feeling(a possible type of thought) during a moment of 'no' thought?
Nothing wrong with having a 'no thought' moment, however, how can such moment be described as 'quite nice' without a relative comparison?

"The first time it happens and yes after the numbness of the body is 99%, you are so flabbergasted that you walk one meter above the ground for three months"

---Does the numbness of the body(99%) come about through meditation only? Obtaining the 99% numbness, a purification result? And, walking above the ground, for three months, a dog and pony show?

[777]

William asked :
---Does the numbness of the body(99%) come about through meditation only?

In the beginning : YES

Lateron : NO

The big big big point of meditation after Love is
to have the back straight
People who seek a comfortable "sit", in this stadium can only succeed by grace, although it' grace all the time

There is also the phenomenon of like in isometric contraction for
working out like
people intend to do 100 push-ups and while working
do stop at 98
The 2 last push ups doing more to the muscles than all 98 together

It might be in a persons karma that he
is not going in so fast
because of many reasons
F i Children

and to avoid DIS-BALANCE ( under which : thinking you are God*** -
: the worst : START YOUR OWN RS Group - many americans did that, many indians too )

"Purification"

Perhaps, - I know as far as one can judge many pure satsangis and I am absolutely NOT among them

Though an urge to live your life purer
arises from meditation

The whole thing goes in
Waves and cycles

*** True but completely unhelpful in the first 6 regions.

-

[Turan]

Back to basics - there is the brain/body organism.

The brain-created mind is its contents consisting of the accumulation of experiences and memories.

'Re-calling this information gives the impression of a 're-caller' – enter the concept of a 'self', 'me', 'I', 'soul' or whatever 'in there' doing the re-calling.

The ego/mind can do nothing else but to unconsciously identify with the contents in order to maintain its 'self' structure. The ego needs to identify with beliefs and other concepts to exist; all our beliefs, opinions, justifications and concepts only serve to maintain this (apparent) entity.

Our beliefs, opinions and comments are the ‘self’s’ method of maintaining its apparent specialness – the source of our feelings of separation that generate much of our conflicts and suffering.

Perhaps in seeing the processes that go on within the brain and how it creates a mind, self, I, me, soul etc., is to lessen its strangle-hold on the Life that we are. Much of the minds contents are obviously very useful to us, but without identifying with the aspects that continually maintain and promote a separate 'I', maybe we (the brain) can relax.

Here comes the ‘spiritual’ bit Roger – apologies cc. Understanding or watching the processes which form and maintain the ‘self’ is – dare I say it – meditation. And yes, it’s a form of thinking. But, there are times when the mind/self is briefly quiet and the poor old brain has (and registers) a moment of relief – which after the event the ego/mind can have a good old think about!

At this point we may ask who the 'watcher' is, but there is no 'watcher', no 'self' - only a over-worked brain whirring away.

[777]

William said :
---During the moment of 'no thoughts' is there the feeling of being quite nice?

No
Nothing compares -
Let me try :

I compare to a pyramide
The first of 4 axes APPROACHING EACH OTHER :
1)
The 5 words start to reveal themselves
It's not You doing Simran but Simran doing You

2)
The TOTAL KNOWLEDGE that the Master iIS THAT SIMRAN

3)
The Sound that starts pulsing from tiny
to a hurricane
and then realizing totally that that Sound is The Simran and The Holy Master

4)
A light that is no light but revelation
there is no word really
Both the words Sound & Light
it's just for communication to say that

NOW, in the middle of that pyramid which has no apex, no top
the Ego is there

at the base it is not crushed
but Higher up
these 4 forces
start enveloping It in a kind of Holy Embracement

It's really difficult to explain
and Orgasme ABOVE THE EYES is still the closed word
Therefore mystics talk about COMMUNION

All the time
and it ever grows

Of course this weak tiny description
is individual
I also realizing that it hasn't even started yet
My wife sees many things
I do not

I love Simran - it has everything in IT
and from quantity comes quality

777

[Roger]

"The ego/mind can do nothing else but to unconsciously identify with the contents in order to maintain its 'self' structure. The ego needs to identify with beliefs and other concepts to exist; all our beliefs, opinions, justifications and concepts only serve to maintain this (apparent) entity."

---To consciously not identify with beliefs and other concepts would mean the non-existence of the mind?

" Understanding or watching the processes which form and maintain the ‘self’ is – dare I say it – meditation. And yes, it’s a form of thinking."

---During one's meditation, one actually can watch the unconscious 'self' maintain itself? This is fascinating.