Clear thinking is a big part of Buddhist spirituality

I've never understood why some people are so down on thinking as an avenue to spiritual growth -- using "spiritual" in a non-supernatural sense, basically an exploration of what it means to be a caring, compassionate person who is grounded in reality.

Naturally those thinking skeptics express their view in, no big surprise, thoughts. So they cast doubt on the value of thought while thinking thoughts. 

One reason I enjoy reading Buddhist books (non-religious variety) is that Buddhism is fine with thinking. Also, with not thinking. That's an example of the middle way favored by Buddhists.

Thinking and not thinking both have their place. Which we do depends on the situation, on what makes sense at the time. 

A favorite Buddhist book of mine is Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness: Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path." I've read it several times. The highlighted passages in different colors produced at different times in my life remind me of the book's core idea.

Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. Nothing has inherent existence, being able to exist purely as itself. Everything is dependent on causes and conditions in never-ending processes of this giving way to that. 

That's what emptiness is all about. The emptiness of inherent existence. Which includes emptiness itself. 

All Madhyamaka philosophers agree that there is nothing that can withstand ultimate analysis. By this they mean that there is nothing anywhere that ultimately exists -- including, of course, the Buddha and the teachings of Buddhism. 

Even emptiness is itself empty; that is, when one searches for the ultimate essence of emptiness, it too is unfindable. One finds only the emptiness of emptiness.

This distinguishes Buddhism from Indian philosophy (along with the philosophy of other religions, including Christianity), which rest on a belief that there is something unchangeable and eternal -- such as the soul/atman and God/Brahman. 

Buddhists don't believe in either, the soul or God. As to realizing your true self, Buddhism replies, "Give up that notion. You neither have nor are an enduring self."

In his book Newland describes why clear thinking is so important to Buddhist practice of the Tibetan variety espoused by Tsong-kha-pa. 

You can't sit down and thoughtlessly meditate your way into an understanding of emptiness. That will leave you in the same state of delusion you were in before.

Sure, meditation feels good. It's relaxing. It calms the mind. It fosters concentration. That's why I've meditated every day for fifty years.

But by itself meditation doesn't lead to a firm grasp of the most important characteristic of the cosmos: that the cosmos has no enduring characteristic. And since humans are a part of the cosmos, neither do we.

As the suffering world has no independent, objective reality but is only an empty convention, we might suppose that stopping conventional thought in a meditative state would be the most liberating move.

The Chinese Buddhist master Ha-shang Mahayana, Tsong-kha-pa reports, regarded any sort of conceptualization whatsoever to be a distorting reification. Throughout the Great Treatise, Ha-shang functions as a stock character representing the perspective that we should dispense with all thought and meditate on reality by not bringing anything to mind.

Tsong-kha-pa argues repeatedly and passionately that meditative thoughtlessness is never going to get us any closer to freedom. Understanding born of careful analysis is at the very heart of what is distinctive about the Buddhist path. This is the third training, the training in wisdom.

Other religions share with Buddhism profound ethics as well as techniques for accessing amazing non-conceptual states. But Buddhism claims as its distinction a penetrating, thoughtful analysis of exactly how the world exists.

Only by engaging in this analysis, thinking it through and taking it to heart, do we begin to create the basis for real liberation from unnecessary misery.

Here's a rough analogy to what Newland just said. Imagine that you are thoughtlessly watching the sun set, your entire attention being focused on the beauty of the colors in the sky as the sun disappears below the horizon. 

That could be a wonderful experience. But it doesn't bring you closer to understanding that actually the sun is standing still, while the Earth rotates on its axis, creating an appearance that the sun is what is moving.

Or, imagine that you are meditating thoughtlessly with eyes closed, your entire attention being focused on a single internal subject of awareness. You could have a feeling of pure consciousness, that the real you is beyond time and space, an eternal I-ness. 

But that experience doesn't bring you closer to understanding that actually there is nothing permanent or independent about you. Your meditative concentration may be pleasant, yet fails to reveal your genuine nature -- emptiness.

"Dependent arising" is how Buddhism treads the middle way between nihilism and eternalism. Things actually exist, but they don't exist as themselves only. They have no inherent existence, but only come into being as a result of causes and conditions, a never-ending complex chain of causes and effects.

This present moment, whatever it might be like for you or me, has been produced by past causes and conditions extending back to the big bang (and perhaps beyond, if big bangs happen over and over). So the ephemeral instant of now is a snapshot of what actually is a very long-running movie of cosmic proportions.

In the next instant, things have changed both within and without us. This may not be obvious, but it is undeniably true.

So wisdom, or spiritual growth, doesn't reside in finding something unchangeable in us or the world, but in grasping that everything, us naturally included, is interconnected with everything else in a seamless web of ever-changing causes and conditions without end.

Comments

[Dungeness]

@ So wisdom, or spiritual growth, doesn't reside in finding something unchangeable in us
@ or the world, but in grasping that everything, us naturally included, is interconnected
@ with everything else in a seamless web of ever-changing causes and conditions without end.

Mystics would agree "finding something unchangeable in the world or us"
isn't possible because you're grasping that notion via thought instead
of an intuitive knowing beyond mechanical thinking. No matter how
profound the thought, it predicates a subject/object duality. The mystic
"experience" (that's the closest word to its actuality as I understand it) is
a state of awareness that transcends that duality.

Mystic awareness just "is". The moment you frame a question about its
nature or ponder how to describe it or opine how it's achieved, you've
lost the game. You've become inextricably trapped in time and duality.
These disclaimers fall short as well.

The worn out adage of mystics "Neti, Neti" (not this, not this) applies. It's
the only recourse in trying to suggest its reality though. It boggles the
mind. It can only be "experienced". A sudden knowing gives hints at best.
You are swept away by an ineffable love, appreciate beauty but can't
explain it, feel an overwhelming certitude, or are gripped by profound
gratefulness for something undefinable. You've slipped out of time and
the "surly bounds of earth".

[Sonia]

I agree with all of the above. ✅

Meditation helps our mind be still and focus. Even if you think you’re not thinking you’re still focusing which is part of “using the mind”... which is essentially still part of thinking. All the mind can do is think in some form or another. Meditation helps one control the mind. But it doesn’t necessarily make one kinder or more loving, it just strengthens one's ability to direct their mind. Psychopaths are pretty focused. So, strengthening the mind is like sharpening the saw. You need clear thinking to make sure you use the saw for constructive means.

[S]

Just remember, in the “realm of demons” there’s a lot of mystical shit goin on as well.

“Mystical” is overused and not very well understood.

Mysticism doesn’t equate with decency anymore than logic does. How one operates in any given mental state depends entirely upon the heart and convictions of the individual.

Reason is neither right nor wrong, it’s merely a tool.

Altered states aren’t right or wrong either. They’re merely another way of looking at “life”. You have to Direct your mind.

It’s ALL in the mind. ALL of it. You can meditate all day long every day but it won’t make you a better person until you understand what love is. The astral and causal realms have their fair share of unpleasant “people” too.

[OshoRobbins]

Forced stillness is not silence. 2mins into video
https://youtu.be/YzKrx7mKpqA

The very effort to meditate creates duality

[S]

OK, well that's the first time I've ever heard Osho's voice.

I don't understand why anyone would want one Rolls Royce let alone 99. I can't take him seriously at all.

Forced stillness is not silence... true but he still sounds totally stoned.

[The Roadrunner]

Central to every Buddhist tradition is the concept of reincarnation. This is a supernatural claim which has absolutely no evidence for in reality. It is therefore a religion, just like any any other, albeit one without a creator.

Secondly, it’s not clear thinking at all. What is the Buddhist explanation for how the universe originated? Buddhism teaches that everything depends on everything else: present events are caused by past events and become the cause of future events. All good and well but where do things originally come from in such a causal system? No answer. Totally unclear.

[S]

Buddhism has a lot of chickens but no eggs. Or which came first??

[s*]

Love your post Dungness..
Sukria.

[Time]

People seem to think karma is purely linear.