... the principle of impermanence itself rests on Gotama’s central insight: conditioned arising. Everything, me included, is impermanent because everything arises based on temporary and interrelated conditions; as those interrelationships change, things come into being, last for a while, and then disappear, giving way to a new set of conditions. The rest of Gotama’s doctrine, including the Three Marks of Existence (impermanence, not-self, and dukkha), has conditioned arising as its foundation. Conditioned arising is also the basis of dharma practice. When we strive to be mindful, what we are mindful of is how all the aggregates — sensation, perception, concepts, consciousness, emotions and thoughts — arise and pass away. We observe how contact leads to sensation, to emotion, to mental proliferation. The point of mindfulness is to teach us, at “gut level,” that conditioned arising is the reality of our phenomenal existence. The insight one draws from mindfulness practice is more than the perception that I am impermanent. It is also that I am not a self-contained entity radically separated from the world. I hear a truck pass in the street. Where does the sound of the truck end and my hearing it begin? Where are the borders of my tactile sensations? Or, for that matter, the borders of my awareness generally? How does the buzzing electronic gizmo in the other room connect to the sensation in my chest I experience as irritation? I perceive that my consciousness, far from being a homunculus riding around in my head, seems instead to be constituted in some important way of the things it comes into contact with, and doesn’t exist separately from them. This is especially evident, it seems to me, when we are mindful of our relationships with other people. To go mindfully into the world is to be struck by the realization that my consciousness is socially constructed. A smile from someone feels good; being in conflict feels bad. Neuroscientists tell us our central nervous systems mirror in ourselves the emotions we observe other people displaying. Observe how one person in the office having a difficult time tempers the emotions of everyone else in the room. A harsh word from my spouse engenders hurt and anger; I react with a harsh word of my own, and she reacts in kind. Beyond this very basic, embodied level, I can see that the meaning of every situation I find myself in is embedded in a vast complex of interpersonal relationships, and that who I am in any situation is a manifestation of that complex, which extends, if I reflect on it a little, very widely indeed. What we come to recognize, again on a gut level, is that we are not independent ethical players. Every action we take arises within a complex matrix of interpersonal connections, and has effects that ripple through that matrix, some readily apparent, others not. This realization isn’t as simple or idealistic as as We’re all one, man. But it does lead one increasingly from a self-centered view to one that takes into account the welfare of others — not simply as a response to an abstract moral imperative, but as the unfolding of an awareness that the welfare of others is not separate from one’s own. Gotama gives us an example of this principle in verses from the Arahant Samyuta: One who repays an angry man with anger/Thereby makes things worse for himself. Not repaying an angry man with anger/One wins a battle hard to win. He practices for the welfare of both –/His own and the other’s –/When, knowing that his foe is angry/He mindfully maintains his peace. (SN VII.I 2, 616-617) The Noble Eightfold Path is built on this principle. Before the ethical steps of Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood, one starts with Right View. The end of the Path isn’t an end at all; rather, Right Concentration and Right Mindfulness lead on to a refined and expanded Right View. Ethics in this system is not adherence to an abstract code, but the natural response to one’s immediate perception of one’s social reality. secularbuddhism.org/2011/10/28/the-ethics-of-impermanence/
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 00:48:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015