Certainty is an impasse. Reality is rarely (if ever!) either “this” or “that.” Dichotomous (i.e. dualistic, i.e. 2-fold) logic is too black-and-white to capture the iridescence of reality. Syādvāda, an ancient Jainist doctrine of 7-fold postulation, allows you a multiplicity of angles of seeing reality.
Syādvāda teaches that:
- it is impossible to determine the truth of a system within its own thought
- each truth is valid within its own system
- therefore, there is more than one truth
Thus, Syadvada encourages a 7-fold way of referring to reality. Syadvada offers the following view-specific preambles when describing some aspect of the iridescent reality:
1.Syād-asti — “in some ways something is”
2.Syād-nāsti — “in some ways something is not”
3.Syād-asti-nāsti — “in some ways something is and is not”
4.Syād-asti-avaktavyaḥ — “in some ways something is and it is indescribable”
5.Syād-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ — “in some ways something is not and it is indescribable”
6.Syād-asti-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ — “in some ways something is, is not and is indescribable”
7.Syād-avaktavyaḥ — “in some ways something is indescribable”
The word syadvada comes from two roots. Syat means “may be”, whereas vada means “assertion”. Placed together syādvāda becomes the assertion of what may be, the assertion of possibilities.
A bit confusing, huh? That’s reality for you. It’s too fluid for our certainty-craving mindbox.
Syadvada Quick Lube for the Mind
Here’s my own (semi-poetic) interpretation of this 7-fold logic.
1.
If you can see the reality in at least seven ways
You can be at peace with it.
And one with it too.
2.
The essence of any mind-war or body-war is: “I think This” versus “I think This.”
From the side it looks like it’s just two people arguing about their respective version of “This” and there is a point to it.
But from inside the seven-fold Syadvada you know there isn’t any one point, just a field of possible points of view.
They are fighting for the exact same thingless thing they call “This.”
3.
And the name of this “This” is
The Nameless.
4.
Truth be told: truth is silent.
Closing Questions for an Opening Mind:
Did you like this post? Perhaps, you did. Perhaps, you didn’t. Perhaps, you did, and, perhaps, in some ways, you didn’t. Or, perhaps, in some ways you neither liked it nor disliked it. Or, maybe, just maybe, you can’t quite describe what you felt. It’s almost always like that….
What’s this post about? About reality, of course, and, of course, about something entirely indescribable…
Final question to you: is reality colorful or transparent? WYSIWYC: What You See Is What You Choose (to see).
]]>That's what Zhuangzi reported 25 centuries ago which is a bit out of date. I report: "Dogs crow and cocks bark."
Zhuangzi, on the behalf of Comprehensive Understanding, replies: "Sound is sound. A description of reality isn't the reality that it describes. Dogs crow, cocks bark, minds talk."
A Zhuangzi historian says: "Zhuangzi never said that."
I say: "He didn't have to."
So, I ask you: "Which right is left?"
References:
Is that a fact?!
"There is no concept that can define the condition of “what is” but vision nevertheless manifests: all is good" ( The Six Vajra Verses, quoted in C. N. Norbu, Dzogchen, The Self-Perfected State).
Is there not?!
"To question is to presuppose the possibility of a negative answer, a negative answer being one in which the questioner would encounter as a result of his questioning the fact that a certain state of affairs is not" ( Fernando Molina in Existentialism As Philosophy).
"The fact that a certain state of affairs is not" - Hmm... So, to question a given fact is to allow the possibility of a fact that a given fact is not a fact?!
It's hard to know what "to know" is, isn't it?
Enjoy the confusion!
After all:
"Confusion, it seems, is a pre-requisite for enlightenment <...> Confusion is a loss of attachment to certainty, a state in between "this" and "that." <as such, confusion enables> a search for clarity by way of removing the presumptive veneers of certainty that layer our conditioned minds." (Somov, The Totem of Tautology: from a sense of "i" to a sense of awe!).
Confusion. Con-fusion: from L. confusionem, noun of action from confundere "to pour together" (Online Etymology Dictionary).
So, yes, embrace the Confusion - the Pouring Together of All Perspectives... The truth is in the Middle! The truth is in between "This" and "That."
For whatever All this means...
Resources:
]]>From the stand-point of the Western thought, Popeye’s “I yam what I yam” is empty rhetoric. After all, to say the same thing twice is to say nothing new; thus, the pejorative connotation of the word tautology. Tautologies, in the circularity of their reasoning, are viewed as inherently meaningless, as a total waste of breath, and, at best, as just argumentative.
From the stand-point of the Eastern thought, however, Popeye’s “I yam what I yam” is a reflection of an enlightened mind, of an existential sailor that has finally cast the anchor of his consciousness in the abyss of non-duality…
Let’s take a closer look…
Zhuangzi (365-290 BCE), an ancient Chinese dialectician, writes in the “Equality of All Things:” “A thing seems to be so when we say it is so; it does not, when we say that it is not. A path is formed by being walked on. <…> How is it so? It is so because it is so. How is it not so? It is not so because it is not so.” (2).
“What is this?! What kind of statement is this?!! What does this mean?!!! This makes no sense…” – rebels the Western mind. “Exactly! Nonsense, on one had; wisdom, on the other hand… Except that the enlightened mind is one-handed…” - it half-clarifies, half-confuses, and, on the whole, enlightens, albeit with misleading smart-aleck agreeableness.
How are we, the Logicians of the West, to make sense of this illogical self-referencing circularity? We are not… That’s exactly the point. You see, we’ve come to expect the language to say something, to add some informational value. But the Eastern thought seems to pursue an altogether different vector: in saying nothing, it is trying to avoid saying something that isn’t…
True, tautologies – irrefutable in their truism – seem to be the only way to say something without distorting the reality of what is…
You see, to describe is to differentiate; and to differentiate is to draw out a boundary between “this” and “that;” and to draw a boundary is to separate what Eastern thought views as indivisible and inseparable. Thus the Buddhist “ban” on discursive (i.e. labeling, judging) thought: each description draws a false, arbitrary, subjective line of distinction right through the undifferentiated Oneness of it all…
Listen to Zhuangzi, Garab Dorje and Suzuki collaborate on this point…
“Everything has its inherent character and its proper capability; there is nothing that is without these” (Zuangzi). Yet “there is no concept that can define the condition of ‘what is’” (Garab Dorjie, the Six Vajra Verses) (3). “A finger is needed to point at the moon, but what a calamity it would be if one took the finger for the moon” (Suzuki) (4).
So here we have it: a tautology says nothing. In so doing, a tautology is a total eclipse of meaning, but not with nonsense… with the transparence of acceptance!
“An apple is an apple. “ Such truism feeds no Adam’s thirst for knowledge. A tautology, from the stand-point of its informational value, is an empty calorie. Its point is not to feed the mind with information, but to prod the mind to accept what is as it is. The emphasis is not on the “what” or the “how” of what is but on the “isness of all things” (5).
Take the infamous tautological cliché - “it is what it is” - for example. “It is what it is” is, perhaps, both the most frequent-flyer tautology that there is and the closest we get to being philosophical in our day to day non-appraisal of things. This statement prompts us to let go of trying to understand the un-understandable and to shift to its acceptance as is.
While the Western mind pursues knowledge, the Eastern mind chases acceptance. The Logical mind says “How can I accept this if I don’t understand this?!” The Nondual mind says “How can I not accept this? If it exists, it is valid, whether I understand it or not…”
As close as we come to this “edge of certainty” (6) of trying to figure out what’s what, ultimately – from the stand-point of Buddhist epistemology (as I understand it) – knowledge is an illusion. Garab Dorjie, in the first verse of his Vajra Verses: “The nature of phenomena is nondual (and) <...> beyond the limits of the mind.”
Each word is a unit of description, each description is nothing but a finger pointing at the moon. With this in mind, all language is sign language, all language is just hand-waving; and no amount of hand-waving and gesturing at the moon equals the moon.
“It is what it is” is a powerful epistemological reality-check, but, to be faithfully non-dual, it is also not… Western thought seeks enlightenment through understanding, Eastern thought seeks enlightenment through confusion. Thus, the former needs declarative, dualistic “this is this, not that” statements, whereas the latter subsists on epistemologically tail-chasing circularity of “it is what it is.”
Look at how shamelessly, from the point of logic, Suzuki spins the web of confusion, negating a tautology with a tautology: “How hard, then, and yet how easy it is to understand the truth of Zen! Hard because to understand it is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it is to understand it” (4). Not only “A” is “A," but “A” is also “not-A.” To understand is both to understand and not to understand.
But that’s the epistemological ticket, per Zhuangzi: “Where there is no opposition between this view and that view, there is the pivot of the dao. As soon as this pivot is found, we stand in the center where we can respond without an end to changing views” (2).
As such, any tautology is a Point of Consensus and that’s what enables the eventual shift to a position of acceptance. “It is what it is” – who can disagree with that?!
The endless circularity of tautology (“it is what it is what it is what it is…” or “I am what I am what I am…”) vortexes us into the very center –point of the circle, into the common denominator of “is-ness.” “Everything that is, is,” or, put differently, “everything that exists, exists” – this is the stem-cell tautology that underlies all others that we can all agree on; as to the “how” and “what” of this “is,” it is a matter of perspective…
As the Western mind dismisses tautology as meaningless self-referencing, it preoccupies itself with nothing other than self-referencing. As soon as we begin to deviate from the truth that “it is what it is” we embark on an arbitrary, self-referencing tug-of-war of defining "it" as “this” or “that.” “It is this, not that” I insist, as you insist that this “this” is actually a “that.”
Let me close with the words of Dattatreya, an extreme non-dualist who had “shaken off” all attachment to “this” or “that” - “Some seek nonduality, others duality. They do not know the Truth, which is the same at all times and everywhere, which is devoid of both duality and nonduality" (7).
If the truth is the same at all times, it would appear that tautology, in saying the same thing over and over gain, by definition, is the only way to stay true to the message…
Tautology - nonsense or wisdom? Failure of description or language of acceptance? Both or neither? It is what it is. Can you accept that?
(1) Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com
(2) Zhuangzi (Kolak, D., The Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy)
(3) Dzogchen: the Self-Perfected State (Norbu, C. N., Snow Lion Publications)
(4) An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (Suzuki, Grove Press)
(5) Double Vision: Duality and Nonduality in Human Experience (John Welwood, in “The Sacred mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy,” Prendergast et al., Paragon House)
(6) The Edge of Certainty: Dilemmas on the Buddhist Path (Fenner, Nicolas-Hays, Inc.)
(7) Advaita Vedanta: the Avadhuta Gita (One: Essential Writings on Nonduality” Katz, Sentinent Publications)
]]>"we are all connected"/symphonyofscience.com
pavel somov, not two, nov. 15, 2009
]]>Take a look at any object in your immediate environment: say, you are looking at a "so-called" (I'll explain the "so-called" parenthetical in a few moments) cup. Say, I picked it up from your desk and asked: "What is this?" You'd say: "A cup." And I'd say: "No, what is this?" After a moment of bemusement, you might offer: "A mug?" And I - with the best of the poker faces - would stay firm: "No, what is this?" After a pause and/or after a little friendly prodding from me, you might suggest: "A container for liquids?" To welcome the emerging looseness of your associations, I'd kick the door of your mind with a more clue-like question: "Yes... What else could this object be?" With this prompt, you'd likely fire off a series of ideas: "A paper-weight, a weapon if you throw it, a small hand-held shovel..."
So here we are: what used to be a cup now has acquired some additional meanings, by virtue of re-association...
Where am I going with this? Okay: let me reiterate the thesis: meaning is an association. When, as kids, we first encounter a new object, we ask: "Mom/Dad, what is this?" "It's a fork," Mom/Dad programs our mind... "And this (fill in the blank)?" Mom/Dad: "This is (fill in the blank)."
Meaning is a process of filling in the blanks of the mind... with words... that trigger other words... that trigger more words... As we grow and acquire language, we, in essence, acquire a baggage of associations that weighs us down as we try to skate the thin ice of presence.
Vladimir Nabokov, in Transparent Things, writes: "When we concentrate on a material object <...> the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want to stay at the exact level of the moment."
Nabokov, the great Russian-English novelist, whose own style is so ingeniously laden with association-rich detail, here, both de-constructs his own style and defines Zen: "A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film."
Nabokov's advice is straight from Buddhism: to stay in the moment, we must somehow avoid weighing down "what is" with our pre-conceived notions of "what it means."
As we encounter reality, we continuously make meaning, i.e. we associate "what is" with "what it means." In so doing, we continuously confuse the Present for the Past. "Oh," we think with quickly fading interest, "this is a fork" as we look at a "so-called" (I'll explain the "so-called" parenthetical in a few moments) fork.
Nabokov proclaims: "Transparent things, through which the past shines!"
Yes: the Present is Transparent. If seen as such, not through the lens of past associations, it has the proverbial clarity of enlightenment. But how elusive this way of seeing, or rather not seeing! How thin this ice of Presence!
Meaning is an artifact of the Past, not the actual fact of the Present. Things that we have not yet encountered have no meaning to us. And when we encounter something new, we are understandably startled. The more we live, the more reality we manage to label with words of meaning, the heavier is the baggage of our associations. And as we progress in time, we lose the spontaneity of the response: we've seen it all, nothing's new, everything has been already categorized...
So, instead of seeing reality as it is, we see a "so-called" reality - a reality that we so called, a reality of our own associations, a reflection of our subjective life experience, documented in the narrative of choice. Language constructs perception: first, the word, then, the perceived reality.
If we call this This "this," so it becomes "so-called."
Case in point: the ones of us who have avoided the correctional side of society (whether it is on the side of an inmate or a prison guard) look at a so-called fork, we see a utensil, rather a weapon because for us this object has come to mean exactly that. An inmate or a prison guard looks at the very same fork, and sees an opportunity or a threat, respectively, i.e. a very different reality...
But in reality, we are all imprisoned in our "so-called" realities of habitual interpretation. Buddhism, particularly, Zen Buddhism, offers a way out of this prison: non-discursive thought. Mindfulness - as a practice - can be understood as interpretive silence: witness but don't label, witness but don't describe, witness what is as it is, avoid the lens of the past associations.
As such, mindfulness is a form of meaninglessness. And that is its existential meaning!
Seeing the reality as is, not through the distorting prism of past associations, allows us the invigorating encounter with the novelty of Now: after all, this moment that you almost dismissed as something that you've already seen, is entirely unprecedented. This Now is, in fact, the only news!
To Nabokov, skimming the Present without sinking into the Past is a miracle that befits only the most experienced: "Otherwise the inexperienced miracle-worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish" (if I may add) under the weight of past associations.
]]>Significance is a sign that a given manifestation of reality equals: __________________ (your mind fills in the blank).
Indeed, significance is an equation between something outside of you and something inside you, a moment in which a particular moment, a particular manifestation of reality translates into a feeling of significance and a thought of significance.
Case in point: say you have a crush on a co-worker. As you walk past her desk, she looks up. This moment, this manifestation of outside reality translates into a feeling of significance (your heart skips its regular beat as the sympathetic nervous system revs up in response to the possibility of sympathy) and a thought of jubilation (perhaps: “she likes me!”). But, of course, so far it’s just a hypothesis – but its very fact is enough to make your heart skip a beat.
So, what do we have here? A co-worker looks up and you (because of your crush on her) interpret this as “significant,” i.e. as possibly signifying a reciprocal attraction. In other words, another manifestation of reality has been given a subjective meaning. An equation of meaningfulness has been drawn: this = that. “This” is the objective reality outside of you (the co-worker looking up as you pass by). “That” is the subjective reality inside you (the thought that “this” means that “she likes me,” with its accompanying sympathetic nervous system rpms).
Put differently, the equation of significance is the equation of the Objective and the Subjective.
This = That. Objective = Subjective.
Another example: the objective reality of a random black cat crossing the street in front of your car = a predictive conclusion that something bad is going to happen specifically to you. An auspicious moment – if you are superstitious. But what if you are not?! Then you’d conclude that a black cat crossing the street right in front of your car is “insignificant.” But – excuse me! – where’s the epistemological difference?! Whether we equate any given “this” to this “that” or that “that” we are still equating the objective to the subjective.
To conclude that an encounter with the black cat is either significant or insignificant is to assign a sign (a sign of significance or a sign of insignificance). Epistemologically: it’s the same thing!
Remember Schrodinger’s cat in a box: from the stand-point of the quantum mechanics it is both dead and alive until we examine which it is, and when we do the quantum two-state reality collapses into an actual (i.e. perceived) one. Note the parenthesis: an actual = a perceived (Objective = Subjective, This = That). Same thing again!
Let’s extend Schrodinger’s now-classic thought experiment to the classic superstition of a black cat crossing the road: if Schrodinger’s box is the size of Pittsburgh and I am driving my Hyundai inside and as I make the final turn onto the street where Schrodinger’s cat is both dead and alive, it is the encounter with my subjectivity that makes this bi-modal (dead and alive) reality reality.
The life-or-death status of Schrodinger’s cat is apparently contingent on an encounter with my mind. Now, who is the ominous black cat in this scenario? Who’s the actual agent of life or death – if not my mind, if not my observation, if not my perception?! The dead-and-alive cat gets to live or to remain dead depending on how my subjectivity collapses this dead-and-alive, two-state quantum reality.
The Subjective – it appears – determines the Objective.
If the Subjective determines the Objective, then why do we seek significance outside, i.e. in all the wrong places where it (the significance) is not? In other words, if significance, as a subjective, i.e. internal, evaluation of what’s outside is inside of us, then why do we seek it outside where it is not?
Significance, after all, is a process of assigning a sign – a process of subjective interpretation of the objective. Thus, significance is not passively found or stumbled upon, but is actively given, i.e. assigned. To signify is to assign a sign. To assign a sign is to call a given “this” by the name of “that,” i.e. to equate – at least, perceptually – “this” with “that.” It’s through this this-into-that-metamorphosis that reality becomes perception and perception becomes reality.
So, here we have it, the final equation of significance or, for that matter, the equation of insignificance:
Significance = Insignificance (and, of course, vice versa).
Now: how significant is that?! However significant you make it!
I can hear you say: ‘Nah… This is just another one of these thought experiments.” And I would say: “But what thought isn’t an experiment?” After all, each time you exhale, you expire another experiment of your consciousness.
]]>Here's an attempt of mine to express the same in poetry
The "It" of What Is
In some ways it is,
In some ways it isn't.
There's a total of seven ways
in which it is and it isn't.
Whichever one you choose
in this Russian roulette of truth,
is a right one,
and yet neither is.
Take home message: when encountering an opinion, use Syadvada parentheticals to avoid tactless dogmatism (particularly 1 through 3). E.g. someone says: "this is such and such!" If you disagree, instead of firing off "Hell no! This is how it is," you could say:"In some ways it is and in some ways it isn.t" Use tentativeness to model tentativeness. What goes around, comes around.
]]>What exists? Does yesterday exist now? Does tomorrow exist now?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of yesterday may exist now if we are now thinking of yesterday.
Our thoughts of tomorrow may exist now if we are now thinking of tomorrow.
But now neither yesterday nor tomorrow exists.
What about the moment a second ago when you started reading this blog? What about a moment from now when you will have finished reading this blog? Do these moments exist?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of these moments may exist if we are now thinking them...
What exists now but now?!
What can be known?
Only that which exists.
Will you wake up tomorrow morning?
Who knows... But I am sure that you believe that you will.
We can know and we can believe.
We can only know that which we witness.
Will your car start when you head back home today after work?
You don't know, of course, but you believe that it will.
When we don't know we have no choice but to believe.
To believe is to act as if you know even though you don't know.
What else can you do instead?!
After all, you can't know that which doesn't yet exist...
Ignorance, they say, is bliss.
But there are 2 kinds of ignorance
- ignorance out of lack of conscious awareness, and
- ignorance by conscious choice, i.e. ignorance of conscious not-knowing, i.e. ignorance of consciously ignoring that which cannot be known...
Which one is bliss?
Will you wake up tomorrow?
Who knows?!
Ignore the un-knowable...
And notice the Now that still exists...
The Buddhist doctrine of Sunyata (the doctrine of emptiness) is often misunderstood as a nihilistic doctrine of nothingness.
Buddhist psychology negates that which doesn't exist only to affirm that which still exists .
You've heard this before: the past has already happened, therefore it doesn't exist; the future hasn't happened, therefore it doesn't exist. Thus, there's nothing but Now...
So, here we stand, sandwiched between the Nothingness of the Past that's already gone and doesn't exist and the Future that hasn't yet happened and therefore doesn't exist...
Here we stand in this proverbial and pre-verbal here-and-now, in the middle of Nothingness...
This is all there is...
And to ignore this "Now" would be the ignorance of un-awareness.
To ignore what's outside of this "Now" would be the ignorance of bliss...
Psychology - arguably - is a study of Being.
Epistemology is a study of Knowing.
Psychology is Epistemology inasmuch as Being here-and-now is Knowing what still exists.
]]>Syādvāda is the Doctrine of Postulation of Jainism. In other words, Syādvāda provides the body of teachings or instruction which one uses to derive a postulate or axiom. The starting assumption or postulate is given as saptabhanginaya, from which other statements are logically derived. By using saptabhanginaya the theory of relativity encompasses the truths about one system or thought which are the same in one system as in another system in uniform motion relative to it. It is henceforth impossible to determine the truth of a system within its own thought structure, and such development or furtherance of various claims of truth can be observed only in relation to other systems in uniform motion resulting in a qualified prediction as shown in the theory of Manifold Predictions. Therefore each truth is valid within its one system, various truths are synthesized and are mutually exclusive. Amongst several truths about a particular thing, one or the other or both may in fact be valid.
From Jain Epistemology describes the saptabhanginaya or sevenfold predication.
The word syadvada comes from two roots. Syat means "may be", whereas vada means "assertion". Placed together syādvāda becomes the assertion of what may be, the assertion of possibilities.
"Syadvada Quick Lube" (a po:em - a piece of pattern interruption poetry)
1.
If you can see the reality in at least seven ways
You can be at peace with it.
And one with it too.
2.
The essence of any War is:
“I think This” vs. “I think This.”
(from the side it looks like it's just two people arguing about “This” and “That” and there is a point to it)
But from inside the seven-fold Syadvada you know there ain't.
They are fighting for the exact same thing.
3.
And the name of this “This” is
The Nameless.
4.
Truth be told: truth is silent.
pavel somov, 2009
]]>