Webinar on Uncovering Unconscious Views
The first webinar in a series of three webinars was last weekend. You can still attend the next two webinars and listen to the recordings of the first one. Use this link to register for $100. If you need a reduced fee check the box on the form.
Here are some things I talked about during the first webinar:
We actually do not need to look at our views in order to get calm in meditation. If all we are looking for is a peaceful state of mind, self-knowledge is unnecessary for hypnotic, hypnagogic, trance, lucid dreaming, or any other relaxed, altered state.
An open meditation practice does not require an open-ended exploration of one’s views either. Even when it comes to exploring one’s thoughts and emotions, it may be more relevant to pursue an angle of identifying past causes and conditions than it is to finding a hidden view. The Buddha’s method of looking at the source of suffering may give us enough insight into how a particular emotional state and its related train of thought are kept alive.
This is why the Buddhist path of calming the mind and examining one’s inner world in a structured, targeted manner seems sufficient to most people. In this instance, Right View is an asset, not a problem. It is the correct view, the complete view, the view that comes from the Buddha’s authority and is supported by the act of seeing things as they are (or as they have become). It is a view that helps people correct the flaws in any other view that they might consciously hold. It teaches us how to see things as non-self, impermanent, dependently arisen, and compounded (made up of parts). It helps us understand our suffering, our craving, and our ignorance from the Buddha's perspective.
When it comes to the notion that the Buddha spoke of not having views in the Pali Canon, the Buddhist tradition has interpreted that to mean, “not having wrong views.” The Buddha’s Teaching is thus not a view in the sense that the word is being used in these early teachings. It is true. It is not an idea — it is wisdom. It is the knowledge of how things are, and, it has a moral foundation in what is wholesome/unwholesome, skillful/unskillful, and what qualities are to be cultivated and which imperfections are to be avoided and eliminated.
That, in a nutshell, is the Theravada take on “views.” So, when the Buddha describes the field of views on metaphysical matters and practices of purification, his teaching stands outside of that field, looking at it from above. Once he had achieved full, complete liberation of mind, he transcended the field of teachings and practices of his contemporaries. His whole field survey of the views of other teachers of his time was completely unnecessary, in my opinion, because he would always put forward his Right View.
Now enter Sañjaya
Sañjaya was one of the Buddha’s contemporaries. When he is mentioned in the Pali Canon, he talks about his method of analyzing views. He does not put forth a view. He responds to another’s view. In that way, he has no view of his own, no positive teaching to impart, no path to liberation or practice of purification. Or, so it seems on the surface.
Sañjaya’s method seems to be an exercise designed to help people let go of views. The end result would then be a process of no longer taking up views. How would not taking up views be the same as liberation from suffering? That would mean that suffering, desire, craving, ignorance all depend on views as their source. We would have to see that for ourselves to prove it to be the case.
Our beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and perspectives are forms of joy and suffering, intelligence and ignorance, pride and shame, tolerance and aggression. These are stirred up within us. But before we go deeper, we need to spend a bit more time on the surface.
Current Beliefs
It should be fairly easy for each of us to access our current beliefs. You currently believe in God or you don’t, or you are agnostic. You currently believe in a Self or not, or you are not sure. You believe in an afterlife or not, or you are exploring that question. You believe in nibbana or not, or you are wondering about it.
Sañjaya was exploring similar questions 2500 years ago. He knew himself well enough to say that answering “yes” or “no” was not sufficient without knowing what that answer was based on. Would his belief be based on what others have said? Would it be based on his own “vision” or “knowledge”? Would it be something found in his current practices and rituals? Maybe his practice of morality could be traced back to a belief in God. These are the areas he had to explore before he could answer any of these questions.
As much as the early Buddhists loved to create lists and title them, these sources of views were never given a name, though they appear in several places in the Pali Canon. Let’s look at them one by one.
What has been seen: This refers to inner vision, insights, a profound realization. I see it as mostly related to one’s own inner vision, but it could also be how one’s own insights and realizations are matched to someone else’s, such as the Buddha (or what the Buddhist teachers claim are insights). Our insights and realizations that have no external verification sit in a place of doubt, uncertainty, or confusion, though for some people, lining up their realizations with a teaching is not that important.
What has been heard: These are teachings that have been passed down, shared with others, committed to memory, given the highest authority. We could call this knowledge from the tradition, which can be traced back to a founding teacher and a succession or lineage that has preserved these teachings, possibly adding to them and modifying them in the process.
What has been known through thought: This is when you think something through. We can come to a view from having thought about something and coming to a conclusion. That view may then be supported by reason.
What has become embodied through practice: This is the area of vows, rituals, precepts, mantras, yoga, and some types of meditation. The views that come to us may be ideas of the right way of doing something, of moral and ethical values, or superstitions that we follow.
We allow these areas to “arise” and “fill up” in our experience. We can’t examine them if we try to suppress them by avoiding our thoughts or distancing from our emotions.
Exploring Without a Foregone Conclusion
If you investigate your experience with a prescribed lens you will probably be motivated to verify the view you are using rather than derive knowledge from an open, unrestricted investigation of your experience. A Buddhist practitioner has to investigate his experience as impermanent because he is learning how to counter a false view of permanence. The same goes for no-self. When it comes to investigating desire, he has to take a moral perspective on desire being uniformly bad and leading to suffering. He cannot suspend moral judgment.
Sañjaya had no such constraints. He could explore views of permanence alongside views of impermanence, without having to prove which one is “correct.” He could examine Self and God without needing to assert a view of no-self. Examining pleasure and suffering, desire and restraint, wholesome and unwholesome were the same: he didn’t need to land on the “correct” one. In fact, he didn’t need to land anywhere in particular. For, as he kept exploring, there would come a time when he saw how he took up a view and built on it. That “act” of view formation was a more significant discovery than proving which view is correct.