The Buddha said to Subhuti, “This is how [they] master their
thinking: ‘However many species of living beings there are…we must
lead all these beings to nirvana so that they can be liberated. Yet
when [they have] become liberated, we do not, in truth, think that a
single being has been liberated.’
“Why is this so? If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva holds on to the idea that
a self, a person, a living being, or a life span exists, that person
is not a true bodhisattva.”
Thus begins Gautama Buddha’s response to the opening question posed in
the Diamond Sutra, on how spiritual aspirants are to master their
thinking0. He first addresses the purpose towards which thinking is
to be mastered—as the liberation of all beings (from what?)—to
settle the premise behind the question. Then he commences his lengthy
(as we shall see) attack on conceptual thinking, beginning with the
belief in the concept of an individual. While he does not bring up the
former again, i.e. the premise behind spiritual practice, let’s first
give it a more thorough examination. We will then discuss where the
renunciation of (or more precisely, the detachment from) the self fits
in with the mastery of thinking.
“World-Honored One, if sons and daughters of good families want to give rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind, what should they rely on and what should they do to master their thinking?”
Thus begins the dialogue between the spiritual aspirant Subhuti and his
teacher Gautama Buddha, in the text popularly known as The Diamond
Sutra0. In answering the question, Gautama proceeds to impress at
length about the necessity of dropping the idea of the self, and
dropping ideas altogether. We shall discuss these in turn, but let’s
begin with considering the means towards spiritual accomplishment as
presented here: to master thinking.
Buddhism is usually introduced as a philosophy and practice towards the
end of suffering. The Four Noble Truths1—possibly the most well
known teaching of the Buddha, and his first—begins with the statement
that suffering2 is an unavoidable feature of the normal human
condition, continues with the diagnosis of suffering as grasping3,
and then offers as remedy the prescription of ethical behavior,
meditation practice and philosophical understanding4. But here in
The Diamond Sutra, the ask is not about how to be happy (a.k.a. the
end of suffering); but how to master thinking.
Not just How to Be, but also What to Do
Classic spirituality1 trains and informs seekers on seeing through
their prejudices about reality—mainly, that the world is an
environment around a particularly special I distinct from it. Upon
success with this, individuals take their stand as awareness rather than
as self-important persons, and feel a one-ness with all experience. This
translates to a special flavor of peace, and an end to unnecessary
psychological suffering. They have learned How to Be.
This is where classic spirituality stops—at enlightenment, nirvana,
liberation, self-realization: words that point to this new stance of
Being. But is there more to be said? How do we decide what to do next?
Is there a corresponding philosophy of Doing?
***
Q: What motivates, when there is no fear or desire?
A: Nothing. Unless you count love of life, righteousness, and beauty.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj. I Am That2.
Lines of reasoning about the nature of experience, based on self-enquiry and self-verification, that question and invalidate the separation we habitually assume and feel between us and the rest of life: between us and other people, between us and our work, and between us and nature.
This is how I might answer a friend casually asking what non-dual philosophy is. Conducted in the plane of subjective experience, this study is quite different from science—there are no table of results to interpret, no phenomena to measure, and no special tools to conduct experiments with.
Why do we care? Because some of us are curious, and after looking into it some, find that the ideas therein resonate with our experience. The skier amongst us finds that they give expression to their unnameable ecstasy on the slopes, when they feel their soul between the skis and the snow. The accountant, to their disappearance into the sea of numbers on the spreadsheet straddling their dual-monitors, becoming one with the data. Non-dual philosophy provides a conceptual framework that helps with extending these experiences of non-separation out, from situations where it comes naturally to us to those where it’s not-so-much.
I have always imagined that the word individual, referring to a person, was antithetical to the concept of interdependence, the idea that all of us inextricably make up the ecology of the world. For individual implied to me an independent entity, distinct from its environment. But in a recent moment of gnosis it occurred to me that the word itself might be saying something about division, not dependence. Sure enough, looking up its etymology reveals its roots in the Latin word individuus, “indivisible”. Very interesting, isn’t it? It’s suggesting that what we are as individuals, our essential identity, is something that cannot be split in two. The idea, a little fantastic as it sounds, tickled my fancy. What does it mean to be indivisible? And what is its relationship, if any, with interdependence?
