I
previously noted that life should rightfully be seen and experienced as “fragmentary,”
as pieces of existence experienced by each of us. We humans tend to be
afflicted with a “need for meaning,” a need to understand everything in terms
of ourselves, our beliefs, and what we think we “know.” This is considered to
be quite normal. However, it presents the profound problem of creating
ourselves as false identities, and, as such false identities, merging with
other larger forces of false identity, and proceeding to oppose other false
identities whom we identify as enemies, to the point that we do our best to
destroy and massacre with the permission of our “divine sources.”
Let me give a prime example. One has a
sudden sense of clarity or of feeling a sense of joy and peace, or of seeing
the “beauty of nature” in its myriad forms, or feeling a “close bonding” with
another person or even oneself, or of “understanding” an abstraction of
mathematics or physics in which there seems to be an “expansion of insight or
awareness.” Such occurrences do happen to us, but the problem arises instantly
when we feel compelled to interpret what such experiences “mean,” for, when we
do this, as we all do, we infect and corrupt the original experience with our
cultural and social beliefs in which we have been raised and have come to identify
as consisting of our “own” beliefs. Depending on the culture and society in
which one lives and whose beliefs have been informed, it may be a “message from
God” and that God may be Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Satan, etc., or a “message from
the ancestors,” and it could therefore be telling us whatever the prevailing
beliefs or messages of that particular religious perspective may be. Or, one
may take it as a message that one is the Avatar, or world savior, or, at the
very least, has attained enlightenment. Or, if one is not particularly
religious, but is more of a psychological or medical or philosophical bent, it
may be taken to be a sign that one is becoming senile or perhaps wise or has a
chemical imbalance in the brain or a disease of the eyes. In all honesty, I
would give some of the latter medical and psychological and philosophical approaches
some attention since medicine could possibly though not necessarily explain
such experiences. I know people who were delusional and paranoid and who were “cured”
by taking an antipsychotic med. So I seem to argue against my own point at
least on the physical level of being.
When one believes, one naturally
interprets one’s experiences in ways that will affirm that belief, so that the
belief becomes more and more “real” in one’s life. We have an insecure need to
affirm ourselves, to prove that we exist, as it were. In this same manner we
create ourselves, our own personality and other various traits, including
appearance. But, in our interpretation of our experiences as proof that our
beliefs are not only right but true, we create a tautology, which is to say, a
circular loop of self-deceit, of falseness. And this enforces what can become a
deadly matrix of difference between us—as individuals, as clans, as nations. So
naturally, a believer in God and/or religion sees “divine messages” or perhaps
devilish ones, thus also creating a dilemma of belief and trust in oneself,
perhaps then leading one to external authorities for “proper interpretation.” A
similar process often occurs in the vast field of psychology; there are
numerous “specialists” and “priests” to tell us “what it all means,” and
further, what to do to solve the problem.
What if we had our experience, which
might be “transcendent” in the sense that it brings us beyond a normal
awareness of ourselves and/or our world, and just were able to be with it as it
is, without having to instantly label it and determine what it “means”? As I
say this, I become aware that I have been practicing this process of “non-identification”
in the practice of zazen over the last forty plus years. This is exactly what
zazen is about: non-identification with one’s self-defined notion of oneself.
But that has been my own path; each finds his or her own way, as I see it.
What if we could simply experience
ourselves, with our thoughts and our feelings and bodily sensations, without
having to instantly react with
self-serving or self-loathing, for that matter, interpretations? What if we
just let all interpretations go? And what if we went a step further and even
let the experience itself go, no matter how great and profound the insight or
understanding it might bring? What if we didn’t go down that rabbit hole of the
self? What if we just let even the notion of “myself” go? Interestingly, if the
thought of self or “me” vanishes from our mind, “I” cease to exist. At that
point I do not get in my way, though at this point I think I am going beyond my
original intent in being able to see “reality” as fragmentary rather than as “solid
and full of meaning.”
If we do not have to add our “personal
veneer” of belief to that which we experience in its pure form and are able to
just “be with it as it is,” we come closer to ourselves as “we are,” that is,
without preconceived notions of who we are “supposed” to be, both socially and
in our own minds. I’ve been reading, Novak’s Belief and Unbelief: a Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, in which he
states: “For when a man (or woman, I add) knows that he (or she) knows, and
knows better what his (or her) knowing is, then there is every likelihood that
he (or she) will avoid many mistakes in what he (or she) claims to know; his
(or her) epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, art, and politics,
and his (or her) ethics flow from a clearer stream” (29).
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