https://www.lionsroar.com/ask-the-teachers-18/
This is an interesting piece, because of the very different answers that various Buddhist teachers give to the question "do Buddhas think?"
One teacher:
The second teacher agrees:
But I think these are wrong. This has all been mapped out by the Dzogchen tradition. Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (TUR):
When thoughts liberate simultaneously with their arising, they are no longer "thoughts" at all. This is very hard for the mind to understand. TUR again:
The hardest part about getting here is that it seems very clearly impossible to function without thoughts. Therefore, we set up this idea that in the awakened state, we will have only the necessary thoughts. But this belief ultimately prevents us from seeing what lies completely beyond thought.
This is an interesting piece, because of the very different answers that various Buddhist teachers give to the question "do Buddhas think?"
One teacher:
As I understand it, the awakened mind includes thinking; it’s just that the thinking is necessary, functional, and discerning rather than indulgent, unnecessary, and addictive. Without attachment to thinking, silence and peace are available. In not grasping after thoughts and taking them to be me and mine, there is freedom instead of bondage.This is a position I've heard many times: the thinking is reduced to the essentials. Direct! Necessary! Functional! Sounds very... Zen. Obviously you couldn't function without any thought, right? How would you know what to do?
Buddhas plan, but don’t engage in worry. They make decisions but are not swayed by self-centered emotions. Buddhas are immeasurably creative but not interested in fantasy. Buddhas think but are not caught up in their thoughts, and do not mistake their thoughts to be who they are. They are present in the midst of thoughts arising, and use thinking as a way to benefit all beings.
The second teacher agrees:
The short answer is, yes, buddhas do think. However, I have a bumper sticker on my car that says, “Don’t believe everything you think,” because so often we identify with our thoughts and set up a self there.
...
“Who is it that notices these thoughts as wholesome or unwholesome and responds for the benefit of all beings?” This is an example of how a buddha or bodhisattva thinks.
But I think these are wrong. This has all been mapped out by the Dzogchen tradition. Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (TUR):
What this really means is that we should repeatedly look into what thinks. We should recognize the absence or emptiness of this thinker over and over again, until finally the power of deluded thinking weakens, until it is totally gone without a trace.But this is not how a Buddha practices; this is how a beginner practices. Recall from the first quote:
They are present in the midst of thoughts arising, and use thinking as a way to benefit all beings.
Dzogchen talks about three stages of capacity:
Within this method of [cherdrol], "liberation through bare attention," there exists a minimal mental activity; we turn our attention to the thought as soon as it arises and recognize it as a thought. ... Although this may have become a largely automatic process, there still exists a small time gap between the arising of the thought, the becoming aware of its presence, and the recognition of it as a thought, on the one hand, and its dissolving again, on the other hand. For the beginner this practice is appropriate, but later it will become a fault if it is not transcended.
At the next stage, the thought disintegrates as soon as it arises. Patrul Rinpoche illustrates this process with the example of drawing pictures on the surface of the water. The picture disintegrates as soon as it is drawn.
...
With the third stage, even the distinction between arising and liberating or dissolving is transcended. ... Thoughts liberate as they arise; their very arising is the process of their liberating. This is the method proper to Dzogchen, and all else is but preparation.
When thoughts liberate simultaneously with their arising, they are no longer "thoughts" at all. This is very hard for the mind to understand. TUR again:
As conceptual thinking diminishes and finally vanishes, what is left to cause us to wander in samsara? The very basis for samsaric existence is none other than conceptual thinking.This is what the third teacher (also a Dzogchen master) indicates:
By definition, a buddha—one who is free of the suffering of existence—does not have a grasping mind. Since a buddha does not grasp, a buddha does not have thoughts.
A buddha’s perception is pure awareness, or rigpa, which is not a product of the moving, thinking mind, but is direct perception. Thought can never experience the true nature of mind directly, so in Dzogchen, thought is not encouraged since it will not liberate us from suffering. And while conventionally we could agree that the thought to benefit another is preferable to the thought of jealousy, in order to achieve full realization one needs even to be free of positive thoughts because of their involvement with the grasping mind.
The hardest part about getting here is that it seems very clearly impossible to function without thoughts. Therefore, we set up this idea that in the awakened state, we will have only the necessary thoughts. But this belief ultimately prevents us from seeing what lies completely beyond thought.
5 comments:
While I agree that the typical relationship to thoughts and thinking tends to be dysfunctional, I also consider the issue vis-à-vis awakening to be something of a red herring. As I see it, even as compulsive, sticky, non-productive (or outright counter-productive) and excessively self-referential as thinking tends to be for most of us, it’s largely symptomatic of the real underlying problem .
As for the nature of the underlying problem, my sense is that it’s a reflexive energetic contraction or impedance, which remains invisible due to its developmentally preverbal/preconceptual roots. Everyone focuses on the conceptual level because it’s always right there in their face, which in turn makes it easy to identify with the content of that level, but its root is much deeper. Ironically, though, it might be possible to use thinking in a more profound, contemplative manner to deconstruct the blocks to that deeper, preverbal level, with potentially liberating (or at least substantially therapeutic) effect.
BTW, I appreciate your closing sentiment about what's beyond thought.
Thanks for the comment! (BTW, do we know each other from elsewhere? It's exceptionally rare that someone comments on this blog.)
I agree with your assessment, insofar as I understand it. Merely knowing that Buddhas do not think is hardly helpful in and of itself. But attachment to the idea that they must think is a problem I see often.
Thanks for your reply. I know of your various blogs via Bernardo Kastrup's forum, on which I've lurked and occasionally posted (also as PL) for a number of years. I've always been impressed with the clarity and substance of your posts and essays there, so I've bookmarked two of your blogs.
Regarding the last sentence of your reply, did you mean to say "the idea that they must *not* think is a problem..."? Otherwise I'm not sure I follow.
Hmm actually I meant it as I wrote it. Many people believe that even Buddhas must think, so they don't thoroughly investigate the nature of thinking.
Thanks for the kind words! I didn't even know my blogs were findable! Which other one did you bookmark? These days they are mostly dumping grounds for half-baked ideas.
That’s interesting, because my confusion was based on the opposite observation: that many overestimate or idealize the whole Buddhahood thing to necessarily entail a more or less total cessation of thoughts or thinking, with the corollary that if an awakening has occurred, but the mind isn’t utterly silent, it must not be a true, complete, or final awakening.
In either case, I consider the most salient point to be what you closed the essay on: that which is beyond (or the implicit substance and precondition of) thought and thinking—and indeed, anything at all.
The second blog, Life is Miraculous, I found through your recent “Idealist’s Wager” post on the Metaphysical Speculations forum.
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