Selected Correspondence Peter

Of course ‘the beast’, to use your words, will resist this, as being happy and being harmless goes against ‘the beast’s’ very nature – but what to do? If you want to be free of the human condition this is the work to be done, no matter how daunting or how scary it may seem at first.

It seems daunting and scary from a normal state of mind, but I’ve noticed that in a PCE (and similar state), it all seems like much ado about nothing. In the complete absence of sorrow and aggression there is absolutely no need for conscientious remedies, yet no loss of ‘caring’ either. It’s great.

In a PCE there is neither malice nor sorrow present and this experiential observation is the key to the actualist method of self-immolation. Given that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, then it is obvious that ‘I’ am both malicious and sorrowful at heart. Hence the way to work on ‘my’ demise is to work on eliminating all of ‘my’ feelings of malice and sorrow by dis-empowering them, and the way to do that is to bring them to the bright light of awareness – in short ‘I’ make a definitive decision to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless.

This is the up-front, in-your-face challenge of actualism.

To add an additional note, I notice that you have recently made reference to the philosophy of Thomas Metzinger to support your claim that an altered state of consciousness can have the same purity as a PCE. As you can see from the quote, he makes the point that such a state of being (‘being no one’) does not mean the ending of sorrow –

So, ‘being no-one’ means, no such things as selves exist in the world. There are only the temporal contents of transparent PSMs.*) What we called ‘the self’ in the past doesn’t exist. There is no essence, but only a complex self-representational process. But, although subjects don’t exist, they are sentient, endowed with the capacity to suffer. Not even being no-one protects us from misfortune, harm, and sorrow.

*) ‘Phenomenal Self-Model’ (PSM)

Book Review Reiner Hedrich Justus Liebig Universität Giessen THOMAS METZINGER, Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

There have been a good many attempts to develop purely philosophical/psychological theories about altered states of consciousness in an attempt to develop a secular mysticism as opposed to the more traditional spiritual mysticism. Whilst spiritual mysticism is rooted in the morality of love and compassion, secular mysticism sits more comfortably with Humanism and its humanitarian ethics. It is interesting to note that some Buddhist scholars seem keen to develop and promote a secular Buddhism in an effort to distance Buddhism from its spiritual roots, presumably to the point of claiming that Buddhism is non-spiritual.

None of this is what actualism is about of course. As I understand it, the first stage of Richard’s patient dismantling of his altered state of consciousness ‘being’ was to dismantle the more obvious spiritual aspects, namely those of love and compassion. The next stage involved dismantling the more secular aspects, namely the Humanistic ethics of pacifism, justice, fairness and the need to belong to humanity at large. To dare to abandon all that humanity holds dear is radical indeed.

While people are saving lives by the thousands ... life keeps getting better ... but this should not make us complacent. It takes on-going mindful action when required ... necessitating the need for, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ methodology. It works because I have been using it since 1986.

Are you saving people by the thousands? Is your life getting better? Are you getting complacent? I am a bit confused as to what you are saying here. Personally, I see no lives getting better, despite the increasing level of physical comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure that is available for many human beings. For me, as my life got better in terms of comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure, I found the yearning for genuine freedom, peace and happiness became unbearably urgent. The contrast between the actual and what was going on inside me was too obvious to continue denying and I saw the spiritual solution was merely to stick one’s head in the clouds, or to go around wearing rose coloured glasses.

As for ‘on-going mindful action’, it is not a term that I can relate to as being relevant to running the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

‘Mindful action’, to me, relates to the Buddhist ethic of acting with right mindfulness or right mind. The whole point of Actual Freedom is to be free of any need for moral or ethical restraint such that one can rely on oneself 100%, in each and every situation, to not act instinctually, to not give or take offence. It is obvious from one’s PCEs that this is only possible in a ‘self’-less state. No ‘self’ to be offended or to give offence. No malice, no sorrow. Mindful action is to maintain a strict control over one’s actions – the antithesis of freedom. One only needs to observe the rigid, self-disciplined and restrictive lifestyles of monks and nuns to see mindful action in operation.

The separation feeds the ego by making the ‘I’ into what is important instead of the choice of how we act as to whether suffering is increased or decreased.

The whole approach of Eastern religion, and Buddhism in particular, is that being here on the planet is essential suffering and the quicker you can get out of being here the better. Thus the shamans and God-men have always isolated themselves from the suffering of the world and closeted themselves away in monasteries, ashrams, Sanghas and the like. They then practiced turning inwards and separating from their own feelings of sorrow and solely identified with their good feelings and feelings of Godliness and Holiness. These beliefs and practices have never, and will never, eliminate suffering in the world, but those higher beings who have separated and detached themselves get to feel a lot better than those in the market place.

This act of separation was particularly evident in theocratic Buddhist Tibet where every family sent a son to the monastery to become a monk. The lamas and monks lived in splendid palaces surrounded by gold, silver and the finest of artworks, practiced their teachings, meditated and said their prayers, all supported and paid for by the rest of the ‘suffering’ population. The country had no army – one quarter of the population were busy praying for salvation and peace – so when the Chinese walked over the border, the Lamas fled, taking the gold with them and leaving the defenceless common folk who had suffered in supporting the Lamas to now suffer at the hands of their new masters.

The men of God have always been ‘above’ suffering, the priests have always bludged off others, the moral spiritual high ground has always been the safest ground because one can always blame someone else or something else for one’s own malice and sorrow rather than look at it in oneself.

The churches have forever blamed human suffering on bad spirits, evil, the Devil, money, materialism, empirical science, technological progress, the unaware, the unawake, the non-believers, the heathens, etc – anything but dare to admit that humans are blindly driven by self-survival instincts and passions.

These instinctual passions, humanity’s precious feelings, are the empirical source of malice and sorrow in human beings, and a way has now been pioneered to eliminate them. The churches, Gurus, shamans and God-men will all rile against this discovery for centuries to come, but the end result is inevitable – the ancient fantasies of good and evil, the Devil and God will eventually fade and die out to be replaced by a new non-instinctive-animal species of humans who no longer battle, feud and kill each other in a grim, senseless instinctual battle of survival, or pompously declare they are ‘above it all’ and are too busy praying for ‘inner peace’ to be at all bothered about what is going on ‘outside’.

Of all the Ancient God-men, Mr Buddha is the current the most fashionable (and not un-coincidentally, I suspect, the most mythical). Phrases such as ‘One’s Buddha nature’, ‘Buddha-like’, ‘Buddha Consciousness’, etc. all point to an almost universal un-questioning acceptance of his Kingship of the Divine realm in spiritual circles.

It is well worth re-posting an ancient Buddhist text that Richard sourced and posted recently to another list in order to see exactly what is on offer in Buddhism.

And what is right mindfulness? There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in and of itself – ardent, alert, and mindful – putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in and of themselves (....) the mind in and of itself (...) mental qualities in and of themselves – ardent, alert, and mindful – putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. This is called right mindfulness. And what is right concentration? There is the case where a monk – quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskilful (mental) qualities – enters and remains in the first Jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. With the stilling of directed thought and evaluation, he enters and remains in the second Jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation – internal assurance. With the fading of rapture he remains in equanimity, mindful and alert, physically sensitive of pleasure. He enters and remains in the third Jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, he has a pleasurable abiding.’ With the abandoning of pleasure and pain – as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress – he enters and remains in the fourth Jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain. This is called right concentration. This is called the noble truth of the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. In this way he remains focused internally on mental qualities in and of themselves, or externally on mental qualities in and of themselves, or both internally and externally on mental qualities in and of themselves. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to mental qualities, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to mental qualities, or on the phenomenon of origination and passing away with regard to mental qualities. Or his mindfulness that ‘There are mental qualities’ is maintained to the extent of knowledge and remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on mental qualities in and of themselves with reference to the four noble truths. The ‘Mahasatipatthana Sutta’ (The Great Frames of Reference) Digha Nikaya 22, elaborates on the practice of mindfulness meditation with a more detailed exposition of [D. Mental Qualities 5] in the Satipatthana Sutta.

‘And thus it is written that a monk shall sit in the corner with his eyes closed, withdraw from the world of sensual, sensate pleasure, stick his head in the clouds and dream of nirvana – anywhere but here and anyplace but now’ – a simplified stripped down version of Buddhism for the intellectually challenged. Ah! Nothing like a bit of Guru-bashing, and none better to take on than the undisputed King of Denial and Withdrawal. Is there nothing sacred to an actualist? No. Both the good feelings that arise from the supposed good instincts and the spiritual search for immortality that arises from the core survival instinct have to be questioned, examined, dissected and scrutinized in order to weaken their insidious influence on our lives. It took Richard ten times as long to rid himself of these good feelings as it took him to eliminate the bad ones. It is essential to tackle the whole of the instinctual programming – no half measures will work.

Interestingly, I have a number of friends who turned to Buddhism after the Rajneesh thing petered out. If you have to have a religion, which everyone does, Buddhism is such a ‘safe’ religion to be in – particularly the New Age version. Modern Buddhism is baby-boomer bumf.

Surely, just surely, it’s time to admit that the tried and true is but the ‘tried and failed’.

After all – the definition of a lunatic is someone who keeps does the same thing, again and again, despite the fact that it doesn’t work.

Mr. Rajneesh – ‘Man has lived up to now not truly, not authentically; man has lived a very pseudo life. Man has lived in great pathology, man has lived in great disease. And there is no need to live in this pathology – we can come out of the prison, because the prison is made by our own hands. We are in the prison because we have decided to be in the prison – because we have believed that the prison is not a prison but our home. My message to humanity is: Enough is enough. Awake! See what man has done to man himself. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. You cannot call this humanity healthy. And only once in a while has a Buddha bloomed. If in the garden only once in a while a plant brings a flower, and otherwise the whole garden remains without flowers, will you call it a garden? Something very basic has gone wrong. Each person is born to be a Buddha: less than that is not going to fulfil you. I declare to you your Buddhahood.’

There are currently about one million Buddhists on the planet, and many, many self-declared ‘Buddhas’ and yet this has been the bloodiest century yet. I think you have recently read of the Buddhist-inspired atrocities in Nanking only some 60 years ago. Surely it is time to question why there is such a gap between the idealistic and ethereal teachings of the God-men and Gurus and the actual result of their teachings in practice. There have been billions of Buddhists and only about a thousand of them managed the state of Enlightenment and after 2,500 years surely it is time to call a halt to believing that if we all become Buddhas then ‘our garden will be full of flowers’. What fantasy in the face of facts.

Talk about dreaming! A seductive, poetic dream, but a dream never-the-less.

‘How long will we continue this denial of the central role that genetically-encoded instinctual passions have in causing human malice and sorrow? And how long will people keep turning away from the facts and proudly indulging in utterly ‘self’-ish theories and beliefs?’

My reading of the dharma – and my experience as a seeker – suggest that the whole point of the spiritual journey is to face these instinctual passions, take responsibility for them because they do cause malice and sorrow, and care for others more than for one’s own self.

From your description of ‘the spiritual journey’ – what do you mean by the term ‘take responsibility for them’? How do you put it into action?

By the phrase ‘reading of the dharma’ I take it you are referring to the teachings of Mr. Siddhartha Gautama. I have come across no mention of instinctual passions in any of his teachings, nor any other spiritual teachings, be they ancient or the more modern derivatives. Could you please supply evidence of your statement, as I would not want to state anything that was not factual?

According to Britannica.com –

No mention of instinctual passions, eliminating malice and sorrow, no mention of peace on earth. Like all beliefs one needs only look at the fundamental principle upon which it is founded. In Buddha’s case his core belief on which all his teachings are founded is that ‘life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’.

Your conclusion that spiritual inquiry – what may be ultimately the expression of an evolutionary impulse to go beyond the chimpanzee in us – is in fact selfish, proudly indulgent and motivated by the desire to deny the reality of the human condition seems, again, limited in the interest of keeping your conclusions intact in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. I get the sense that you think that the teachings of liberation are antiquated beliefs of grubby old men who lived thousands of years ago that have been deluding generation upon generation ever since. This simply is not the case, Peter.

Well, we can sink to the level of t’is/tisn’t, right/ wrong which is but a futile exercise. I simply write presenting the facts of the human obsession with the spiritual beliefs, be they Western or Eastern, primitive or sophisticated, monotheist, pantheist, scientific, theomorphism, anthropomorphism or whatever other form. If you believe a particular version of these teachings of liberation will bring an end to human conflict and suffering then fair enough. It probably means we have to wait for your favourite to win the battle of the God’s and emerge triumphant for peace on earth. I took the easy route and stepped out of the spiritual world – a quick and effective direct route to accessing the already, ever-existing peace on earth. I have left the Gods fighting it out where they belong – in the spiritual world.

Maybe you can see why I don’t root for your team, let alone any other team.

*

‘A marvellous opportunity is now available for any who are willing to face facts. No longer do we humans have to feel guilt or shame, pray to God for redemption or salvation, seek to escape from evil into an ‘inner’ world of isolation and feeling-only existence, no longer do we have to humble ourselves before God-men. Simply acknowledging the fact that our malice and sorrow results from an instinctual program instilled by blind nature in order to ensure the survival of the species is the first step towards becoming actually free of malice and sorrow. To continue to deny factual empirical evidence is to indulge in denial and this denial actively prevents your chance at experiencing peace on earth in this lifetime.’

Beautiful. I couldn’t agree more. But ultimately only through seeing the empirical evidence objectively will this statement serve the manifestation of peace and sanity.

Methinks seeing things ‘objectively’ is at the root of Buddhist philosophy. Objectively means – ‘with objectivity, without bias, without prejudice, impartially, disinterestedly, with detachment, dispassionately, equitably, even-handedly, fairly, justly, open-mindedly, with an open mind, without fear or favour’. On the face of it, being objective can sound reasonable until you note the words – ‘disinterestedly, with detachment, dispassionately’. To see things objectively means one has to become an outside observer and not involved which fairly describes the Buddhist philosophy. By cool objective observation, practicing ‘right concentration and right action’ , one lives one’s life in objective detachment and thus transcends desire and suffering. Where I come from, this is dissociation.

Give me subjective investigation any day. It does mean facing the facts of the human condition, both of the real world and the spiritual world, but the rewards are palpable, tangible and actual.

It was only by getting my head out of the clouds and ‘getting down and getting dirty’, getting stuck into the roots of animal passion that I was able to eliminate them from my life.

As for ‘the higher teachings of Buddhists’ perhaps we could look to the source of these teachings. The essence of the Buddha’s teaching was said to be the Four Noble Truths:

1. Life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering;
2. suffering is a result of one’s desires for pleasure, power, and continued existence;
3. in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring; and
4. the way to stop desiring and thus suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration.

No mention of ‘the wonder and beauty in this world’, quite the contrary. Like all spiritual teachings one needs to look at the fundamental principle upon which it is founded. In Buddha’s case his core principle upon which all his teachings are founded is that ‘life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’. The ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ can then be seen quite clearly as a ‘right’ re-conditioning of the mind which is very similar to your teachings of ‘by opening up to a far more subtle view of what is happening will bring them to a point that the thinking mind will just drop away and What Is will be clear.

For someone whose declared position is that ‘I have never followed any Eastern religion or philosophy’ you do seem to make a habit of using Eastern religion and philosophy to support your case for peace on earth and your ‘non-religious’ philosophy does bear a very striking resemblance to that of Buddhism.

If you breathe that Light it will rest in the Heart, no effort just natural breathing. It’s what the Tibetan Buddhists call the ‘compassion which rests in emptiness’

I think Mr. Siddhartha Gautama has a lot to answer for in his teachings of sorrow. Pity he is long dead for I wouldn’t mind asking him a few questions as to why he believes ‘Life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’ – the first and fundamental principle of his Four Noble Truths. It is from this belief that suffering is necessary in the human condition that the feeling of compassion arises – the agreement to mutual suffering that prevents anyone from breaking out of the cycle even if they enter into the imaginary meta-physical world of religious belief and all that entails.

I realize I was pushing the envelope to dare to try and talk about how to actualize peace on earth on a spiritual mailing list. Your ruling does add substance to my point that peace on earth is not on the spiritual agenda, a bit ‘less interesting’ than the main event. I have yet to see it mentioned in any spiritual teaching for all religious belief is concerned either with ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’, ‘inner’ peace or ‘Resting In Peace’, after death.

Keep reading. It’s definitely out there. See Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism, the writings of Swami Vivekananda, and more recently, the works of my own teacher, Andrew Cohen, which speak extensively about this subject. Visit www.andrewcohen.org for more info.

If you want to make a point of substance and worth, it is of no use to wave your arms and say it’s somewhere ‘out there’. Please provide some evidence to substantiate your claims for saying one thing while doing another – stifling a discussion about peace on earth – does somewhat weaken your stance. However, looking briefly in the directions you indicated I find –

Buddhism’s central tenet is that

• ‘life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’ – the first and underlying principle of Mr. Siddhartha Gautama’s ‘Four Noble Truths’ : Given this ultimately debilitating view of human existence on the planet it is clear that peace on earth is not a part of any Buddhist teachings.
• The second Noble Truth is ‘suffering is a result of one’s desires for pleasure, power, and continued existence’ – no mention of the role of instinctual passions in causing human malice and sorrow.
• The third Noble Truth is ‘in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring which points to the ages-old practice of denial and renunciation’, i.e. a turning away from human malice and sorrow and the physical world.
• The fourth Noble Truth is ‘the way to stop desiring and thus suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration’ which clearly points to obtaining a feeling of ‘inner’ peace.

Peace in the Buddhist world of fundamental disappointment and suffering is maintained either by keeping one’s inner cool, remaining focused within and being morally and ethically ‘right’ or, for the serious practitioners, finding an sheltered peace by retreating to isolated monasteries or spiritual communities of like-minded people. Nowhere do I find in Buddhist teachings any mention of peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only.

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