Whoever dwells contemplating the pleasant, sense faculties unguarded,
not understanding food, inactive and making little effort,
they will be overpowered by Māra, like a weak tree in the wind.
– Dhammapada, verse 7. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.
I was looking a sutta today with friends. Our group will go into it in more depth, next month. For my part, one central concept in the sutta stood out as needing more appraisal, and I’d like to begin to think it through with you. I sense that it ties in with my as-yet-unexplored blog theme of ‘authenticity.’
To summarise, the Nikāya Buddha says to his students, something like, “Do not wander out of your natural field (gocara). If you do, Māra (the King of Death) will get a toehold in. And what is your natural field? The four placements of mindfulness – body, feeling-tones, mind-states, and the internal dynamics of your experiencing – these are your natural field. Death will not gain access to a person who remains in their natural field.” And, the corresponding situation is stated: “Death will gain access to a person who wanders outside their natural field.” (Gocara, by the way, is literally ‘a cow’s grazing.’ It can be translated as pasture, but ‘field’ or ‘sphere’ are correct, too.)
Thus far, it makes sense, but what interests me is this sentence: “Now, what is not your field; what is outside of your field? It is the five strands of sensual pleasure. Which five? Forms perceptible to the eye, sounds perceptible to the ear, smells perceptible to the nose, tastes perceptible to the tongue, and objects of touch perceptible to the body – all of which are wished for, desirable, lovable, agreeable, connected with lust, and enticing. This is not your field; it is outside of your field.”
What can this mean? Aren’t the senses included in one’s ‘natural field’? I will come back to it. I want to first talk about knowing one’s present-moment experiencing. I think this detour into how we know what we know, might give a clue to the question. Perhaps, we will find some understanding of ‘This,’ the big going-on, through the mediation of the senses?
When I was young, my subjectivity – the experience from the inside, so to speak – was not at all lucid. It was very confused. I couldn’t understand what ‘This’ was – this big going-on which includes me. I have striven, therefore, to make the world of experiencing intelligible.
This couldn’t be done by studying the so-called ‘physical’ world, because that study left me still asking, ‘But what knows this physical world, from in here.” Neither has the study of the brain given me anything but merely ‘physical correlates’ to match up against how I experience it. It still begs the question of what it is to be conscious. Science has no explanatory power when it comes to the raw experience of nowness.
And, Buddhadharma was meant to make the world intelligible; but it has done so by pointing back to my own experience, for its own answers. That’s as it should be. Deep bows to the awakened for pointing. But, I’m thrown back on my own raw, personal experiencing – subjectivity.
The view that I have come to, in striving for an intelligible subjectivity, then, goes like this: Neither ‘inner’ nor ‘outer’ experience can be established as ultimately real, mainly because the only way I can know the inner, or the outer (or the reality of that very inner-outer distinction) is through my own awareness. I can’t get outside my awareness to verify my experience. (Of course, I can talk to you about your experience, and we can make comparisons, but the process is still mediated by consciousness.)
We can say: experiencing is verified by experiencing. The reality of experiencing is dependent on the very sensory and mental organs, and capacities, which give the experiencing in the first place. And so, nothing can be established to exist in the way it is presented. “Things are not as they appear to be.” (Lankavatara Sutra)
However, at the limit of knowledge, I can know that there is a big life process, of which I am; yet, which is not conceivable. I’m going to come back to this, again and again, over the last months of this blog-life – to say it in different ways. I have recently found a new way to talk about that space at the edge of knowledge, a way which I am finding touches my friends and students – so I look forward to sharing it, at some point soon.
But for today, let’s say that I have come to trust that we experience the world (both inner and outer) because the bigger process actually is going on, even though I’m not seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching it directly; and, that the ‘field’ of my experiencing is my body’s take on that inconceivable big life process – the inconceivable going-on. Without it, I would not have things as they appear to be. Our experiencing is a shadow, an echo (remember Echo) of that. And, this echo is not my own. It belongs to the implicit big ‘This’ process. “Things are not as they appear to be; neither are they otherwise.” (Lankavatara Sutra)
It has taken a dispassionate will, to come to this – a ‘hands-off’ approach to experiencing, so that experiencing could just be what it is, free and uncontrived. Only when the person relinquishes ownership of experiencing, can the non-clinging, non-grasping awareness intuit the inconceivable aspect of reality.
Whoever dwells not contemplating the pleasant, sense faculties guarded,
understanding food, confident and diligent,
truly, Mara will not overpower them, like the wind [against] a mountain.
– Dhammapada, verse 8. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.