Kent: “But, I’m still no clearer. If all these processes are involved in the arising of narcissism and selfishness, how will it ever be stopped?”
Christopher: Here’s a scenario. Beatrice is out riding, and she thinks he sees a friend on the trail coming in the other direction. But, it’s someone who it is impossible for her to be encountering. Let’s imagine that the friend died last year, from a horse spill.
“In the initial moment she reacts as though she has had a valid recognition, and some old patterns of behaviour begin to arise – delight, for example. But, then her body has the incongruity, doesn’t it – the difference between her perception and her implicit knowledge.
“We say: ‘She does a double-take.’ That is, (based on her implicit knowledge) she re-cognises that something is not right. ‘No, wait!” something silently says. As a result of looking again, she recognises that her initial recognition was not reliable.
“Maybe she marvels at the likeness; but, she sees more clearly, now. “How could I have done that,” she wonders. It’s as though there was a fusion of a familiar image with the perception of the unknown rider coming the other way. At that point, she couldn’t tell the two apart.”
K: “Okay. I think I get it. You’re suggesting that there’s some analogy in this; and, it has to do with how the trance of habitual perception works.”
C: “Yes. But I also think our example will help us see the way out, if we articulate it in the terms of the processes of birth and death.”
K: “Oh. She got born as…?”
C: “Beatrice has a clear misperception of reality, such that she really felt that her friend was there, and she even began to react as though she was.”
K: “So, in that moment she’s born as a false Beatrice; she’s relating to something that is not there. She’s not relating to herself correctly, then.”
C: “Yes. Let’s start there, then. Yes. Looking back at our chart of the processes of ‘co-emergent appearing’ (normally called ‘dependent arising’), this is process #1: ignorance, or lack of true knowledge. The Buddhist transformation is about correctly knowing what is; transforming ignorance.
“In ignorance, she’s seeing her friend. That’s what she actually ‘sees’ in that first phase. Obviously, you can’t stop the process there, because you have to first realise there is something wrong. Which means dukkha will have to become obvious.”
K: “But, because everything continues to move and change, then her incarnation (as one seeing her friend), so to speak, must come to an end in the face of it’s not being a reliable experience. That birth as a person happy to see her friend triggers the death of the one she’s become, given that it’s not her friend.”
C: “Yes. Process 12, decay – or old age – and death (jarāmaraṇa). Keep going. Anything else you see?”
K: “But that isn’t the end of it, usually, is it.”
C: “It can be. For a meditator that can be an important point. For an advanced meditator it can be quite freeing. Because the gap that is there at the moment of the dissolution, that can be recognised if you’re subtle-minded. And, the gap, where nothing is created, that can be freedom, instantly.
“But, normally, it’s less complete. And, the process can go two ways: a whole next birth is set in motion. She can be born as a mouthpiece for her inner critic, for example. “What an idiot! Of course it’s not her. You dolt!”
K: “Ouch!”
C: “Yes. But that’s one pattern that is common.”
K: “And the other pattern?”
C: “In our scenario, the way out…”
K: “Is in the double-take.”
C: “Yes. It’s in the recognition that she’s suffering (process 12). Something doesn’t feel right, right there. And, because Beatrice has learnt to be interested in dukkha (which is equivalent of decay and death), she stays right there to experience it mindfully.
“As a result, positive qualities emerge. In the Upanisa Sutta, of the Samyutta Nikāya, the transition is detailed: “dukkha has birth as its prerequisite, faith has dukkha as its prerequisite, joy has faith as its prerequisite…”, etc. (‘Faith’ here is more like our ‘conviction.’)
K: “I suppose it’s not that strange. Confidence emerges from facing our mental pain, and seeing it realistically. It reminds me of a saying I heard: ‘The way out is the way in.’ Or, was it the other way around?”
C: “Find the way into an instance of dukkha and you’ll inevitably – albeit slowly – find the way out of all dukkha. That’s good. If Beatrice is very practiced at the contemplative’s discipline, she might then take time to explore what factors (process #2) shaped her moment of trance.
“Maybe she’ll recognise that she has been pushing away the thought of her friend, lately – as too painful. This avoidance she finds conditions the misperception.”
K: “Karma.”
C: “That’s karma. And, she might, if she’s really been working consistently and persistently, ride this one instance all the way home to liberation. It may seem a small thing, but it has all the processes of trance in it.
“I think of the nun… Oh, dear. I’m out of time. I’ll tell you about her, later. Maybe tomorrow. Let me say in conclusion, Beatrice has to be able to tolerate the dissolution of who she thinks she is, and to not identify with a substitute image, to be free.”
K: “That helps. The processes in that circle, they are the creation of false identity.”
C: “Name and form – process #4. (Don’t take any notice of the ‘mind and matter’ thing, in that diagram. In the Nikāyas it’s about name and form. I’ll have to make a better diagram.)”
K: “Okay. So, the dukkha is ended by trusting the actual non-creation of identity.”
C: “Oh, yes. Which reminds me: another translation for
saddhā – the word I translated above as ‘faith’ and ‘confidence’ – is ‘trust.’ It’s trust in ‘This,’ the unfabricated; based on seeing ‘things as they as they actually is,’ as Suzuki Roshi used to say.”
“Tomorrow, I’d like to compare our everyday narcissism to the part in Beatrice’s story where she experiences a fusion of a familiar image with the perception of the unknown rider coming the other way. Where she couldn’t tell the two apart. We do this myriad times a day – fusing self-images with our own raw experiences.”