CTSM 9, 10, 11: Opening to Oneself is Opening to the World · 29 August 2010
Development of Ego
This section of the book “examine[s] the path from beginner’s mind to the enlightened one” – this examination is the foundation of Buddhism.
CT concludes this chapter by apologizing that it’s “not especially beautiful”, but introduces it as an effort to see ego-psychology as it is: “soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” [144] “As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds,” [144] even if they are not enlightened or peaceful or intelligent.
“The beginning point is hat there is open space, belonging to no one. There is always primordial intelligence connected with space and openness…. Vidya [is] precision, sharpness with space…. We are this space, we are one with it, with vidya… and openness.” [147]
“Confused mind is inclined to view itself as a solid, ongoing thing, but it is only a collection of tendencies, events” [145]. There are five “heaps” of identification, perception and belief that cause this confusion. The unfolding of these so-called skandhas is the development of ega.
1st Skandha, “ignorance-form” – ignoring primordial, open space. “[I]t is as if one of the grains of sand had stuck its neck out and begun to look around. We are that grain of sand, coming to the conclusion of our separateness…. A kind of chemical reaction. Duality has begun [147-8].
This is an intelligent ignorance, made purely of reactions to one’s own projections
2nd Skandha – After one differentiates from open space, he sets to feeling around for the qualities of “the other” – assessing if elements of the outside world are threatening, seductive or neutral.
3rd Skandha – “perception impulse”: responses to the information above. This is a “bureaucracy of feeling and perception” [150], organized in to three main reactions: hatred, desire, stupidity.
4th Skandha - concept. We proceed by labeling everything according to our reactions– good, bad, beautiful, ugly, etc. “So the structure of ego is gradually becoming heavier and heavier” [151]. We use these categories to interpret our weakness as strength, “fabricate a logic of security,” [151] and confirm our ignorance.
5th Skandha – consciousness. This amalgamates the above with uncontrollable patterns of discursive thought. It is from within the 5th skandha that we are now studying Buddhist psychology and meditation.
To conclude, CT introduces the captive monkey, who lives in a five-windowed house – crazily poking its head out each “window” of the senses. He is stuck in the house rather than able to play in the undifferentiated forest, where he could swing in trees and hear the wind moving. He sees his house as solid, and gradually moves from a neurotic to a completely insane state of mind, locking himself in to the mental state known as hell.
The Six Realms
What follows is a description of samsara: a “perpetual cycle of struggle, achievement, disillusionment, and pain” [173].
So, we have the monkey, stuck in hell—an “environment of claustrophobia and aggression” [163]. Eventually he relaxes a bit and begins to “consider the possibility of relief” [164]. This feeling of present impoverishment coupled with fantasizing about more spacious, pleasureable ways to be is the preta loka – the torturous realm of hungry ghosts. This is actually somewhat exciting and amusing: the monkey is more interested in being hungry than satisfying the hunger.
Settling in to habitual responses to the world, the monkey “refuses to explore new territory, clinging to familiar goals and… irritations… intoxicated with his safe, self-contained, familiar world…. [166]. Then, he gets very involved in distinguishing pleasure and pain – passionately manipulating the world to achieve pleasure. Then, plagued by illness, age and death, he logically devises a heaven to escape them – perhaps extreme weath, power or fame. “The monkey dreams of ideal states that are superior to the pleasures and pains of the human realm and is always trying to achieve these states, always trying to be better than anyone else” [168]. This is a time of compulsive progress-measuring: obsession with self mastery and mastery of the world, obsession with (“spiritual”) achievement. There is much self-condemnation and fear of failure.
Sometimes fame or whatever goal is actually achieved! If so, the monkey settles in to a self-hypnotic state of concentration and bliss – blocking out everything irritating or undesirable. This is a high state of concentration (implicitly the state of dharana?) – the realm of the gods.
Next is dhyana, a refined, durable state of mental pleasure. A sense of limitless space is achieved by puffing the ego: “The empire of ego is completely extended… [it] becomes a… gigantic beast.” [170]… this is “the highest level of concentration and achievement that confused, samsaric mind can attain.” [171]
But eventually the monkey realizes this is still ego, and is plunged straight back to hell. “The monkey’s aggression is so intense that the environment around him responds with equal aggression and an atmosphere of heat and claustrophobia develops” [172-3].
Hope dawns. Instead of simply struggling, the monkey begins to experience the struggle and see its futility. He laughs through the usual hallucinations. He discovers that when he does not fight the walls of his “solid” house, “they are not repulsive and hard but are actually warm, soft and penetrable” [173].
From here grows compassion – “a soft and noble heart.” The mind of compassion is soft, open and warm.
The Four Noble Truths
(One common distillation of these propositions is: That humans suffer, that suffering comes from clinging, that it is possible to end suffering, and that Buddhism articulates a path toward this end.)
For CT, the 1st NT is that humans exist in a state of dissatisfaction, dukha. “Somehow, something is not quite right, not quite enough. So we are always trying to fill the gap, to make things right, to find that extra bit of pleasure or security…. Eventually one begins to become irritated by just being ‘me’” [179]. One fears losing the pleasure we enjoy, and desires to escape pain.
CT describes the 2nd NT as a process of constantly trying to maintain and enhance ourselves.
Yet, realizing that the struggle for self-improvement is itself the problem gives way to a feeling of a “sane, awake quality within us” [181] this sanity is the goal, the 3rd NT.
But just “letting go” in to the 3rd NT is only possible for short periods. It takes some kind of practice to habituate to “letting be.”
CT digresses in to a (witty and coruscating) depiction of concentration practices as “mental gymnastics.” Because concentration (i.e. dharana) meditation treats the object of focus as solid, it is ultimately ego-reinforcing. This form of meditation does not deal with the totality of one’s life-situation. “[T]his… is not conducive to openness and energy nor to a sense of humor… [and] could easily become dogmatic [because the thought is of] imposing discipline” [182].
Rather, CT proposes meditation that makes you completely aware of your present state of being and situation. He speaks (without specifics) of giving space and finding gaps in experience.
“The main point is that we have this basic intelligence that shines through our confusion” [189].
“Opening to oneself fully is opening to the world.” [194]
Posted by (0v0)
Categories:
Previous entry: CTSM 6, 7, 8: pain, warmth, tickles / Next entry: CTSM 12, 13, 14: Belief is labeling the mystery
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
I found the Skandas difficult to understand and differentiate. Perhaps as a result, this monkey got impatient reading about the ego monkey in Ch 9. When I tried to figure out the Skandas — what kinds of thoughts count as what — I just got tired. Too much categorizing.
Although there were even more Realms (6>5), I found this chapter easier to access. One thing that continues to interest me is the recurring theme of animal minds. In chapter 1 (p 14), he talks about “the simplicity of meditation means just experiencing the ape instinct of ego”. Here’s my trouble. Animals don’t have mind/metamind in the same way that we do – they don’t think about their needs in a self-conscious way or think about how they think about those needs. Hungry – eat. Not, “I am hungry, I wonder if I should eat and what the moral consequences of my eating decisions are? Would Sally like to eat to?” [This is simplistic, of course. Social animals, like apes and monkeys, have other-consciousness, and evolution for the ability to anticipate the behavior of others may precede a self-conscious self… but, this is not established and is somewhat beside the point.] So, the language in CTSM analogizes animals with ego (see Animal Realm in this chapter, as well), but I see animals as being uncomplicated by ego: Input-response without all the whirring mind. Is this closer or further from the openness we are trying to achieve? In an earlier thread, Karen referenced an article about the different concepts of ego in Buddhist and psychological thought. This may be part of my trouble, but I think there is something else here, too. What is it that humanness gets us? Perhaps the ability to observe the input-response but not respond? I guess I experience openness as what’s left after the removal of intellectual trappings, the setting aside of critical analysis, the setting aside of emotional reactivity. I think of the intellectual trappings and critical analysis as the unique-to-humans part to set aside, and the emotional reactivity as the common-to-all-animals part to set aside. In my way of thinking, then, animals have fewer layers of skandas than humans. Anyway, my point isn’t to try to figure out whether my cat will achieve enlightenment before I do. It’s just that I keep stumbling over these animal analogies, because I sometimes think that what I am trying to achieve is animal mind, i.e., unself-consciousness.
Posted by: Wombat · Aug 29, 04:06 PM · #
I’m with you Wombat on feeling a bit bogged down in these chapters with the categorization. The buddist terminology is new to me and I think it will take a couple read-throughs before it sorts itself out.
Despite the new terminology and vocabulary, a few things did seem to stick…in particular this bit from Owl’s summary…“But just “letting go” in to the 3rd NT is only possible for short periods. It takes some kind of practice to habituate to “letting be.” “
This is one of a couple weeks a year that I spend practicing with my Mysore teacher. I have worked with him for several years now and my time on the mat with him guiding is one of few times when I can really “let be”. I trust him. This week, with CTSM as a background, I wonder what it how it would be if I could take that “letting be” into the rest of the day and the rest of my relationships. Practice. Practice. Practice.
I especially like the phrase “habituate to letting be”.
Practice. Habituate.
Posted by: Christine · Aug 31, 06:40 AM · #
Jesus, I just have to say it: the Tibetans use a hell of a lot of words. I’m exhausted & these are familiar concepts for me. Enough already with the stories and analogies!
Posted by: karen · Sep 1, 04:50 PM · #
Quickly—I liked these sections (although not as much as I like one coming up).
I laughed out loud at the final question, re: the monkey. “What if the monkey takes a little peyote?” “He’s already taken it.” The questioner wants to save our poor monkey, wants to get him some liberation, and totally forgets that the monkey is a metaphor for how consciousness/ego works.
Posted by: patrick · Sep 1, 05:11 PM · #
Christine, all the best with your teacher this week. Good model – practicing alone so much but then checking in annually. It scared the crap out of me for a long time but now it makes sense. How else to grow up in this practice?
As much as this discussion of the skandhas did not work for me, I’ve been amused to consider what I’d have done with it if it did work. I vividly remember a discussion in which a renunciant was describing current inner turmoil: “My skandhas are REALLY agitated right now.”
Western mind. Turning concepts in to things, using them to experience experience. This is what we do. Maybe just as well that at the end of all this skandha is still just a word.
But incidentally, in his collected writings, William James explored the concept of skandhas around the time he articulated the doctrine of Radical Empiricism. (A doctrine a lot of us yoga people try to operate by now, without knowing its western history— I feel like it influences a lot of the first generation of good western yoga and meditation teachers, espec in the western teaching of “mindfulness.”) It’s been a decade since I read that stuff, but if I remember, it was actually wonderful – and much more textured than CT’s attempt. It seems like James talked about how the self coalesces in tendencies or trajectories that suddenly intersect and flash in to action as we operate in the world. I think the imagery had a lot to do with vectors and in reading it I had fun superimposing lasers and stuff. And images of Pick-Up Sticks falling arbitrarily on a table. Beats this monkey business, anyway…
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 3, 01:09 PM · #
Ok. Here’s Pick-Up Stix.
I’d rather have those for an ego than some vision-impared, emo monkey.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 3, 01:16 PM · #
Here’s a comment I wrote Weds but didn’t post just in case somebody was going to comment that Trungpa’s monkey changed her life…
My read on Chapters 1-5 is that it was life-altering then, and at least mind-altering now. One possible summary of those chapters:
Your mala beads, your identity as a “dedicated practitioner,” your beatific attitude, your self-mortifying devotion to a popular teacher, your hybrid vehicle, your spiritual travels: this is all the ego putting on an act and shutting out the world. Try the opposite, and in the meantime find a mentor who cultivates your spiritual intelligence rather than your unquestioning loyalty—someone who challenges you rather than gives you a pedestal onto which you can displace your ego and watch it grow.
Tough act to follow.
I doubt anyone had her life changed then by Chapters 9-11; and I gather none of us found it life-changing this time either. CT’s personality is still there – and I did get the feeling that he stayed open and humorous and uncompromising throughout this section. He told some good jokes too.
But I’m with Wombat and Karen. Enough with the monkey already.
I don’t know what else you’d do. What little I understand of the north Indian and Tibetan and early Buddhist maps of the mind is that they are brilliant. Centuries before Kant doped out “categories of the understanding” and changed all of high-end western thought; before Husserl pushed those categories to an even more basic, honest place; before all those French people started mapping stages by which a human child’s self emerges from mind; there was this far richer understanding of mind and world.
And the best Trungpa can do for the hypnotized Boulderites is some story about a Monkey? A monkey who lives in a house and dreams of trees and has spiritual ambitions and smokes shamanic ritual drugs? No man. That’s called a human. Monkeys are busy masturbating and juggling their feces.
Meh.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 3, 01:19 PM · #
Ok, one more response, specifically to Wombat’s question about what is up in general with the animal minds hangup—and whether the whole idea in open-hearted practice is to achieve animal mind.
Do you remember Jill Bolte Taylor’s “stroke of insight” Ted talk, and how deeply that recollection of purely left-brain primordiality seemed so spiritual?
Same idea?
It strikes me as romantic. We don’t get to go back there. At least not in these bodies. (At least not without lobotomies.)
About twenty years ago, again in and around Boulder, Ken Wilber started looking at just this kind of fantasy that Trungpa articulated, in Boulder, twenty years before that. He’d noticed a New Age tendency to identify animal, pre-rational, even pre-cognitive experience (which is, like rocks and pollywogs, pretty non-differentiated in terms of self-awareness) as transcendent.
What’s problematic is that if we buy the theory of evolution, tadpoles’ experiences of oneness are regressed. They are, Wilber claimed, a pre-rational rather than a “trans-rational” version of oneness.
We all want oneness around here, right? But Wilber’s Pre-Trans Fallacy presumes that oneness can be had with both brain hemispheres on line.
Not to say that tadpoles aren’t enlightened.
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 3, 01:36 PM · #
I think of the monkey simply as a way to subjectively (and through narrative, at that, for extra distance) experience the realms, no? Trungpa’s much-discussed ability to make it accessible, etc.
And on pre/trans, I’m down. Can’t undo the five skandas unless you UNDO the five skandas. Hesse said, “You come from the All and learn to re-embrace the All.”
There are individual lines that I really like in these chapters, but agreed, they didn’t hit nearly as hard or in areas as important, as the first half dozen did.
Posted by: patrick · Sep 3, 04:18 PM · #
Thanks for the Wilbur reference. That helps clarify the trouble I’ve been having.
Posted by: Wombat · Sep 4, 12:59 AM · #
Yes, there are some resonant statements throughout. I just wrote up the summary for the next few chapters. While it continues to be more theological than the CTSM Manifesto of the first chapters, there’s a weirdly inspiring quality, and a warmth, to it. Some of this next section just really resonates with me and was a joy to read.
For me, very much worth staying with the book and returning to a sense of generosity and openness to the text itself. At first this book sliced me open and fascinated me, filled me with the familiar hope of liberating critique, fresh wits, and some delight in the luminous if fatally flawed human behind the words.
In the middle (maybe like every other potentially liberating critique) it disappointed and alienated me (while, admittedly, providing consistent smiles). In the end… I will hold comment for now.
I sense that folks have had their say on this section, or moved on to newer, more engaging reading? Let me know, you who have fallen silent…
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 4, 06:23 PM · #
I too got totally bogged down in all the categorization of experience. Enough already! It seems to me that unless one has had the experiences he is describing, description is useless — and if on the other hand one has been there, description is unneccesary.
Let’s move on! I’m loving the final two chapters.
Posted by: Jeremy · Sep 4, 11:49 PM · #
It’s a while since I’ve read these chapters (been on holiday so haven’t checked in for a few days) but going back over them, and seeing what I underlined, here’s what jumped out for me:
The theme of exhaustion comes up again here – the idea that the monkey can’t do anything to escape from his plight except simply get so tired he gives up and lets go. Like the ego wearing itself out like an old shoe. So this isn’t grandiose martyrdom – the martyrdom of self-glorifying pain – but a slow, unglamorous process of attrition, in which, step by step, exhaustion sets in until surrender just happens. This very much makes sense for me with respect to ashtanga as a tiring daily physical practice – and gives a nice double meaning to the idea of being ‘worn out’, ie, both exhausted, but also worked-through, worked-in, softened-up, like the old shoe.
Something that fascinated me was the idea that it’s in the Human Realm that the possibility of liberation emerges – and it’s through intellect, discrimination, self-analysis, concepts often scorned by spiritual seekers. Very interesting to see these values become the gateway of liberation.
I agree that the endless lists and categorisations can be a bit difficult – but imagine they might be a pedagogical technique in the Buddhist tradition, almost a mnemonic device to help students learn. That’s a complete guess from someone who knows very little about the tradition – so please correct me if anyone knows otherwise!
The monkey didn’t worry me too much – not sure if CT is playing up to Western expectations of Buddhist metaphor with this choice, but it didn’t really bother me.
Posted by: Louise · Sep 5, 09:07 AM · #
Monkey sounds like a marxist under achiever who drank too much kool aid. rendering him so morbidly obese he had to draw disability for the rest of his pathetic days. a slave to any ideology is still a slave.
Posted by: charusheela · Sep 10, 01:39 PM · #
One more thing about these chapters that I’d like to ask if anyone had any thoughts on is what CT says about concentration practices – he says that they involve forcing the mind into producing a forced calm. I’d always thought that concentration can help provide the ‘space’ CT talks about elsewhere…And isn’t it about how you approach these practices, rather than about single-pointed focus in itself?
This focus can be achieved by will and forcing the mind, but also by quietening and relaxing the mind…
Might CT’s suspicion of these practices be part of Buddhism trying to stake out territory ‘against’ Hinduism – by distancing itself from these practices…Ashtanga is a concentration practice, to me. Does anyone else have any ideas on this? Thanks!
Posted by: Louise · Sep 11, 01:39 AM · #
Louise, oh, just saw this! Glad you—and most others—were not too irritated by the monkey.
The theory that CT is staking a claim out against Hinduism makes sense. In Chapter 14, the discussion of the modern Hindu mystic Nagarjuna and the Yogachara school says more about his explicit position – it’s more generous than I’d have expected. He also presents there a somewhat odd (to my Patanjali-shaped POV) discussion of Dharana (what I think of as straight concentration) as a specific, focused (not necessarily natural and spontaneous) practice.
I do wonder if the characterization of the watcher come out of some personal pain or pointed agenda. It's the only area of practice that his wry tone turns a bit sarcastic. There's some kind of emotional hook there. Maybe he feels he was trapped in that (supposedly pre-realized, or anti-realized) state for too long, or that he was an uptight self-sabotager at that stage; or maybe he sees students in the audience hypnotically trapped in that space.
Re: concentration practice, the ways this actually takes some willfulness and regularity at first, and whether it is characterized by spaciousness... other thoughts?
Posted by: (0v0) · Sep 11, 06:58 PM · #
There might be some staking out of the distinction between Hinyanan and Mahayanan practices — I don’t know if CT had a bad taste in his mouth about Theravedan meditation practices.
Posted by: karen · Sep 12, 04:05 AM · #