Search the Community

We live by concepts There's a fallacy that because the absolute (Dao/Dharmakaya) is non-conceptual we have to throw concepts out in order to realise the true nature of things. Somehow that wiping our minds clean of thoughts or ideas will give us the result (of being enlightened or however you chose to frame it). It is also very noticable that those that speak of the non-conceptual use a lot of concepts to talk about it, when superficial understanding might make us think they should just sit in silence. Concept means something like 'hold together' and they are so called because they are the big ideas which hold our thoughts in a coherent way. As well as thoughts you could add in perceptions and emotions. You might object to emotions being included but then we call certain energy movements 'anger' and so on, and anger is a concept. It's a word we use to group a large number of similar feeling states arising from a variety of causes. Concepts do not arise or belong in the objective world. They are applied to it but they don't arise from it. For instance, imagine that you walk along a pebble beach and choose to gather the most spherical stones you can find. You end up with a collection of more or less round pebbles which you can arrange in order by the closest to a true sphere to the least. What you will not find, and cannot find, is a perfect sphere. Because just like a perfect straight line, triangle or square – none of these things exist or can exist in the objective world. Even artificially produced ones will have tiny flaws and perturbations induced by the complex interaction of forces like gravity and so on in the universe. Despite this, the idea of a sphere where all the points on its surface are equidistant to the centre makes sense to us. We can easily conceive it and also see how actual objects approximate to it – even though no such thing exists. Even more than that we can through geometry use the relationships of lines, right angles, triangles and so on to measure the world and also construct things – sky scrapers, cars, washing machines – all formed through the application of geometric concepts. We use concepts to make sense and order – and also to shape our environment. We use concepts to understand – including understanding ourselves. In Sanskrit the mind that does this is called 'buddhi': Buddhi (Sanskrit: बुद्धि) refers to the intellectual faculty and the power to "form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand". The one who goes beyond this intellect is called Buddha or Tathagata – the 'thus gone one'. He (or She) has gone beyond conceptual understanding to realise the true nature, buddha-nature or the Dharmakaya. The wisdom of the Buddha, prajna, means exactly this – beyond knowing. Where knowing is to correctly assign a category to something. So then – to gain wisdom we should reject concepts and the intellect? No. If that were so the path would be simply an attempt to extinguish all we had learned, experienced and understood. There would be no significance to our thoughts and emotions. No point to love or compassion for instance. What then? On realising the true nature, the absolute nature, the true concepts cohere around it, like the facets of a diamond where the buddha-nature is its core. They cohere when they are coherent, that is they stand together in mutual confirmation. It is a modern attitude to give preference to the material world such that concepts are thought to be 'not real'. But actually in the dynamic between consciousness and substance ideas are active agents. They move people. Sometimes a person will give their life for an idea (a perfect one called an ideal) – so moved are they by the power of this idea to improve life for others. Indeed an 'idea' could best be thought of as a package of formed energy. Some ideas appear in contradiction to other ideas – and if held together in the wrong way will generate an irritant emotional field leading to possible illness and breakdown. If people see you in this kind of state they might say 'you need to get your head together' – meaning that, as the head is considered the centre for thought, that you need to bring together coherent ideas about your experience rather than allowing the ideas to battle on. The battle may tear you to pieces mentally or physically if not worked on. By work here I mean applying oneself to examine what is happening and also enough energy to face into the painful parts of the records of experience you carry. But I think making the disharmony and pain the sole focus could lead to deepen identification with the painful memory. So it is important while engaged in this kind of process first a clear view of the nature of things and with time a growing confidence in the eternal soul/self/nature which is the ultimate goal. If we can clearly say to ourselves the correct relationship between these things then we have a chance of coming to understanding. Through understanding the ideas we have gained through life will then cohere around our true nature as a kind of body of wisdom.