Thanks for your interesting clarifications. You ask if it makes sense? I can only go back to my original point which is that the ultimate reality of the universe is infinitely unknowable, not just a little bit unknowable, but INFINITELY unknowable.

I've seen four basic responses to this challenge:

1) The Buddha's way was to avoid all metaphysical speculation as a waste of time and just focus on what it takes to live a good life. The majority of Buddhism that has come since pretty much ignores the Buddha's advice. ( I'm pretty sure we're grossly violating it with this very discussion!)

2) The "let's figure it all out and explain it in greater and greater detail" school. This includes much of post-Buddha Buddhism and most systems of metaphysical philosophy. This is what I think many of the sources you quote are trying to do. Interesting enough, it does not include science, which tries to figure things out but rigorously admits the limitations of its knowledge.

3) The religion approach, which believes that some blessed one among us has seen the ultimate reality directly and has conveyed it to the rest of us, be it Jesus or Mohammed or Moses, etc. These systems have no need for logic or proof because they are considered direct revelations from the ultimate reality itself. Many forms of Buddhism have adopted this model in effect, with the Buddha as the blessed one.

4) The ancient Yoga approach, mirrored somewhat by small mystical minorities in each religion and philosophy, which accepts the utter unknowability of ultimate reality and builds a spirituality around the wonder and awe of what we don't know, and also embraces the ideals for good living like those espoused by the Buddha.

These are all valid approaches to the ultimate reality of the universe. It's just a matter of personal preference, I guess.

Thanks again for this most interesting discussion.

Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com

"On one extreme are the Buddhist 'realists,; who believe that the material world is composed of indivisible particles which have an objective reality independent of the mind. On the other extreme are the 'idealists,' the so-called Mind-only school, who reject any degree of objective reality in the external world. They perceive the external material world to be, in the final analysis, an extension of the observing mind. There is, however, a third sandpoint, which is the position of the Prasangika school, a perspective held by the highest esteem by the Tibetan tradition. In this view, although the reality of the external world is not denied, it is understood to be relative. … The notion of a pre-given, observer-independent reality is untenable. As in the new physics, matter cannot be objectively perceived or described apart from the observer — matter and mind are co-dependent."

The Prasangika view, to which the Dalai Lama subscribes, ends up ultimately being the same as the mind-only or Idealist school with the addition of more description or contemplation regarding the mind and objects created by mind.

That would be what I mean by Consciousness – some call it Buddha Consciousness, God Consciousness, Primal Consciousness, Pure Consciousness, Absolute Consciousness. It is Consciousness that is the Idealistic ground of all fabrication.

In Buddhism, depending on the school, there are either six or eight different levels of consciousness. There is often a risk in discussions of confusing the more attached and dependently-arisen consciousness of the skandhas with this more basic Consciousness.

One interesting aspect or property of such basic consciousness is that it is not dependent on an object. It can be consciousness without object. Another way of saying that would be that it is pure being aware of being aware.

When we use the term "life-force" we might error in giving it a materialistic property — as "force" can take on a more abstract, removed property of matter. In other words, we attribute life to that which lacks consciousness through an abstraction.

I suppose another way of looking at it would be the Consciousness that remains after one has totally detached from all material phenomena. The No Thing that Is.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for sharing.

I suppose I'm a little like William in that I adopted a flatland rationalism with a Wittgensteinian "what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" stance regarding spirituality and the unknown. The Rortian Ironism came as an extension of that–a form of skepticism whose only delight is redescription and perhaps is only redeemed through liberal humanist values.

But yeah, it's still Flatland.

Then I crashed when I found myself living in a house that owned me and a career I no longer wanted. I quit my job, sold my two air conditioned nightmare homes and moved. I returned to reading Buddhism and Eastern philosophy again, this time less as a rationalist literary critic and more as a person looking for answers. I returned to meditating and practicing yoga, but this time as someone that wanted more than to "look good" or to "reduce stress." I wanted to assuage my suffering, but I also wanted to engage that wonder and awe that Bob talks about.

For me, it took a crash to get to this place, but I feel lucky. I think many people–most people, in fact–live and die in Flatland.

Again, thanks for sharing.

-Matt

I hope you saw the rather thorough discussion we had about Yoga and Buddhism in the unlikely location:

Bad Day–Here's a Reminder Not to Take Yourself Too Seriously
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/12/bad-day-he…

This is still third on the list of "most commented" Elephant articles.

Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com

Tthis is a great extension of the original topic. Many people, in my experience, come to spiritual practice (yoga, Buddhism, or otherwise) when institutional religion fails them. And this usually happens, as it did for me, when there is some form of crisis, as Matt mentioned. For me, and I was raised Catholic, it happened when my father died when I was 13. The religious explanation failed to make sense to me. So I began a search for something meaningful.

I went through a very rationalist, flatland stage, where only objective reality mattered. Later, in college, I started studying world religions, and at the same time became interested in shamanism (which became part of my master's thesis). In studying eastern forms of shamanic practice, I discovered the Bon of Tibet and its influence on Buddhism in that region, which is very different than the austere Theravada tradition of India (source of the Dhammapada).

I now follow an integral form of Buddhism, which includes the state of awe (a vision of nonduality similar to what Advaita expresses).

Anyway, I think too many people wait for the crisis to seek a more personal experience, similar to what James was interested in, rather than seeking that out as a part of a whole and meaningful life.

Short answer–this is just where I am personally right now in my life. By the time I took up Yoga I was already reasonably content, so I was looking to go beyond contentment to something more. It would have been useful earlier in my life when I was struggling inside.

Long answer–Yoga enhances and compliments all my other accumulated philosophies and spiritualities–raised ultra-traditional Catholic, married into Jewish family, raised 3 Jewish kids, and all the usual more secular spiritual and life struggles.

That said, I still find this, in general, to be a difference between Yoga and Buddhism, both of which I have the utmost respect and admiration for. Buddhism seems to content itself with contentment, and seems to be preoccupied with suffering. Yoga, to me, in it's original form in the ancient texts, is going for wonder and awe, which buries suffering in its wake. It's the Upanishads vs. the Dhammapada. Both are right and good, but I have a personal preference for the Upanishads. (The Dhammapada is too much like the austere Catholicism of my youth. It could have been the nuns speaking.)

Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com