Comments about Attachments made in the last chapter might lead to the mistaken impression that Buddhism warns against Attachments to changeable conditions in the external material/social world such as possessions, good looks, social status, and so on.
Does this apply also to changeable conditions in one’s own inner mental/emotional life: pleasant emotional states, feeling optimistic instead of feeling depressed, being in a happy mood, having good mental abilities, blissful and higher “spiritual” experiences, and so on? The answer is yes. There is no reason to turn away from unreliable and Distress-causing involvements in the external material/social world to rely on more consistently positive inward experiences, because there is nothing less changeable and less Distress-causing to be found in the world “inside” than there is to be found in the world “outside.” Ridding oneself of Distress-causing inflexible Attachments to particular Impermanent and changing conditions in the world includes ridding oneself of inflexible Attachments to particular conditions in one’s own inner mental/emotional life.
One aspect of early Buddhist teaching that imply the above ideas, consists in ideas connected to buddhist teaching about “the six sense-regions.” That is, early Buddhists were aware that if we think of kinds of things we are able to perceive and be aware of, we will realize everything falls into six classes.
(1) I perceive “sights” by means of my sense of sight.
(2) I perceive sounds by means of my sense of hearing,
(3) smells by my sense of smell,
(4) tastes by my sense of taste.
(5) I am aware of bodily sensations by my sense of touch.
But Buddhists thought
(6) we need to posit a sixth “sense” to account for our ability to be aware of conditions happening in our own inner mental/emotional life: thoughts, mental images, daydreams, feelings, moods, and so on. They called this sixth sense mano, a normal word for “mind,” but here better understood as a kind of “inner sense.” The mental/emotional objects of this inner sense are called “mind-objects” (dhamma).
So in Buddhist thought there are six senses, and six kinds of things perceived by these six senses. Each sense, together with things-perceived by this sense, is called a “region” (ayatana), yielding the idea of “six sense-regions” (sal-ayatana).
For present purposes, the most important point to understand about all this is that (1) Buddhist writings use this idea of “six sense regions” as a schema to present basic practice-oriented teachings about Impermanence, Attachment, and Distress, and (2) that this treats conditions you are aware of in your own mental/emotional inner life the same way it treats conditions you are aware of in the external material/social world. You can expect everything happening in your own inner life to be just as Impermanent and fluctuating as everything happening in the external world. Likewise, inflexible Attachment to any particular mental or feeling state will be just as Distress-causing as Attachment to any particular condition in the external world.
Implications for practice.
This has important implications for understanding the aims of Buddhist practice.
For example, Nirvana is the name of the ultimate goal of Buddhist transformative practice. You might think that Nirvana is a state of internal bliss. But according to the above ideas, feelings of internal bliss should be treated as just one more kind of feeling among many other kinds of feelings you might become aware of by your inner sense, mano. The goal of Buddhist transformation cannot be to always feel inner calm or bliss, or any other kind of feeling. The goal is to live in the expectation that how you feel inside will be constantly fluctuating in the same way that conditions in the external world will be constantly fluctuating. The Nirvana-ideal cannot consist in any one of these feelings, but in the ability to accept, feel comfortable with, and flexibly adapt to, the full range of feeling-states you might possibly experience in the course of your lifetime.
To illustrate: suppose I have been trying to practice the Buddhist path for sometime now, but find myself still attached to my job as a teacher. Suppose I lose my job and this causes me great Distress. I think: If I were further along in my practice, I would not be experiencing such great Distress.
This thought is irrelevant: In the situation as it is, I have no more control over these feelings of Distress than I do over my situation as a jobless person. The way to make further progress on the Buddhist path is not to try to repress these feelings. Rather it would be to practice accepting and adapting to uncontrollable conditions in the world which in this case involve both external conditions (being jobless) and also internal conditions (my great upsetness at losing my job). I could make progress by accepting as a given that both these are elements of my present condition. I should focus on trying to find a way of adapting to my situation and a way of moving forward both as a jobless person, and also as a person who is at the moment extremely upset about this–both are at the moment uncontrollable aspects of the situation that I am in.
The Story of two-darts.
One passage in the suttas offers a helpful analogy relevant here. Picture a soldier on an ancient battlefield, where he is getting shot at by opponents using crossbows. He first gets hit with one crossbow-dart, then immediately gets hit with a second one.
Applying this image: A person who achieved the Buddhist goal would always be vulnerable to single hits–single unpleasant or painful experiences. But this would not be followed by a second hit, deeper Distress due to a more deeply felt existential threat due to a loss of something that has become essential to the person’s sense of self-worth and meaning in life.
To put this somewhat more colloquially: An Enlightened person is not a person who never gets upset. She is a person who can experience being upset (first dart) without becoming additionally and more deeply upset about being upset (second dart). She would not be a person who never becomes depressed. She would be a person who is able to feel depressed (first dart), without becoming additionally and more deeply depressed about being depressed (second dart).
“I” am what changes when Nirvana is achieved.
One other important point worth mentioning here in connection with the six sense-regions concerns the following issue. Buddhist practice aims at a certain kind of internal transformation, a change of some kind happening within onself. But this cannot be a change happening in anything in myself that I could be directly aware of. For example, progress on the Buddhist path might bring it about that there are fewer occasions in which I feel upset, and more days when I feel calm all day. But feeling less often upset and more often calm cannot be the essence of the transformation aimed at in Buddhist practice. “Feeling upset” and “feeling calm” are just two kinds of feelings a person can be aware of through the “inner sense” mano. In Buddhist teaching, everything perceived by any one of the six senses should be regarded as Impermanent, liable to change beyond control. There is no difference between changing conditions in the world outside, and changing conditions in the world “inside.” The main point about any kind of inner feeling or mental state a person could perceive within themselves through introspective mano is that these are all potential objects of Attachment, and Attachment to any such state makes a person vulnerable to Distress when these feeling-states change, and the Buddhist goal is to live in expectation of these changes, and be able to readily accept and adapt to such changes when they occur.
So the inner transformation aimed at in Buddhist practice must be some kind of change. But teachings described in this chapter imply that this cannot be a change in anything I can be directly aware of in my own inner mental/emotional life through introspective mano. What exactly does change as an ideal result of Buddhist practice?
I’m going to propose a commonsense answer: “I” would change.
That is, “Attachment” is kind of a fixed habitual attitude I might have toward certain conditions in the world. I might at one time be habitually Attached to feeling calm, and might later free myself of this habit. I can only be Attached to something I am aware of, and the six sense-regions include all possible things that I could be aware of through any of my six senses, which includes things perceived in my own mental/emotional life through introspective mano.
So on this view, the change brought about by Buddhist practice is a change in habitual attitudes “I” might have to particular feelings.
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Now a bit of not-too-difficult philosophy
Commonsense would also say that “I” remain the same “I” throughout this process. If we spell out our commonsense view on this topic, it means that “I” exist continuously through time as one and the same single “I” amid changes in the feelings that I feel, and also amid changes “I” undergo from being Attached to calm feelings to not being Attached.
So on this account, Buddhist “liberation” consists in becoming a free “I,” an “I” free from habitual inflexible Attachments to particular conditions in the world, external and internal.
A controversial issue.
One reason I elaborate at some length on this is that some readers may have previously encountered Buddhist writings or teachers who think that denying the existence of a “self” is part of the essence of true Buddhism. Such readers may be aware that this denial is very often today understood more specifically as a denial of the commonsense view that “I” exist as someone who might sometimes feel feelings, sometimes become Attached to some particular kinds of feelings, and who exist continuously through time while undergoing change from being Attached to not being Attached. I hold a controversial view on this issue.
Grief as an example.
I would like to close by giving another example illustrating more implications of the above understandings of early Buddhist teaching connected with the six sense-regions. This is the case of grief over the death of a family member or loved one. Is grief a case of Distress (dukkha), which Buddhism offers freedom from? Would an Enlightened person not grieve?
I think we have to begin here with the idea that Distress here is not just any kind of distress. It is only that kind of distress caused by Attachment.
So the first question to ask then is not about grief in general, but about what specifically motivates grief in some particular case. Grief might sometimes be motivated by deeply felt threat to one’s own sense of self-worth and meaning in life. This might be the case, for example, if I had become Attached to and deeply dependent on the love and approval of person who has now died, or if my close connection to this person had become an important basis for my sense of self-worth and meaning in life.
To the extent that my grief is grieving for this kind of loss, my grief is a self-centered grief, grieving for a loss that is an “existential” threat to me. In this respect, Buddhist practice would ideally lead to lessening of deep dependence of this particular kind, and so would lessen the existential threat that I might feel on the death of this person. This is not essentially different from the existential threat that I might feel on loss of a job, or cherished possessions, or status in my community.
But then the question is: Is all grief “self-centered” grief in this sense? I think it is not. There is what Aristotle calls “cathartic” grief upon witnessing “tragedy,” which modern moviegoers might experience when they cry at sad movies. Or there is the grief people might at the tragic death of some political or community leader of outstanding character. This seems to resemble the grief any individual might feel who has come to feel a deep connection to another, when this other person dies, especially if it is a “tragic” death of some kind.
Absence of personal dependence on these significant others would not necessarily lessen grief of this latter kind. In one sense, Buddhist practice should render a person more open to full experience of grief. For example, suppose a person resists letting herself fully feel her grief, the reason being that she finds these feelings extremely uncomfortable. In Buddhist terms, this resistance could be motivated by inflexible Clinging to more pleasant psychological states, narrowing the range of feeling-states that a person is comfortable with and willing to allow to happen if she can avoid them. In this context, progress on the Buddhist path would widen this range, bringing about a state in which a person would be more comfortable with and more accepting of, a wider range of feeling-states, including those like grief which she might have previously resisted accepting.
To put this in terms again of the “two darts” analogy: An Enlightened Buddhist would always be vulnerable and open to being hit by a “first dart,” open to feeling painful feelings everyone else might feel at the death of a loved one. She would not be hit by a “second dart,” experiencing these painful feelings as a deep personal threat to her own sense of self-worth and meaning in life. This would mean allowing herself to be open to fully feeling these unpleasant feelings, rather than resisting them or seeking escape through alcohol, drugs, or distracting diversions. A motto again appropriate here: “No matter what happens (externally or internally) I can handle it.”
Appendix: Some Buddhist history on the “self”.
For those interested, I want explain that my departure from mainstream Buddhist opinion about the existence/non-existence of a self, has some precedent in Buddhist history.
The Buddha probably died around 400 b.c. Divisions about how to interpret some aspects of his teachings appeared in Buddhist communities very early after his death. One such early division occurred over the issue of whether to admit or deny the existence of a self. One group thought, as I do, that some aspects of Buddhist teaching imply acceptance of commonsense assumptions regarding the existence of a self as a perceiving human subject who exists continuously through time. Another group regarded denying the existence of such a self as essential to the teachings of the Buddha.
The former group were called Puggalavadins (Pudgalavadins) because puggala was the term they used to refer to the “self” whose existence they affirmed.
The opinion I espouse here, that Buddhist teaching implies acceptance of commonsense ideas about the “I”, is similar in many basic respects to the views of a Puggalavada Buddhist recorded in a debate between him and a self-denying Buddhist, in an early Buddhist writing probably written not later than 150 years after the Buddha’s death.
Not only did self-affirming Puggalavadins appear very early in Buddhist history. But reports of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled in India in the seventh century a.d. indicate the existence of more than 12,000 Puggalavadin monasteries at that time, and also that Puggalavadins formed the majority of conservative Buddhist schools existing in India at that time, outnumbering members of all other conservative schools combined.
The demise of Buddhism in India around the end of the first millenium a.d. brought about the entire disappearance of Puggalavadins along with almost all their writings. Some other Buddhist schools survived this because they had meanwhile become well-established outside India. Most importantly this included the self-denying Theravada school who had established themselves in Sri Lanka, a large island off the Southwestern coast of India.
