The Basic Question

The most basic inner question for every human being is variously formulated in accordance with differing worldviews:

What is our relationship to God?
Can we realise our oneness with all things?
Can we be unalienated and self-realised?
Are we happy with how things are?

These questions refer to states of consciousness. Our consciousness originated as a by-product of natural selection. (Sensitivity, selected, increased until it became sensation which was then selected because pleasure and pain have survival-value.) Thus, consciousness began as, metaphorically, a means to survival but became, literally, an end in itself. Means presuppose ends which presuppose consciousness. Therefore, consciousness cannot be a literal means.

It is not universally recognised that the conditions necessary for self-consciousness include social interaction. Thus, each Jain monk practises asceticism in order to free his discrete, pre-existent, self-sufficient soul from any further incarnations whereas an organisation of revolutionary socialists engages in collective struggles that can potentially free society from class conflict and alienation. Therefore, Jainism and Marxism are antithetical. However, the latter can be synthesised with Buddhist meditation which:

is a middle way between asceticism and hedonism;
is based on the recognition that consciousness is caused by the temporary coming together of disparate elements, not by the eternal existence of individual souls.

Three Old Questions

Questions

(i) What is the best way to organize society in the interests of all its members?

(ii) How can individuals understand and control their mental processes and respond more appropriately to each other?

(iii) How do (i) and (ii) connect?

Comments

(i) Currently, there are some irreconcilable conflicts of interest. How can society be freed from them? Re-organising society has to involve every member of society, not a programme enforced by a minority. Universal suffrage in Parliamentary elections is a first step but only one step. Collective action has to replace the individual illiteracy of writing an "X".

(ii) Unless we are hermits, all of us interact with other individuals. In addition, if we address (i) with political activity, then we need to respond both to comrades and to opponents, so (ii) is relevant to (i). Personal political interactions can be lethal.

(iii) I think that everyone needs to address both (i) and (ii) and how to relate them.

Brian Aldiss and Karl Marx

Rereading a Poul Anderson novel in order to discuss it on the Poul Anderson Appreciation Blog, I found an Introduction by Brian Aldiss, to the Master SF Series edition, that is relevant here. In the novel, the IQ of every animal and human being on Earth suddenly increases.

Aldiss, discussing means of attempted self-enhancement, therapy, Eastern religions, drugs and "the State", describes Marx's prediction that the State would wither away as foolish. (1)

By quoting Marx and Engels in State and Revolution, Lenin shows that bourgeois and bureaucratic states must be overthrown by the qualitatively different workers' state which will then wither away. Familiar states are instruments of coercion by a small social minority over the vast majority. A workers' state, for the first time in history an instrument of coercion by the majority over a recently dispossessed minority, will have no reason to remain in existence when the dispossessed minority has failed to reproduce itself as a class but it would be foolish indeed to predict that "the State" as we know it will ever wither away.

Aldiss, Brian, "Introduction" IN Anderson, Poul, Brain Wave, London, 1976, AT pp. 5-8, p. 5.

Society and Psychology

A comrade addresses our social problems by speaking at a meeting and opposing economic exploitation. A Zen trainee addresses his psychological states by facing a wall and understanding mental processes. These are responses to issues that are interconnected but on different levels, "outer" and "inner." The best people that I know include Party comrades and Zen trainees.

By meditating facing a wall, I realize that I have been almost completely wrong and mistaken:

insufficiently attentive to interpersonal and social interactions;
unempathetic and uncompassionate;
accepting and defending a belief merely because I had been indoctrinated in it;
thinking that merely abstract reasoning would resolve major issues about reality, society and morality;
entirely abstract and theoretical in outlook;
responding and behaving neither honestly nor spontaneously but in accordance with an idea of what was expected;
not addressing practical issues earlier in life because accustomed to someone else, adults, controlling and dictating (as an adult, I now fundamentally disagree with their beliefs and values);
not appreciating the value of study until a very late stage of education;
attending to issues that happened to interest me but not to other issues that were equally important.

I could have wound up as a celibate priest or bachelor and absent-minded academic. Fortunately, wider reading, marriage, family life, unemployment, political activity, other kinds of work, professional retraining and meditative practice, in other words life, intervened.

We can and must disagree about the state of society but each must attend to his mental states. I was brought up to confess sins to a priest or, in the absence of a priest, to God. I now think in terms of actions and consequences, not of sins (Buddhist, not Biblical, teaching), and attend to them myself although without any quick absolution.

Social Karma

My karma is my action or behaviour. How I tend to act, have acted and still act. Karma matters because actions have consequences. I realise that my actions have been unwise and uncompassionate and accept a responsibility to "cleanse my karma" by acting in accordance with meditative insights. However, not all karma is mine. Each of us survives early childhood only because of the actions of adults. We are fed, taught and socialised. I was also indoctrinated, pressured, bullied and intimidated. Many of my actions were reactions to theirs. Thus, I tended to be solitary and resented being condemned as unsociable.

I cannot cleanse the karma of others. Bodhisattvas act for the enlightenment of all living beings but most living beings will not noticeably approach the realisation of their enlightenment in our life times. Politics addresses action collectively, not individually. We struggle to build an association for the free development of each. Thus, each will be responsible for his own actions but will not be impeded, indoctrinated or intimidated by the actions of others. This is probably as much as we can do to address the fact that many of our problems are caused by the actions of others.  

Practice of Consciousness

Thesis: Organismic sensitivity is necessary for consciousness.
Antithesis: The organismic responses of self-preservation and the pursuit of pleasure hinder the further development of consciousness.
Synthesis: The practice of consciousness, meditation, addresses hindrances to the development of consciousness.

Starting to address hindrances is as far as some of us have got. Imagine an entire planet whose entire population comprises only individuals whose consciousness and understanding of their natural and social environments is no longer impeded by any attachments, favoured self-images, uncontrolled thought processes, exclusivist loyalties, desire for self-promotion or self-aggrandisement, indoctrination, prejudice, divisive dogmatism etc, a planet where everyone realises, "I am a transient psychophysical organism sharing this environment with every other organism. I no longer identify myself with a particular religious tradition or armed nation-state perceived as in conflict with others. I aim to learn, work, contribute and share in social wealth but not to promote my individual interests or prestige at the expense of anyone else."

I believe that this outcome is possible but not that it will be reached by persuading millions to meditate - unless, of course, every individual member of the economic ruling class were to realise that they should abdicate power and should work to replace competitive accumulation with cooperation for need. It is far more likely that the majority will have to dispossess them. 

Meditating Matter

There is no one else here. I am alone facing a wall. Does anyone watch while we meditate? Potential watchers:

named gods like Indra and Krishna are myths;
unknown gods are hypothetical and must be presumed non-existent until proved existent;
the historical Buddha was a man and died a long time ago (we know him through his teaching; he does not know us; according to the teaching, he has not been reborn);
the cosmic Buddha is a principle;
the Buddha within is a potential;
neither is a person or conscious subject;
Jesus was another man who died a long time ago;
omniscience is arguably impossible (see below).

Jesus' disciples believed that he had been resurrected but their proclamation is insufficient reason for us to believe this. Like Krishna, he is sometimes vividly imagined. Thus, he has passed not from death to immortality but from history to myth. Therefore, we are not watched by gods, Buddhas, Jesus or any omniscient deity. 

No one is omniscient. Self is known only by contrast with other. Other is recognised as such only when it has been perceived and re-perceived, then recognised as having continued to exist independently of self between perception and re-perception. The consequent distinction between present and remembered perceptions entails an unknown future. Subjects of consciousness necessarily perceive an objective realm which is mostly unknown. No omniscient deity watches us meditate. 

Did gods give humanity reason and morality? Mythically, yes. Biologically, both the ability to reason and concern for others were naturally selected. Reasoning about the environment has obvious survival value. Our earliest ancestors were social, therefore motivated by collective, not just individual, self-interest. Also, we help others either because they bear the same genes or because they might help us in return. Psychologically, we experience that motivation as moral obligation. 

Society imposes on individuals both acceptable behaviour and linguistic usage. Sexual taboos prevented in-breeding, then patriarchal monogamy preserved property. Individuals internalise shame as guilt and speech as thought. Thus, we are variously motivated by reason, collective and individual self-interest, social pressure, shame, guilt and moral obligation. Morality is conceptualised and even experienced as divine commands. However, biological motivation preceded religious imagination. Socialised language-users personified and addressed their environment. Because human beings become self-conscious persons only in interpersonal interactions, they projected personal relationships onto the heavens.

    

Socially, we are both subjects and objects of consciousness. Immature subjects are conscious of being objects. Immature behaviour is for an audience or a camera. Mature subjects are simply conscious. Meditation is pure subjectivity or spirituality, without shame or deliberate thought. We neither perform for an audience nor address a deity. Thus, we begin to observe self dispassionately. I am accountable for my actions but not to anyone watching me meditate. I must address my states of consciousness. Painful memories are consequences of past actions, karma. The consequences are present but the bad karma can remain past. There is guilt only as consciousness of consequences. The Western Paradise may be Earth seen differently. Samsara is Nirvana. To use theistic language metaphorically, the Kingdom is within. We are not going anywhere. We are here. 

In purely secular terms, we are not there yet but have a long way to go. However, the potential for socialised production and distribution of abundant wealth is present. Rosa Luxemburg wrote:

"Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud."

Trotsky, contemplating green grass and blue sky, wrote:

"Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, violence and oppression and enjoy it to the full." 

The present is the now of individual awareness and the time for collective action, a cross-roads and meeting place between meditation and revolution. (The Christian cross symbolises an eternal-temporal intersection but also a barbaric blood sacrifice. We can incorporate some though not all aspects of Christian mythology into a coherent world view with more effective symbols: 

(the seated Buddha;
yin-yang;
Thor's hammer;
the fish;
the clenched fist...)