The Nature Of Lack - David R. Loy

[camerata]

This essay is essentially a preview of the author's book, Money, Sex, War, Karma.

The Nature of Lack

by David R. Loy

So what is truly distinctive about the Buddhist Dharma? How does it differ from other religious traditions that also explain the world and our role within it? Foremost is the fact that no other spiritual path focuses so clearly on the intrinsic connection between dukkha and our delusive sense of self. They are not only related: for Buddhism the self is dukkha.

Although dukkha is usually translated as “suffering,” that is too narrow. The point of dukkha is that even those who are wealthy and healthy experience a basic dissatisfaction, a dis-ease, which continually festers. That we find life dissatisfactory, one dam_n problem after another, is not accidental—because it is the very nature of an unawakened sense-of-self to be bothered about something.

Pali Buddhism distinguishes three basic types of dukkha. Everything we usually identify as physical and mental suffering—including being separated from those we want to be with, and being stuck with those we don’t want to be with (the Buddha, it seems, had a sense of humor) is included in the first type.

The second type is the dukkha due to impermanence. It’s the realization that, although I might be enjoying an ice-cream cone right now, it will soon be finished. The best example of this type is awareness of mortality, which haunts our appreciation of life. Knowing that death is inevitable casts a shadow that usually hinders our ability to live fully now.

The third type of dukkha is more difficult to understand because it’s connected with the delusion of self. It is dukkha due to sankhara, “conditioned states,” which is sometimes taken as a reference to the ripening of past karma. More generally, however, sankhara refers to the constructedness of all our experience, including the experience of self. When looked at from the other side, another term for this constructedness is anatta, “not-self.” There is no unconditioned self within our constructed sense of self, and this is the source of the deepest dukkha, our worst anguish.

This sense of being a self that is separate from the world I am in is illusory—in fact, it is our most dangerous delusion. Here we can benefit from what has become a truism in contemporary psychology, which has also realized that the sense of self is a psychologicalsocial-linguistic construct: psychological, because the ego-self is a product of mental conditioning; social, because a sense of self develops in relation with other constructed selves; and linguistic, because acquiring a sense of self involves learning to use certain names and pronouns such as I, me, mine, myself, which create the illusion that there must be some thing being referred to. If the word cup refers to this thing I’m drinking coffee out of, then we mistakenly infer that I must refer to something in the same way. This is one of the ways language misleads us.

Despite these similarities to modern psychology, however, Buddhism differs from most of it in two important ways. First, Buddhism emphasizes that there is always something uncomfortable about our constructed sense of self. Much of contemporary psychotherapy is concerned with helping us become “well-adjusted.” The ego-self needs to be repaired so it can fit into society and we can play our social roles better. Buddhism isn’t about helping us become well-adjusted. A socially well-adjusted ego-self is still a sick ego-self, for there remains something problematical about it. It is still infected by dukkha.

This suggests the other way that Buddhism differs from modern psychology. Buddhism agrees that the sense of self can be reconstructed, and that it needs to be reconstructed, but it emphasizes even more that the sense of self needs to be deconstructed, to realize its true “empty,” non-dwelling nature. Awakening to our constructedness is the only real solution to our most fundamental anxiety. Ironically, the problem and its solution both depend upon the same fact: a constructed sense of self is not a real self. Not being a real self is intrinsically uncomfortable. Not being a real self is also what enables the sense of self to be deconstructed and reconstructed, and this deconstruction/reconstruction is what the Buddhist spiritual path is about.

Why is a constructed sense of self so uncomfortable? “My” sense of self is composed of mostly habitual ways of perceiving, feeling, thinking, and acting. That’s all. Those impermanent processes interact with others and give rise to a sense of being a self that is separate from other people and things. If you strip away those psychological and physical processes, it’s like peeling off the layers of an onion. When you get to the end, nothing is left. There’s no hard seed or anything else at the core, once the last few layers have been peeled away. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing. The basic problem is that we don’t like being nothing. A gaping hole at one’s core is quite distressing. Nothing means there’s no-thing to identify with or cling to. Another way to say it is that my nothing-ness means my constructed sense of self is ungrounded, so it is haunted by a basic sense of unreality and insecurity.

Full essay.

[lungmi]

Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism.

Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1996.

Nonduality : A Study in Comparative Philosophy.

New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1988.

(Teilw. zugl.: Singapore, National Univ., Diss., 1984.)

Wei-wu-wei: Nondual Action,

Philosophy East and West, vol.35, no.1 (January 1985), pp.73-87.

The Deconstruction of Buddhism,

in: Derrida and Negative Theology,

Harold Coward and Toby Foshay ed.,

Albany: State University of New York (1992), pp.227-253.

Great books and articles from David.

[Xangsamhua]

This is a very good article, and thanks to Camerata for posting it. I particularly benefited from the first 30% or so of quite a long piece. In this part Dr Loy addresses the questions of form and emptiness, self and non-self, figure and ground, duality and non-duality - as permanent or impermanent, reality or illusion. These are matters of particular interest to me at present.

In asserting that dukkha arises and is sustained primarily by a deluded sense of self - Maya, an illusion - Loy argues that "There is no unconditioned self within our constructed sense of self, and this is the source of the deepest dukkha, our worst anguish." He says that "Buddhism isn't about helping us become well-adjusted", rather "it emphasizes even more that the sense of self needs to be deconstructed, to realize its true "empty", non-dwelling nature." And then he goes on to the peeled onion analogy: "When you get to the end, nothing is left". But it's this extreme reductionism that is hard for many, probably most, people to accept. I suspect most Buddhists don't believe that the dismemberment of the onion and its dispersal is the end of everything, and that most Buddhists, therefore, like most Christians are functionally heterodox.

To continue with the onion. When you have peeled the onion there is not "nothing" left; there is simply "no onion" in its previous form. What is left is whatever it is that gives rise to the possibility of the form of an onion being maintained for some period of time. Now this "whatever" is not visible, nor measurable even as the ghost of an onion-past, but it is there nevertheless as the universal force or ground of being that the little onion seedling draws on to drive its development into full growth before decaying or being cut up and eaten. That the "whatever", "force" or ground of being" does not have form, measurable or visible, is not an argument for concluding that there is nothing beyond the parts of anything. And to argue that these parts are formed of interdependent causal relationships and nothing more is to argue that everything arises from relationships between relationships, but with nothing sustaining them, which is hard to accept and the reason why (1) most Buddhist lay people do not appear to think this way, and (2) why the tendency at least in Mahayana (especially Zen, Yogacara and Dzogchen, if my limited understandings are valid) is to have de facto a ground of being that underpins the relationships of contingency, inter-dependency and causality.

David Loy himself shies away from the kind of reductionism he put forward in the peeled onion analogy when he complains later in his article about the "excessive" passages in the Pali Canon that reduce the human body (and its apparent beauty, therefore) to urine, feces, pus, mucus, etc. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and probably delusive, therefore. However, it would be hard for any parent, spouse or long-term companion to accept that the person in front of them is not a possible manifestation or embodiment of something more than their parts, but simply an assemblage of guts and bones and various bits and pieces.

[lungmi]

http://www.inebnetwork.org/news-and-media/8-news/292-a-world-with-out-suffering

Another good article from David.

[huli]

http://www.inebnetwo...h-out-suffering

Another good article from David.

I really enjoyed this article, especially in two respects.

First, the way he explains dukkha as a deluded sense of self which begets a feeling of lack. I used to think that life seemed like a problem to be solved, or something that demanded an explanation, or a vague feeling that something is missing and just out of reach, but I think the feeling of lack expresses this better.

Second, even thought his article is under the banner of the International Network of Engaged Buddhism, I think he correctly puts personal transformation as the main issue. Once that is improved, social behaviors come naturally of their own accord. I know some Buddhists who fret that they are not doing enough social action, seemingly thinking that it contributes to their practice. I see good deeds as a result of personal transformation, not the cause of it.

[devilish]

I like reading buddhist ideas explained by a western mind: less abstract and distant than learning in Thai society.

[camerata]

This book is finally available at Kinokuniya in Bangkok. But by now you should have a Kindle. Much more convenient!

[Amyji]

I've just been listening to some fantastic dhamma talks by David Loy, of particular interest is Socially Engaged Buddhism. See all David Loys talks here:

http://dharmaseed.org/talks/?search=by%3A+david+loy&sort=talks_teacher.name

And the Socially Engaged Buddhist retreat talks by both David Loy and Donald Rothberg held just last month:

http://dharmaseed.org/retreats/1620/

REALLY interesting talks that also address the nature of lack in the larger institutions of our society and globally, such as through greed and war.

[Several]

I have tried to consider the word enlightenment as 'to reduce weight' rather than 'to illuminate'. I know its just wordplay but it does seem that the work involves unburdening and reduction as opposed to addition. Letting go rather than aquiring. Is this why merit is not an enlightenment factor? The desire for merit itself being a hinderance?

[lungmi]

I have tried to consider the word enlightenment as 'to reduce weight' rather than 'to illuminate'. I know its just wordplay but it does seem that the work involves unburdening and reduction as opposed to addition. Letting go rather than aquiring. Is this why merit is not an enlightenment factor? The desire for merit itself being a hinderance?

Enlightenment is not the 100% correct translation, 'awakening' is correct because there is no 'illumination' by a higher authority (Gods, Devas etc.)

'The desire for merit itself being a hinderance?' -Yes, 'meritmaking' is outside the 'Dhana" (Generosity) Teaching of the Buddha.

Do the good job with the best intention and forget the results concerning "karma-points". "Tambun" to buy a good "kamma" is the most misused term in Thai Buddhism, it's a moneymaking machine.

Edited July 24, 2012 by lungmi

[huli]

I have tried to consider the word enlightenment as 'to reduce weight' rather than 'to illuminate'. I know its just wordplay but it does seem that the work involves unburdening and reduction as opposed to addition. Letting go rather than aquiring. Is this why merit is not an enlightenment factor? The desire for merit itself being a hinderance?

Enlightenment is not the 100% correct translation, 'awakening' is correct because there is no 'illumination' by a higher authority (Gods, Devas etc.)

'The desire for merit itself being a hinderance?' -Yes, 'meritmaking' is outside the 'Dhana" (Generosity) Teaching of the Buddha.

Do the good job with the best intention and forget the results concerning "karma-points". "Tambun" to buy a good "kamma" is the most misused term in Thai Buddhism, it's a moneymaking machine.

I too find the connection between tamboon and the desire for good karma to be at odds.

I did read somewhere that the first stage of virtue for a lay person is to be compassionate and generous, these two. Not for any selfish reason (like desire for good karma) but because they are conductive to the selfless living that is the Buddhist Path.

Tamboon is supposed to be an opportunity to be generous, that's all, IMO.