Oh, so that's the way it is, is it?

[ornoth]

For some reason, the MBTA is the best place in the world for me to practice Buddhism.

First, it’s where I listen to most of my dharma talks. Sure, there’s talks every Wednesday at CIMC, but I listen to more of them on my iPod, from a number of really great teachers. I listen to talks on grocery runs too, but the MBTA is the place where I digest the majority.

Second, it’s where I run into the most people, and the most diversity. The brevity of subway interactions makes it the perfect place to try out changes in one’s mindset and the behaviors those mindsets produce. Buddhism isn’t very useful unless it’s practiced in engagement with the real world, and the T is about as real as Boston gets!

Finally, I really don’t meditate that often on the cushion, nor get very much out of it. But for me, subway rides seem to evoke a certain philosophical state of mind that lends itself to the kinds of spontaneous insights people crow about having on the cushion.

Ironically, last Wednesday I had a pretty major insight on the subway, on the way home from the dentist, where I’d had an old filling replaced. It worked out great, because two hours later I was on the cushion for the regular weekly sitting at CIMC, which provided me with the opportunity to explore the insights I’d gained.

This posting is my attempt to record and describe those insights. It’s written more for me than for anyone else, so if you read it, bear in mind that these aren’t fully formed and polished for public consumption.

In fact, the ideas here will probably not jibe with your own. There are elements that will run strongly counter to the beliefs of my more “intuitive” type friends, and there’s a couple points that will equally annoy the logicians. In either case, I’m posting this more to explore and organize my own thoughts than seeking feedback.

Please understand that I’m not saying any of this is “truth”, even for myself. And I’m not looking for debate or argument about what the “truth” is. This is just my attempt to record a series of ideas that I think might aid my understanding of some key Buddhist concepts.

I cited a very pertinent truth in my review of Siddhartha: “Wisdom cannot be communicated. Wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.” So bear that in mind, too. What might be insight for me might sound patently obvious to you, or even utterly wrong. Oh well. Arguing about it won’t change anything.

So with all those disclaimers, here’s the stuff.

There are these three concepts in Buddhism, all of which haven’t made much sense to me yet. They’re called dependent origination, no self, and karma.

Dependent origination has always been explained to me thus: nothing that exists or happens occurs independent of some preceding condition. Everything that exists is predicated upon a set of preceding conditions. That is, nothing happens or exists all by itself, without cause.

Okay, that’s nice. Big whoop. In a word, DILLIGAF? What possible philosophical value does something so inane have? I mean, this is one of the most core tenets of Buddhism that gets mentioned repeatedly. I’m pretty sure Buddha himself is quoted as saying that if you know the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination, you’ve got everything you need. What’s the big deal?

Well, extend the metaphor to thought. Forget the idea that we control what we think; any fifteen minute meditation session will readily dispel that idea. That’s practically the first thing you learn when you sit. No, most of our thoughts arise in patterns that are in direct response to certain conditions.

What are those conditions? For the most part, they’re sensory input. If I see a particular thing, I’m likely to think certain associated things in response. If I feel a certain tickling, I’ll think there’s a mosquito on my arm. If I hear someone say something, I’ll respond in a way that’s pretty predictable for anyone who knows me.

While you might be able to exert a small degree of control, and there might be a modicum of randomness going on, the overwhelming majority of our thought is comprised of ingrained habitual responses to the sensory input we receive. And, of course, our thoughts are the conditions which drive our actions. We are essentially nothing but reaction machines, bumping into the world and reacting mindlessly to it in an immensely expanded version of Brownian motion.

That’s what I think dependent origination is trying to point at: that our thoughts, like everything else, are just autonomic reactions to the conditions around us. We think we’re the author of our own thoughts, and we’re fascinated by our selves, but if you really look at your own thoughts, you’ll find your mind is full of well-worn ruts that we traverse over and over again. We re-run the same thoughts—and let’s be honest, they’re really not very deep or complex at all—and it’s as difficult for us to veer out of those habitual patterns as it is for a hamster to change the direction of his Habitrail.

That’s also where I think “no self” comes in. If the world—including us, our thoughts, and our actions—is merely one immense chain “reaction”, and we’re all operating on autopilot, then is there really such a thing as a “self”? What am I, if I am just a collection of semi-autonomic learned reactions to external stimuli? We think of our “self” as something definitional, something essential, and something we control, but can we even say that it exists, when even our thoughts—the very things we use to define “me”—are wholly predetermined by our habits and predispositions?

To illustrate: at this point, the ideas I’ve described are sensory input that has been fed to your thinking process. And most people who read this will now be having thoughts that are their habitual—usually negative—reaction to the idea of determinism. So are you not even now playing out some of your tired old habits of mind?

This seems to me to also drive the definition of karma. Contrary to the simplistic interpretation, karma isn’t about being rewarded or punished in a future life for your behavior in this life. Nor is it some puerile idea of cosmic fairness, where we later will reap the results of meritorious or unwise actions.

Karma is exactly this: your habitual reactions and patterns of thought predispose you to certain kinds of experiences, interactions, and outcomes. If you always view the view from a victim’s point of view, you will only see the ways in which you are victimized, and you will continue to be a victim. If your thoughts and habits are those of an unhappy person, you are very likely to continue to be an unhappy person. The way you think, which is largely formed in childhood and became well ingrained in adolescence, makes you what you are. This is karma.

However, Buddhism does include something of an escape pod from complete determinism. We know that we cannot control our reactionary thoughts and habits, but as I asserted earlier, most of those habits have been learned. In theory, it should be possible to indirectly influence our thinking, to un-learn our old habits and train ourselves to react to the world with new patterns which aren’t as inflexible, adolescent, and self-destructive.

If you can, through practice, create ever the slightest space between perception/stimulus and reaction/response, you have a chance to get inside this reaction engine and maybe change your response.

Humans are singularly blessed. We are the only species on this planet with the ability to see our own mental and emotional programming. And it is this facility which allows us to—hopefully—influence that programming by examining our knee-jerk reactions and replacing them with more mature, compassionate actions. It’s neither a short nor an easy path, and replacing our mindless habits is very arduous and frustrating work.

And the most frustrating part is this: how many people actually do it? How many of us examine our programming, our mindless patterns of behavior, and then pursue the arduous task of changing? How many are even aware of their programming? Sadly, it’s a bogglingly tiny minority.

But this, I think, is exactly what Buddhism is pointing at when it talks about “the unconditioned”: the ability to bring a freshness of mind to each new situation, in a way that is well-considered and compassionate, rather than based in mindless reactions, adolescent insecurities, and the confusion that comes with acting out of the ego. And the unconditioned is just a synonym for nibbana.

So these are the thoughts that have been circling around my head this week. And yes, these thoughts also are as dependent upon conditions as any others. I’m just fortunate that my life conditions brought me to Buddhism, that I happened to be listening to a somewhat pertinent dharma talk, and that I was in a fertile practice space like an MBTA train, so that these thoughts could occur.

I hope these ideas represent progress in understanding concepts like dependent origination, no self, karma, and the unconditioned. And if they have any value for you, I freely share them. As with everything in Buddhism, realizing something is the first step toward freedom, but it’s also the easiest; putting one’s realizations into practice, especially in daily life, is the real, ongoing challenge.