Post #24: What the Dhamma Is Not

21 May 2023

We can often get at the nature of something by saying what it is not, and sometimes better than trying to say what it is. Hence the way the precepts and other catalogues of training rules arrive at their categories of good conduct is by warning against bad (or at least unhelpful) kinds of action. In the same vein, and with even more stringency, the Buddha’s discussions of Nibbana are explicitly limited to what it is not, because more determinate statements would only lead us astray, though we can say that it marks the end of suffering and it is clear that it must be connected somehow to seeing things from a no-self perspective. (Not that the via negativa is exclusive to Buddhism, witness that term itself and the antecedents of the Buddhist teaching in earlier Indian traditions of philosophy and spiritual seeking.)

In our day too, thinking about a few key things that the Path is not, even if it yields some uncomfortable results, may be helpful for getting clearer as to what it is. Thus we have the first and perhaps most obvious thing that the Path is not, namely doing things for no other reason than because they feel good, or avoiding them because they don’t feel good at all—in full frontal opposition to one of the most fundamental premises of all serious spiritual or ethical disciplines. It bears repeating only because there is such a powerful strain in the ethos (if that is the right word) of the past fifty years (though really a timeless instinct that flourished just as colorfully among the nineteenth-century Romantics) according to which feeling can and should be made the one and only measure of all things.

“Follow your heart” is not altogether wrong of course, and if something just doesn’t feel right, whichever way you turn it in your mind, you should probably be wary of it in most cases. There is plenty of intelligence in our emotions, that should be clear; but the heart alone is no more dependable than the head alone, if it were ever possible to separate the two entirely. In fact the two always interact, though not always on equal terms; the challenge is to find things on which they can agree and do them even if they are difficult or unpleasant. To chase pleasant sensations instead is the default programming of all sentient beings, and therefore not to be condemned too harshly; but the Path is about becoming more aware and learning to respond to life’s enticements with greater discernment and detachment, and not to be blindly pulled and pushed around by our domineering sensations the way it usually happens.

The Path is also not about experience-chasing, which may sound very similar to the first point, but with important differences in emphasis. The experiences we run after may be predominantly exciting and generally pleasant, but they can veer into darker explorations that may still call us with great urgency. Special or even esoteric knowledge may be hoped for there, perhaps, the preserve of the few who are in the know as against the great many who remain unilluminated, mere dupes in their ignorance and delusion. The scarier paths that lead into especially dense and dark thickets come with corresponding boasting rights, after all; or perhaps they offer tests of endurance and resolve that we would like to pass, and be seen passing. Maybe we just want good stories to tell ourselves and others, war stories even, on the principle that the most harrowing experiences often make for the best tales in retrospect, at least if one survives them more or less in one piece.

Is there anything very wrong with this deeply engrained fascination with storytelling? Not really, except that as a preoccupation, it does by its very nature reinforce the habitually self-centered perspective that is said, by the Buddhists and not only by them, to be at the root of our difficulties in life. This kind of orientation also tends to involve us in a third thing the Path is not: showing off to your friends. It’s not for anyone else to say how much you really do for your own development and improvement, and how much so that you can post impressive pictures somewhere—only you can tell. But it’s an uncomfortable question that may be worth asking yourself occasionally This urge to see and be seen is, once again, nothing very terrible, as I have pointed out in my recent post on Dhamma posturing especially; but the Path is about self-reliance and an unselfish regard for others, not self-promotion.

Fourth, the Path is not about being in a rush to turn something to coin, and as much of it as possible, preferably online and with no tangible value created. Not that there is anything wrong with offering things that others might like to have, even if the object is moneymaking, but the motivation can get skewed here very easily, as we all know. In the same way a journalist may go through life forever on the lookout for his next feature, and photographer may see the world primarily through the frame of the finder on his camera, so the life of a 21st-century seeker can all-too easily turn into a continual opportunity for pursuing thrilling experiences and their potential internet fruits, whether they be paid out in cash or in the many competing currencies of social respect.

If I dare point out these potential pitfalls, it does not follow that I mean to sermonize or that I am myself immune from the same dynamics. Not at all. My preference for pleasant over unpleasant sensations holds sway over my life largely unabated, and any chip I am able to make in its seemingly impenetrable armor is a big deal, so for sure I keep doing thing largely because they feel better than the alternatives. I still chase experiences with the best of them, and I like to tell a good story about myself as much as anyone, including war stories and other flattering tales of endurance and triumph against adversity, if I can only come up with any credible ones. (If not, I make do with being the anti-hero, which comes to much the same thing, sad to say.) To what extent I am out to impress others, rather than to support them in my small way, is not for me to say; that earning some kind of appreciation and good will remains a prominent part of my motivation, though not at the top of my mind, I must insist from my limited self-perspective—all this is well beyond doubt, alas. And as for seizing online opportunities, well, we do have before us a blog with a donation button, though last I heard begging was not considered a branch of business, nor giving to express friendliness and gratitude when one is under no obligation, and indeed under no expectation, of doing so.

I take an unusually benign and largely optimistic view of commerce and its possibilities, and I can teach classical economics without squeamishness or feeling tainted and compromised by it. Offering goods for sale, at a profit, that others are free to decline strikes me as a very useful and beneficial thing to do; it’s just that embarking even on such mutually advantageous ventures with the single-minded expectation of recompense, quid pro quo in all of its myriad forms, is not exactly the Dhamma or the Path, which is meant to be a one-way street, at least ideally. I would also see some cause for worry about my competence as an economics teacher if I thought it a promising proposition, from a profitability point of view, to spend a non-negligible number of hours writing texts every week in order to then make them available for free, without ads, and even pay out of my own pocket to keep them online.

Not that I have a problem with money, whether earning it by legitimate means or receiving it by way of gift, which does not make me feel burdened or unduly indebted, as it apparently does others. Personally I’ve always quite enjoyed having a bit of cash in my pocket and a safe balance in my account, and I take much greater joy in seeing it come in than watching it depart too freely and quickly, to say nothing of finding myself sinking helplessly into the red morass, with which I have far more experience than I would wish on anyone. The practice has not changed my mind on any of this. Philosophically I consider money an ingenious invention and a formidable tool for addressing pressing human problems, individual and collective alike; whether it will turn out a force for good or not depends, case by case, on what one does with it, not how much of it one is able to gather. And karmically it is all a matter of having the right intentions anyway.

What reservations about moneymaking I may have, such as they are, do not look very aversive to me. That monastic discipline prescribes some distance between monks and the cash-box has good practical reasons, though some of them may need to be rethought for the modern world; but even if one took a strict line here, monastics are kept from plenty of others things that I would not want to do without—my hair for example (while it lasts), my freely chosen wardrobe, and a few other things besides that look far from trifling to me.

So my Four Things the Dhamma is not should not be taken as threatening anyone with damnation; that is not their meaning or my intention at all. They are reminders only—though timely ones, I think—that the prevailing currents engulfing us on all sides cannot always be counted on to carry us in the right direction, and certainly should not be expected to help us reach the other shore, if that is what we are aiming for.