Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life

Book by Revel Jean Francois Ricard Matthieu

Jean Francois-- So let's come back to the question, is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion? Or philosophy and religion? What strikes me is this. Buddhism, on the whole, has a very positive image in the West. It's true that right now people's feelings toward Buddhism are reinforced by the sympathy they feel toward the Tibetans, with all the sufferings they are going through, and also by the impact the Dalai Lama's personality has had worldwide and the affection--and even veneration--that he arouses everywhere, even in parts of the world unfamiliar with Buddhism. But quite apart from that recent political limelight, Buddhism has been treated with considerable respect in the West for a long time. It's always been seen as a rather unadulterated and straightforward doctrine that can therefore be accepted by a critical mind. It fits with Western rationalism, to which it adds a moral and spiritual dimension--a dimension of wisdom, or even more, not incompatible with criteria that have been evolving in the West with the modern scientific outlook since the Enlightenment and eighteenth-century rationalism. But when you come to Asia, that ethereal vision of Buddhism is put to the severest of tests. Someone like me is struck, or perhaps I should say shocked, by many aspects of the way Buddhism is practiced that I can only qualify as superstitious. Prayer flags, prayer wheels, belief in reincarnation -- like that three-year old we met the other day who's supposed to be a reincarnated lama.

Matthiew-- Yes, the whole idea of reincarnation, especially, is something we'll need to talk about to clarify. But first, let's go through your points in order. I think the main reason Buddhism has been seen in the West as so intellectually acceptable is that it tackles the basic concerns of any living being. The core teachings of Buddhism are not at all exotic, nor are they influenced by cultural factors of the sort that caused you such surprise. They simply analyze and dismantle the mechanisms of happiness and suffering. Where does suffering come from? What are its causes? How can it be remedied? Gradually, through investigation and contemplation, Buddhism gets down to the deep causes of suffering. It's a search that concerns any human being, Buddhist or not.

J.F.-- Can you define what you call suffering?

M.-- A state of deep dissatisfaction, which may be combined with physical pain but is first and foremost a mental experience. As everyone knows, different people can perceive the same things in completely opposite ways, either as pleasant or as unpleasant. Suffering arises when the self, the 'me' that we cherish and protect, is threatened, or doesn't get what it wants. The most intense physical sufferings can be experienced in very different ways according to our state of mind. Moreover, ordinary goals in life, like power, possessions, the pleasures of the senses and fame, can procure temporary satisfaction but are never permanently satisfying. One day or another, they're bound to turn into sources of unhappiness. They can never bring lasting fulfillment, or an inner peace untouched by outer circumstances. Pursuing such worldly goals all our lives, we have no more chance of attaining true happiness than a fisherman has of catching fish by throwing his nets into a dry riverbed.

J.F.-- The Epicureans and the Stoics both said the same thing, in exactly the same terms.

M.-- That state of dissatisfaction is characteristic of the conditioned world, which, by its very nature, can only bring ephemeral satisfactions. In Buddhist terms, you'd say that the world or 'circle' of rebirths, samsara, is pervaded by suffering. But this isn't at all a pessimistic way of looking at the world, it's simply an observation. The next step is to look for remedies to that suffering, and for that you need to know what causes it. At the initial level of investigation, Buddhism concludes that suffering is born from desire, attachment, hatred, pride, jealousy, lack of discernment, and all the states of mind that are designated as 'negative' or 'obscuring' because they stir the mind up and plunge it into a state of confusion and insecurity. These negative emotions, in turn, arise from the notion of a self, a 'me' that we cherish and want to protect at all costs. Attachment to the self is a fact, but the self that is the object of that attachment has no true existence; it exists nowhere and in no way as an autonomous and permanent entity. It exists neither in the different physical and mental parts that constitute an individual, nor somewhere outside them, nor in their combination.

If you object that the self corresponds to the meeting of those parts, that amounts to conceding that it's just a simple label that the intellect imposes on the temporary meeting of various interdependent elements. In fact, the self doesn't exist in any of those elements, and when they separate the very notion of it disappears. Not to unmask the imposture of the self is ignorance, the momentary inability to recognize the true nature of things. It's that ignorance, therefore, that is the ultimate cause of suffering. Once we manage to get rid of our erroneous understanding of the self and our belief in the true and solid existence of phenomena, once we recognize that this 'I' doesn't really exist, there's no more reason to be afraid of not getting what we want or being subjected to what we don't want.
J.F.-- That part of the analysis is common to Buddhism and to numerous Western philosophies--to the wisdom of classical times, let's say. In France, it crops up again in Montaigne and then in Pascal, along with an intended apology for Christianity.

M.-- It could be because of that initial simplicity of basic Buddhism that the Western world feels an affinity for its teaching and can easily get into it straight away.

J.F.-- I myself feel that what's attracted certain Western philosophers in Buddhism is the idea of being able to attain a kind of serenity. I don't want to use the word 'apathy', because of its negative sense. It's more a question of what some psychological schools called 'ataraxia', to use a rather pedantic word. Ataraxia is an imperturbable state that the wise man has to attain, according to Stoicism; it's to no longer be exposed to the unpredictable effects of the good and bad that come up in daily life.

M.-- It's very important not to confuse serenity and apathy. One of the characteristics of a stable spiritual practice is not to be vulnerable to outer circumstances, whether favorable or unfavorable. The practitioner's mind is likened to a mountain that the winds can't shake; he's neither tormented by the difficulties he may come across nor elated by his successes. But that inner equanimity is neither apathy nor indifference. It's accompanied by inner jubilation, and by an openness of mind expressed as unfailing altruism.

J.F.-- That's the element common to all traditions of wisdom. You could easily be describing the Stoic sage. Nowadays, in our scientific age, philosophers have abandoned the ideal of wisdom, in which the philosopher would provide his readers or listeners with recipes to help them attain such wisdom. So it's perhaps not surprising that Buddhism has acquired a certain authority in the West these days. But the attraction of Buddhism seems to go a bit beyond this treasure shared by all wisdoms, to a fusion of the self in some sort of undetermined state.

M.-- It's not at all a matter of a fusion or extinction of the self in some amorphous, undetermined state, but of lucidly recognizing that the self has no true existence and that it's the source of all your problems. Here, Buddhism offers a very abundant range of methods by which to attain the inner peace that flows from letting go of that belief in a self. It doesn't stop at just describing all the states that arise in the mind, but shows how to transform them, to 'liberate' them. Before we talk about those methods, I'd like to say a little about the ego, the attachment to the self as the basic expression of ignorance and cause of negative emotions. Buddhism recommends a very detailed investigation of the notion of ego, of the way we perceive ourselves as a 'person' and phenomena outside ourselves as solid 'entities'. The very root of all negative emotions is the perception we have of ourselves as a person, as an 'I' that is an entity existing in itself, autonomously, either in the stream of our thoughts, or in our bodies. But if this self really exists, where is it? In our bodies? In our hearts? In our brains? Could it be spread out over the whole body? It's not difficult to see that the self doesn't exist anywhere in the body.

J.F.-- I feel as if we're going back to the time when Western philosophers wondered where in the body the soul could be housed. Descartes traced its localization to the pineal gland. Isn't that rather a puerile question? Consciousness of a self exists, without it having to reside in this or that part of the body!

M.-- That's why the next step is to ask yourself if the self is somewhere in your mind, in the stream of your consciousness. That stream can be divided into past, present, and future thoughts. The self can't be the totality of all those moments, because such a totality doesn't exist at any one particular moment. The past thought is dead, it no longer exists. How could the self belong to what's only a memory? The future hasn't yet come about, so the self can't be in a nonexistent future either. Only the present is left. Now, to exist, this entity we call 'me' must have some definite characteristics. But it has neither color, nor form, nor localization. The more you look for it, the less you can find anything. So finally the self seems to be no more than a label attached to an apparent continuity.

Such analysis makes it possible to weaken the belief we have in an all-powerful entity, the self, which is what makes us want whatever is desirable and abhor whatever isn't. The feeling of being an autonomous 'me' normally sets up a break between 'myself' and 'others'. That alternation of attraction and repulsion gives rise to myriads of thoughts and negative emotions, which are expressed as words and actions and build up our suffering. To discover as a direct experience, through analysis and especially through contemplation, that the self has no true existence is a highly liberating process. I think many Westerners have found investigation along these lines very useful, and all the more so in that it comes along with an incredible variety of techniques with which to work on one's thoughts, so that one need no longer be enslaved by them. But that we'll come back to later.

J.F.-- It would be interesting to hear some details of those techniques.

M.-- In theory, there are said to be eighty-four thousand approaches, or entrance doors, in Buddhism. The large number is to indicate that, in fact, anyone can start wherever they are. To climb Mount Everest, you could set out from the traffic jams of a Parisian suburb or from the lush greenery of a Nepalese valley. The goal is the same, but the ways you might travel are different. In the same way, on the spiritual path we all have to start at the point where we find ourselves, each with a different character, set of dispositions, intellectual and belief structure. Everyone can find the particular means tailored to their needs, allowing them to work on their thoughts, gradually set themselves free from the yoke of the negative emotions, and finally perceive the ultimate nature of the mind.
J.F.-- That point of view, although the methods aren't necessarily always the same, is also one aspect of a certain tradition of Western philosophy. How to impose some discipline on one's own thoughts is one of the major themes of classical philosophy. But modern philosophy is much more focused on understanding how the mind functions than on changing it.

M.-- Buddhism combines knowledge of how the mind works--there are whole treatises on the subject--with knowledge of its ultimate nature. Such knowledge has a liberating effect on the belief in a self. The range of techniques used to that end are both effective and varied. One initial approach consists of applying antidotes to the negative emotions. You try to develop patience to combat anger, non-attachment to combat desire, and to analyze the mechanisms of cause and effect to combat confusion, or lack of discernment. Giving free rein to the emotions, hatred for example, can only give rise to more hatred. History, whether of individuals or nations, clearly shows that hatred has never resolved conflicts.

J.F.-- Well, that depends for whom--unfortunately, in the never-ending story of human war, violence, and crime, there have also been winners. As for eradicating hatred, that's something you find in the Gospels.

M.-- Of course! It's not surprising from a spiritual point of view to find such parallels with Western traditions. But let's come back to hatred for a moment. Take the example of someone who, in a fit of anger, hits you with a stick. No one would even think of feeling angry with the stick, that's obvious. But are you going to get angry with the person attacking you? If you think about it, the person is being consumed by a blaze of anger, of which the source is ignorance. They've lost all control over themselves. In fact, the most appropriate reaction would be compassion, just as you might feel for a sick person or a slave. You can't really blame it all on them. In the last analysis, the true enemy, without any right to your pity, is anger itself.

J.F.-- Yes, but you're rather forgetting the practical side of things. It might well be that before you've had time to get through that brilliant bit of reasoning, the person's knocked the very life out of you! So--

M.-- Of course, the best thing would be to avoid the confrontation by neutralizing your aggressor, or by running away. None of this excludes the use of whatever means might be appropriate, and any necessary force; but never with hatred. Deep within ourselves, it's important to maintain invincible compassion and inexhaustible patience. It's not a matter of either passively submitting to the mercy of anyone who attacks us, or trying to eliminate them by force (there'll always be more to come), but of discovering that our major adversary is the desire to harm others--something we'll need to combat mercilessly. That's what we have to understand and, as much as we can, get others to see, too.

J.F.-- Wait a minute--you'll soon be taking me through the entire Buddhist teaching. But you haven't yet answered my objection about superstitions.

M.-- We're coming to that, but first let me finish this overall picture. The use of antidotes is an effective method, but it has its limits. There are an infinite number of negative emotions, so to thwart them all would need an infinite number of antidotes. A second approach therefore consists of trying to grasp the nature of thoughts and trace them to their very source. A feeling of hatred, for example, can seem extremely solid and powerful, and can create a sort of knot somewhere in our chests and completely change the way we behave. But if we look at it, we see that it's not brandishing any weapon, it can't crush us like a boulder could, or burn us like fire. In reality, the whole thing began with a tiny thought, which has gradually grown and swollen up like a storm cloud. From far away, summer clouds can look very impressive and solid. You really feel you could sit on them. But when you get inside them, there's hardly anything there. They turn out to be completely intangible. In the same way, when we look at a thought and trace it back to its source, we can't find anything substantial. At that very moment, the thought evaporates. This ...