MINDFUL HERESY

CHIMED:  And if we were to come to this realization, what then? 

BILL:  I’m reminded (I’m not sure why) of Maslow’s “eupsychia”.  What would make a better world-- a utopia -- of earth?   he asked. Nearly every religious doctrine is proscriptive in this sense, and declares love and compassion as the answer to humankind’s woes.  I have to admit that this is one aspect of religious doctrine I can’t argue with much.  But, I  can’t help but wonder if  compassion is simply a human remedy for animal passions and violence; or is it, instead,  more as the Buddhists suggest:  a universal quality of Mind?  I could say this another way, and ask if compassion would even be necessary in a functionally better world, say a world already existent and light years away from planet earth?  If there be such a place, what would it be like?  Utopias, you see, are easy to wish for but very difficult to conceive. One thing is for sure:  the food-chain has to go.  I’m not sure I could ever be fully compassionate if I spend a significant part of my day hunting you so I can gnaw on your bones.   

You see,  all of this is essentially a moral question:  How should we relate to nature?  To others? And then the question becomes:  How should I relate to myself? I believe that  each of us finds a similar type of diversity in the internal life as we find in the external world. If this is the case, then how should I respond to what I discover in myself?  Moreover, is there one abiding self within, or countless selves coming and going like the different thoughts in my head?

          I think of personal, introspective  psychology as the observation of subjective currents.  For me, these various currents express distinguishable moments or phases of the flux I call life, being, and existence. The problem that each one of us carries inside is how to integrate and harmonize all of these variable currents of personal, idiosyncratic subjectivity.  In other words, psychology from the totally subjective point of view is at heart a problem of self-relation. Discovering a personal self-identity, for example, is a function of self-relation.  Perhaps a constant personal self is more of a personal fantasy than a given reality. 

CHIMED:  Would you mind relating all of this to the parable we were talking about? 

BILL:  Of course.  (Brief pause)   

What did the Buddha do?  Did the actual Buddha throw himself down on an anthill, or even at the feet of a lioness for that matter?  No, that’s not how his  story goes.  Instead, he went into isolation,  achieved his insight, and then came back to the family of humanity.  Why did he come back, being the free man that he was?  What was his motivation? 

At first, we are told, he struggled with this.  What could he say about the inexpressible?  How could he communicate his insight?  This was a great challenge.  So did he just throw up his hands and say that it was hopeless?

(That would have been a novelty! Every esoteric doctrine on the planet seems to be an endless yakking about the “inexpressible”. Even in orthodox Judaism the true name for God cannot be uttered, but that hasn’t slowed the priest class from yammering about the great ineffable “Him” throughout the centuries.)  But no.  The Buddha tried.  He searched for the right words, the appropriate gestures. He did his best to communicate his insight.  He educated his fellow humans as best he could,  because he saw this was the only challenge worthy of him.  In other words, he acted in the most compassionate way he knew how.  He suggested alternative realms of cognition, beyond the rational mind.  He contrived new categories for thought, and stretched concepts past  their conventional limits. He suggested introspection and insight as the course to liberation, and inspired those around him to search for more comprehensiveness and clarity in their views.  See beyond beliefs.  See through concepts into the nature of the given.  Do this for your own well being, if for no other reason.    

The Buddha, like Plato -- like all compassionate people, like all Boddhisattvas --  was a great educator.  To my mind this  implies the reality of evolution, of the potential and capacities for human beings to learn and develop themselves.  The doctrine may say that Buddha mind is beyond all hope and fear, untouched by anticipation and regret, but  the Buddha himself, through the actions of his life, pronounced nothing but hope. The hope of overcoming cognitive limits . The  anticipation of self-realization. The wish for  liberation,  both for himself and humanity.  

So to sum up, I don’t find it surprising that the path of self-realization and the path of compassion are essentially the same.

CHIMED:  Since we’re on the topic of self-realization, would you mind sharing your thoughts about attachment?  As I understand it, the other necessary aspect for true insight is non-attachment.  

BILL:  Boy, this is another sticky wicket.

(Long pause.  Gets up and walks around.  Eventually sits back down).   

I feel this notion of “non-attachment” is greatly misunderstood.  I know my saying that probably doesn’t surprise you much by now. 

CHIMED:   No comment, for the moment… 

BILL:  You know how when you were in your teens, or early twenties, or whenever it was you first became interested in Dharma?  And you read about non-attachment?  So what do you do?  You sell your car, get rid of your possessions, break up your current relationship, or whatever.  So now you’re pretty much on the street with nothing but a backpack, and  you feel really  light, imagining that  you’ve gotten closer to Buddha nature. (Try doing this when you’re sixty, by the way.)   

After a while you decide the real problem is not simply attachment to material goods, but rather your attachment to your ideas, to concepts.  So then Godliness becomes a blank mind, a “no-thought” , and anyone who thinks is attached and deluded.  They’re just tearing off the petals of pure experience, an ultimate reality which is void of concepts.  So you try this, but nope, still no enlightenment.  Just vacant stares.   

So then you imagine that the real problem is attachment to the body, and the poison of the ego, so somehow  you have to figure out how to break this.  And so on.  Eventually you become not a practicing Buddhist, but instead a practicing masochist, and a pretty damn good one at that.  

This approach to  ‘non-attachment” may be sincere, even noble in intent,  but it is also naive.  I would ask you: Did the Buddha stop thinking, stop talking?  You might argue that when he meditated he did, but I mean afterwards.  You know.  The rest  of his life?  Did the Buddha try to rid himself of his body?  No.  I don’t remember him advising suicide as the ”middle way”.  It seems obvious that he practiced  non-attachment without ever getting rid of anything.  He walked, he talked, he ate dinner with his friends, and supposedly had really foul  farts.  

CHIMED:  (Chuckles)  Well, that’s not exactly true.  After all, he was a  Prince, with wealth beyond belief, and he gave all that up. 

BILL:  Right.  Yes he did... or so we are told.  However,  I feel the significance of this is not that he walked away from his kingdom, but  that he shifted his focus, his orientation, his motivation. He altered his attention  from that of satiating the sense fields to that of satiating consciousness.  His goal changed, so in that sense it was no big deal to walk away from it all.   

He craved self-understanding, so maybe in the beginning  he just had to get a fresh start. Ultimately, however, he realized  that wasn’t really necessary.  He realized a middle path, free from extremes.  Wealth binds no more, perhaps even less, than poverty.  Neither position is particularly desirable from the Buddhist perspective.   Give up extremes:  Extreme actions; extreme thoughts or categories of thought; extreme perceptions of reality;  extreme beliefs about what reality is,  or is not.   

And when I say “give up”,  I don’t mean ridding yourself of them, as if you were naughty and should punish yourself.  No, give them up by enhancing your understanding, cultivating your compassion, enlarging your view towards more tolerance and comprehensiveness.  This is the real practice of non-attachment, and in one way it’s quite a natural event. 

CHIMED:  How do you mean that?  

BILL:  Well,  think back to when your were five years old.  What was your view, your attitude, your conceptual understanding of yourself, others, and the world?  Probably, you hardly realized that the world existed at  that point  in your development, or it existed merely for your wants and needs.  Your beliefs were very primitive, or to put it more objectively,  “undeveloped”.  You were necessarily selfish.  This was how you survived and grew.   

Compare yourself then with how you conceived the world when you were ten or twelve.  Was your picture a little more complete?  Probably.  You had quite naturally given up, or practiced non-attachment, towards your earlier reactions and perceptions.  The little toy truck just doesn’t have the same allure as it used to for you.  What do you want me to do with your truck, Johnny?  Oh,  you say, just throw it away.  I don’t care.  Non-attachment towards  the little red truck. 

And so on throughout our biological, cognitive and emotional development.  At some point I might even come to realize, without any more prompting from the outside world, that other people are as important as I am.   Wow!  There’s  a leap towards non-attachment to self.  And it occurred without any religious edicts being pounded into my head.  It just happened. The practice of non-attachment is like this.  It’s a natural development which occurs spontaneously when cognitive development and emotional maturity take place.   

Our problem is that  at some point in our lives we cease to grow, cease to develop, and stop maturing.  Then, properly speaking, we are attached.  The status quo prevails.  We’re stuck, and maybe even like it by now. We might even believe that we’ve figured everything out and don’t need to change at all anymore.  

Trust me, if you maintain your motivation, your original focus to learn and understand life and yourself as a participant within it,  you won’t require any sermons or reminders about non-attachment.  You will quite naturally pass by and drop off that which you have outgrown.  This is simply the way an evolving being acts,  like a snake shedding its skin. 

CHIMED:  That’s an interesting metaphor to use at this point.  The “skin of a snake”:  If I were a Freudian I might have a field day with that. 

BILL:  Be my guest.  A Freudian probably would appropriate that image for his own ends.  Just like a Christian might, or a Sufi, or a Buddhist.  The mystery of the snake’s being carries a lot of emotional content for human beings.  Snakes are one of the few things that primates are instinctively afraid of .  But a poet can use that emotional charge to his liking, not needing to fit it into some moralistic system.  Religions have confiscated all of these rich, emotional symbols, but they did not create them.  Consciousness created them, from, in all likelihood, the realm of instincts. 

CHIMED:  So, do you think of yourself primarily as a poet? 

BILL:  Probably.  And a hopelessly romantic one, at that.  But all of that’s personal B.S.  

CHIMED:  I see.     

BILL:  Hope you do.  So...the lesson about non-attachment is more an admonition then an actual methodology.  Keep developing, continue to mature, obtain greater self-realization and understanding.  If you stop,  if you get stuck, then yes, practice non-attachment.  Stop clinging to your current security blanket.  Give it up.  Another one will probably soon replace it anyway.  Are you stuck clinging to absolute viewpoints? Even the absolute viewpoint of relativity?  Disengage from this.  Why?  Because reality doesn’t really give a damn about your precious ideas or beliefs. Ideas and beliefs seldom operate beyond the  need for strategic outlooks and survival.  Those ideas and beliefs, if taken as final, will do nothing but impede your psychological maturation.    

We become “attached” to familiar attitudes, strategies, and circumstances. We develop a self-identity that works pretty well for us, having internalized so much of the social constructions of reality, and we don’t really want to change it any more.  Habit takes the place of knowledge, and then we mistakenly believe that because we repeat ourselves and act always the same, we therefore now know ourselves.   We stop evolving because we’re pretty damn sure we got it all figured out anyway.  This is attachment, and, yes, it’s better to give it up. 

CHIMED: Yes, but isn’t the question still how  to “give it up”?  As I understand it, non-attachment is  a methodology, a manner of relating to things, to our lives.  It’s the cultivation of a specific perspective which only occurs by practice in the spiritual path. 

BILL:  True enough.  But be careful when you try to see things a certain way.  Why?  Because you will probably end up seeing things exactly that way.  We are highly conditionable animals.  We’re good learners, up to a point.  We learn from the past, and then project our thoughts into the future, and by doing so we help to create that  future, or at least our perception of it.   

Non-attachment can be a very dangerous method of conditioning ourselves.  It can be based on motives-- emotional currents-- that we’re totally unaware of.  We think we’re practicing some pure Dharma because everything and everyone around us seems so distant, uninteresting, or even laughable.  This is one way many people try developing non-attachment:  Divine aloofness. (The Gurus, by the way, have this air about them.)  I remember some young lad telling me that he was so unattached it didn’t matter if he lived or died.  I would have given anything to have had a gun handy.  I would have loved to see how “disinterested” he was if he was staring at the end of a barrel. 

CHIMED:  What if he was?  What if you pointed that gun at him and he really didn’t care? 

BILL:  Then I would say he was sick, or deluded, not unattached. Lots of crazy people wouldn’t mind if you shot them. They might even welcome it.   Look, when  the Buddha walked near the edge of a cliff, he didn’t jump over it, or even skirt along the edge to prove how cool and above bodily concerns he was.  He would simply walk on firmer ground, away from the precipice.  This is normal.  Every animal does it.  Does that mean the Buddha  was attached to his body, because he wasn’t willing to hurl it over the edge?  I don’t think so.  

Non-attachment is very much attached to insight.  When we ponder the transiency of all things, when we recognize how evanescent and fragile our lives are, how all things are truly so delicate--  the earth, the sun, the stars-- then we begin to understand the futility of clinging to them, of trying to posses them.  Attachment is, in a way, a form of arrogance, of thinking that something is yours, belongs to you alone, and so you control it... or him.. or her.  Doesn’t matter, though.  Even your own body is on loan.  No permanent residency allowed.   

Once we begin to understand the transiency of our circumstances, then not only does non-attachment occur naturally, but so does appreciation and joy.  Buddhists seemed to be fixated on non-attachment in a totally negative matter.  They always worry about getting rid of something. As a consequence they very often develop personality disorders,  flat affects and various manifestations of paranoia--to name a couple of persistent problems. They  stunt their physical, emotional, and conceptual expressions for the sake of some distorted fantasy about how a non-attached person should act.  It’s as though they believe they are magnets, and all around them are these little filings called ego, desire, concepts, worldly activities, and so on.  All of these terrible things are always  trying to stick to them.  As a consequence, they become  runners.  Escape artists. 

CHIMED:  It seems to me you’re arguing more with the results of practicing non-attachment rather than the actual merit of the methodology. 

BILL: I suppose....in one way.  I say it’s far better to be an ordinary artist.  Nobody appreciates more than an artist the fleeting quality of the moment, the balance of light and shadow at a certain time... and only that time.  Only an artist, or someone who perceives as an artist does, realizes fully how precious each moment of existence is, and how quickly it can vanish.  An artist realizes that we are by nature “unattached”.   Ironically, true artists achieve this state by going into,  rather than running away from,  everyday life. They don’t denigrate their sense fields and the objects they posses.  They enjoy them.  

I ask you:  Isn’t the usual practice of unattachment a subtle form of clinging?  And what are we clinging to?  We are clinging to our ideas of life, not to the reality or given nature of life.  And what are those ideas based on, what is their source?  Not reason, I can tell you that.  Not even common sense most of the time.  The way we view the world-- our ideas, values, and ultimately our perceptions of the world-- are predicated by our beliefs.  Beliefs are the ultimate form of holding on.  

Now you might wonder what the actual difference between an idea and belief is.  I can tell you this much: Most people don’t have any idea about what they believe. Oh, they might give it words.  They might talk about believing in Jesus, or Buddha, or Moses, or Pure Realms, etc. But these words simply fill up am emotional  framework  people have constructed  inside themselves, a place crammed  with feeling,  but absent of a single, clear and generative concept. 

CHIMED:  I’m not quite clear on your distinctions here…

 BILL:  Well, for most people, belief is like food-- a necessity without which they would die. When we are  unwilling to relinquish our current attitudes and concepts, even when they repeatedly lead us into personal harm or complete futility,  this is what I call  attachment. And beliefs compel us to do just this.   When we cease to enquire, grow, and mature,  then we are no longer practicing non-attachment, regardless of how our dress, mannerism, or speech may appear from the outside.  Churches, for example, are excellent places in which to look really good while you’re busy being attached to non-attachment.   

CHIMED:  Maybe we can come back to this question.  I think I understand what you’re trying to say,  but I’m not sure you’ve really said it completely.  Let’s move on, and keep this question on hold. 

BILL:  That’s fine.  Tell you what.  Since we’re on the topic of hard questions to answer, we might as well tackle “Emptiness”.  Whadaya’ say? (smiles) 

CHIMED: No problem here.  Go ahead.  Make a run for it.  

BILL:  You see,  I like these metaphors:  Tackle the question; make a run at the answer.  Let’s grapple with emptiness, dance in the void, take a twirl with negation.  Good physical metaphors, because that’s how deep our understanding must go:  into the head, down to the heart, all the way to the muscle and bone.  Since the notion of emptiness plays such a central role in Buddhist doctrine, our responsibility is to carry it to the fullest reaches of our being,  through the conceptual and  emotional to the concrete, physical expression of human reality.   Anything less will not fulfill us, will not carry the day, as it were. Why do I say this?  Because  for Buddhists, Emptiness seems to be the answer for everything.

Emptiness has become the Buddhist equivalent for God, the internal moral standard which is usually reserved for the external imperatives of deities.   Having trouble with your girlfriend?  Realize her empty nature.  Mind racing a bit out of control?  Realize your empty nature.  Confused about the nature of reality?  Realize its empty nature.  Emptiness, at least in its current application, has become the supreme antidote for all that ails you.  Find Emptiness....find God.  Either one will do in a pinch.  

Putting aside that the Buddhist paradigm, like the model offered by all religions, begins with implied sickness--of the mind, soul, or whatever--and so relates spiritual conundrums through a medical precept.  Putting aside the implication that some kind of medicine man or  witch-doctor is required in order for you to feel healthy and whole, let’s take a look at this mystical medicine and see if it can stand behind its promise. 

          CHIMED:  But when all is said, the concept of Emptiness still seems to beg definition… 

BILL:  It seems obvious to me that one way Emptiness is understood  is as the moral equivalence of physical transiency.  Another way of saying this is that Emptiness is the subjective experience of external flux.  In Buddhism all phenomena is understood as transitory, as “becoming” as opposed to “Being”.  And whatever is transitory is also deemed unreal, or as Buddhists say:  illusory.  All phenomena is impermanent, including one’s internal experiences of sensations, emotions, and ideas. None of these last much beyond a few moments. Only that which is permanent, unchanging, unconditioned, and completely simple and constant, is to be deemed as real.  (Unfortunately, what is simple and constant in experience cannot really be thought of, and it certainly cannot be perceived. But that’s another problem.) 

Coincidentally,  there are many changing ways we can label this inferred permanence.  We can name it “eternal” in reference to time, “infinite” in reference to space, “God” in reference to man, and “compassionate” in reference to nature. All of these perspectives are epithets for permanence, and by implication, Emptiness.  

Hence, the basic premise, recognized in one form or another through various philosophical and spiritual systems:   Don’t pin your hopes on a cloud.   Don’t believe you can freeze water forever.  All of these things, even those that appear most solid and unchanging, are inherently empty of that supposed solidarity. Someday even the earth will crumble like a cookie.  The New Agers are right:  California will break off and fall back into the ocean, but probably not as soon as they would like. 

Now the reasoning or logic of this position is, as I’ve stated before, reductionist.  Let’s consider, for example, the chairs we’re now sitting on.  They feel solid, don’t they?  They support us.  Their forms appear stable.  They don’t turn into tables or toadstools when we get up from them.  So what are these chairs?  Well, we know that they’re comprised of parts, of components and elements wedded into a whole.  So they’re composites, not wholes unto themselves.  And when we examine those elements, they break down into more parts, until, like the physicists, we have to say that they are little more than a temporary assembly of basic elements and aggregates.  Even  those aggregates eventually disintegrate  upon  further analysis:  elements to molecules; molecules to atoms and electrons,  including their electro-chemical constituency; electrons and such into spins and  the space from which they are comprised; this space anything but  empty, and so on.   In Buddhism all of this is referred to as the formation of the “skandhas”.  

Buddhists carry on this same type of analysis towards all things, including human beings.  The conclusion is that where we assumed individuality we find communities.  Where we assumed a central cause or condition, a singularity from which something has been produced, we  find, at best, empty space with no source towards which we can point.  And even this space, though analogous to the Emptiness meant by Buddhism, is filled with unseen, invisible forces and attributes.  So, the conclusion for Buddhism is not matter, which keeps crumbling in front of our eyes into smaller and smaller pieces, but  Mind, which remains as the basis of both that which looks and that which is looked at.  This is the fundamental idealism of Buddhist doctrine.  All things are “empty of all self-inherent being”.  In other words, they are intrinsically  Mind only. (Maybe we can talk a little  later on about the inherent contradictions in this view if we have the time).   

CHIMED:  O.K., so everything is impermanent, transitory … and? 

BILL:  This  transiency,  or inconstancy of both subjective and objective experiences ties directly into  the Vajrayana concept of “illusion”.  All phenomena are illusory, according to the doctrine.  Why?  Because we can discover nothing that remains constant, unchanging within them.  Just as a dream appears real, but in fact is evanescent in nature, so to is external reality a fiction, an appearance of something which it is not.  

We now know, from our study of perception in Western psychology, that perception itself is very mutable, conditioned by many variables inside and out.  What appears is not necessarily the same as what is present.  The “thing-in-itself” is, in fact, probably quite different from our perception of it, no matter how convinced we are that our perception is correct.  

CHIMED:  In effect, then, you’re saying we’re never really perceiving what we believe we’re perceiving.  And that is because…? 

BILL:  We have perceptual expectancies which distort our view of what is actual.  We have various other perceptual habits, based on emotional predispositions, internal biases, and belief systems.  All of these collectively influence and alter our perception of reality. We make models of reality, dream-like representations that may be personally satisfying, but necessarily  stray away from external accuracy.  

Now even though we can argue that our waking consciousness is like a dream state, we cannot argue that the dreaming does not occur.  We have a dream.  We wake up from the dream, and realize the illusory nature of our experience.  The fact that the dream was illusory does not entirely negate its reality.  It was, you might say, a very real illusion.  Dreams occur, and to deny this fact we really  have to distort our perceptions.   

The same is true of waking consciousness.  We can say we perceived the situation incorrectly, interjected it with personal distortions and projections,  but we cannot deny that something occurred.  Even though our waking perceptions may also be  illusory in this sense,  there remains a basis for its appearance.  The only thing we can’t say with certitude is exactly what  happened. The most significant illusion which occurred is our  perception and conception of what happened.  As to the intrinsic character of the phenomena,  who can say?  Buddhists say that only the Buddhas can say... which proves very convenient.  

CHIMED:  Sure can’t argue with that! 

BILL:  One side effect of all this reasoning  is that a lot of students in Buddhism go around trying to force their waking consciousness into a dream-like quality.  They engage in an active process of self-conditioning, or perhaps more accurately, self-hypnosis.  This is just a dream.  This is just a dream. This is just a dream.   They repeat this like a mantra.  They want to believe that waking consciousness and dream consciousness are the same.  They are not the same.  When you’re awake you know you’re awake, and when you’re dreaming you will eventually awaken and realize that you have been dreaming.  How much more difference do you need? 

CHIMED:  Aren’t Buddhists simply using the dream state as a metaphor for reality? 

BILL:  Perhaps, but I don’t think so.  Not in so many of the instances that I witnessed.  Also, the other tendency  for most Buddhists at this point is to want to turn Emptiness into “Somethingness”, even if that something is a pure void.  Aside from the fact that a pure void is totally unimaginable,  Emptiness functions as an adverb-- a qualifier-- not as a noun or a substantive.  There is no Emptiness.  But there is that which is “empty of self-inherent being”.  In other words, there is no permanent state of unchanging individuality., and by implication no thing is self-arisen. All things are in the process of becoming that which they are not now, so they cannot possibly possess the everlasting attributes of a personality, soul, or body.  All of these attributes are also empty of intrinsic status.  They move, shift, change with the wind and tides.  There  is no static thing, at least not for human consciousness, but rather only the process of something becoming something else.  So, in this way I would say that Emptiness is instrumental, rather than substantive.   

This is, cursorily put, the idea of Emptiness. Emptiness is how things act, including your own emotions and ideas. Even concepts are empty, but  this is easier for us to understand, since images and ideas flit about in our heads all the time.  It’s difficult for us to take them as completely reliable or as constant. Unlike, say, the verity of nature, which will remain even if we were to die this instant.  

CHIMED:  Isn’t  Emptiness sometimes referred to as the “space” between our thoughts? 

BILL: Yes, it is.  However, I would think of that spaciousness more as a quality of Mind, rather than trying to manipulate it back into a covert  “something” again.  An enduring interval, as it were.  Ironically,  if we reflect upon this a bit more we find that ideas are the one reality--the realm of forms, as Plato called them--that many philosophers have deemed most the permanent of our experiences.  The thinking went something like this:  These three pieces of fruit I have on my table could come and go by a number of different ways.  We could eat them, toss them out the windows and let the deer and raccoons munch on them, or we could leave them somewhere long enough, and they would eventually rot and disappear. For the Buddhist this confirms that they are intrinsically  Empty.   

Yet,  the ideas  of “three” and of “fruit” as categories of being,  remain.  The thought  of the fruit, the concept of their plurality, their commonality, and even their differences, all of this continues as always long after the fruit has returned to the earth.  Things come and go,  but the ideas of things, and the concepts which relate them to us and each other, remain.  

CHIMED:  Go on. 

BILL:  People are born, live their lives and die. However, the language and cognitive aspects which give meaning to their lives remains long after their demise.   Hence, if anything is eternal or lasting-- from this viewpoint, at least--it is ideas, not persons or things. Of course, since these logical categories are an outcome of language, we could simply say individuality is outlived by the community into which it was born.  

(Bill stands, stretches slowly, yawns and sits again.)

CHIMED:  Would you like to take a break here?  

BILL:  Hell no, I’m just warming up! Let’s consider this realm of ideas a little more. What can we say of something? That it exists,  it doesn’t exist, and all the rest of that.  But  we can also speak of its relationships, both within itself and without.  We establish, qualify and even quantify those relationships through concepts.  This is the same as that, we say.  Two plus two equals four.  Or, this one is different in this particular way.  This one thing is made up of so many sub-systems, each of them dependent on the whole organism. Nothing stands alone.  Everything is interdependent. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts, or if we are Gestaltists, we’d say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  

We could go on, and say this object has density, the mass of this one attracts the mass of that one.  There’s push between things, within events, and there’s also pull.  For every action, an equal and opposite reaction.  All of this enhances our understanding not just of things, but of processes, of events, of what we call experiences. We establish our relationships to things via these concepts.  And all of this understanding is conceptual in nature, and demonstrates how much of human nature is absorbed in bringing greater and greater cognitive discrimination to the world and, indirectly, to  itself.  

CHIMED:  So the concept ultimately brings us to our understanding - and not the actual thing itself, the actual experience.  And you’re saying it’s the concept that survives. 

BILL:  All of  Buddhism,  the teachings, symbols, books, practices,  and so on,  is conceptual.  If it were not, then it couldn’t possibly pass from one person to another, throughout generations.  If Buddhism were merely concrete experience, it would have died with the Buddha.  I doubt if a soul could comprehend any of it without some ideas floating around in the ol’ noggin. The Buddha is dead.  Buddhism, however, lives.   

So, forms, or ideas, certainly exhibit more staying power than any bodies that have graced this planet. This much we can say with relative certainty.  We could almost say that though all things, being transient,  are Empty, yet  the ideas about things are  anything but empty. They carry on through the ages.  Admittedly, I’m sliding a little too freely between categories here, but it does seem odd to me that Buddhists want to rid themselves of one of the few relatively permanent  experiences in their lives: concepts.  Besides, they usually want to rid themselves of these concepts before they have any understanding of them.  Concepts, for Buddhists-- like the emotions that oftentimes accompany them-- are evil and must  be dispelled.

So, let’s continue with this notion of Emptiness. It is not something. This much we should be confident about.  Becoming is something.  Emptiness is more like a quality of Being,  and  Being implies immutability, or at least an inclusion of all possible mutations, i.e the synthetic whole of things.  But even Being, since it can be reduced to a concept, is Empty.   

Becoming, on the other hand, is the world of transitory experiences. It is formed of temporary aggregates, associations, and incorporations.   Within this transitory realm Emptiness is like the wind you never see, but it still blows apart everything in its path.  This, in part,  is why Buddhists can say there is no self, and not feel like they’re total hypocrites.  If there is a stratum of reality beneath or beyond or within any and all claims of self, a reality superceding both reason and instinct, waking and dreaming, then claims of an Empty truth are not without foundation.  

CHIMED:  Right.  And there’s no denying that the notion of Emptiness is, indeed, profoundly complex. 

BILL:  I feel Emptiness is also like the proverbial “finger pointing”. The biggest finger, in fact,  you’ve ever seen.  All the other signals, signs, symbols and so forth pale in comparison to the transpersonal communication possible through Emptiness.  So, if  there is even an iota of truth to these claims, what the hell is it?  Towards what  (if we’re allowed to use that word) does Emptiness point?

As I’ve already said, Emptiness isn’t anything, nor is it the pure negation of anything.  Emptiness is not nullity, nor some kind of imaginary purity obtained by total absence. As I sit on this chair I can say that the “chair is”.  If I were to take this chair outside, take an ax to it, and then set it on fire, I could say at some point that “the chair is not.”  The chair has been negated.  It is now void of any being.  Is this the void of Emptiness? 

CHIMED:  Apparently not. 

BILL:  There you go.  You see, this is a subtle trap a lot of folks  fall into when musing on the notion of Emptiness:  Emptiness is the void, they say.  Emptiness and voidness are oftentimes used interchangeably.  Big mistake.   They may be complimentary concepts, but  that’s as far as it goes.  Hegel, of course, said it went further, in that something became something more by first negating itself.  That negation, however, was not the disappearance of the object,  but rather its becoming.  But let’s not get too lost in those logical categories of being and non-being.  The Greeks, after all, had at least three different meanings for negation, or nothingness. 

CHIMED:  If there are all of these conceptual traps surrounding the idea of Emptiness, then why use it at all?   

BILL:  Good question.  I believe that by emphasizing the concept of Emptiness Buddhism is constantly pointing towards its central truth, which is the given  nature of Mind.  As a concept alone Emptiness is a paradox, analogous to the class of all classes”, except in this case it is more akin to the “class of no classes”.  Let’s keep in mind that conceptual paradox is the root of the Chan School methodology,  the means for obtaining insight into the ”Empty nature of Mind”.    

The idea of Emptiness becomes,  as I suggested earlier,  an instrument  of thinking which is designed to lead us back to the recognition of Mind only.  Mind in this sense might be close to what many of us conceive spirit to be.  Not spirit, of course, like ghosts, or shades, or  the like.  Spirit as the calm arbiter of cogitations; spirit as the knower. Spirit as the equinimitous center of things.  Let’s consider this, even though it’s more of a Hindu or Vedantic  notion than Buddhist. 

What does the knower know?  Do we know what we are, or what we are not?  From the spiritual perspective, if what we know obscures the direct cognition of the knower (i.e., produces ignorance), then all of our knowledge is constricted to what we are not. I know this sounds funny, but think about it. We know the car, and consequently we also know that  we are not the car.   We may love the car, treasure the car, feel prestige from the owning of the car, but we are definitely not the car.  

CHIMED:  So, in effect, you’re saying… 

BILL:  (interrupts)  In  a like way,  we know others.  And through that knowledge we also realize that we are not others.  We know our private emotions and thoughts,   but we also realize that we are more than these personal events.  (Unless, of course, we are causal materialists like Hume,  who felt that the presence of a “self” was little more than another concept.)  And so on.  The known clouds the clear view of the knower.  The knower never sees, hears, tastes, or thinks  itself.  The knower is empty of these temporary constructions.  But then do we say that the knower is Emptiness?  And do we relinquish Emptiness into absolute negation?  I don’t think so.  Just because the clouds are out, we shouldn’t assume that the sun has ceased to be.  

What if  Mind or spirit is indeed the unknowable, inexpressible, and is necessarily superseding our conditional viewpoints and perspectives?  Is there anything at all we can say about the nature of this pure spirit-- Mind-- other than believing we can’t say anything about it?  The Tibetans answer in the affirmative, describing various qualities of this pure Mind.  They speak of its intrinsic fullness, compassion, and omniscience, for example. If these qualities are not present--not “displayed”-- than pure spirit, Buddhamind, lies elsewhere. In other words, there are indicators or qualities that may be spoken of quite directly when the pure Emptiness of Mind is present.  It is not void of quality, or attributes. 

CHIMED:  Isn’t there some argument over this point in Buddhist circles?  

BILL:  Yes,  there is.  Some Buddhists, especially of the Chan school,  object to this subtle form of anthropomorphism.  When Vajradhara, for example,  was named as the presiding deity of the Dharmakaya, conflicts arose.  Personifying the immutable nature of Mind’s fulfillment didn’t set that well with the more traditional attitudes and viewpoints within Buddhism. But I don’t completely agree with this attitude.  To my way of thinking this humane expression of immutable Mind, or Being,  points to the complementariness of the personal and particular with the whole or universal. 

Regardless,  I feel it is important to realize that Emptiness as a category of thought is a means, not an end.  If a Buddhist says “All is Empty”, he may have gotten himself on the right track, but  he certainly hasn’t reached  his destination.  This is like saying that getting into my car is the equivalent of going to  San Francisco.  It’s a start, maybe even the middle, but definitely not the end.  Emptiness is a methodology, a means by which we train our concepts and perceptions to focus on completion-- the goal-- as opposed to the parts which manifest, or give expression,  to that whole.   

CHIMED:  Can you make that a little clearer?

BILL:  Well,  let’s say I pick up this pencil, and in trying to figure out what it really is, I break it into its components: its lead tip; its eraser; the “woodness” of its extension.  If I do all of this I have forgotten its primary use, which is to write.  The pencil actually gains most of  its meaning by its function, its ability to mark and circumscribe. 

          In a like fashion, Emptiness has a function, which is to break our fixation with the parts of existence-- the becoming of existence-- all of the particularities, individualities, identities, differences, and so on.  Emptiness is the means by which we hope to discover the nature of the whole:  Mind. (Or as I would prefer to call it: Mind/Matter).  

Now let’s say we have discovered  the whole,  that by the means of emptying our personal mindstream of discursive elements, we have returned to the totality  of Being.  We have achieved, for the moment at least, harmony. Should we then presume that wholeness is intrinsically superior to the parts that comprise its nature?  This is the position of most religions, Buddhism included.  God is superior to man.  Being is superior to becoming.  Spirit is superior to body.  But  why do we assume this? Could God have any meaning without man?  Isn’t Being always expressing itself, displaying itself, by becoming something?  Doesn’t spirit require a mind, body, and emotions in order to be realized? Where has there ever been a non-existent enlightened person? 

CHIMED:  I see your point, but...   

BILL:  (Interrupting)  You see, this leads back to what I was talking about earlier.  The denigration of the body, of emotions, of concepts by all religions, and especially Buddhism.  Cut, cut, cut.  The body is the enemy.  Cut it down.  Emotions are poison.  Eliminate them.  Concepts obscure truth, or spirit.  Be done with them.  This is the general, underlying attitude. 

CHIMED:  Still, given how our culture glorifies the body, and... 

BILL:  (Interrupting again)  You mean the “youthful body”, don’t you? 

CHIMED:  Yes, but that’s exactly my point.   

BILL: Granted, if our focus is entirely on the body,  or our orientation towards truth is only gainsaid through concepts; if we are extreme in our attitudes and dispositions towards objectivity as opposed to subjectivity, then by all means, break this fixation.  But let’s not make the same mistake in the other direction, and claim that only the subjective, the inherently Empty quality of Mind, is worth knowing. Spirit without the nature of humanity which attends it is meaningless.    

When  the categories and distinctions resident to our being are at odds with one another, then wholeness is not realized.  We have dissonance. Certainly, we see this when our reasons are in conflict with our impulses or instincts.  So  let’s not  make “wholeness” at odds with the particulars of becoming.  Let’s not fall into another form of negation.   

Restore equilibrium by realizing the whole, the intrinsic nature of reality, but don’t castigate and nullify the parts, such as your individuality, say, or the innate traits of your personality.  Don’t give up one form of internal warfare only to adopt a more deadly and sophisticated form of the same battle. And if we say:  Oh, the spirit or Mind is superior  to individuality, then we have fallen back into the same confusing process.  

CHIMED:  Then, how is wholeness realized? 

BILL: Fulfillment depends on honoring our unique, human experience in relationship with spirit,  not in opposition to it.  This self-flagellation that the church is so fond of promoting has to stop.  How else could Buddhists resolve in their hearts the very words of the Buddha when he said:  Emptiness is form?  Form is  Emptiness?   

Don’t exclude the form from Mind.  See the process as reciprocal,  not mutually exclusive.  We don’t need either  Emptiness or  form, but rather  both simultaneously. They stand together, always.  The eternal without time is meaningless.  The unchangeable without change is meaningless.   The immutable without words is meaningless. Both aspects, the   personal existence of individuated consciousness and the impersonal quality of universal Mind,  need to be recognized and appreciated.   

This, I feel, is the meaning of  the Vajrayana aphorism of  “Mind and its display”.  The particular is no less significant than the universal.  I must give the Tibetans credit, in this regard.  I feel this reciprocity and balance of view is what they mean by “deity pride”.  I would translate it into less other-worldly terms, however, and simply call it human dignity and integrity.  

CHIMED:  Well, your explanation of Emptiness certainly filled up some time.  Is there anything else that you would like to cover?  Any other subjects you feel are important regarding the spiritual life? 

BILL:  Oh, God.  It’s seemingly endless.  I mean, there are so many aspects of Buddhism that we could address.  The five poisons which comprise ego;  the eightfold path;  the specifics of various visualizations and meditation techniques.  Retreats, and their value. It goes on and on.   

CHIMED:  Maybe we could reserve those inquiries for another time? 

BILL:  Sure.  I’ve already said too much,  I’m sure.   

CHIMED:  Before we end these sessions, Bill - and if I haven’t tired you completely - are there any salient points you’d like to emphasize, or any other comments to highlight your views? 

BILL:  Well, there are a few things - but I’m afraid I’m the one who has tired you!

So, if you can bear with me,   I believe there are a few points worth emphasizing or repeating.      

 Let’s see now….I guess first, I’d like to say that we should remove the responsibility for human development--call it awakening of Buddhamind, if you like--from the hands of the priesthood.  The Buddha himself said that his teachings were directed towards personal, self-realization.  It was for “oneself only”.   

CHIMED:  A pretty radical notion, isn’t it? 

BILL:  What has happened in Western religions, despite the fact that Jesus said that heaven  was within, is that the intermediaries have taken over.  The Pope, as example,  is God’s personal envoy for Catholic Christians.  I maintain that these Christians  have abdicated their obligations, and  let others within the church tell them what to think, how to think, and when to think.  Anyone who was raised in Western culture and has some gray matter functioning in his or her  skull figured  this out long ago. What’s happened, however, is that we Westerners, fresh from our disillusionment with Christian decadence and hypocrisy,   have been ripe pickings for the teachers of Oriental religions--putting aside that Judaism is Oriental.  Instead of the Pope and his emissaries we have someone like the Dalai Lama, all the different Tulkus, Gurus, Senseis, Lamas, and so on..  

CHIMED:  But isn’t some guidance needed here? 

BILL:  The needs of the spirit which drive these religious currents are real, but  the prescriptions these  administrators hand out to fulfil  those needs aren’t necessarily appropriate.  We must stop depending on them for moral guidance.  Moral guidance is an internal, not external, affair.  Western psychology realized this generations ago. Awakening  is both social  and  individual. If you feel the need for a shrine in your home, don’t forget to put a  picture of yourself right up there alongside all the legendary, mythical deities and Gurus.  If you did so, this would not be the act of some poisoned, deluded ego.  This is merely a ceremonial and symbolic way of acknowledging everyone’s need for self-respect, self-honoring, and personal dignity. Why are these needs?  Call it the siren of the spirit.  Call it compensation for what we intuitively know we lack in ourselves.  Call it a necessary expression of human development.  

All of this is what religions promise you but then take away by treating you like an unruly, disobedient, prideful, egotistical, shameful, sinful,  ignorant,  toxic,  deluded child.  Not child even,  but infant.  And the human psyche, working the way it does,  will start believing that it truly is this powerless infant-- a helpless, powerless individual  in the eyes of the Lord.  The prophecy will be fulfilled by oneself.  

We have willingly given up the kind of self-empowerment  that  organized religions promise us. First they seize it, and then they titillate you with its imminent return. They don’t give it back, however,  or if they do,  you obtain this empowerment  only through their  certification practices,  their personal form of “baptism”.  Remember, in the original form of Baptism you were held under water until you nearly drowned,  so that when they finally let you have a breath of fresh air you really did feel as if you had been “reborn”.  You must seize your personal power  back for yourself, or relinquish it  in this lifetime.  And as the Buddha reminded, if you want to understand your past lives and your future lives, look to your present life.  

And don’t make the mistake of confusing ignorance with sin.  You are not flawed because you are ignorant of the whole truth and nothing but  the truth.  You’re simply ignoring, for the time being,  certain facets of your own nature. You are simply being human.  Everyone is ignorant,  even the Gurus.  Make no mistake about this.  Omniscience is an ideal, a lofty potential that is compelled  not by the actual existence of an omniscient God, or Buddha,  but  by the limitations of our developing consciousness in living contrast to the unknowable vastness of  Being.  Believe me,  no one has ever been omniscient. That’s simply one of many religious ideals.   

CHIMED:  And yet there’s this persistent theme of the omniscient guide in religious systems… 

BILL: The Buddha himself may have had precognitions, pre-sentiments, insights, intuitions,  even prophetic visions, but this is not the same as omniscience. Consciousness may speculate about, or even intuit,  its intrinsic completeness, its “at-once-ment”.   But this is not the same as knowing which Butterfly flapped its wings in China and  ended up causing the hurricane  in Mexico.    

Besides that,  don’t compare yourself with some ideal, whether in the form of such abstract notions as omniscience or universal compassion, or as embodied in some personage like the Dalai Lama.  Compare yourself only with yourself.  Make progress.  Develop.  You needn’t demand more of yourself.   Consciousness is not advanced through fear, punishment, dogmatism, recrimination, or moral conscriptions.  It is advanced only  through self-observation, self-reflection, and self-investigation.  Whenever possible, use common sense instead of divine imperatives.  Try to figure things out for yourself. 

Also, get over your sexual hang-ups.  Nobody is judging you from above.  There is no senior, dominant, alpha primate floating in the sky above us evaluating our sexual practices. If you’re not hurting anyone, then fine, do what you will.  Just don’t go nuts about it.  Don’t,  for example,  go around preying on little children to satisfy your sexual needs.  Not because you will be punished by some god or should fear the divine retribution of Karma,  but because this kind of stupidity does harm to our children.  If you don’t want to be taken advantage of,  don’t take advantage of others.  As I said, take heed of the golden rule.  It’s simple, common sense.  

Realize that religious systems have become the regulators of our instincts.  They have made fairy tales and miracle stories out of the human struggle to reconcile self-consciousness with  group identity,  the attempt of consciousness to supersede its own legacy and move through its own ancestry. This ancestral knowledge is  the thousands of years of conditioning and evolution which have led to species-specific activities, including  the emergence of the self-aware individual.  The struggle is all too human, and if you must explain it to yourself through heroic myths, legends of gods overcoming evil, and  the like,  then fine.  But at least realize what you’re doing.           

          (The day has turned chilly and Bill suggests continuing the session indoors. Again, I offer to end the session but he shakes his head, indicates he wants to make just a few more points.  We proceed into the warm living room, where once again, we resume the taping.)  

BILL:  Now I know that Buddhism says similar things, but  the practice of Buddhism and the words of Buddhism have become two different things.  We have to see this and quit accepting the Divine Rationalizations and double messages that pass as truths.  Buddhism as a religion is worldly, make no mistake about it, and in so being is liable to the same afflictions and compromises that constitute any political organization.  Beware, that’s all.  Learn to think for yourself. As Basho said:  Attention! Attention!  Attention!    

Discover your own truth.  If it agrees with the orthodoxy,  then fine.  If it doesn’t,  then also fine.  Just don’t have truth handed to you on some gilded platter.  If you allow this to happen, in the final analysis,  it won’t mean anything to you.  It will remain someone else’s truth,  someone else’s realizations.  I know its hard to swallow,  but the very organizations that offer us peace, solace, refuge, insight, truth, and self-realization, are the very impediments we must overcome in order to meet  these needs completely.  I realize that this sounds contradictory, but  I assure you it is not. You cannot know yourself by trying to become something which you are not.  Internalizing social conditioning is not the same as self-knowledge.  

Regardless, if you must prostrate yourself in front of truth, don’t do so out of fear and resignation.  Bow to your own heart.  Know that myths are the stuff of your dreams, you’re unfettered impulses, your instinctual reflexes.  This is the elemental realm-- call it the  “hungry ghost” realm if you like-- which bears the inescapable chemistry of your own psyche.  

CHIMED:  Not so easy to accomplish,  you’ll grant. 

BILL: Of course not, but don’t waste your time castigating  and berating  your emotions.  Don’t think of them as poison, or yourself as sick.  If you require some manner of regarding them, then think of them as unhappy children.  Calm them.  Soothe them.  Learn to trust  them. The Buddhist ideal of emotional (and conceptual) equanimity is a noble aspiration, but  you’ll never reach that goal by thinking of your emotions as poison.  Lofty goal, questionable methodology. 

If you’re really having problems achieving a modicum of emotional equilibrium, read Freud.  Study his theories on defense mechanisms.  Discover these mechanisms within your psyche.  This will do you a lot more good than thrashing yourself because you felt pride,  anger, or personal love instead of universal compassion.   

CHIMED:  The path to compassion is complicated, I definitely agree.  And you believe our emotions need to be thoroughly understood first, or they may become stumbling blocks on the path.   

BILL: I spent some time at a Tibetan retreat center years ago.  While I was there  one of the retreatant’s  father died.  The Guru told his students not to comfort her.  This was her great opportunity to practice true Dharma,  he informed everyone.  I’m sure the only things she learned from this wonderful lesson in non-ego and non-attachment were anger, resentment, and a deep sense of alienation and abandonment.  Not good.    

Or  think of your emotions as the messages left for you by your ancestors. Honor them as such, for without them you would not be at all. Learn to know by both thinking and  feeling.  Or as they say in Budo, think with your gut.   And don’t throw your brain away because some spiritual doctrine has convinced you that thoughts are synonymous with your  fetters.  If you stop thinking, if your forsake your own innate ability for critical thought, you are easy pickings for the thought police.  

CHIMED:  How, then, should we think about thinking? 

BILL:  Realize that thinking is fundamentally discriminitive.  It serves the function of separating our experience into parts,  and then re-synthesizing them into new patterns of perception and  cognition, what we call “wholes”, even though these wholes become more of the parts of our thinking.   Thinking  is the way consciousness gets to know itself,  both outside and inside.  Don’t despoil thinking because it doesn’t make you happy, satisfy all your needs, or answer all your questions.  It’s not supposed to.  Derived as it is from the animal realm of the emotions-- those unruly children of the human psyche-- thinking propagates novel strategies of emergence and survival by delaying impulses and moving us into time.  (And what is more eternal than time?)  Thoughts should be revered as the realm of the everlasting-- the “god realm”-- derived not from above,  but rather from within,  not from some other realm,  but only from the realm of ourselves.  Our thinking, similar to our other drives and hungers,  must be appeased and satisfied.   

Ideals guide us, suggest routes for exploration. Logic is a coherent method of cognitive development. But don’t ask of these deities  more than they can deliver.  Thinking  is not all of knowing.  Other, more inclusive modes of cognition are possible.  Knowledge, especially self-knowledge, is an open-ended affair. If it weren’t, then the world and everything in it might as well stop now.  It’s finished.   

(Bill stops.  His shoulders droop and he sits quietly for some minutes.) 

I also would like to say that we Westerners should not abandon “objectivity” any more than we should abandon the subjective idealism of most religious philosophies. The passive observation practiced by empiricists, and the discriminations made by such a practice, serve to confirm their ancestral roots.  The need to predict and hence control nature is the basis of scientific methodology, and we can see countless instances of how ancient this practice really is.  Hunting, for example.  Don’t chase the deer around all day.  Establish their routines by observation, predict their future behavior on the patterns recognized, and then just wait for them in the early morning by the watering hole. 

CHIMED:  Sounds easy enough! 

BILL: Right.  All it took was thousands of years. All forms of games, by the way, employ similar strategies to insure victory or success.  Observe your opponent, learn his or her  tendencies, and exploit them to your advantage.  Very scientific stuff, based on an objective study of the environment.  Ancient  rituals sought to control the environment  through ceremonial incantations, petitions, dramatizations, and offerings.  The same procedure applies:  Observe;  recognize tendencies, patterns (or as Santayana calls them: “tropes”)  and then announce your predictions.   

The current scientific methodology  is primitive in origin and  instinctive in  motive, and the current intellectual movement which tries to dismiss this slowly-evolving  approach to wisdom-- calling it “too objective “-- has still not recognized spirit’s creative efforts.  

This said, acknowledge the functional limits of your given consciousness.  Awaken your totem.  Be an animal.  Feel your emotions, for they are the link  with our animal ancestry, our evolution.  But don’t stop there, because humans are more than animals. Acknowledge that thought has not yet touched upon our psyches’ completion, that it oscillates between position and negation, and so reflects through its own paradoxes our  inherently  dualistic structure.  And don’t presume that  the dualism of rational thought is not derived from,  or at least reciprocates, an outlying wholeness.   

Stop holding spiritual ideals as anything more than human aspiration.  See that every realm possible or imagined is the exploration of the human psyche,  no more and no less.  Stop lying to yourself.  Become authentic, even if it means no more than being a human being  with a modicum  of self-respect.  Overcome the church’s control over your instincts and emotions. Discover your own way, your own integrity.  Thank the ultimate personification of Mom and Dad-- the religious systems-- for all of their help and advice, and then move on.  Become an adult.  Become yourself. 

(Bill sits back and sighs.  He studies his hands for a moment, then stands up.)  

That, I suppose, is about it. 

CHIMED: Well, Bill, this has been a rare pleasure for me.  Our visits have been enormously instructive and very enjoyable.  Thanks very much for the opportunity to draw you out, and I hope I didn’t overly tire you in these sessions. 

BILL:  On the contrary!  It’s been my pleasure - and these sessions have really energized me.  You’d have tired me more on the golf course, believe me! 

And it was true - Bill seemed to me more invigorated, more charged with vital energy at the end of these long sessions than he had been at the outset.  Throughout our sessions, he had exhibited a truly remarkable capacity for inquiry and analysis into the life of mind and  spirit, and an equally keen and scrupulous interest in challenging the “truth” of those systems to which we commit our lives.  And this inquiry and interest left him, unfailingly, more animated at the end of the day than at the beginning.

I watched him now, as he walked down the narrow path, his bald head bobbing with each rather jaunty step.  When he disappeared from my view, I turned to contemplate the stacks of tapes, piled on my desk in neat rows, waiting to be transcribed.  Bill’s last words to me had been, “I sure hope all this has been of some benefit…” 

And now that the manuscript is finished, it is my hope as well.

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