Monthly Archives: February 2014

Mysticism

Religion, ,

Following my post on dhyana last week, I thought I would expand this into a discussion of mysticism. Mysticism is a phenomenon that has been misunderstood and treated with prejudice on many sides – particularly by scientific naturalists and by traditional Protestants, who often seem to use it as a pejorative term. For these people, ‘mysticism’ often seems to mean something like ‘supernaturalist obscurity’. Presumably they see mystics as cloaked dogmatists who confuse the issues through too much emphasis on ambiguity. For me, however, the term ‘mystic’ is overwhelmingly positive. Mystics are the heroes who have stood out against dogma and continually laid the emphasis on genuine experience in all the world’s religious traditions.

Mysticism begins with dhyana-like sublime experience, a type of experience available to anyone and not at all tied to religious beliefs of any kind. Here is an example from the autobiography of Jane Goodall (the chimpanzee expert), ‘Reason for Hope’:

Many years ago, in the spring of 1974, I visited the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. There were not many people around, and it was quiet and still inside. I gazed in silent awe at the great Rose Window, glowing in the morning sun. All at once the cathedral
was filled with a huge volume of sound: an organ playing magnificently for a
wedding taking place in a distant corner. Bach’s Tocata and Fugue in D Minor. I
had always loved the opening theme; but in the cathedral, filling the entire
vastness, it seemed to enter and possess my whole self. It was at though the
music itself was alive. That moment, a suddenly captured moment of eternity,
was perhaps the closest I have ever come to experiencing ecstasy, the ecstasy
of the mystic.

This is a modern example, but experiencesAngel like this have been recorded across cultures and religions. In Hinduism and Buddhism mystical experience is actively cultivated in meditation and is part of the mainstream tradition. In Islam it is an important part of the Sufi tradition, and in Christianity you can read the experiences of a succession of mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, Richard Rolle and Jacob Boehme.

What these people had in common was that, having experienced temporary integrated states, they could see beyond the rigidities of metaphysical belief. Often this put them into conflict with the metaphysical mainstream of their religions (for example, the persecution of Sufis has been a regular feature of fundamentalist phases in Islam). More often, however, mystics have been happy to pay lip-service to the metaphysical pieties that surrounded them, whilst actually being largely indifferent to metaphysics. At the same time they have earned a far more profound respect from those who experienced their genuine degree of integration, and the wisdom and compassion that flowed from that.

Mystical experience is sometimes treated as a subset of religious experience, or sometimes identified with religious experience as a whole. I am more inclined to the former, as there are many types of experience that can be called ‘religious’. Some other forms of religious experience are also recorded by mystics – particularly visions. Visions, however, like dhyana-type experiences, can be recognised as powerful and valuable experiences without being attached to metaphysical beliefs. The significance of a vision can be implicitly or explicitly recognised as archetypal rather than conveying representational truths-out-there.

Of course, mystics in the theistic religions have often talked about God. However, for them God seems to have been an experience of uncertainty rather than the dogmatic basis of certainty that assertions about God and his revelations seem to have been for others. Where they express apparent certainty, it usually turns out to be a recognition of how far their lives had been changed by mystical experience, rather than any assertion about propositional ‘truths’ behind that experience. Where mystics have written about their experiences, they have often used language that may appear vague. They were writing, after all, about the cloud of unknowing (the title of a fourteenth century English mystical text of anonymous authorship), so their degree of vagueness was entirely appropriate to their subject matter. When it comes to advice on mystical practice, on the other hand, they are quite capable of precision. It is those who write about uncertain matters with a misleading amount of precision that we should be more suspicious of than of the mystics.

The mystical traditions of the world offer a huge resource of inspiration for the practice of the Middle Way. Of course, past and present mystics are each limited in their assumptions by their historical and religious circumstances. They can also be one-sided because their openness is so much concentrated towards the emotive end of the spectrum of meaning, so that they are not very likely to show deep critical thought or an investigative attitude to the world. Nevertheless, the mystics have absorbed and kept alive an important element of the spirit of agnostic scepticism through the ages, and we can still benefit from that spirit today.

Meditation 5: Dhyana

Meditation,

Been in dhyana recently? No, I thought not: me neither. If you have, you’re probably on retreat somewhere rather than reading a blog. However, when I raised the subject of dhyana on the Middle Way summer retreat last year, I was quite surprised at how little people knew about it who were regular meditators. It’s a subject worth clarifying. What lies at the heart of it is this question: what sorts of states are we trying to achieve in meditation, and what value do they have?

Dhyana is a Sanskrit word (Pali equivalent being jhana) for a state of meditative absorption, as described in the Buddhist tradition. In fact, there are 8 different levels of dhyana as described in the Buddhist Pali Canon. As far as I’m aware, there is no equivalent description of absorbed states in other meditative traditions (except perhaps Hinduism, which has borrowed from Buddhism in this regard). Buddhism pioneered a vocabulary that we just don’t have anywhere else. It’s a vocabulary that does not seem to be widely known or used yet in the West: we talk about sublimity, rapture etc., but not in nearly as precise a way as the Buddhists have managed.Knott's_Yantra mojonavigator

The idea of ‘meditative absorption’ is itself a shorthand for a state that is, to put it mildly, difficult to describe. In the traditional description of the first level of dhyana, you start off with 5 factors: one-pointed concentration, initial thought, energetic initial thought, sustained thought, rapture and bliss. Then you lose some of these factors as you go into higher dhyanas (or at least they become so subtle that you don’t notice them any more). This description at least gets over some of the main points: that in dhyana, concentration, intention and positive emotion come together and melt together.

How do you know when you’re in dhyana? I don’t think there is any easy way to tell with certainty, but there are some signs that are all a matter of more-or-less. Your experience gains stability – not fixedness, but a lot more continuity. Your body gains a strong sense of balance, with both uprightness and groundedness in equal measure. You’re likely to have a sensation of energy rising in your spine. The object of meditation becomes a very subtle internal version of itself called the nimitta.

It’s a truism of meditation that the point of meditating isn’t to experience dhyana, or indeed to have ‘good meditations’. There’s certainly a danger of meditation turning into a sort of trippy yearning for dhyana – and never getting it. Wanting dhyana too much is probably a good way of losing the balance and groundedness you need to make progress in meditation. However, one can also go too far with this way of talking down the importance of dhyana. There is a sort of ‘effort’ involved in meditation (see the discussion following Meditation 3), which is about maintaining continuity of intention. This continuity of intention needs goals of some sort to relate to, and if we want a specific goal rather than an incremental direction, dhyana is a good goal to have. It is, after all, a genuine and attainable experience, and thus a far more appropriate goal than a remote ideal like enlightenment. The important thing is not to let rumination about such a goal dominate your experience.

It’s also important not to confuse dhyana with metaphysical over-readings of it. It may make you feel that you’ve gone to the gods, or penetrated to the supreme truth: but actually you’re just having an experience. That experience may be unusual and supremely inspiring, but it’s not an insight into the universe itself. That point is underlined by the scientific evidence from biofeedback machines which seems to identify dhyana with high-amplitude alpha waves in the brain. Of course the experience is not to be reduced to a brain-state, but it is dependent on it. Western philosophy and religion, from St Augustine to Schopenhauer, is littered with people who experienced dhyana (or something like it) and thought it was some kind of ultimate ‘truth’. The Buddhist analysis is a very good corrective to such assumptions.

Using the concept of integration, you can describe dhyana as a temporary integration. Energies that were previously divided and in conflict with each other are, for the time being at least, working together. However, this experience of temporary integration is entirely dependent on the conditions of your meditation, and will rapidly change when those conditions change.

For my own part, I think I have only experienced dhyana a few times, usually on retreat. I will close with a poem I wrote more than 25 years ago, which attempts to describe one such experience. You may just not have a clue what I’m on about, in which case that’s OK, or perhaps you may be able to relate the imagery to your own experience of meditative absorption.

A silver tension stills

between the water’s gulf and air above,

holds, as the skin of milk

the fat of fearlessness.

Even a knife’s blade stabbed

into a lake is suddenly enamelled

with shining mother-of-pearl

as the tension stretches,

sure as elastic armour. And my fist

grasped out into the air above runs

bright with the clarity of it.

Standing above, the fear is far

like something vague behind a mirror

while the body lying shell-clear in bare water

basks in the sunlight streaming through.

And the mud has sunk, and the silver burns.

Picture: Knott’s Yantra by Mojonavigator (Stephen Slade Tien) (Wikimedia Commons)

Edward Hopper 1882 – 1967. An American Realist Painter.

Practice, The Arts, ,

In this painting by Edward Hopper called Nighthawks, 1942, we see an example from a school of painters who became known as Realist Painters,  Realist art represented subject matter truthfully without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. American scenes and symbols were the subjects of their work.

Nighthawks is one of Hopper’s most well known paintings, in it we see an empty city street at night with an interior containing four figures. We can imagine that we view the painting as though it is a scene on a cinema screen, our eyes are drawn to the figures in the cafe. Hopper spent a long time before making a start on the canvas,  working slowly and methodically he uses shapes and diagonals which are carefully constructed helped by referring to preparatory sketches, I imagine his sketches would have more spontaneity, the figures are placed in a way to create the proper balance between them and the environmnet. Light and dark were used to great effect, the fluorescent lighting created an eerie glow rather like a beacon, saturated oil colour  provides the mood. The couple and another customer sit while the waiter stands head raised, ready to take orders, but they are lost in ther own thoughts, there is no sign of them communicating with each other, the light playing on the simplified shapes gives the work a kind of beauty, warmth in the atmosphere is missing.

Hopper painted his feelings about middle class conformity, lives that seemed dull and stagnant. He denied that he was using symbols though many art critics thought that his images reflected the ‘national spiritual vacuum’,  he did admit that perhaps he was using them unconsciously, he was aware of Freud’s work and wrote ‘so much of every art is an explanation of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important questions are put there unconsciously and little of importance to the conscious intellect’.

Much of his work was influenced by the themes of an earler painter  called Burchfield who created symbolic projections of a private ennui and impenetrable monotony present in the large American cities at the time.  Anonymous brick house fronts, neon signs, cinema interiors, even the pavements, diners and petrol pumps were portrayed. Art critics described Nighthawks as a metaphor for loneliness and life robbed of relevance to feeling. Hopper disagreed saying that the characters were like predators in the night, hence the title he gave the work, they look sullen as they rest in the characterless surroundings, Hopper managed to create a dream like quality to the painting by the use of colour, light and shadow.

Edward Hopper was born into a Baptist family, his ancestry had some Dutch roots. He was a serious young man wih a good sense of humour, rather reclusive and introvert, he admired French and Russian culture also the paintings of Manet, Degas and Rembrandt. He married a lively young painter, outgoing and fun, but she was prepared to join him in his quiet way of life, she was his model quite often and was probably a model in Nighthawks and Hopper himself too. He was also an etcher and produced posters in WW2. As a painter in watercolours he was also very successful, his images were city scenes and seascapes. He earnt his keep in the early days of his career doing illustrations but disliked the work and was pleased when he could stop. In 1906 he went to Paris, returned to America and exhibited at the Exhibition of Independents in 1910. One of his tutors called Sloan and also the artist Degas used themes like uglines of provincial life or an existance lacking romantic fullfillent, all early influences on Hopper. He  later abandoned painting in order to concentrate on etching.

 

800px-Nighthawks_by_Edward_Hopper_1942

Critical Thinking 6: Fallacies and Cognitive Biases

Critical Thinking, Psychology,

There are a great many different fallacies and a great many different cognitive biases: probably enough to keep me going for years if I was to discuss one each week on this blog series. What I want to do here, though, is just to consider the question of what fallacies and cognitive biases actually are, and how they relate to each other. This is a contentious enough subject in itself.

A fallacy is normally described as a flaw in reasoning, or a type of mistake whereby people draw incorrect conclusions from the reasons they start with. This would be correct when applied to formal fallacies, but I think incorrect when applied to the more interesting and practically relevant informal fallacies. Here’s a simple example of a formal fallacy (one known as affirming the consequent):

Good Catholics attend mass regularly.

Bridget attends mass regularly.

Therefore Bridget is a good Catholic.

You might think this was quite a reasonable conclusion to draw from the reasons given. However, it is not a necessary conclusion. You don’t have to be a good Catholic to attend mass regularly, and it’s quite possible that Bridget is an uncertain enquirer, or a bad Catholic trying to keep up appearances, or a Religious Studies scholar doing field research into Catholicism. A conclusion that is not necessarily true is not valid, and thus a formal fallacy.

However, it may be reassuring to reflect that the vast majority of arguments we actually use in practice are formal fallacies. Many of them are inductive (see Critical Thinking 2), and even those that are not inductive may be deduction (like the example above) of a kind that is formally invalid but actually reasonably enough most of the time. Formal fallacies are thus of little interest from the practical point of view. Informal fallacies, on the other hand, tell us much more about unhelpful thinking, even though they may actually be formally valid in some instances.

Informal fallacies are just unjustified assumptions: for example, the assumption that some objectionable personal attribute in the arguer refutes their argument (ad hominem); or that there are only two choices in a situation where there is actually a spectrum of options (false dichotomy); or the assumption that using your conclusion as a reason provides an informative argument (begging the question). What is objectionable about arguments involving these moves often depends on the circumstances, and it requires thoughtful judgement rather than just applying black-and-white rules. But that’s also the indication that these fallacies actually matter in everyday life.

Informal fallacies are unjustified assumptions identified by philosophers. The only genuine difference between informal fallacies and cognitive biases, as far as I can see, is that cognitive biases are unjustified assumptions identified by psychologists and often tested through experiment. Psychologists may explain our tendency to make these particular kinds of unhelpful assumptions in terms of the physical, social and evolutionary conditions we emerge from, but in the end these kinds of explanations are less central than the identification of the bias itself. Usually cognitive biases can be ‘translated’ into fallacies and vice-versa. For example, the in-group bias (tendency to favour the judgements of your own group) is equivalent to the irrelevant appeal to the authority of the group (or its leaders), irrelevant appeal to popularity within the group, or irrelevant appeal to tradition in the group, all of which are recognised informal fallacies. The outcome bias, whereby we judge a past decision by its outcome rather than its quality at the time, involves an irrelevant appeal to consequences.

Philosophers and psychologists thus both have very useful things to tell us about what sorts of mistakes we are likely to make in our thinking, and insofar as their different contributions are practically useful, they tend to converge. I would also argue that this convergence of useful theory relates closely to the avoidance of metaphysics (see cognitive biases page). Despite the widespread idea that fallacies are faults in reasoning, they really have nothing to do with reasoning in the strict sense of logical validity. They are all about the unhelpful assumptions we often tend to make.

Exercise

See if you can identify  and describe the type of unhelpful assumptions being made in these video clips. You don’t necessarily need to know the formal titles of the fallacies involved to identify why they are a problem.

1.

3.

4.

Practical ethics using the Middle Way

Ethics, Middle Way Philosophy, , ,

There is no podcast this week because Barry is away. Instead, here is the latest instalment of the series of talks and discussions recorded on last year’s retreat. This one is of great practical importance, as it discusses how we can make practical moral judgements justified by the Middle Way, and includes example issues like cannibalism, vegetarianism, euthanasia and abortion. If you’d like the opportunity to discuss this live, do sign up for the online discussion group at 6pm on Sun 30th March, when we’ll be discussing ethics. In the meantime there is also the comment function.