Adam and Stephan dive into the inner workings of Buddhism to further explore spiritual materialism. This is a continuation of our first episode on Chogyam Trungpa.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Adam and Stephan dive into the inner workings of Buddhism to further explore spiritual materialism. This is a continuation of our first episode on Chogyam Trungpa.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Stephan Downes:
Hi, I'm Stephan Downes.
Adam Rizvi:
And I'm Adam Rizvi.
Stephan Downes:
And this is Letters to the Sky, a podcast about the metaphysical iconoclasts, philosophical visionaries, and religious leaders of the world.
Adam Rizvi:
Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, neither or something in between, we invite you to take a deep dive with us down metaphysical radicals and learn to see your life from a new perspective.
Stephan Downes:
Hey, Adam. how's it going?
Adam Rizvi:
Hey, Stephan, what's up?
Stephan Downes:
Not much. I recently moved into a new house and have been renovating it for a month. So I'm finally back. And we don't actually have a closet to record in. We do have an open wardrobe. So right now, I'm like sitting at the foot of my bed in front of all these clothes that are just in the room. And I've got my cat here. Hopefully, it's quiet enough. And I'm ready.
Adam Rizvi:
Nice. Yeah, I know the move is a big ordeal. It's a whole new place to live in. So congrats, man.
Stephan Downes:
Thank you. All right. Well this week, we're going to talk about Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism again, but we're going to talk about kind of the second half of the book, which is a bit different from the first half. So just to recap, if you haven't listened to the first episode of this series, this is a two parter, as of now anyway, go back and listen to it. It was two episodes ago. And that episode was all about like the concept of spiritual materialism and you can find it in all sorts of traditions, that kind of general wisdom, but it really fits really well with Buddhism in particular. And so the second half of the book is really about like the Buddhist path. And so we thought, it's obviously such a deep and profound subject that we wanted to make a second episode because we really didn't touch on it in the first episode. We just talked about spiritual materialism. We'll probably mention spiritual materialism a little bit more today. But really, the second half of the book is all about Buddhism specifically.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, and one of the things about this particular episode is we realize this is such a good primer on Buddhism in particular. Of course, keep in mind Chogyam Trungpa, the author of the book is from the Tibetan Buddhist lineage. So a lot of what we're saying naturally is going to be from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. So if there are others out there from a theravadan perspective or persuasion, Thai Buddhism and Burmese Buddhism, other types, that's also absolutely legitimate and unique forms of Buddhism. Just keep in mind that this is unique to Tibetan flavor, if you will.
Stephan Downes:
As always, neither of us are experts. We know a bit about this, but to be able to competently teach Buddhism is a years long endeavor because Buddhism is really about practice. People tend to think of it as philosophy, but it's really about practice. So we are not experts, and any errors are our own.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, well said. That's actually a really good point. We're just just two guys who like to think they know what they're talking about. Also a reminder, if there's a way to subscribe on the directory that you're on, whether it's Stitcher, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, or what have you, go ahead and subscribe and hit the notification button or the equivalent of that so that you know when we create a new episode. It's roughly every month.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, we're trying to do these monthly. I know the last one between the first Cutting Through and the episode of Mohammed were a bit longer. That was because of my move. We're settled now. We're doing an episode a month at least. And we're working on getting a website up as well, where you can interact with us and a Patreon page, and we have a Twitter account, but neither one of us are great at social media so we'll just wait on that one. But you know, you could look us up.
Adam Rizvi:
We'll get there, we'll get there.
Stephan Downes:
We'll get there. Yeah, we'll let you know more when we have more to share about social media and engagement. Actually, we've been talking constantly about wanting to really engage with everyone who's listening and finding a way to do that, and do some Q&A or taking suggestions. So we'll get there. We're working on it. It's not quite ready, but the least you could do is subscribe, I think right now if you like the podcast.
Adam Rizvi:
And without further ado, let's talk a little bit about the the three questions we have for today's episode. It is we figured we'd keep it relatively broad and have something that really applies to everyone. If it's cool with you, Stephan, I'll go ahead and read our three questions.
Stephan Downes:
I guess.
Adam Rizvi:
You guess. Okay, question number one. What separates Buddhism from other religions? It's a really awesome question. It really helps frame what what it is and what it is not. Question number two. What is the ultimate, according to Buddhism? What is the fruit of the path? Meaning where are we going? What is the point of all of it? And number three, what can we all learn from Buddhism? I thought this was particularly important because this is not by any means a sales pitch for Buddhism, but it's really, as you know very well, this is a podcast about multiple spiritual traditions, multiple religious paths, non religious paths and everything in between. But the thing is, there's so much we can learn from each other so much that we can learn from the particular perspectives of each tradition. So what can we all learn, depending on what we are and what we identify ourselves with? What can we learn from Buddhism? So those are three questions.
Stephan Downes:
I don't know. But I'm definitely going to be selling Buddhism. You don't have to. I'm going to be like a used car salesman selling Buddhism.
Adam Rizvi:
How much do you charge?
Stephan Downes:
Sir, sir, have you heard of no self? We have great ideas about self. If you just give me five minutes of your time, I can get you in a no self in no time.
Adam Rizvi:
What if I gave you 60 seconds? Could you pitch Buddhism?
Stephan Downes:
Probably not. I don't know.
Adam Rizvi:
It's a lot. It's a lot. Okay, all right, all right.
Stephan Downes:
All right, let's dive into what separates Buddhism from other religions. So a little historical context for those of you who know nothing about Buddhism, or very little, Buddhism is now we associate Buddhism with countries like Japan, like Tibet, like China, like Vietnam, like Southeast Asia. Buddhism actually started about 2,500 years ago in India, in the Ganges Valley. Actually, it's not a valley. I don't know why I said that.
Adam Rizvi:
It's near a river.
Stephan Downes:
No, there's a river there.
Adam Rizvi:
There's a river there.
Stephan Downes:
It's a river, it isn't a valley. Anyway, in India, ancient India, and so it actually flourished in India for quite a long time. And then right about the time the Muslims invaded India, they kind of eradicated Buddhism, and because Buddhism was really institutionalized, and Nalanda University is probably the most famous university, there were others. And they kind of just wiped it out, and Buddhism kind of died off. And so now we associate India with Hinduism and Sikhism, and to some extent, Jainism, and obviously Islam as well, the whole history of India and Pakistan. But Buddhism was also an Indian religion for a very long time. And interestingly, in Tibet, Tibet brought Buddhism directly from India, and then kind of got cut off from India when the Muslims invaded. And so Tibet has a very like old form of Buddhism that came over. It's kind of evolved on its own inside of Tibet as well.
Adam Rizvi:
And one of the interesting things about Tibetan Buddhism, which is where a lot of this material comes from, is that before Buddhism arrived to Tibet, there was a tradition called a bond tradition. And that particular tradition has a lot of cultural flair, a lot of the idiosyncrasies of Tibetan Buddhism, the iconography, the color palette, if you will, I think blended with Buddhism brought over from India, merged together to form this very unique expression of Buddhism that we now know as Tibetan Buddhism.
Stephan Downes:
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now that we got a little bit of the history out of the way in the context, Adam, when you think of what separates Buddhism from other religions, what do you think of? What makes Buddhism Buddhism and not Hinduism or not Christianity?
Adam Rizvi:
Well, as someone who comes from a Judeo Christian tradition for the most part, one of the first things that strikes me about Buddhism is its atheistic quality. I mean, if you really look at it, there's no mention of God in Buddhism. God is not a concept, God's not an idea. There's no engagement with something called God. As Westerners or those in the Judeo Christian traditions, we take for granted how much that concept of God has deeply embedded itself into our psyche, into our cultural and sociological psyche right? The powerful, omnipresent, omnipotent overlord, if you will, who depending on your perspective of God either is wrathful, is judgeful, is all forgiving and merciful, right? Just the the feeling of having there be someone who knows all, watching over you. Like there's something that it does to the psyche, that is not at all present in Buddhism.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. And so, when we talk about, I think that like Buddhists would use the word like non theistic, as opposed to specifically atheistic because Buddhism historically, so a bit more context in the West, I think the way the West has kind of brought in Buddhism, there are obviously you can find teachers from like Asian countries who have brought Buddhism from their cultures here. But there's also this kind of thing going on in the west of secularizing Buddhism, or people basically say like, we can take the cool parts of Buddhism that you like and like not really have to think about things like rebirth. Historically in Buddhism, gods are acknowledged, but they're not acknowledged as ultimate. They are subject to karma and rebirth just like anyone else is. They might have longer life cycles. And again, we're getting into the religious parts of Buddhism. You know, they might have longer life cycles, they might exist in different states of mind, but they are fundamentally subject to the exact same laws of karma that you and I are, and so I think that's a great way to start it is Buddhism really focuses on our power as individuals to affect our own lives, right? And that's really fundamentally what Buddhism, which is I don't know, about is the wrong word, but very focused on the individual and not unlike pleasing a god or living up to some kind of moral code that will make a god happy.
Adam Rizvi:
That's right, yeah. And I like what you said about it's individualistic, but not in a negative sense. The other aspect of it, well you know one of the thoughts that just came to my mind right now, is that I was going to say, there's no savior. But I might be wrong about that. It all depends on the Buddhist practitioner, because there's this obviously in Christianity, you have Jesus Christ, who in the Orthodox view.
Stephan Downes:
Who? Who?
Adam Rizvi:
JC buddy, JC.
Stephan Downes:
Oh, JC.
Adam Rizvi:
Died for your sins, and that he's your savior. And there are other many religious traditions that have various forms of saviors. I wouldn't say Buddhism considers Buddha their savior, but he is a refuge. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the three refuge.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. So when you become a Buddhist, you take what they call the refuge vow and it's you take refuge in the Buddha, you take refuge in the Dharma, which is the teachings and you take refuge in the Sangha, which is the community. And so this kind of sounds like maybe like other religions, you're taking refuge in the Buddha. So you're saying that Buddha is God, and it's less about like the Buddha as God. It's more like this is the, if you take Buddhism at face value, and you like the idea of the Buddha, someone who became enlightened, then it's like the Buddhist outlook is the one that you can trust, so to speak, because the Buddha became enlightened and because the Buddha laid out a path, which is the Dharma, you can trust the Dharma, you can trust the teachings. And in Buddhism, that's handed down in kind of all traditions. That's handed down from disciple, from master to disciple. And so Buddhism is very much you study with a teacher who helps guide you because they walked the path before you. And then lastly, is that the Sangha, so you trust the others that have walked the path and that are walking the path with you. And kind of as a bit of a like, I want to say, use the word wholesome. But there's a community that has the same vision. And so you take refuge in those three things as a kind of like a formal vow. So when I think of what separates Buddhism from other religions, I really think about the way that Buddhism describes phenomena. So when you think about the world and the world that we live in, just like kind of in Christianity, you have those who say that the world is like impure, and heaven is the only pure place. And then you have people who say that it's both you know? Or Buddhism is very much when it describes phenomenon, it talks about how the phenomena that we experience, which in Buddhism are called condition phenomena, which we don't have to really get into into later if we get into it, that really they're suffering. And so when you hear when people hear like called one of the four seals or the four marks of Buddhism, of existence in Buddhism are you know, phenomena are suffering. And people hear that and they're like, "Wow, Buddhism is just like really pessimistic, like nihilistic religion, where there is no hope for anything." And it couldn't be further from the truth when people say, and Buddhists say like phenomena are suffering. They're saying that there is no refuge to be found in the world, right? There's nothing that, it might make you temporarily happy, but that happiness will inevitably turn into suffering. And there are all different types of suffering or several different types of suffering in Buddhism. They get really specific on what type of suffering but Buddhism is fundamentally about escaping suffering or like, eliminating suffering, so to speak. And the way Buddhism views the world that we live in is that nothing here is going to really give you lasting permanent happiness. So when I say permanent, I don't mean like for the rest of your lifetime. I mean permanent. And so that's what I think one of the things that really separates Buddhism from other religions is that kind of attitude. It's not a hate relationship. It's not saying I hate the world, I need to withdraw from it and avoid it. It's saying that as you're going about being a human being, like watch yourself, watch when you start to take refuge in things that are just going to cause you suffering. And you can meditate on that and really start to identify those things. And I think for me, I guess the other big thing that Buddhism talks about that is very different from pretty much all the religions I know of, that I really know anything about is Buddhism really, really refutes the idea of a permanent, individual self. The concept of soul is refuted in Buddhism, and it's not refuted that there is no sense of self like the Stephan that I'm experiencing right now or Adam, that that's not meaningful, you know? It's like useful. It's just saying that if you break things down far enough, there is no actual Stephan, right? There are neurons, there is a body, but there's no Stephan, and there's no Adam, and there's no fundamental part that is me. I'm a conglomeration of parts. And so that is a very radical statement. And people tend to have a hard time with that. It's a very confusing one, too, because a lot of people that I've interacted with, when they think of when somebody says that, they think that the experiences they're having are just somehow false, 100% like do not exist. And that's not what Buddhism's saying. It's saying that there's no permanent self. There's the experience. There's the temporary, like you could look at it from the perspective of we have lives, you know? We're alive for 50, 100 years or whatever. And then we're not alive. So there's no permanent self.
Adam Rizvi:
That's a really good point. The sense of separation actually brings about so much suffering, the isolation, loneliness, but it's deeper than that. It's like psychologically, we feel like we are islands enclosed, cut off, living in our own bubble world with thoughts and emotions floating inside, right? That's a very quintessential feeling of being human is that sense of at least a modern day human, of being isolated and separate, and what is most of life if not striving towards a feeling of belonging, a feeling of connection, a feeling of a deeper sense of oneness. So I think, if we really pay attention to what makes us happy in a true deep sense and what makes us suffer, we really quickly get to this idea of a sense of separate self. And Buddhism has not only dived into that. It has explored it to its depths, and really broken apart into its constituent pieces. I think we should talk a little bit about the Four Noble Truths. I think it's a unique aspect of Buddhism. It also helps to structure this conversation so it's not just floating ideas and concepts.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah. So the Four Noble Truths is like a, it was kind of the first teaching that the Buddha gave after he achieved enlightenment. And it's kind of these four pillars of Buddhism, so to speak, and kind of there are a lot of several pillars of Buddhism. But the Four Noble Truths is like the big one, I think. If I were to say the way the Buddhists describe it is the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the goal and the truth of the path to the goal. And so the truth of suffering, like I mentioned before, this is the first noble truth is that like phenomena are suffering. And you could even say in the Tibetan tradition, conditioned phenomena are suffering. Like I said before, kind of means that there is no refuge out there. There is no refuge. We try to, like you were saying, we all try habitually, it's habitual. It's not a sin. It's just what happens is that you say, when I have that thing, I will be happy. You might experience the temporary rush of like yes, I got it, and it's great. And then we all know the feeling of becoming bored with something or that thing becomes, let's say, even like a feather, like a chain. You know, that thing is like now it's like, oh God, I wouldn't have done that had I known what it was going to be like. And that's kind of true for everything. And so Buddhism says that no matter where you look, no matter how far you go, you'll never find anything that gives you what you want, which is that sense of wholeness, which is that really complete wholeness with no more lack. And then the second noble truth is the truth of the cause of suffering. And so cause of suffering in Buddhism is to simplify it. You could say desire, I suppose. But I think that's a bit too simple, that the reason we suffer is because we want so badly to find that thing, right? And so we want these things out in the world that never give us that satisfaction, and that wanting itself is the reason we suffer and so a lot of Buddhist practice is about watching that wanting and not taking that one thing so seriously.
Adam Rizvi:
Actually, we've gone a long time without a quote. I think we're due for a quote. Let me-
Stephan Downes:
Do you have one?
Adam Rizvi:
I have one for all of us.
Stephan Downes:
You know, something was missing, something was missing. I was just, I was like, what's wrong? What's not right?
Adam Rizvi:
Oh yeah, and then maybe a quote off at some point. But so Chogyam Trungpa talks about the first noble truth and the second to a certain extent, on page 152 if you're reading along, "Somehow we pattern life in a way that never allows us enough time to actually taste its flavor. There is a continual busyness, continual searching for the next moment, a continual grasping quality to life." I think this quote really captures what you were talking about Stephan, which is part of the suffering is this, we can say it's desire, but I like the way he says a grasping quality to life. We keep going to the next thing and the next thing and by now, I think many people have already been exposed to the idea of the rat race, right? You find someone, you get married, you have a nice job, you get promoted, you climb the chain, you get the car, you get the kid, the white picket fence. That's like, there's always that next thing, and then at some point, if you have given yourself enough time to pause, you pause and you look back at your life and you're like, "WTF, what happened? And where am I now?" And it's like, you're searching for meaning, hence the idea of a midlife crisis. That's the pause. Like why wait until you're in your middle age to pause, and this is what Chogyam-
Stephan Downes:
Midlife crises are super Buddhist. The Buddha pointed out midlife crises far before we all discovered them. All right anyway, yeah. Okay. So the third noble truth is well, the way I said it before was the truth of the goal. And so this is the idea that yes, you're never going to find it. Yes, you're never going to find that peace out there. The good news is that there is, you can actually find peace. It's just not out there. And so that's the third noble truth, the truth of the goal that you actually can end this suffering. You can end suffering in your own life. And the fourth noble truth is the truth of the path, which is how you go about ending suffering. And so those four things, the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the goal, and the truth of the path are the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. And they're foundational to the entire way that Buddhism is taught and thought about.
Adam Rizvi:
These Four Noble Truths, in my experience, need to be felt on a visceral level. You can intellectualize it, and say yes, this is sort of the understanding of the path. But if you have something that happens in your life where you really feel these things, then it becomes so much more real. There's a point in life where we realize that we've been struggling so hard to achieve certain things that ultimately proved fruitless. And there's a particular myth that really captures this, and it's the myth of Sisyphus. You remember that myth, Stephan?
Stephan Downes:
Nope.
Adam Rizvi:
Sisyphus was punished. I can't recall why but he was punished. And his punishment was to roll a rock uphill for the rest of his life. But the thing is, he desired to have that rock on top of the hill. So he would push, push, push, and right when it got to the top, just before it reached that steady state, it rolled back down. And he needed to go back down and push it back up. And he was condemned to do this forever. And I think the condemnation is not in having to do so. But in his constant desire to have the rock be on the top of the hill. So he would come back down and try again. There's a point in our lives where we come to where Sisyphus came to, and we're like, "What the hell am I doing here? And the things that I wanted to achieve, even though I achieved it, the car, the job, the whatever, I'm not happy, I'm not happy." Now that's the point. That is a prime point where you suddenly realize there's got to be another way. There's got to be an opening. There's got to be a release of the suffering here. And that's what the third noble truth is. Yes, there is a goal. There's a way out. And there's a-
Stephan Downes:
It's a sports car. It's a sports car.
Adam Rizvi:
It's a Ferrari, it's a Ferrari.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah yeah.
Adam Rizvi:
I got a quote for the third noble truth.
Stephan Downes:
Fine, we'll take a quote.
Adam Rizvi:
Okay, "But we soon realize that just letting go is only possible for short periods. We need some discipline to bring us to letting be. We must walk a spiritual path. Ego must wear itself out like an old shoe, journeying from suffering to liberation."
Stephan Downes:
I love it.
Adam Rizvi:
Isn't that good?
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, it's so good. And there's actually a lot of subtleties of that quote. And so I think now we can get into a little bit of I wanted to touch on karma, Buddhist karma, the Buddhist view of karma. And so a quick little like historical tidbit is now I think for a lot of people that have any sort of experience with the ideas of karma, this will sound kind of not a big issue to you. But when Buddhism was founded, when the Buddha was alive, karma by and large in India, it was a Vedic society. And karma was thought of, your karma was how you were born, what caste you were born into, what class you were born into. If you were born into a high noble caste, you had good karma. If you were born into a low caste, you had bad karma. You could pay priests to do rituals, so that in the next life, you could have better karma. But your karma was kind of set by your birth. There was no room for movement. And so what happened was, the Buddha actually said karma is completely fluid, and you can you have complete control, you are the one with control over your karma right now. And so the way when we think about karma, we think about karma means it's action. And so when we think about karma, typically we think about something's happening to us, right? Like I have bad karma I got in a car accident or something like that. I don't know how many times I've heard people talk about trying to like figure out karma when something bad happens to them. But they also don't think about what are we creating right now? S when someone says something that triggers me, when I become triggered and I lash back out, I'm creating karma. I'm creating future karma for myself that will come back. And I don't mean to get, you could get very mystical about this and see karma as this thing outside that exists that is this force. But really just think about, think about it this way, if you are someone who has a negative mindset, if you're someone who's constantly pessimistic, you will find opportunities for bad things to happen to you. You will always see the bad things and it's a cycle, it's a positive feedback loop. Things will get worse and worse and worse and worse. If you all of a sudden say, "You know what, life isn't that bad. I actually have a choice in this, and I'm going to choose to be positive." What do you know? All of a sudden, things will start appearing better for you. And it's not even about like you have some mystical power to affect what happens to you on like a very gross level. It's that you will suddenly stop being so affected by all of it. And you will have an easier time just in life. And so in Buddhism in particular, so a lot of people think that enlightenment in Buddhism is about having good karma. And in Buddhism, having good karma gives you the opportunity to practice to try and reach enlightenment, right? So there are people who, there are some people who either maybe, maybe you're someone who works so much, maybe you're someone who just doesn't have the family life, maybe you're in a household that's not conducive to things like meditation. And those things in Buddhism are considered karmic, but you can also change that. And then there are people who are like, there's people out there who are, they meet a teacher in India when they're 18. And they decide to live the rest of their lives, they have enough money to survive, and they live the rest of their lives like practicing Buddhism and meditating and things and that you could say that's "good karma." And so in Buddhism, the goal is to get out of karma, right? Enlightenment, which gets us into our next question, which I think is probably a good transition is enlightenment is about leaving the karmic cycle. The karmic cycle is what keeps us in Buddhism coming back rebirth after rebirth. Leaving that cycle, so extinguishing karma is the fruit of the path. And so that's why the word Nirvana means blowing out and when people would ask, the Buddha famously said, almost like very little that we know about enlightenment about the actual thing of enlightenment, in fact, he always used negative statements. So it is the end of suffering, right? He doesn't say what it is. He says what it is not. And so I think one someone asked him you know, what happens after Nirvana and he said, something to akin to what happens to a flame after it's blown out. There's no answer there that the mind can grasp.
Adam Rizvi:
Wow, first of all, karma explosion there, the way to go with the explosion.
Stephan Downes:
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Well done, sir. Well done. What I would add to that one interesting tidbit that's always stuck with me is etymologically, the root of karma comes from a Sanskrit root word kr, K-R, which actually means action, or doing movement, it kind of contains all of those meanings. And for me, it's helpful to see that karma is sort of a movement of the mind, an action of the mind. And the issue though, is if you just take your example, Stephan of thinking negatively, and pessimistically and then seeing the world outside of yourself, and being a victim of that, if that's the movement of your mind, something bad happens in your life, then that "bad thing" will then precipitate more negative thoughts on your end. And then it continues. It's a vicious cycle. I love the positive feedback loop idea. And the benefit of a positive feedback loop is that it can work in both ways. It can actually propel you towards awakening if done properly. Now, the first step in it and in any positive feedback loop is there needs to be a gap. There needs to be a break. There needs to be some break to stop that spiral from continuing. And one of the things that Chogyam Trungpa says, third quote of the day, come on, Stephan.
Stephan Downes:
I'm so sorry.
Adam Rizvi:
Where are you, man?
Stephan Downes:
I'm sorry.
Adam Rizvi:
I'm the only one quoting here.
Stephan Downes:
You're right. Okay, i'm going to find a quote while you're talking.
Adam Rizvi:
So speaking of this gap, even if you don't believe in karma, even if this idea is just all Eastern hogwash
Stephan Downes:
Poppycock.
Adam Rizvi:
Poppycock, it's just poppycock, you can actually get a lot of benefit from this idea of negative thought spirals, right? and having this negative sort of a bad positive feedback loop, by giving yourself enough time to pause, now Chogyam Trungpa says on page 135, the monkey and by the monkey, he's referring to the monkey mind, the classic human mind. "The monkey never stops, never allows himself to actually feel anything properly. That is the problem. That is why simply stopping, just allowing a gap is the first step in the practice of meditation." It's so perfect. If you just took that one quote and applied it to your life. In fact, I invite you to just really apply that in your life. See where you're constantly going in a feedback loop and just stop, give yourself time to actually feel life fully in this moment, and then you will realize in that gap, you can actually initiate a new positive feedback loop, but in this case, in a different direction.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, so I think that's really, I was going to jump into that next question. But I actually think this is really-
Adam Rizvi:
You got a quote for me, Stephan?
Stephan Downes:
No. Well, do I? Not yet, not yet, I'll get you one. So I think that we've been talking about like philosophically, what is Buddhism a very intellectual way, but the heart of Buddhism is meditation. Like it's one thing to be able to save these things and to know what the Four Noble Truths are. It's one thing to know why we suffer. It's another thing to have sat down in meditation long enough to figure it out for yourself. And that is the heart of Buddhist practice, is doing it, right? It's not knowing it. It's doing it. You'll know it when you do it. It's just like anything you know, when you train to be a physician, there are procedures that you do. Knowing how to do it intellectually doesn't make a difference if when you're actually with the patient, you can't do it. Buddhism is a practice, just like any other thing is a practice. You have to having that starting with a gap go through the different practices and the different meditations and really work at it hard and those things become innate truths to you. There's nothing to believe in Buddhism, so to speak, in a way that people tend to think of like in Christianity, if you believe that Jesus was your personal savior, you will go to heaven. It does not work like that in Buddhism. The only route to salvation and Buddhism is through you doing practice for you. That is where "salvation" comes from in Buddhism. It is completely up to you to put these things into practice.
Adam Rizvi:
That's really empowering.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, it's so it's super empowering. So let's dive into what is the ultimate according to Buddhism, like where is Buddhism going, which is I think in Buddhism, particularly important, this concept in Buddhism called right view, which is basically the idea is if you are running a marathon, but you're running it in the wrong direction, what good is running a marathon, right? Like if you're running a marathon backwards, why are you doing it? You might as well start off on the right foot.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. The interesting thing I want to point out, you did touch upon this just a few minutes ago, I want to highlight it for everyone. Nirvana or the ultimate is actually seen within a negativistic perspective. And I'm going to contrast that with the positivistic, which is to say that in many religious and spiritual traditions, ultimate salvation is something one gains, something one attains. I've even heard people say, "I'm going to attain my enlightenment," right? As if it's something that you can acquire, acquisition. And it's a very egocentric, but also Western a modern way of looking at spirituality. What's that next thing I can get? And when you get it, you're somehow better or complete or whole, right? But Buddhism is not that. It's like, you are getting rid of all the blocks and barriers to your innate self, your intrinsic essence. And then when all the barriers are gone, you realize who you've been all along.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, that's a great, that's another great segue into what is the ultimate according to Buddhism, so Buddhism, especially like Mahayana, the particular type of Buddhism that's practiced in a lot of countries, but Tibet included, is the idea of Buddha nature, right? So this is when you get rid of all of the obscurations, when you get rid of all the things that are preventing you from knowing what you really are, right? I won't say who maybe because we just talked about how there's no self, but what you really are. You know, you discover something called Buddha nature, which is your innate Buddha nature, that you are the Buddha, you are the fruit of the path already. What you are is that, and I think that is one of the ways to describe the ultimate, according to Buddhism. And another way to describe it is through the concept of emptiness. And emptiness is an incredibly profound topic. I really don't think we're going to do justice to here. I'm certainly not, but emptiness is kind of along the idea that we are made up of parts that we are, there's no permanent lasting thing. You know, if you go far enough, it's kind of the question that always comes to mind that is more familiar to like a Western audience is like what's the smallest number you can divide by two, right? There isn't one. Because whatever the answer is can be divided by two. And so it's infinitely reductive. And I've always found that that idea is kind of tied, helps me tie to like the concept of emptiness. It's not that there is emptiness is a thing. In fact, I won't get there yet. But emptiness is the nature of phenomena itself. There is nothing there. When you look at a table, if you pull apart a table, you say okay, it has legs, and it has a top. Okay, what are the legs made of? The legs are made out of pieces of wood, right? So what is the pieces of wood made out of? They're made out of cells? What are the cells made out of? They're made of, you get the idea, right? You can go all the way down and you find nothing. There's nothing that actually is inherently there. And so what is the table, right? So the table is empty, right? There's no table there. There are a bunch of parts that we've decided to call a table. But there's no tableness. There's no innate tableness that exists outside of its parts. And so that is really, I think, I won't say superficial, but a simple level, what emptiness is, the realization of it is kind of the fruit of the path. When you realize that, there's nothing else to cling to. And when we talk about how suffering works in Buddhism, once you realize emptiness, once you really get that everything you're experiencing or the concepts you have are empty, there's nothing really there. There's no reason to take them so seriously. There's no reason to treat them as if they're life and death, as if, if you get it wrong, you're going to hell, right? There is just peace, because you have found the answer that there is things are empty. And so this goes very deep. The heart and soul of Buddhism is the emptiness and realizing emptiness on a personal level in the Heart Sutra. It's one of the most famous texts in Mahayana Buddhism, kind of probably across traditions that use and practice Mahayana Buddhism. And in it, it kind of goes into emptiness. And the most famous line from the Heart Sutra is it goes like this. "Oh, Shari. Putra.", who is somebody that's been spoken to so, "Oh, Shari Putra. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Form is no other than emptiness. Emptiness is no other than form." And this is a lot of people, this has to be explained, right? Because it doesn't make any sense. And so when you talk about things are empty, and then you say, "Well, what is that emptiness?" Right? And the idea, the fact that we think of emptiness as a thing that things possess is form, that is just another form, right? Emptiness is the absence of form. And so again, it's very much how the Buddha would talk about Nirvana, about enlightenment in negative aspects. Emptiness is kind of another way to do this. And so famously, this is a little historical tidbit. There's a school of philosophical thought in Buddhism started by Nagarjuna called Madhyamika. And we'll do a whole, I actually want to do a whole series on it because he is a brilliant thinker. He'd basically go around in India and India was famous for like philosophical debates, and the whole point of Madhyamika Buddhism, or not Madhyamika Buddhism, but Madhyamika is to use another person's position against them, usually through like reductio ad absurdum arguments to prove that their own postulations cannot be true, by pointing out ridiculous inconsistencies. And so he would do this, except he would never, he would always refuse to expand on his own philosophical views because it's empty, right? There's only emptiness and you can't say what emptiness is. You can only say what is empty. And so he would go around and do this, and so he's very famous for it. And so it was this really complex philosophical system for the sole point of dismantling all other philosophies, right? And so, realizing-
Stephan Downes:
He's a total iconoclast. We got to do this.
Adam Rizvi:
He's completely iconoclast. So the whole point of it was to bring one to the space of realizing that there is no way to describe it, there is no mental idea you can have about the ultimate in Buddhism. It has to be realized personally on an individual level. And so emptiness, the concept of emptiness is the thing that Buddhists realize when you say someone has completed the path, right? someone has become enlightened, it is that they have realized emptiness. One issue worth noting is the common conception, or the feeling that one has with the word empty is that it's a bad thing. People would say, "I feel empty inside.", or their words are hollow and empty, right? All of which sort of convey a negative quality. And I think that's why a lot of people, Westerners in particular, when they hear that word for the first time, and it's spoken of so highly and with such reverence, it's like a cognitive dissonance there. It's like well, how can something that I consider as negative be so laudable, but really, I think, it's not that when you realize emptiness, it's not that you find yourself in a dark void. It's not like a Nietzschean abyss that you find yourself in this list.
Stephan Downes:
It's not nihilistic.
Adam Rizvi:
Yes, it's not nihilistic, exactly. That's a very, you even shared this with me once like it's a common trap for early Buddhist practitioners to experience emptiness as a form of nihilism where nothing matters and why bother with anything, right? You could take it there but that's a false path to walk down. But in my experience, in my own meditative experiences, when I break through seeing something as real and I can break through that, concept and see it as really empty, there's always this light that's present. There's always an awareness, there's always this raw presence of awareness that's still there. It's still there. And I think it's important for people to know. It's like, you don't cease to exist. It's not like, it's hard to describe, even words kind of fail, but there's still a presence. However, the you that you thought you were is no longer, the subjective separate sense of self. But anyway, that's getting too deep.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's covering so much in this. So I think just real quick, because we brought up emptiness, I have to talk about the concept of two truths in Buddhism. And so this is related to, it's another thing that Nagarjuna really championed, which is the idea of two truths. So in Buddhism, you can talk about conventional truth. We can talk about the table is a table, right? Like just because it's empty, doesn't mean I can't use it to put things on it, right? It's still a table. It's just there's no tableness. And so the fact that there's no tableness is like the ultimate truth right? That you can realize, and then there's the conventional truth, which is that you can still put your drink on it. And so it's still a table. And so, emptiness actually reaffirms conventional reality and conventional reality breaks down into emptiness. And so, there is this constant balance. And so this is why it reaffirms, or not reaffirms, this is why Buddhism is not nihilistic, because nihilism means that nothing matters, right? So your actions do not have consequences. And Buddhism just says that those actions are empty. So it's not that if you hit your hand with a hammer, it won't hurt. If Buddhism was nihilistic, it would say that you actually, there's no pain when you hit your hand with a hammer, that there's nothing. There's no consequences to that action, nothing matters. It doesn't matter what you do. There's no path, right? Like Nihilism refutes Buddhism. It's the opposite of Buddhism. There is a path, it's just that the details of that, when you look down far enough, are empty, right? There is no table, but you can still put stuff on it. And so it's having those two at the same time in balance, are really foundational to like having a mature Buddhist outlook. It's not that everything's empty, nothing matters and you don't have to do anything. You don't have to eat and somehow you'll stay alive just because it's empty. And obviously, because you intellectually know it's empty, that that must mean that nothing matters. It's that yes, it's empty, and you still have to eat, right?And it's kind of the balance of those two truths, I think is really foundational to understanding emptiness since practical implications and as a practitioner. So I think having that out of the way, unless you have anything else to say about it, I think we can jump into like if you're listening to this, and you're not Buddhist, and like what can you take away? Because talking about things like emptiness are very, they get very heady very quickly, you really have to spend time studying it with a Buddhist teacher. It's not something you can read about it to a certain extent, but you need to be practicing Buddhism to really deal with emptiness. What can the listener, if someone's listening to this, they're not Buddhist, what can they take away, Adam? What are the things that Buddhism really offers everyone?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. So at this point, I feel particularly strong about if I had known about it a lot earlier, I would have dived into it earlier. And it's the importance of mind training, the discipline involved in training one's mind. So much of our reality, so much of our perception of what happens around us isn't actually what's out there. Instead, we perceive it as such. We project onto a series of phenomena based on our own mental constructs. Really, we see the world in the way that we see ourselves. Really what's necessary, I think, for the average human being is to realize how much their mind is undisciplined. They just allow themselves to think whatever. In fact, I think there's just, there's no education in mind training. We do not realize how important it is to not only to discipline our thoughts, but to realize that our perspective, our worldview, our mental constructs, our beliefs, all of these things, color and in fact, I'd go so far as to even create our reality. There's a generative quality, what the mind does and how it is, if we can really take the disciplining and the structured approach that Buddhism takes to transforming our psyche, transforming our mind, I cannot see how that wouldn't be beneficial to all human beings.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I completely agree. I know you and I have talked about this a lot. And particularly in modern Western spirituality, there tends to be a lack of a focus on the mind, unless you're doing something that specifically deals with mindfulness, which is it's definitely a part of it. But I think people really overlook the mind. People tend to say, like, "Oh, the Western world is too much in the mind, not enough heart." And so they go completely into working with the emotions, and they kind of ignore the mind. And they think that the mind actually doesn't really, isn't really that important, almost like it's on a teeter totter, you know like little kids teeter totter. The mind was all the way down and now they have to put the heart all the way down on the ground, hearts to focus. I think Buddhism offers that balance, where you can't just deal with emotions and ignore the mind because the mental patterns are, you can be someone who's really positive heart centered all the time and still be absolutely plagued with depressive thoughts. The fact that you haven't dealt with those is a signal that you haven't paid the mind enough attention.
Adam Rizvi:
Right. Well, the other thing is there's a false dichotomy with the idea that the mind is the intellect, right? An intellectual person doesn't have enough heart. That's not what we're talking about when we say mind. It is the ground of perceptual awareness and the constructs in our psyche through which life is filtered, right? We're talking about a much more fundamental aspect of our psychological makeup.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. And it gets into things like learning how to either hold your attention, like be really attentive to really learning what is going on and what isn't, right? To really having that mental discernment of when something happens, you know, when someone says something to me, if the mind that allows us, a healthy mind that says, that's actually not about me. That is about whatever they have going on, right? Maybe I said something that triggered something for them that isn't actually about me, it's about some patterns that they've had. And I'm just kind of like the one who's getting lashed out but like it takes the mind training to actually be able to stop and see that, right? And so that's kind of the mind training we're talking about. It's really having a mind that is able to perceive clearly what is and isn't happening.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, that's well put, yeah, to see clearly what is and isn't happening.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. So I think that's the first thing that I agree, Buddhism is great at developing in people. The second thing, which I think is very powerful, is the idea that there's no absolute sin. Morality is what we make it. Morality is a collective creation, whereas in other religions, if you do something that is a sin against God, Buddhism does not have that. Buddhism says you are free to do it. You might not like the consequences of it, right? And it's not about law. It's not about like a cultural law, which is why Buddhism is so adaptable to different countries, is because it doesn't deal, there is no like legal Buddhist system. Whereas there is in a lot of other religions that were most of us are probably more familiar with Buddhism, it's you are free to beat yourself up, you're free to be angry. Of course you are, no one's going to stop you. That would be crazy to think that someone could stop you from being angry. You might not like the outcome of being angry all the time. You might find yourself getting more angry, just like those positive feedback loops we talked about before, either negative or positive. You are free, there's nothing that's ultimately bad or good. It is up to you. You choose your experience.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, it's a choose your own adventure kind of book.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. And so when people get into what is moral, you know? In society, that's a different conversation. And it's not that Buddhism doesn't have things to say about this, because the ideas of compassion, compassionate action are central to Buddhism. We didn't even talk about it today. It was part of the book. The book is too dense about like the idea of a bodhisattva, someone who vows to free all beings, and the bodhisattva is full of compassionate action to relieve suffering in all of its forms. And that's very much like there are ways to be very socially active, you know in terms of social justice, in Buddhism, it's just that there's no ultimate like, this is fundamentally a sin. And this is fundamentally good. That doesn't really exist in Buddhism in the way that Westerners tend to think of it for at least.
Adam Rizvi:
In fact, I'd say Buddhism even lends itself very much to powerful social justice and positive changes sociologically like the whole idea of eco-Dharma, right?
Stephan Downes:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), the eco-Dharma. Absolutely.
Adam Rizvi:
The eco-Dharma very much, they work so well, because they complement each other.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What else? Is there anything else? Is Buddhism good for anything else?
Adam Rizvi:
What is it good for? You got to finish that, with absolutely nothing. Well, yeah, it's all empty anyway. Right?
Stephan Downes:
Talk about-
Adam Rizvi:
Did you not learn anything?
Stephan Downes:
If someone says spiritual bypassing, a little bird or something is echo, spiritual echo. Okay. All right, guys. We've been recording for a while now. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. There's so much in this book. Again, just like I told Adam a long time ago, this is one of the most important books you can read. If you're not particularly into Buddhism, the first half of the book is absolutely incredible talking about spiritual materialism. And I hope that you can see now that the ideas of spiritual materialism, the ideas that we talked about last time of acquiring spiritual qualities, acquiring things that make you better, are antithetical to Buddhism, as Buddhism doesn't really prescribe to the permanent sense of self. You can't acquire enlightenment. Spiritual materialism is deeply tied to Buddhism. However, the concepts of spiritual materialism, of not becoming self obsessed, and thinking we've achieved something special and unique, and we're special snowflakes. That is something I think that anyone can use on the spiritual path or in life in general.
Adam Rizvi:
That's a really good summary. Well done, sir. Well done.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, and again, if you like this podcast, please subscribe and we are going to have a lot more interaction and content for you, some behind the scenes stuff as well. I'm recording this in my room on video right now. So hopefully people will be able to see those at some point. Yeah, we have a lot more interaction to do and a lot more, tons more episodes. We're barely scratching the surface here.
Adam Rizvi:
Just the surface.
Stephan Downes:
All right, well, until next time, Adam.
Adam Rizvi:
Stephan, it was a pleasure.
Stephan Downes:
Goodbye.
Adam Rizvi:
See you later.