The third dhyana
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 11 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 10 and follows on from The Second Dhyana. Calming down Pacification In the transition from the lucid confidence and inspiration of the second dhyana to the ‘calm abiding’ of the third dhyana, the mind is said to go through the stage of pacification (passaddhi).[1] Kamalashila identifies pacification with the process by which the rapture that characterizes the second dhyana is ‘contained’ by the subtler feelings of bliss which characterize the third. ‘Bliss is gentler and subtler. But though less dramatic, it is in its quiet way actually more intense. Rapture is traditionally compared to the delicious feeling of anticipation when you know that you are about to get the very thing you’ve always wanted. Bliss is more like enjoying the satisfaction of actually possessing it. Bliss is thus a deeper stage of integration in which the mind has begun to absorb the wilder and less refined sensations of rapture. With experience, you become less attached to these relatively coarse feelings and move towards a deeper, stronger state of happiness. The occurrence of rapture and bliss show that increased concentration is an intensely satisfying experience.’ [2] There is a strong idea in the West that the aim of meditation involves a withdrawal from the world into an unhindered and detached world of bliss; it is very common in the New Age narrative, which takes its’ cue from Hinduism, but Buddhism is not like that. In fact, personal happiness can be a trap, a beautiful prison. Flow Aristotle identified happiness as predominantly to do with activity. Based on the same idea, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975 identified the concept of flow. ‘A flow state, also known colloquially as being ‘in the zone’, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of time.’[3] When a person has a set of challenges, and their skills out-match those challenges, they feel bored; when their skills are not up to the challenges they face, they feel anxious; But when their skills match their challenges they enter into the happy and absorbed state of flow. This is because spiritual pleasure arises on the basis of actual achievement; of meeting and addressing various real-world challenges. We can experience something similar to flow–called ‘hyperfocus’–when playing video games, but...
Poetic Logic
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 12 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter on ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science and Politics.’ It follows on from the section on ‘Tantric Deities’ and explores ‘Functional Imagination.’ The five wisdoms (jnanas) The Mandala of the Five Buddhas expresses the fact that a whole range of often complementary qualities are present in the Enlightenment experience. Whatever is at the centre of a mandala orders the mandala: as the king his kingdom. Each Buddha has a specific wisdom: Vairocana’s Supreme Wisdom could be said to be the combined effect of the other four: Aksobhya: Mirror-like Wisdom Ratnasambhava: Wisdom of Equality Amitabha: Discriminating Wisdom Amoghasiddhi: Action-Accomplishing Wisdom We will see how these wisdoms can be brought to bear on current world problems at the ends of Chapters 2 to 6. Poetic logic In Tibetan ritual practice one enters the mandala from the east; then proceeds to the south, the west, the north and finally moves into the centre. This sequence, combined with the symbolism and associations of the Five Buddhas, illustrates the process in operation when we are dealing with the field of Imagination: which includes symbolism, myth; and therefore religion. Imagination and symbolism may be the only way we have to engage our emotions with those patterns in the universe that we wish to respect and remember. And like concepts, they have an inner logic, which I choose to call ‘poetic logic.’ There are five elements to poetic logic: The way that we view imagination, poetry and symbolism The quality of the symbol in representing Right View The degree to which we believe in / dwell upon the symbol The actions we take in relation to it The degree to which we are transformed by it, and into what Or, in one word; 1) Reason, 2) Beauty (the object itself), 3) Emotion, 4) Action (the action in relation to it), 5) The Change brought about; Imagination engages all of our faculties in order to bring about change. However, it cuts both ways; Imagination can lead to growth, but it can equally lead to delusion. The former I call Functional Imagination, the latter Dysfunctional Imagination. Functional Imagination The first sequence—called ‘Functional Imagination’—illustrates how a person engages creatively with symbols to bring about personal growth and transformation. By taking symbols poetically; by engaging with ones of high intrinsic value; by repeatedly dwelling on them with confidence (perhaps acting ‘as if’ they are true: suspending disbelief and stepping into them as if they are the reality); and by...
Imagination
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 4 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter on ‘Buddhist Practice’ and follows on from the section on ‘Insight.’ Imagination Conditionality has a constructive aspect—when conditions come together to produce something new, just as much as it has the destructive one—when conditions fall apart, as we rehearsed in the latter meditations. In order to build something new—as it were from the ashes—we need to engage what Sangharakshita calls our Imaginal faculty. Just as we used constructive imagination in the metta bhavana, we need to use it to chart the path to Nirvana; ‘lmagination is a power or capacity or even faculty of the individual.… Everyone has that faculty of imagination as a potentiality and it is the essential vehicle of a genuine moral, aesthetic, and spiritual life.… As a potentiality it is intrinsic to the human mind. It does not however actively function in everyone, or at least it does not function as a dominant or controlling force and is not at all conscious. It must be recognized, educated, and cultivated if it is to come into decisive play. The metaphor of faculty teaches us the attitude we need if that cultivation and education are to take place. It is not a matter of constructing something or bringing something into being, but of discovering a capacity we already have, identifying it and giving it importance—just as athletes might develop bodily skills they were born with once they recognize their capacity. We each need to feed the imaginal faculty we already have so it grows in range and vitality and plays an increasingly significant part in our lives.’[1] The way imagination works is the mind selects an image which it assigns significance to, and then ‘follows’; for example, if we wanted to encourage ourselves to be more courageous, we might identify with a superhero on TV, using their qualities as a blueprint or lead. The challenge then becomes whether or not our life lives up to that vision; if we never actually are heroic in real life, then our imagination in this case is fantasy. But if our contemplation of that person does result in our being more heroic, then we might call that imagination proper. But without imagination in the first place, there would be nothing for us to live up to. Right View is that view which is in line with Reality—the way that things are, which leads to Nirvana. Man cannot take too much reality, which is why we need poetry, myth and symbol as intermediaries to help us approach it. Symbols...
Ritual and devotion
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 5 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter on ‘Buddhist Practice and follows on from the section on ‘Imagination.’ Ritual and devotion Ritual and devotion is an important aspect of Buddhist practice, which most Buddhists engage in, to some degree—although admittedly some people are more temperamentally averse to it than others.[1] Some of that resistance may be due to the person questioning the value of imagination per se—as in seeing imagination as fantasy, and therefore as a form of delusion—but this is a wrong view: when imagination takes us into a world of unreality—then it is fantasy, but when it brings us closer to reality—then it is Imagination proper. Generally, ritual and devotion are a way of building confidence in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; through bringing them to mind and engaging with them emotionally—even physically—as when we make offerings to, or bow to, a Buddhist shrine. Image of Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani, Thailand by suc on Pixabay. Confidence Shraddha means “to place one’s heart upon” and represents an emotional interest in Buddhist practice and the confidence that such practice will bring ourselves and others the happiness that we desire; to the extent that faith (in Buddhism) is present, a person’s attention, thought and emotion—that is, the whole of their citta—is oriented towards its object. This idea is reflected in the fact that there are three grounds for confidence in Buddhism—reason, intuition and experience. Unlike its equivalent in theistic religion, faith in Buddhism is never blind. And just as reflection practices are designed to cultivate wisdom, by guiding the intellect towards Right View, devotional practices are designed to cultivate confidence, by guiding our emotions towards the Buddhist Ideal. What we value we adorn! The design of the Apple iPhone ‘adorns’ the view that ‘technology will solve all our problems.’ Buddhist devotional practices such as offering a stick of incense, bowing to a shrine or performing a devotional ceremony (called a puja) similarly adorn an idea—but a very different one, that the practise of Buddhism will satisfy our deepest needs. They thus help solidify our emotional connection with it. Reviewing what we explored in Chapter 1: the Buddha Aksobhya represents Non-Literalism—seeing poetry or symbolism as such; the Buddha Ratnasambhava represents the Quality of Refuge—taking up the highest value object of devotion; the Buddha Amitabha represents Non-Skepticism—acting ‘as if’ a story is true if to do so is helpful or effective; the Buddha Amoghasiddhi represents Effective Ritual Action—acting ritually in a way that fortifies devotion to a particular Ideal; and the Buddha Vairocana represents Effective Transformation—transforming the individual through the effective...
The Symbol
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 7 minute read Diving into Chapter 1, ‘The Evidence Bases of Religion, Science and Politics,’ this excerpt explores Imagination in the Coleridgeian sense and the symbol as ‘conductor’ of Reality (Capital R.) It follows on from Kindness as a common thread amongst religions. Imagination and ‘Poetic Logic’ As religion freely applies the use of ritual and symbolism, it is important, now—in our coverage of the topic—to spend some time understanding the principles behind those; as well as introducing ourselves to the most important archetypal figures in the Buddhist pantheon. The term Industrial Revolution characterizes the period in Britain between 1760 and 1840, in which a shift took place from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. In 1816 Coleridge published the statesman’s manual[1] in which he speaks of the industrial era as suffering from ‘a general contagion of mechanic philosophy’; it being ‘the product of an unenlivened generalizing understanding’: he felt that many people—particularly the higher classes—confused the faculty of imagination with fantasy and he wanted to correct that view: to do so he coined the term esemplastic: meaning ‘to shape into one’, to describe the creative imagination: ‘The Biographia Literaria was one of Coleridge’s main critical studies in which he discusses the elements and process of writing. In this work, Coleridge establishes a criterion for good literature, making a distinction between the imagination and “fancy”. Whereas fancy rested on the mechanical and passive operations of one’s mind to accumulate and store data, imagination held a “mysterious power” to extract “hidden ideas and meaning” from such data. Thus, Coleridge argues that good literary works employ the use of the imagination and describes its power to “shape into one” and to “convey a new sense” as esemplastic. ‘He emphasizes the necessity of creating such a term as it distinguishes the imagination as extraordinary and as “it would aid the recollection of my meaning and prevent it being confounded with the usual import of the word imagination. Use of the word has been limited to describing mental processes and writing, such as “the esemplastic power of a great mind to simplify the difficult”, or “the esemplastic power of the poetic imagination”. ‘The meaning conveyed in such a sentence is the process of someone, most likely a poet, taking images, words, and emotions from a number of realms of human endeavour and thought and unifying them all into a single work. Coleridge argues that such an accomplishment requires an enormous effort of the imagination and, therefore, should be granted with its own term.’[2] As Kulananda says:...
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