I am reading a commentary on the Lotus Sutra called by Yoshiro Tamura called Introduction to the Lotus Sutra. In this commentary, Tamura talks about how too much attachment to essence of things can lead to a kind of 'essentialist' view of life, while too much attachment to non-being can lead to nihilism. I find it interesting that Tamura compares the 'middle view' between these extremes to existentialism (p.30) which is grounded in the phenomenological view of seeing 'things as they are' or at least how they arise in mind. What seems to characterize the two extremes of essentialism and nihilism is that they are conceptual attachments. In other words, they are somehow fixated on the notion that life can be viewed in terms of fixed or static ways of being, or that a person can put a blanket statement on what everything means or is about.
But how does the existential 'middle way' approach avert nihilism? Don't some kinds of thinkers who are associated with existentialism, such as Nietzsche or even Beckett, somehow border on a kind of 'belief in nothing'? And how is it averted? I believe that Tamura puts a good slant on it when he remarks "the aim of existentialism was to rediscover the truly absolute ground, and by so doing, to overcome despair and nihilism." (p.36) The problem is that even with existentialism, this 'absolute ground' is quite different in content from the absolutes of other kinds of philosophies. In fact, I sometimes believe that for existentialists, 'absolute ground' is none other than the present experience of things in their changing ground, nothing more and nothing less. In other words, rather than being an essence, existential thinking is a kind of practice of abiding in a space that is continually moving all the time. The challenge here is that as soon as I try to 'essentialize' what that ground looks like (by describing it, categorizing it, etc.) it starts to lose its real moment-to-moment existence. This is a little bit like the observer effect that is proposed by quantum physics, where the certainty of position and velocity are inversely related. But, the fact that it's impossible to 'essentialize' experience does not mean that existentialism is a futile practice. Rather it means that to existentialize is to know that there is never an end to practice itself.
Lotus Sutra talks about the risks of becoming fixated on a notion of how to escape from the world, rather than seeing the world as part of the mind. That risk might take the form of practicing meditation as a way to escape from existence altogether. The technique becomes a form of distance, or a vicarious way of being. A person might accumulate many ideas about life or techniques on how to live, but this accumulation puts oneself at a distance from phenomena: it's like, 'these are things for me to use, not me', and that leads to a controlling way of looking at the world. But from another perspective, one can see technique as a way of becoming closer to one's experience, as when a person meditates in the midst of ordinary experiences and thoughts. The Lotus Sutra uses the example of being in a small town to rest on one's journey, only to mistaken this stopping point as the final part of the journey. It is restful and certainly a good way to be beyond worldly cravings, but it hasn't yet reached the point of thinking there is nothing to save and nothing to save one from.
What I find I learned from this is to see techniques of spiritual cultivation only as vehicles to help one realize what is already mind, already present. If I think that my learning techniques will get me to that point, a vexation or anxiety will arise from that. But if I don't fixate on concepts in this way, I can use them and gently observe their effect, as though experimenting, without prior expectation. This playful approach allows me to experience the concepts as they truly are in mind rather than attaching an undue importance to them.
Tamura, Yoshiro, (tr. Reeves, G & Shinozaki, M|) (2014 ) Introduction to the Lotus Sutra . Boston: Wisdom Publications
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