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Meditations on First Philosophy (subtitled In which the existence of God and the real distinction of mind and body, are demonstrated) is a philosophical treatise written by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation was made by the Duke of Luynes with the supervision of Descartes and was published in 1647 with the title Méditations Metaphysiques. The original Latin title is Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstratur. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things which are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure.

The Meditations consist of the presentation of Descartes’ metaphysical system in its most detailed level and in the expanding of Descartes’ philosophical system, which he first introduced in the fourth part of his Discourse on Method (1637). Descartes’ metaphysical thought is also found in the Principles of Philosophy (1644), which the author intended to be a philosophy guidebook.

Meditations

Meditation I

Descartes begins the first meditation by noting the large number of false beliefs which he had adopted in his childhood. It is necessary to start over entirely, he realizes, if he wants to establish anything in the sciences which is firm and likely to last. In order to do this, he will suspend judgment about any of his beliefs which are in any way uncertain. To inspect each belief separately would take too long; he must find some way to undermine all of his beliefs at once.

The first way that Descartes tries to undermine his beliefs is by considering the fact that he remembers that his senses have deceived him before. If he has been misled by sensory information in the past (e.g. he judged that the stick in the water was straight, when in fact it was bent), then he may be deceived now, “and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”

Descartes acknowledges, however, that this consideration doesn’t undermine his beliefs very effectively, since it really seems as if he is sitting in his dressing gown by the fire, holding this piece of paper in his hands, and so on. How could his senses be misleading him about these things?

He goes on to suggest more powerful reasons to doubt that his beliefs are true. In general, his method is that of forming skeptical hypotheses. In the first meditation, he considers whether he is mad, dreaming, or deceived by an evil demon. If any of these scenarios were the case, many of his beliefs would be false. For instance, if he were mad, he might believe completely ridiculous things e.g. that his head is a pumpkin (he only considers the possibility that he is mad briefly and then seems to dismiss it). If he were dreaming, it would be false that he is sitting by the fire. He would only be imagining this were true, when in fact he’s lying in bed asleep. Likewise, if there were a powerful being deceiving him, he would believe that there is a sky and an earth and so on, since the demon would make it appear to him as if this is the case, when in fact none of these things exist.

The general form of these arguments is:

If I am dreaming/deceived, then my beliefs are not true.
I don’t know whether I am dreaming/deceived.
So, I don’t know whether my beliefs are true.
Descartes’ goal — as stated at the beginning of the meditation — is to suspend judgment about any of his beliefs which are even slightly doubtful. The skeptical scenarios show that all of the beliefs which he considers in the first meditation, including at the very least all of his beliefs about the physical world, are doubtful. So he decides to suspend judgment. He will henceforth give up all of his beliefs about the physical world. This is very difficult (as anyone who tries it can attest). At the end of the first meditation Descartes compares himself to a prisoner who enjoys an imaginary freedom while asleep, and dreads waking. In the same way Descartes slips back into his old beliefs, and dreads waking to toil “amid the inextricable darkness of the problems [he] has now raised.”

It is important to keep in mind when reading the Meditations that Descartes intends to lead the reader along with him gradually. He begins with skepticism and attempts to offer a solution. Thus, he should not be uncharitably read as contradicting himself when, for instance, he thinks something is doubtful in the first meditation and as certain in the last. Several of his objectors fail to read the meditations as a guide, in which the order of the arguments is important, and so make this mistake.

Meditation II

In Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than the Body, Descartes lays out a pattern of thought, sometimes called representationalism, in response to the doubts forwarded in Meditation I. He identifies five steps in this theory:

We only have access to the world of our ideas; things in the world are only accessed indirectly.
These ideas are understood to include all of the contents of the mind, including perceptions, images, memories, concepts, beliefs, intentions, decisions, etc.
The ideas represent things that are separate from themselves.
These represented things are many times “external” to the mind.
It is possible for these ideas to constitute either accurate or false representations.
Descartes argues that this representational theory disconnects the world from the mind, leading to the need for some sort of bridge to span the separation and provide good reasons to believe that the ideas accurately represent the outside world. The first plank he uses in constructing this bridge can be found in the following excerpt:

I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world - no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Doesn’t it follow that I don’t exist? No, surely I must exist if it’s me who is convinced of something. But there is a deceiver, supremely powerful and cunning whose aim is to see that I am always deceived. But surely I exist, if I am deceived. Let him deceive me all he can, he will never make it the case that I am nothing while I think that I am something. Thus having fully weighed every consideration, I must finally conclude that the statement “I am, I exist” must be true whenever I state it or mentally consider it. (Descartes, Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than the Body).

In other words, one’s consciousness implies one’s existence. In one of Descartes’ replies to objections to the book, he summed this up in the phrase, I am, I exist, which is often confused with the famous quote, I think, therefore I am.

Once he has secured his existence, however, Descartes seeks to find out what “I” is. He rejects the typical method which looks for a definition, e.g. Rational Animal, because the words used in the definition would then need to be defined. He seeks simple terms that do not need to be defined in this way, but whose meaning can just be “seen.” From these self-evident truths, complex terms can be built up.

The first of these self-evident truths is Descartes’ proof of existence turned on its head:

But what then am I? A thinking thing. And what is that? Something that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and also sense and has mental images. (Descartes, Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than the Body).

To define himself further, Descartes turns to the example of wax. He determines that wax isn’t wax because of its color, texture or shape, as all of these things can change and the substance still be wax. Therefore, he distinguishes between ordinary perception and judgment. The reality of the wax is “grasped, not by the senses or the power of having mental images, but by the understanding alone.” When one understands the mathematical principles of the substance, such as its expansion under heat, figure and motion, the knowledge of the wax can be clear and distinct.

If a substance such as wax can be known in this fashion, then the same must be of ourselves. The self, then, is not determined by what we sense of ourselves - these hands, this head, these eyes - but by simply the things one thinks. Thus, one “can’t grasp anything more easily or plainly than [their] mind.”

Meditation III

Building upon the foundation that “I exist,” Descartes seeks to prove that “I am not alone” in Meditation III: On God’s Existence. Along the way, he solves the skeptical problem of the criterion with an argument as follows:

I exist as a thinking thing.
How can I be certain?
Using the “clarity and distinctness” criterion, Descartes then seeks to prove he is not alone by proving that God exists. He chooses this method because without a knowledge of whether God exists or if he is a deceiver, there is no way to discuss the all-powerful deceiver challenge of reality. In order to do this, he first establishes a causal principle: There must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. For example, if a thought of an elephant is caused by a picture of an elephant, the picture must have as much reality as the thought. If it were not so, it could not have produced it.

Using this causal principle, Descartes lays out two ontological arguments in Meditation III for the existence of God. The first begins with the fact that each of us has an idea of God and the second begins with the fact that it is true that the self exists.

Argument 1

I have an idea of God (an infinitely perfect substance).
That idea must have a cause.
Nothing comes from nothing.
The cause must have at least as much formal reality as the idea.
I am not infinitely perfect.
I could not be the cause of the idea.
There must be a cause that is infinitely perfect.
God exists.

Argument 2

I exist.
My existence must have a cause.
The cause must be either:
a) myself
b) my always having existed
c) my parents
d) something less perfect than God
e) God
Not a. If I had created myself, I would have made myself perfect.
Not b. Continued existence does not follow from present existence.
Not c. This leads to an infinite regress.
Not d. This idea cannot account for the fact that the idea is of something supreme.
e. God exists.
From these arguments, Descartes feels he has proved he is not alone in the universe as an infinitely intelligent and powerful and perfect substance exists, also. Not only that, but that this God cannot be a deceiver:

The whole argument comes down to this: I know that I could not exist with my present nature - that is, I could not exist with the idea of God in me - unless there were really a God. This must be the very God whose idea is in me, the thing having all of the perfections that I can’t fully comprehend but can somehow reach with thought, who clearly cannot have any defects. From this it’s obvious He can’t deceive - for, as the natural light reveals, fraud and deception arise from defect. (Descartes, Meditation III: On God’s Existence).

Meditation IV

The conclusions of the previous Meditations that “I” and “God” both exist lead to another problem: If God is perfectly good and the source of all that is, how is there room for error or falsehood? Descartes attempts to answer this question in Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity.

If I’ve gotten everything in me from God and He hasn’t given me the ability to err, it doesn’t seem possible for me ever to err. (Descartes, Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity).

The framework of his arguments center on the Great Chain of Being, in which God’s perfect goodness is relative to His perfect being. On the extreme opposite end of the scale is complete nothingness, which is also the extremity of evil. Thus, humans are an intermediary between these two extremes, being less “real” or “good” than God, but more “real” and “good” than nothingness. Thus, error (as a part of evil) is not a positive reality, it is only the absence of what is correct. In this way, its existence is allowed within the context of a perfectly inerrant God.

I find that I am “intermediate” between God and nothingness, between the supreme entity and nonentity. Insofar as I am the creation of the supreme entity, there’s nothing in me to account for my being deceived or led into error, but, insofar as I somehow participate in nothing or nonentity - that is, insofar as I am distinct from the supreme entity itself and lack many things - it’s not surprising that I go wrong. I thus understand that, in itself, error is a lack, rather than a real thing dependent on God. Hence, I understand that I can err without God’s having given me a special ability to do so. Rather, I fall into error because my God-given ability to judge the truth is not infinite. (Descartes, Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity).

Descartes also concedes two points that might allow for the possibility of his ability to err. First, he notes that it is very possible that his limited knowledge prevents him from understanding why God chose to create him so he could make mistakes. If he could see the things that God could see, with a complete and infinite scope, perhaps he would judge his ability to err as the best option. He uses this point to attack the Aristotelian structure of causes. The final cause described by Aristotle are the “what for” of an object, but Descartes claims that because he is unable to completely comprehend the mind of God, it is impossible to completely understand the “why” through science - only the “how.”

I realize that I shouldn’t be surprised at God’s doing things that I can’t explain. I shouldn’t doubt His existence just because I find that I sometimes can’t understand why or how He has made something. I know that my nature is weak and limited and that God’s is limitless, incomprehensible, and infinite, and, from this, I can infer that He can do innumerable things whose reasons are unknown to me. On this ground alone, I regard the common practice of explaining things in terms of their purposes to be useless in physics: it would be foolhardy of me to think that I can discover God’s purposes. (Descartes, Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity).

Second, he realized that God has the ability to create a large number of things of which he would just be a part. Perhaps the error is only apparent when looking at the individual and is reconciled when looking at the whole.

When asking whether God’s works are perfect, I ought to look at all of them together, not at one isolation. For something that seems imperfect when viewed alone might seem completely perfect when regarded as having a place in the world. Of course, since calling everything into doubt, I haven’t established that anything exists besides me and God. But, when I consider God’s immense power, I can’t deny that He has made - or, in any case, that He could have made - many other things, and I must therefore view myself as having a place in a universe. (Descartes, Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity).

Lastly, Meditation IV attributes the source of error to a discrepancy between two divine gifts: understanding and will. Understanding is given in an incomplete form, while will (by nature) can only be either completely given or not given at all. When he is presented with a certain amount of understanding and then chooses to act outside of that, he is in error. Thus, the gifts of God (understanding and will) both remain good and only the incorrect usage by him remains as error.

If I suspend judgement when I don’t clearly and distinctly grasp what is true, I obviously do right and am not deceived. But, if I either affirm or deny in a case of this sort, I misuse my freedom of choice. If I affirm what is false, I clearly err, and, if I stumble onto the truth, I’m still blameworthy since the light of nature reveals that a perception of the understanding should always precede a decision of the will. In these misuses of freedom of choice lies the deprivation that accounts for error. And this deprivation, I maintain, lies in the working of the will insofar as it comes from me - not in my God-given ability to will, or even in the will’s operation insofar as it derives from Him. (Descartes, Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity).

Meditation V

Meditation V: On the Essence of Material Objects and More on God’s Existence begins with the stated purpose of expanding the “known items” of God and self to include outside material objects, Descartes saves that for Meditation VI in lieu of something he deems more fundamental but in the same direction: a discussion concerning the ideas of those external items. Along the way, he stumbles upon another claimed logical proof of God’s existence.

Before asking whether any such objects exist outside me, I ought to consider the ideas of these objects as they exist in my thoughts and see which are clear and which confused. (Descartes, Meditation V: On the Essence of Material Objects and More on God’s Existence).

In pondering these ideas of external objects, Descartes realizes they can be separated into those that are clear and distinct and those that are confused and obscure. The former group consists of the ideas of extension, duration and movement. These geometrical ideas cannot be misconstrued or combined in a way that makes them false. For example, if the idea of a creature with the head of a giraffe, the body of a lion and tail of a beaver was constructed and the question asked if the creature had a large intestine, the answer would have to be invented. But, no matter how you combine or rearrange mathematical properties, the three angles of a triangle will still add up to 180 degrees and the largest side will always be opposite the largest angle. Thus, Descartes discovers that these truths have a nature or essence of themselves, completely independent of one’s thoughts or opinions.

I find in myself innumerable ideas of things which, though they may not exist outside me, can’t be said to be nothing. While I have some control over my thoughts of these things, I do not make the things up: they have their own real and immutable natures. Suppose, for example, that I have a mental image of a triangle. While it may be that no figure of this sort does exist or ever has existed outside my thought, the figure has a fixed nature (essence or form), immutable and eternal, which hasn’t been produced by me and isn’t dependent of my mind. (Descartes, Meditation V: On the Essence of Material Objects and More on God’s Existence).

While thinking about the independence of these ideas of external objects, Descartes realizes that he is just as certain about God as he is about these mathematical ideas. He asserts that this is natural as the ideas of God are the only ideas that imply God’s existence. He uses the example of a mountain and a valley. While one cannot picture a mountain without a valley, it’s possible that these do not exist. However, the fact that one cannot conceive of God without existence inherently rules out the possibility of God’s non-existence. Simply put, the argument is framed as follows:

God is defined as an infinitely perfect being.
Perfection includes existence.
So God exists.
While Descartes had already claimed to have confirmed God’s existence through previous arguments, this one allows him to put to rest any discontent he might have had with his “distinct and clear” criteria for truth. With a confirmed existence of God, all doubt that what one previously thought was real and not a dream can be removed. Having made this realization, Descartes asserts that without this sure knowledge in the existence of a supreme and perfect being, assurance of any truth is impossible.

Thus I plainly see that the certainty and truth of all my knowledge derives from one thing: my thought of the true God. Before I knew Him, I couldn’t know anything else perfectly. But now I can plainly and certainly know innumerable things, not only about God and other mental beings, but also about the nature of physical objects, insofar as it is the subject-matter of pure mathematics. (Descartes, Meditation V: On the Essence of Material Objects and More on God’s Existence).

Meditation VI

In Meditation VI: On the Existence of Material Objects and the Real Distinction of Mind from Body, Descartes addresses the potential existence of material outside of the self and God. First, he asserts that such objects can exist simply because God is able to make them.

Insofar as they are the subject of pure mathematics, I now know at least that they can exist, because I grasp them clearly and distinctly. For God can undoubtedly make whatever I can grasp in this way, and I never judge that something is impossible for Him to make unless there would be a contradiction in my grasping the thing distinctly. (Descartes, Meditation VI: On the Existence of Material Objects and the Real Distinction of Mind from Body).

Knowing that the existence of such objects is possible, Descartes then turns to the prevalence of mental images as proof. To do this, he draws a distinction between mental images and understanding, the former being something that is seen like a mental photograph and the latter being something that is understood but not pictured. He uses an example of this to clarify:

When I have a mental image of a triangle, for example, I don’t just understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines; I also “look at” the lines as though they were present to my mind’s eye. And this is what I call having a mental image. When I want to think of a chiliagon, I understand that it is a figure with a thousand sides as well as I understand that a triangle is a figure with three, but I can’t imagine its sides or “look” at them as though they were present. (Descartes, Meditation VI: On the Existence of Material Objects and the Real Distinction of Mind from Body).

Descartes has still not given proof that such external objects exist, however, only shown that their existence could conveniently explain this mental process. To obtain this proof, he first reviews his premises for the Meditations - that the senses cannot be trusted and what he is taught “by nature” does not have much credence. However, he views these arguments within a new context; after writing Meditation I, he has proved the existence of himself and of a perfect God. Thus, Descartes jumps quickly to proofs of the division between the body and soul and that material things exist:

Proof for the body being distinct from the soul

It is possible for God to create anything I can clearly and distinctly perceive.
If God creates something to be independent of another, they are distinct from each other.
I clearly and distinctly understand my existence as a thinking thing (which does not require the existence of a body).
So God can create a thinking thing independently of a body.
I clearly and distinctly understand my body as an extended thing (which does not require a soul).
So God can create a body independently of a soul.
So my soul is a reality distinct from my body.
So I (a thinking thing) can exist without a body.
Proof of the reality of external material things

I have a “strong inclination” to believe in the reality of external material things due to my senses.
God must have created me with this nature.
If independent material things do not exist, God is a deceiver.
But God is not a deceiver.
So material things exist and contain the properties essential to them.
After using these two arguments to dispel solipsism and skepticism, Descartes seems to have succeeded in defining reality as being in three parts: God (infinite), souls, and material things (both finite). He closes by addressing other details about reality that some could see as inconsistencies, such as senses in amputated limbs, dropsy and dreams.

Objections and replies

Descartes submitted his manuscript to several philosophers, theologians and a logician before publishing the Meditations. Their objections and his replies (many of which are quite extensive) were included along the first publication of the Meditations. In the Preface to the Meditations, Descartes writes: “I…ask my readers not to pass judgment on the Meditations until they have been kind enough to read through all these objections and my replies to them.” Thus, this dialogue could be seen as an integral part of Descartes’ views expressed in the Meditations.

The seven objectors were, in order (of the sets as they were published): The Dutch theologian Johannes Caterus (Johan de Kater); various “theologians and philosophers” gathered by Descartes’ friend and principal correspondent, Friar Marin Mersenne; the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes; the theologian and logician Antoine Arnauld; the philosopher Pierre Gassendi; another miscellany gathered by Mersenne; and the Jesuit Pierre Bourdin.

They make many objections to Descartes’ arguments and method. Some of the objections show that the objector has misunderstood the text. Descartes’ response to these is often dismissive and curt (e.g., in response to Hobbes, “I cannot possibly satisfy those who prefer to attribute a different sense to my words than the one I intended”). Other objections are more powerful, and in some cases it is controversial whether Descartes responds to them successfully.

Some of the most powerful objections include the following:

Objections to proof(s) of God’s existence:

A. We have no (clear ) idea of an infinite Being (1st, 2nd, and 5th objections).

B. From the fact that I can think of perfect being, it doesn’t follow that the perfect being exists (1st, 2nd, and 5th).

C. We could get the idea of God without God’s causing the idea (2nd, 3rd).

D. Nothing can cause itself to exist (4th), so God can’t cause himself to exist.

Objections to the epistemology:

A. How can we be sure that what we think is a clear and distinct perception really is clear and distinct (3rd, 5th)?

B. Circle objection 1: if we aren’t certain that judgments based on clear and distinct ideas are true before we prove God’s existence, then we can’t be certain that we are a thinking thing (2nd). Circle objection 2: if we aren’t certain that clear and distinct ideas are true before we prove God’s existence, then we can’t be certain that God exists, since we use clear and distinct ideas to prove God’s existence (4th).

C. Contrary to what Descartes argues, we are certain that bodies exist/that perception is veridical (5th, 6th).

Objections to philosophy of mind:

A. Ideas are always imagistic (3rd), so we have no idea of thinking substance (non-image idea).

B. We can’t conclude that the mind (thinking thing) is not also a corporeal thing, unless we know that we know everything about the mind. But we don’t know that we know everything about the mind. So we don’t know that the mind isn’t corporeal. (4th, 5th, 7th).

See also
17th-century philosophy

Notes and references

Collected works in French and Latin

Oeuvres De Descartes, 11 vols., edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1983).

English translations

The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes, 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

Single works

Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Méditations Métaphysiques, translated by Michelle Beyssade (Paris: GF, 1993).

Further reading

Alquié, Ferdinand. La découverte métaphysique de l’homme chez Descartes (Paris: PUF, 2000).
Beyssade, Jean-Marie. La Philosophie première de Descartes (Paris: Flammarion, 1979).
Cottingham, John. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Descartes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Dicker, Georges. Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (New York: OUP, 1993)
Frankfurt, Harry. Demons, Dreamers and Madmen (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970).
Gilson, Étienne. Etudes sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système cartésien (Paris: Vrin, 1930).
Gueroult, Martial. Descartes selon L’Ordre des Raisons (Paris: Aubier, 1968). Translated by Roger Ariew as Descartes’ Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
Hatfield, Gary. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes and the Meditations (London: Routledge, 2003).
Kenny, Anthony. Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1968).
Rorty, Amelie. (ed.) Essays on Descartes’ Meditations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
Williams, Bernard. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (London: Penguin Books, 1978).
Wilson, Margaret. Descartes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).

External links

Descartes’ Life and Works at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Descartes’ Modal Metaphysics at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Online text of the Meditations translated by John Veitch
SparkNotes: Meditations on First Philosophy
Summary of the Meditations in 6,488 words
Undergraduate essays on the Meditations
“Philosophy of Psychology and Mind: Descartes and Ryle”
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy”
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Meditations on First Philosophy”.

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Much of our waking life is spent thinking. Thinking becomes that which brings up our feelings, through which we agonize, endlessly. Although the greater part of our mind is at rest, the smallest percentage leads to the most distress__our thoughts. The ego is expressing judgment continually in the form of anger, positionalities, worry, frustration, sadness, grief, and every other emotion within ego’s possibilities. It is our mind which keeps us up at night, and our thoughts which fix our attention.

This exercise is a powerful form of waking meditation, capable of high states of consciousness changes. It is a compilation of exercises I have practiced and simplified, using the technique of repetition. The only thing which is required is the awareness of your thoughts as they arise, in the form of stories, sentences, words, images, reaction to sights, sounds, issues, and events.

1st Week
Begin this exercise by sitting quietly in a comfortable, quiet place, and start to make yourself aware of each thought which comes to mind as it arises, releasing it and letting it float gently downstream as a small boat, one following the other. No commentary is needed for each thought. Just be aware of it and see it going downstream. Practice this exercise 15 minutes everyday as a meditation, for one week.

2nd Week
When you are comfortable with this exercise, as each thought arises say to yourself (or out loud) softly, “I surrender and release this thought.” As each thought arises, stop the thought as soon as it begins and repeat, “I surrender and release this thought.”* Practice this exercise until you can practice it comfortably for 15 minutes.

3rd Week
Begin by surrendering and releasing each thought for 15 minutes a day while you are actively on your normal schedule. It makes no difference what time of day, as long as you focus on surrendering and releasing each thought immediately, as it arises for a full 15 minutes.

4th Week
After the 3rd week is over, begin practicing this exercise for longer periods of time throughout the day, until you begin to feel comfortable surrendering and releasing, under all conditions and in all everyday circumstances.

Expected results:
The ability to quiet the mind, living within the context of all that is, as the witness.

*To make this exercise more powerful, add: “to you, God”, or “to thee, O Lord” at the end of the sentence.

Monkey mind or monkey brain, as it is often called, are words that have been used to describe the state one is in when one cannot stop the flow of thoughts constantly streaming through the mind. People are always saying, “But I can’t stop thinking!” Thoughts are flowing through the mind at a rate that’s mind boggling. We often feel at the mercy of our thoughts…, analyzing, rationalizing, judging, computing, remembering, and imagining, both unconsciously and deliberately. Our minds seem to be seldom silent. Even in the dream state, our minds are working. Our mind however, is really silent the vast majority of the time. Our thoughts arise from The Field, independent of each other. It is our agonizing over things, which exhaust the mind and body as we ruminate.

So, when does our mind rest? Peculiarly, the mind doesn’t need rest; It needs to be taught or trained: 1.) how to see the flow of our thoughts and let each one go, one thought at a time.(meditation) 2.) how to organize thoughts so they don’t overwhelm us. 3.) how to think with deliberation and intention. Here are a few beginning exercises to do:

Get comfortable and sit in a quiet place. Focus on your breath, inhaling deeply, and then exhaling slowly. Think of your mind as a river and the thoughts as boats floating down the river gently going their own way and disappearing into the distance. Watch each thought as it arises, flowing downstream and out of site. You are not attached to any of them. They are of no importance. As you do this consciously, you will have less and less attachment to them, realizing they are not you. This is meditation. Remember thoughts are things, so be aware of the content as they float by and ask if this is truly meaningful as you let it go. If it doesn’t serve you, let those types of thoughts become meaningless in your life, also.

In order to organize thoughts, we must have order, so this is a little exercise to keep thoughts from overwhelming us. 1.( Make a list of things that are hanging in your life that you would like to finish. 2.) List anything you’re confused about or that makes you feel uncomfortable, strange, tired, upset or weird. 3.) What makes you feel exhausted when you think about it? After you have this list, do a little self-analysis about the things (on the lists) that you can handle, or what you need, to know more about each subject. Then put the lists away and see how you feel. You should have renewed energy and those things shouldn’t be hanging around your mind anymore. If any remain, do the exercise over.

Now about thinking with deliberation and intention. This requires a lot more practice. It’s a much longer road to training the mind to think the way you want it to and not how it’s been programmed since birth. Start with this exercise…1.) Concentrate all your attention on a single object for 2 minutes. Anytime within the 2 minutes you find your attention wandering, bring it back. Continue with other objects. You should feel more focused and relaxed. 2.) Breathing in, notice something far away. Breathing out, notice something close. Repeat 10 times. Result: recovery of perspective. 3.) This exercise is like Simon says, only you are the leader. Before any action, even scratching your head, Stop, Verbalize your intended action, then Do it. Continue for 5 minutes. (i.e.) Stop, “Now I will climb the stairs”, climb the stairs, then …Stop, “Now I will turn right”, turn right, then Stop, Now “I will enter the living room,” enter the living room, then Stop, etc. This will place your behavior under your control. See article on “Money” for The Resurfacing book. The book is the complete beginning course on getting your life and your will under your control.

There is so much rhetoric in the world, especially when the subject is spirituality. Some spiritual advisors of prominence are always coming up with the 5, 10, or 100 things that we have to remember, or of utmost importance. These are usually words which have a particular meaning, but when used in the context of spirituality, take on different meanings, like spiral and integral. Motivational speakers are adding the spiritual to give your psyche a push in the right direction with a rousing “you can do it” cheer on a set of DVDs you can listen to while driving to work, or the grocery store. Movie stars will pitch in to give their accolades.

There are hundreds of different kinds of spiritual practices or modalities. People are coming up with new names for spirituality, which are more confusing than ever. There are “steps” to remember, and illusions. There are remembrances to remember. Classes are great, but when we get home the exercises seem fine for a while, but then the dog needs walking and the kids are coming home from school. It’s like meditation or exercise. We may practice for a week, month or a year, but then everyday life takes precedence. Sometimes an issue comes up or a life change, and everything is put aside. Few seem to have a simple answer to growing in our spiritual journey, when it is simplicity which is imperative.

In my article, “Don’t Get Sidetracked,” I speak about roads leading to roads, which lead to confusion or dead-ends. In “Keep it Simple,” opinions, doctrine, theories, and endless intellectualizing, are discussed. When confronted with the complexities of daily life, there should be less to “think about” on our journey. Divinity in It’s Infinite love and wisdom, wouldn’t make the journey so difficult that we would “give up.”

What is it that we can do to witness our progress toward enlightenment or our path? The answer has to be simple in its’ application. How difficult we make it is up to us, and our attention to our intention.

Start with the beginning of the day. This is easy. You’re brushing your teeth, eating your breakfast, or transporting yourself to work. This could be the time to forgive someone by surrendering anger or frustration, to God with one of my simple prayers, or one of your own. Next time you’re in a parking lot, give up the space to someone else, or let them know you’re leaving and where your spot is. If you see someone who could use a hand, give it to them. Smile at the person in the car next to you. Open a door for someone. Allow someone to go ahead of you in a line. Bless the person who cuts you off in traffic. Let go of your past and stop being a victim of something or someone, finally. Give up an addiction to a person or a thing which isn’t in your highest good. Don’t complain about anything for just one day. Give up blame, for a day and then a week, etc. Have reverence for all life, including your own. Let your ego take a rest by not having to be right all the time, or being angry about that which you cannot change. Stop trying to change everything, as if you know what’s right for anyone else.

I could go on, but you get the picture. It’s like the 10,000 diets that are out there. You only need one. The simple one. The one that tells you just to eat healthy and cut your portions.

Enlightenment and our expanded context of our spiritual self, does not have to be any harder a goal than we choose to make it. The “critical point” of a person’s spiritual journey may be as simple as one decision. It is the decision to be of a higher consciousness than that which you were, only a second ago. It’s not what you do, but what you are as you do it.__©Myswizard all rights reserved ‘05-’06

Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; ’twas not given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let it wipe another’s tears, Till in Heaven the deed appears, Pass it on. Author: Henry Burton

If kindness were your daily food
Hunger would indeed elude
And acceptance was the air you breathe
With every breath comes gratitude
Then in some distant future be
The seed you’d sown eternally.
©Myswizard all rights reserved ‘05-’06

In turn, every advance that we make in our awareness benefits unseen multitudes and strengthens the next step for others to follow. Every act of kindness is noticed by the universe and is preserved forever. (Dr David R. Hawkins, Eye of The I, 118)

Devotional Nonduality is a direct way to enlightenment. It uses the power of the heart and not spiritual ambition. Followers of Devotional Nonduality seek the “core” of spirituality for its own sake, knowing that the source of our own existence is within. It is the devotion to the essence of Truth itself. It’s founder and my teacher, Dr. David Hawkins, M.D., PhD. has comprehensively explained this state within all his teachings and writings, and in his book, “Devotional Nonduality”.

Students of Devotional Nonduality have meaningful practices that work for them, so I thought it would be a good idea to explain how it works in my life, as well as personal definitions and descriptions as paraphrased from Dr. Hawkins.

Devotional Nonduality is a new “sounding” paradigm of being in the world, but not a new way of being. Its relatives are Advaita and some forms of Buddhism, without the strict practice of meditation and the “void” being the ultimate reality. It’s a way to enlightenment through devotion to The Ultimate Reality of our existence, by means of the pathways of higher levels of consciousness. One doesn’t need to do fancy rituals or give up their life or life savings to it. It’s a relatively simple practice with huge implications.

Devotional Nonduality is a commitment to raising ones’ own level of consciousness through being “that” which you have the intention to become. It is devotion to God in the highest, through living life as a prayer. All positionalities, belief systems, ideologies, and conceptualizations must be surrendered. This is a major commitment necessary to becoming enlightened and cannot be taken frivolously. Therefore it is rare to be on the path to enlightenment.

The beingness to which I refer can be as simple as practicing kindness to a fault everyday and without exception. If I find myself not being as kind as my practice has maintained, I stop and witness what my ego is being (by being more contemplative). Due to the fact, we still have to live in the world, as long as we are willing to witness the ego and surrender it, our intrinsic level of consciousness doesn’t vary.

Contemplation (recommended by Dr. Hawkins), is a way of being in the world. In order to practice contemplation, one needs to witness the world in a wider mode of context vs. content, and not get “caught up in the drama” of the momentary stories of ones’ life. Through living within a state of contemplation, non-attachment can be maintained while still enjoying the fruits and pleasures of material existence. The neediness of lesser egoic states tends to disappear. Dr. Hawkins often reminds his students that it’s not the ego itself that is the problem, but the juice, power or excitement we get out of its’ “pitfalls.” He also advises to avoid negativity rather than opposing it. Precious time is wasted resisting that which doesn’t calibrate above the level of integrity. These are the levels such as anger, apathy, desire, grief and all the negative aspects of lower consciousness discussed in Dr. Hawkins books and lectures. One cannot change that which isn’t ready, so avoid “the lower realms” and remain in the light.*

Practicing Truth (Absolute Truth) through devotion to Divinity is the highest commitment of Devotional Nonduality. Within my own daily practice, I like to call this Radical Truth. This is living truth everyday without exception. It does not mean to be radically opinionated. Truth overcomes opinions as one climbs the scale of consciousness. Radical Truth is also radical honesty. When I am confused I state my confusion. If uncertain, I abdicate until I am. Radical truth is being truthful (with kindness) to everyone at all times and under all conditions. Telling lies on any level is not an exception.

By being the qualities of higher levels one naturally becomes kind toward all life. Compassion, joy, sincerity, unconditional love, willingness, neutrality and more is what is necessary to transcend the levels of consciousness. Awareness of the pitfalls of the ego and the ways in which we can fall back is a priority. Surrendering that which you have no control over to Divinity is the path. Through the vigilant practice of being that which you wish to become, you become it. Force is not the way, but the power of Divinity. The intention alone to be more of what you wish to be will make it happen.

If the aforementioned way of being seems difficult, then you are not yet ready to commit to this and that is perfectly alright. The practice of Devotional Nonduality will be around for a very long time and Divinity has an infinite amount of patience. When you are ready to walk the path, there will be many to help guide you along the way.

*This could lead to life changing scenarios, such as divorce, changing social groups/friends, employment or avoidance of certain family members.

Purusha*

In Hinduism, Purusha (”Cosmic Man”) is the “self” which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are considered to be the human mind’s interpretation of the many facets of Purusha. According to the Rigvedic Purusha sukta, Purusha was dismembered by the devas — his mind is the moon, his eyes are the sun, and his breath is the wind.

In Samkhya, a school of Hindu philosophy, Purusha is pure consciousness. It is thought to be our true identity, to be contrasted with Prakrti, or the material world, which contains all of our organs, senses, and intellectual faculties.

Daily Invocations by

Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Society
Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India

The Significance of the Purusha Sukta

The Purusha-Sukta of the Vedas is not only a powerful hymn of the insight of the great Seer, Rishi Narayana, on the Cosmic Divine Being as envisaged through the multitudinous variety of creation, but also a short-cut provided to the seeker of Reality for entering into the state of Superconsciousness. The Sukta is charged with a fivefold force potent enough to rouse God-experience in the seeker. Firstly, the Seer (Rishi) of the Sukta is Narayana, the greatest of sages ever known, who is rightly proclaimed in the Bhagavata as the only person whose mind desire has not been able to shake and, as the Mahabharata says, whose power not even all the gods can ever imagine. Such is the Rishi to whom the Sukta was revealed and who gave expression to it as the hymn on the Supreme Purusha. Secondly, the Mantras of the Sukta are composed in a particular metre (Chandas) which has its own contribution to make in the generation of a special spiritual force during the recitation of the hymn. Thirdly, the intonation (Svara) with which the Mantras are recited adds a part to the production of the correct meaning intended to be conveyed through the Mantras and any error in the intonation may produce a different effect altogether. Fourthly, the Deity (Devata) addressed in the hymn is not any externalised or projected form as a content in space and time but the Universal Being which transcends space and time and is the Indivisible Supraessential essence of experience. Fifthly, the Sukta suggests, apart from the universalised concept of the Purusha, an inwardness of this experience, thus distinguishing it from perception of any object.

The Sukta begins with the affirmation that all the heads, all the eyes, and all the feet in creation are of the Purusha. Herein is implied the astonishing truth that we do not see many things, bodies, objects, persons, forms, colours or hear sounds, but only the limbs of the One Purusha. And, just as, when we behold the hand, leg, ear, or nose of a person differently, we do not think that we are seeing many things, but only a single person in front of us, and we develop no separate attitude whatsoever in regard to these parts of the body of the person, because here our attitude is one of a single whole of consciousness beholding one complete person irrespective of the limbs or the part of which the person may be the composite, we are to behold creation not as a conglomeration of discrete persons and things, with each one of whom we have to develop a different attitude or conduct, but as a single Universal Person who gloriously shines before us and gazes at us through all the eyes, nods before us through all the heads, smiles through all lips and speaks through all tongues. This is the Purusha of the Purusha-Sukta. This is the God sung in the hymn by Rishi Narayana. This is not the god of any religion and this is not one among many gods. This is the only God who can possibly be anywhere, at any time.

Our thought, when it is extended and trained in the manner required to see the Universe before us, receives a stirring shock, because this very thought lays the axe at the root of all desires, for no desire is possible when all creation is but one Purusha. This illusion and this ignorance in which the human mind is moving when it desires anything in the world - whether it is a physical object or a mental condition, or a social situation - is immediately dispelled by the simple but the most revolutionary idea which the Sukta deals at the mind with one stroke. We behold the One Being (Ekam Sat) before us, not a manifoldness or a variety to be desired or avoided.

But a greater shock is yet to be. For, the Sukta implies to any intelligent thinker that he himself is one of the heads or limbs of the Purusha. This condition, where even to think would be to think as the Purusha thinks - for no other way of thinking is possible, and it would be to think through all persons and things in creation simultaneously - would indeed not be human thinking or living. Just as we do not think merely through one cell in our brain but think through the entire brain, any single thinker forming but a part of the Purusha’s Universal Thinking Centre, ‘a Centre which is everywhere with circumference nowhere’, cannot afford to think as it is usually being attempted by what are called Jivas or individual fictitious centres of thinking. There is no other way (Na anyah pantha vidyate). This is Supramental thinking. This is Divine Meditation. This is the Yajna which, as the Sukta says, the Devas, performed in the beginning of time.

The Purusha-Sukta is not merely this much. It is something more to the seeker. The above description should not lead us to the erroneous notion that God can be seen with the eyes, as we see a cow, for instance, though it is true that all things are the Purusha. It is to be remembered that the Purusha is not the ’seen’ but the ’seer’. The point is simple to understand. When everything is the Purusha, where can there be an object to be seen? The apparently ’seen’ objects are also the heads of the ’seeing’ Purusha. There is thus, only the seer seeing himself without a seen.

Here, again, the seer’s seeing of himself is not to be taken in the sense of a perception in space and time, for that would again be creating an object where it is not. It is the seer seeing himself not through eyes but in Consciousness. It is the absorption of all objectification in a Universal Be-ness. In this Meditation on the Purusha, which is the most normal thing that can ever be conceived, man realises God in the twinkling of a second.

THE PURUSHA-SUKTA

Thousand-headed is the Purusha, thousand-eyed and thousand-legged. Enveloping the earth from all sides, He transcends it by ten fingers’ length.

Note:- This is the first Mantra of the famous Purusha Sukta of the Veda. Here the transcendent totality of all creation is conceived as the Cosmic Person, the Universal Consciousness animating all manifestation. The word ‘earth’ is to be understood in the sense of all creation. ‘Dasangulam’ is interpreted as ten fingers’ length, in which case it is said to refer to the distance of the heart from the navel, the former having been accepted as the seat of the Atma and the latter symbolic of the root of manifestation. The word ten is also said to mean ‘infinity’, as numbers are only up to nine and what is above is regarded as numberless.

All this (manifestation) is the Purusha alone - whatever was and whatever will be. He is the Lord of Immortality, for He transcends all in His Form as food (the universe). Such is His Glory; but greater still is the Purusha. One-fourth of Him all beings are, (while) three-fourth of Him rises above as the Immortal Being.

That, Three-footed (Immortal) Purusha stood above transcending (all things), and His one foot was this (world of becoming). Then He pervaded (everything) universally, the conscious as well as the unconscious. From That (Supreme Being) did the Cosmic Body (Virat) originate, and in this Cosmic Body did the Omnipresent Intelligence manifest itself. Having manifested Himself, He, appeared as, all diversity, and then as this earth and this body.

When (there being no external material other than the Purusha) the Devas performed a universal sacrifice (in contemplation by mind), with the Purusha Himself as the sacred offering, the spring season was the clarified butter, summer the fuel, autumn the oblation. They set up for sacrifice the Purusha as the object in their meditation, Him who was, prior to all creation, and they, the Devas, Sadhyas and Rishis, performed (this first sacrifice).

From that (Purusha), who was of the form of a Universal Sacrifice, the sacred mixture of curds and ghee (for oblation) was produced. (Then) He brought forth the aerial beings, the forest-dwelling animals, and also the domestic ones. From that (Purusha), who was the Universal Sacrifice, the Riks and the Samans were produced; from Him the metres (of the Mantras) were born; from Him the Yajus was born.

From Him were born horses and whatsoever animals have two rows of teeth. Verily, cows were born of Him; from Him were born goats and sheep. And when they contemplated the Purusha (as the Universal Sacrifice), into how many parts did they divide Him (in their meditations)? What was His mouth called, what His arms, what His thighs, what were His feet called?

The Brahmana (spiritual wisdom and splendour) was His Mouth; the Kshatriya (administrative and military prowess) His Arms became. His Thighs the Vaisya (commercial and business enterprise) was; of His Feet the Sudra (productive and sustaining force) was born. The Moon (symbol of the mind) was born from His (Cosmic) Mind; the Sun (symbol of self and consciousness) was born from His Eyes. Indra (power of grasping and activity) and Agni (will-force) came from His Mouth; from His Vital Energy air was born.

(In that Universal Meditation as Sacrifice) the firmament came from His Navel; the heavens were produced from His head; the earth from His feet; from His ears the quarters of space; - so they constituted the worlds. The enclosures of the sacrificial altar were seven (the seven metres like the Gayatri), and twenty-one (the twelve months, the five seasons, the three worlds and the sun) were the logs of sacrificial fuel, when the gods (the Pranas, senses and the mind) celebrated the universal sacrifice with the Supreme Purusha as the object of contemplation therein.

By sacrifice (universal meditation) did the gods adore and perform (visualise) the sacrifice (Universal Being). These were the original creations and the original laws (that sustain creation). Those great ones (the worshippers of the Cosmic Being by this type of meditation) attain that Supreme Abode in which abide the, primeval contemplators (the gods mentioned above) who thus worshipped that Being.

I know this Great Purusha who shines like the sun beyond darkness. By knowing Him alone does one cross beyond death; there is no other way of going over there.

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Purusha”.

Main Entry: con·tem·pla·tion
Pronunciation: “kän-t&m-’plA-sh&n, -”tem-
Function: noun
1 a : concentration on spiritual things as a form of private devotion b : a state of mystical awareness of God’s being
2 : an act of considering with attention : study
3 : the act of regarding steadily
4 : intention, expectation

In a lecture series by Dr. David Hawkins, the doctor suggests contemplation over meditation for daily spiritual practice. Although I have made a practice of meditating on a regular basis, contemplation offers an alternative way of being without losing the focus of one’s spirituality. I’m often in a state of contemplation due to my own spiritual practices, so it feels familiar to me. Since one cannot walk around in a state of meditation all day, contemplation offers being that which you are without having to lose the awareness of Divinity.

Contemplation is a way of “being” in the world, without the world being in you. It’s a state of total awareness without losing the focus on your surroundings or the daily routine of your life. In a way it’s Zenlike. When eating, eat. When driving, drive. When working, work. It’s surrendering the monkey mind, and being in the moment totally with whatever it is you’re doing. In this way your concentration level remains so high, you’re highly intuitive. Nothing escapes your attention. You witness, without getting caught up in the witnessing. The focus of your awareness is widened to include everything, without the “self” getting in the way. It’s like the Buddhist saying…”Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

The hot new frontier of neuroscience: meditation!

Richard Davidson, 54, is at once a distinguished scientist and an avid spiritual seeker. He became fascinated with meditation in the ’60s. As a graduate student at Harvard, he channeled that interest into the study of psychology and neuroscience. In his spare time, he hung out with Ram Dass, Timothy Leary’s former LSD research partner turned mystic. Davidson traveled to India for a meditation retreat, then finished his doctorate in biological psychology and headed to the University of Wisconsin, where he now directs the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior.

The Dalai Lama learned of Davidson’s work from other scientists and in 1992 invited him to Dharamsala, India, to interview monks with extensive meditation experience about their mental and emotional lives. Davidson recalls the “extraordinary power of compassion” he experienced in the Dalai Lama’s presence.

A decade later, he got a chance to examine Tibetan Buddhists in his own lab. In June 2002, Davidson’s associate Antoine Lutz positioned 128 electrodes o­n the head of Mattieu Ricard. A French-born monk from the Shechen Monastery in Katmandu, Ricard had racked up more than of 10,000 hours of meditation.

Lutz asked Ricard to meditate o­n “unconditional loving-kindness and compassion.” He immediately noticed powerful gamma activity - brain waves oscillating at roughly 40 cycles per second - indicating intensely focused thought. Gamma waves are usually weak and difficult to see. Those emanating from Ricard were easily visible, even in the raw EEG output. Moreover, oscillations from various parts of the cortex were synchronized - a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in patients under anesthesia.

The researchers had never seen anything like it. Worried that something might be wrong with their equipment or methods, they brought in more monks, as well as a control group of college students inexperienced in meditation. The monks produced gamma waves that were 30 times as strong as the students’. In addition, larger areas of the meditators’ brains were active, particularly in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions.

Davidson realized that the results had important implications for o­ngoing research into the ability to change brain function through training. In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the o­nset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician’s fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand - even in musicians who start playing as adults. Davidson’s work suggested this potential might extend to emotional centers.

But Davidson saw something more. The monks had responded to the request to meditate o­n compassion by generating remarkable brain waves. Perhaps these signals indicated that the meditators had attained an intensely compassionate state of mind. If so, then maybe compassion could be exercised like a muscle; with the right training, people could bulk up their empathy. And if meditation could enhance the brain’s ability to produce “attention and affective processes” - emotions, in the technical language of Davidson’s study - it might also be used to modify maladaptive emotional responses like depression.

Davidson and his team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November 2004.

WIRED Magazine

Dogen (1200-1253)

There is a simple way to become a buddha When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate to all sentient beings…not excluding or desiring anything…you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else. (from Moon in a Dewdrop edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi)
So wrote Eihei Dogen, one of Zen Buddhism’s most prominent figures.

He was born in 1200 near Kyoto which was, at that time, the capital of Japan. When he was fourteen he was formally ordained as a monk and entered a monastery at the foot of Mt Hiei to begin his training. In 1217 he moved to Kennin Monastery - also in Kyoto - and studied there until 1223. He then accompanied his abbot, Myozen, to China. The purpose of this journey was to engage more fully with Ch’an Buddhism, the Chinese precursor of Japanese Zen.

Dropping Away Body and Mind

His experience of the Chinese monasteries was ultimately disappointing. He felt that the practice of koans, for example, which was a key feature of many of these monasteries, was narrow and limiting. After two years, he contemplated returning to Japan. But a crucial meeting with a renowned priest, Rujung, changed his mind. Rujung taught that practice was all about ‘dropping away body and mind’ and emphasized sitting meditation, rather than, koans, chanting or rituals.

Having studied under Rujung, in 1227 Dogen returned to Japan and began to expound his new understanding through his writing. Indeed, Dogen was a prolific writer and his writings are available in translation. In 1233 he also opened Kannondori Temple in Fukakusa and appointed Ejo has head monk. In 1243 the monastery was relocated to Echizen Province northeast of Kyoto and was renamed Daibutsu Monastery and subsequently, in 1246, renamed again as Eihei-Ji Monastery.

In 1252, however, Dogen became ill and in 1253 he died in Kyoto.

More on Dogen
Great Awakenings

Dogen’s teaching, as expounded through his writing, encourages the practice of a type of meditation known as zazen or ‘just-sitting’. He explains, ‘Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavor….Do not desire to become a buddha’.

In ‘Eight Awakenings of Great Beings’ Dogen focuses on the practices that lead to Nirvana. These are 1. to have few desires 2. knowing how much is enough 3. serenity (to be found in seclusion) 4. diligent effort 5. mindfulness 6. practicing meditation 7. cultivating wisdom 8. avoiding ‘hollow’ discussions. He wrote: ‘We can learn and practice these awakenings because of the merit of our wholesome conditions from the past. By practicing and nurturing these awakenings you can certainly arrive at unsurpassable enlightenment’.(from Enlightenment Unfolds edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi)

DOGEN ZENJI

After training for nine years under the Rinzai teacher Myozen, Dogen Zenji made the difficult journey to China, where he studied with and became the Dharma successor (14th Patriarch in lineage to Dong Shan Liang Chieh (Tozan)); 24th in lineage in Transmission of the Light to Master Tendo Nyojo (Ju-Ching, 13th Patriarch) in the Soto Zen lineage. Considered the founder of the Japanese Soto School, Dogen Zenji established Eiheiji, the principal Soto training monastery, and is best known for his collection of Dharma essays, Shobogenzo.

Dogen was the founder of the Soto (T’sao Dong Ch’an) Lineage of Buddhism in Japan. He came from a noble family, but his life was unhappy and difficult, because his parents died when he was a very young boy. Their deaths lead him to contemplate the impermanence of life, and at the age of thirteen, he became a Buddhist monk.

Dogen didn’t realize the truth of Zen for a long time. The difficulty of Zen meditation is not the training, but the letting go of preconceived ideas. The experience of the true self is a state of awareness that cannot be defined; words cannot express living reality. In the experience of the true self, there is no “I” no reference point whatsoever.

Dogen was troubled by one particular question: if all human beings are born with Buddha Nature, why is it so difficult to realize it? Dogen finally studied with Eisai, a Rinzai master, who told him it was a delusion to think in such dualistic terms as Buddha. With this answer Dogen experienced Satori. Eisai lived for a few more months; Dogen became his disciple and stayed with him. After Eisai’s death, Dogen remained with Myozen, Eisai’s successor, for eight years, and received the seal of a master.

Despite his profound insights, Dogen felt he didn’t have complete understanding, and therefore, went with Myozen to China to study more. He practiced Chinese Zen (Ch’an) with Master Ju-Ching in China, but mistakenly sat in a quietest way, which merely lead to notional emptiness condemned by H.H. The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng. One day Master Ju-Ching was scolding another monk for sleeping, and said, “The practice of Zazen (Sitting Meditation) is the dropping away of body and mind. What do you think dozing will accomplish?” Upon hearing these words, Dogen became fully Enlightened. He suddenly understood that Zazen is not just sitting still, but it is the “I” opening up to its own Reality. When preconceived ideas are abandoned, one experience the true nature of mind; life is experienced directly, non-dualistically, without ego interfering. He made the following comments about his experience:

“Mind and body dropped off; dropped off mind and body! This state should be experienced by everyone; it is like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom, like pouring water into a bowl with a pierced hole; however much you may pile or pour you cannot fill it up. When this is realized the pail bottom is broken through. But while there is still a trace of conceptualism which makes you say ‘I have this understanding’ or ‘I have that realization’, you are still playing with unrealities.”

Four years later, when Dogen returned to Japan, he said, “I have come back empty-handed. I have realized only that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical.” From this empty clarity came the great Soto sect of Japan. Dogen taught a way of sitting called Shikantaza, “shikan” means nothing but, “ta” means to hit, “za” means to sit. Shikantaza has remained the basis of Soto Zen up to the present; it unites the means can end of sitting meditation. There is no means to an end, because the end is now. The act of sitting itself is the actualization of Buddha Nature or Being. The meditation does not strive for Satori, but has faith on the teacher and teachings, and trusts that realization will come as a result of sitting practice. Dogen gave the following meditation instructions:

In doing Zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships. Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Thus, having stopped the various functions of your mind, give up even the idea of becoming a Buddha. This holds true not only for zazen but for all your daily actions.

Usually a thick square mat is put on the floor where you sit and a round cushion on top of that. You may sit in either the full or half lotus position. In the former first put your right foot on your left thigh and then your left foot on your right thigh. In the latter, only put your left foot on your right thigh. Your clothing should be worn loosely but neatly. Nest, put your right hand on your left foot and your left palm on the right palm, the tips of the thumbs lightly touching. Sit upright, leaning to neither left nor right, front nor back. Your ears should be on the same plane your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. Your tongue should be placed against the roof of your mouth and your lips and teeth closed firmly. With your eyes kept continuously open, breathe quietly through your nostrils. Finally, having regulated your body and mind in this way, take a deep breath, sway your body to left and right, then sit firmly as a rock. Think of non-thinking. How is this done? By thinking beyond non-thinking and thinking. This is the very basis of Zazen.

Zazen is not a ’step-by-step’ meditation. Rather it is simply the easy and pleasant practice of a Buddha, the realization of the Buddha’s wisdom. The truth appears, there being no delusion. If you understand this you are completely free, supreme law will then appear of itself, and you will be free of weariness and confusion. At the completion of Zazen move your body slowly and stand up calmly. Do not move violently.”

In this meditation posture, the full lotus position provides a wide, solid physical base; both knees touch the mat to provide body stability. The rock-like, immobile body posture calms down the mind and brings tranquillity. Meditators are given a breathing technique to focus the mind. Beginners count the inbreaths and outbreaths, the count goes from one to ten, and then starts all over again. In this technique, the mind has nothing to feed on, play with, analyze, or hold on to. Thoughts will naturally come and go, and Dogen’s advice was to place each thought in the palm of your hand. In the more advanced Shikantaza, the counting of breaths is left behind, and the tamed mind abides in effortless concentrated awareness. The awareness is the unmoving center of all movement: “Abandoning thinking and doing, is nothing other than every form of doing and acting,” Dogen said.

Dogen’s Soto school taught that sitting in Zazen was entering the flow of each moment by dropping from the mind the concepts of past, present, and future. Life is one and its flow of movements and events should not be held to or dominated to create illusions of permanence. All moments and all actions, whether they are important, insignificant, fascinating, or boring. — are seen as the actual realization of Buddhahood. The Soto school’s Shikantaza helps one realize this moment now. In the Shobogenzo, Dogen said that it was useless to fix one’s hopes on a goal.

“When a fish swims, it swims on and on, and there is no end to the water. When a bird flies, it flies on and on, and there is no end to the sky. There was never a fish that swam out of the water or a bird that flew out of the sky. When they need just a little water or sky, they use just a little; when they need a lot, they use a lot. Thus, they use all of it in every moment, and in every place they have perfect freedom.

Yet if there were a bird that first wanted to examine the size of the sky, or a fish that first wanted to examine the extent of the water, and then tried to fly or swim, it would never find its way. When we find where we are at this moment, then practice follows, and this is the realization of the truth. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither self nor other. It has never existed before, and it is not coming into existence now. It simply is as it is.”

Dogen’s Reflecting Pool
Explaining the path to Enlightenment is the mission of every Buddhist teacher since the time of the historical Buddha. From the San-lun school, to the teaching of Dogen Zenji, great thinkers attempt to relate their understanding of the Two-fold Truth and illuminate the most efficient path to Enlightenment. Dogen, the eminent Soto Zen philosopher, takes the general understanding of the twofold truth:
The existence of a discursive, dual world of form.

A world of non-dual emptiness and sheds new light on the relationship between form and emptiness. He proposes that emptiness is manifested through the acceptance of distinctions and the discursive world. For Dogen, distinctions illuminate the fundamental emptiness. When one understands that one lives in a discursive world, then one can feel the basic emptiness. Awakening to the realization that the ultimate underlies and encompasses everything–being and non-being, delusion and Enlightenment–allows one to truly see the distinctions and to accept reality as it is. Once this understanding is reached, one experiences the compassion that flows from the pervasive emptiness. The following passage from Dogen’s “Genjokoan” fascicle of his major work, the Shobogenzo, expresses this understanding in a succinct manner:

When all dharmas are the Buddha Dharma, there is illusion and Enlightenment, practice, birth, death, buddhas, and sentient beings. When myriad dharmas are without self, there is no illusion or Enlightenment, no buddhas or sentient beings, no generation or extinction. The Buddha Way is originally beyond fullness and lack and for this reason there is generation and extinction, illusion and Enlightenment, sentient beings and buddhas. In spite of this, flowers fall always amid our grudging, and weeds flourish in our chagrin.1
The traditional Mahayana belief of the twofold truth, one that Dogen does not refute but uses as a stepping stone into his theory, states that there exists a world of form AND a world of emptiness.2 The world of form is based on discursive, dualistic thinking that explains conventional truth and understanding. The world of emptiness contains the highest truth, the belief in interdependence and no fixed reality, based in non-dual awareness and thinking. Ultimately, the world of form is empty. Residing in non-dual awareness, one realizes that all form is constantly changing. Since all things have this impermanent characteristic, then everything possesses the same essence and is one.3 This understanding places a follower in the world of emptiness and highest reality. In this realization, “all dharmas are without self, there is no illusion or Enlightenment, no buddhas or sentient being, no generation or extinction.” 4 All form is the same and empty, with no fixed reality.

Often one becomes attached to form and cannot realize the ultimate reality of emptiness. One loathes to see a flower wilt because one is attached to the idea that the flower should be beautiful and eternal. One separates the flower from the ultimate reality of impermanence and interconnectedness. This separation and attachment to “what ought to be,” causes suffering and blindness to the true reality. The reality is that the flower, like all else, grows and dies.

The beautiful mountains are praised a great deal for their remarkable appearance, but they are actually created from the shifting of the earth.

A nice vase is still breakable.
In the same vein, as british author William Somerset Maugham writes in The Razor’s Edge in conversation with the novel’s main character Larry Darrell in search of the Truth as Darrell says:

“It may be that there is no solution or it may be that I’m not clever enough to find it. Ramakrishna looked upon the world as the sport of God. “It is like a game,” he said. “In this game there are joy and sorrow, virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil., The game cannot continue if sin and suffering are altogether eliminated from the creation.” I would reject that with all my strength. The best I can suggest is that when the Absolute manifested itself in the world evil was the natural correlation of good. You could never have had the stupendous beauty of the Himalayas without the unimaginable horror of a convulsion of the earth’s crust. The Chinese craftsman who makes a vase in what they call eggshell porcelain can give it a lovely shape, ornament it with a beautiful design, stain it a ravishing colour, and give it a perfect glaze, but from its very nature he can’t make it anything but fragile. If you drop it on the floor it will break into a dozen fragments. Isn’t it possible in the same way that the values we cherish in the world can only exist in combination with evil?” (source)

Dogen does not deny this fact, but he takes it one step further and attempts to frame distinctions not as hindrances, but as paths and indications of an underlying emptiness to everything. The realization of emptiness occurs when one who has felt this sense of oneness separates from that feeling and enters a world of dichotomies and attachments.5 Only by looking through these “attachment-colored” eyeglasses, one understands the emptiness that encompasses and extends beyond all distinctions. Distinctions must exist to make emptiness apparent. Emptiness and duality are contingent upon one another. They are the same things.

A tree and a leaf are one; that is, they depend on and define one another. A leaf exists because a tree exists and vice versa. To the non-dual mind and to themselves, the tree and the leaf transcend distinction. As autumn approaches, the leaf begins to quiver, darken and eventually falls to the ground, separating from the tree. This detachment resembles entering the dual world where the tree and leaf exist as two separate entities, no longer defining one another. According to Dogen, precisely at this moment when the distinctions are realized, the tree and leaf understand the pervasive emptiness that encompasses them both. Only by falling into the realm of duality can they feel the sense of oneness they once manifested. The leaf does not fear the world of distinctions because it falls into the net of oneness that catches and sustains all things. In the Shape of the Universe the dichotomies of the tree, leaf and all entities, illuminate the underlying and consuming emptiness that engulfs all form.

Dogen believes that all illuminating distinctions depend on two facets, such as light and dark, being and non-being, and trees and leaves. The underlying emptiness that absorbs all dichotomies makes possible the realization of these distinctions. As Dogen writes, “The Buddha Way is originally beyond fullness and lack, and for this reason there is generation and extinction, illusion and Enlightenment, sentient beings and buddhas.”6 These distinctions must be understood and accepted in the light of the idea that they are all one. Only through truly seeing and embracing the dual nature of all, can one feel and experience the sense of a fundamental ultimate. As Shunryu Suzuki explains, “each existence depends on something else. Strictly speaking, there are no separate individual existences. There are just many names for one existence.”7 The leaf “recognizes” its oneness with the tree through its attachment to the past non-duality and belief that this sense encompasses all. One may believe that diversity obstructs the recognition of emptiness, but Dogen teaches that ignoring the dual differences leads to one-sided understanding based on the attachment to a firm existence.8 Suzuki, clarifying this teaching, says, “oneness and variety, like Dark Luminosity, are the same thing, so oneness should be appreciated in each existence. We should find the reality in each moment, and in each phenomenon.”9 The acceptance of distinctions and of the underlying emptiness found in each moment and all things, constitutes the actualization of the ultimate reality. One can only realize non-attachment though attachment to worldly distinctions.10

Recognizing the pervasive emptiness through the attachments constitutes Dogen’s idea of Awakening. This underlying emptiness liberates the practitioner and allows one to see things as they are–to see the dual facets of all things in the discursive world. Awakening culminates in wanting “to know things as they are. If we know things as they are, there is nothing to point at; there is no way to grasp anything; there is no thing to grasp.”11 Knowing things as they are entails observing the different sides of an entity and realizing the facets are fundamentally rooted in emptiness. One awakens to different sides of the same reality. Like the moon reflecting in a pool of water, one must see the whole reflection and realize that another side exists, a side not reflecting. This recognition of a dark side of the moon, completely illuminates the object and one knows it fully. In the Buddha way, understanding the dual sides of all things awakens one to the complete reality of the entity and the deeper, ultimate reality of emptiness.

The Awakening to the true reality of an object through realizing the underlying emptiness, liberates one from denying human reality. As Dogen says, even though one understands that the Buddha Way encompasses all distinctions, “flowers fall always amid our grudging, and weeds flourish in our chagrin.”12 One still prefers flowers instead of weeds, which is human reality. Suppressing this urge will create further suffering and perpetuate the distinction between flowers and weeds. Suzuki writes, “that we are attached to some beauty is itself Buddha’s activity. That we do not care for weeds is also Buddha’s activity. If you know that, it is all right to attach to something. If it is Buddha’s attachment, that is non-attachment.”13 Buddha’s attachment realizes that emptiness underlies all desires and all distinctions are ultimately the same. Love is hate and hate is love. One exists if and only if the other exists. One can dislike the weeds because the feelings are ultimately the same as love for the flower. Attempting to transcend distinctions between dislike and like, or create a superficial unity, promotes further suffering because one is caught in the idea of what one believes is unity and ignores the fundamental emptiness encompassing both passion and disgust.14 This awakening to the perpetuation of suffering liberates one from fighting against human reality and, through the recognition of distinctions, one understands the ultimate.

From acceptance of things as they are and basic emptiness, compassion, called Karuna, the Golden Purifier in the texts, arises.15 Compassion comes as a feeling with reality, flowing from the underlying emptiness. Accepting things as they are, with the form of distinctions, is a feeling that comes through the ultimate emptiness. One embraces hate and love because they are ultimately the same. One generates a sense of compassion for all weeds and flowers because these distinctions manifest emptiness. All beings command compassion because their dual natures illuminate the ultimate. One cannot emphasize a “oneness” because the Buddha Way is infinite and beyond even a sense of one. Compassion, like the Buddha doctrine of emptiness, encompasses every entity and transcends even a point of “oneness.” Compassion and distinctions derive their definition and form from the pervasive, fundamental emptiness.

Dogen teaches that compassion, Enlightenment and deeper understanding of the twofold truth stem from realizing the pervasive emptiness that encompasses all distinctions and dichotomies. The acceptance and awareness of the true, interdependent world of dualities illuminates the ultimate. One can realize the true nature of the discursive world because of the infinite emptiness that sustains and embraces all duality. Dogen’s idea of emptiness acts as reflecting pool that envelopes and creates the reflection. Without the pool, there would be no reflection. Without duality, the ultimate remains hidden.

Portions of this article contain excerpts from the Wanderling.
This article is informational only and not intended for profit.

Vipassana Research Institute