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The Imagination in Buddhist Thought
Hi. I sent this recently to another Buddhism forum, but it's quite a small one and moves slowly, so I thought I'd send it to newbuddhist.com as well. It's something I've been mulling over, but am not sure where the mulling's going. I think the last bit (about the "transcendent mental super-reality") suggests that the "mind" is potentially "Buddha-nature" and that purification and liberation of our mind amounts to nirvana as something attainable in samsara, i.e. the one and the other are two sides of the same coin rather than two different coins. I think I understood Thich Nhat Hanh's "Understanding the Mind" that way, but was not thinking of his work when I wrote the passage.
I'd be grateful for any advice. Although I've been studying Buddhism for a while, I sometimes seem to lose coherence. I also have an interest in comparative theology and tend to notice commonalities.
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It has been said that God, or Deity in whatever form, is the product of language. However, I have also recently seen the following:
Just as deity is non-real, so too are the other presumed external entities such as self and world, with our lives being re-interpreted as a transient ever-changing flow of existence brought into being, like all other elements of experience, by language." (Trevor Greenfield, "Is God back on the agenda? www.sofn.org.uk/theology/index.html)
This all sounds very Buddhist and is written by a post-Christian philosopher of the "non-realist" school, which draws on Buddhist thought, especially the Madhyamaka school.
However, the writer goes on to moderate the emphasis on language. Although it is hard (impossible?) for us to think without having a systematic language, and the ability to learn and apply systematic language is innate, embedded in our genes, the objects that we identify, name and talk about are not simply projections of our mental-linguistic faculty. They "exist" in a continuous, fluid, multi-causal and interdependent way, not just as words or thoughts, but as something more than just the sum of their parts and the flow of their fluidity.
The writer, Trevor Greenfield, suggests that, underpinning the capacity to think and to use words, is the capacity to imagine. And we can imagine, for example, a supreme being or lesser gods. They do not exist in reality, but the imagining of these transcendent beings, confined as they are by human limits to thought and language, may point to a reality beyond the reaches of human cognition.
I'm not sure if this kind of thinking is of much interest or value to Buddhists, except when they're not thinking exclusively about practice and are reflecting instead on the great questions to which people have sought answers throughout history in all the world religions, as well as philosophy and science. Admittedly, as the Buddha taught, metaphysical questions such as whether there is a supreme being, are trivial, not because the question is trivial, but because it is irrelevant to present purpose and ultimately unanswerable. However, questions about the relationship of imagination to the identification and naming of phenomena and events may bear on the nature of the mind and what it is we're expected to explore, discipline and take refuge in as a central focus of our practice.
The mind both is and isn't something, and yet it is fundamental to Buddhist practice. Perhaps it's something we can imagine, rather than describe. However, in imagining the mind we may be pointing to something that relates to it, but transcends it. Trouble is, I don't know what that transcendent reality is and can only think of the mind as a process that takes place in a kind of ante-room to a related but unknowable and transcendent mental super-reality.
What really are Buddhists referring to when they talk about the "mind"? Not just the functions, activities and components of the mind, but the mind itself? Is it ultimately unconditioned, like nirvana, and if so, is a perfectly clear mind identical with nirvana?
I'd be grateful for any advice. Although I've been studying Buddhism for a while, I sometimes seem to lose coherence. I also have an interest in comparative theology and tend to notice commonalities.
______________________________________________________________
It has been said that God, or Deity in whatever form, is the product of language. However, I have also recently seen the following:
Just as deity is non-real, so too are the other presumed external entities such as self and world, with our lives being re-interpreted as a transient ever-changing flow of existence brought into being, like all other elements of experience, by language." (Trevor Greenfield, "Is God back on the agenda? www.sofn.org.uk/theology/index.html)
This all sounds very Buddhist and is written by a post-Christian philosopher of the "non-realist" school, which draws on Buddhist thought, especially the Madhyamaka school.
However, the writer goes on to moderate the emphasis on language. Although it is hard (impossible?) for us to think without having a systematic language, and the ability to learn and apply systematic language is innate, embedded in our genes, the objects that we identify, name and talk about are not simply projections of our mental-linguistic faculty. They "exist" in a continuous, fluid, multi-causal and interdependent way, not just as words or thoughts, but as something more than just the sum of their parts and the flow of their fluidity.
The writer, Trevor Greenfield, suggests that, underpinning the capacity to think and to use words, is the capacity to imagine. And we can imagine, for example, a supreme being or lesser gods. They do not exist in reality, but the imagining of these transcendent beings, confined as they are by human limits to thought and language, may point to a reality beyond the reaches of human cognition.
I'm not sure if this kind of thinking is of much interest or value to Buddhists, except when they're not thinking exclusively about practice and are reflecting instead on the great questions to which people have sought answers throughout history in all the world religions, as well as philosophy and science. Admittedly, as the Buddha taught, metaphysical questions such as whether there is a supreme being, are trivial, not because the question is trivial, but because it is irrelevant to present purpose and ultimately unanswerable. However, questions about the relationship of imagination to the identification and naming of phenomena and events may bear on the nature of the mind and what it is we're expected to explore, discipline and take refuge in as a central focus of our practice.
The mind both is and isn't something, and yet it is fundamental to Buddhist practice. Perhaps it's something we can imagine, rather than describe. However, in imagining the mind we may be pointing to something that relates to it, but transcends it. Trouble is, I don't know what that transcendent reality is and can only think of the mind as a process that takes place in a kind of ante-room to a related but unknowable and transcendent mental super-reality.
What really are Buddhists referring to when they talk about the "mind"? Not just the functions, activities and components of the mind, but the mind itself? Is it ultimately unconditioned, like nirvana, and if so, is a perfectly clear mind identical with nirvana?
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