Following the Path of Light

30 November 2022

Following the Path of Light

“The First, then, should be compared to light, the next, to the sun, and the third, to the celestial body of the moon, which gets its light from the sun.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V.6.4, Plotinus Ennead V, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1984, ISBN: 9780674994898, page 211.)

Brian Hines glosses this quote as follows:

“The First, then, should be compared to light, the next [spirit] to the sun, and the third [soul] to the celestial body of the moon, which gets its light from the sun.”

(Brian Hines, Return to the One, Adrasteia Publishing, Salem, Oregon, 2004, ISBN: 9780977735211, page 72.)

 

1.  One of the reasons I enjoy reading Plotinus is that he frequently offers readers helpful analogies, like this one.  This keeps Plotinus’s writing from getting too abstract and gives the reader a way of accessing what Plotinus is teaching through image as well as inference.

2.  The analogy is a helpful way of accessing the idea of emanation, a central understanding of the Platonic tradition.  From immaterial light we move to the material sun, and from the material sun we move to the denser realm of the material moon. 

3.  This series also helps us to understand how the things of the world can lead us back to the One.  If we trace back light to its source, if we trace the light of the moon to the material sun, and if we then trace the material sun to the spiritual sun, we enter into the origin of all things that is, at the same time, beyond all things.

 

 

Phaedrus and Philology

28 November 2022

Phaedrus and Philology

“The story of philology does not begin in Germany.  Its prelude appears in a violent encounter between a god and a maiden, in a story recounted by Plato.  The Greek legend concerns the story of Orithuia, the daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus.  While playing on the banks of the river Ilisus with her friends, she is abducted by Boreas, or the North Wind.  Socrates and Phaedrus, out for a walk outside the city walls, approach the river.  Here is how the conversation between them unfolds:

“’Phaedrus:  Tell me, Socrates, isn’t it from somewhere near this stretch of the Ilisus that people say Boreas carried Orithuia away?

Socrates:  So they say.

Phaedrus:  Couldn’t this be the very spot?  The stream is lovely, pure and clear, just right for girls to be playing nearby.

Socrates:  No, it’s two or three hundred yards farther downstream, where one crosses to get to the district of Agra.  I think there is even an altar to Boreas there.

Phaedrus: I hadn’t noticed it.  But tell me, Socrates, in the name of Zeus, do you really believe that that legend is true?  (Phaedrus 229a-c; Nehamas and Woodruff trans.)’

“Since philology as the study of ancient accounts, mostly written, hangs on this question, let us pay special attention to Socrates’ response.”

“’Socrates:  Actually, it would not be out of place for me to reject it, as our intellectuals do.  I could then tell a clever story: I could claim that a gust of North Wind blew her over the rocks where she was playing with Pharmaceia; and once she was killed that way people said she had been carried off by Boreas – or was it, perhaps, from Areopagus?  The story is also told that she was carried away from there instead.  Now, Phaedrus, such explanations are amusing enough, but they are a job for a man I cannot envy at all.  He’d have to be far too ingenious, and work too hard – mainly because after that he will have to go on and give a rational account of the form of Hippocentaurs, and then of the Chimera; and a whole flood of Gorgons and Pegasuses and other monsters, in large numbers and absurd forms, will overwhelm him.  Anyone who does not believe in them, who wants to explain them away and make them plausible by means of some sort of rough ingenuity, will need a great deal of time.

‘But I have no time for such things, and the reason, my friend, is this.  I am still unable, as the Delphic inscription orders, to know myself; and it really seems to me ridiculous to look into other things before I have understood that.  This is why I do not concern myself with them.  I accept what is generally believed, and, as I was saying, I look not into them but into my own self: Am I a beast more complicated and savage than Typhon, or am I a tamer, simpler animal with a share in a divine and gentle nature?  But look, my friend – while we were talking, haven’t we reached the tree you were taking us to? (Phaedrus 229c – 230a)’”

(Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology, Oxford University Press, 2014, ISBN: 9780199931361, pages xi and xii)

 

The Nay Science is a massive examination of German Indology focusing on the history of German interpretations of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.  The purpose of The Nay Science is to uncover the distortions of German Indology regarding these classic works, as well as of Indian culture as a whole. 

But the book does not start out with a quote from a significant German Indologist, nor does it start out with a quote from the Gita or an Indian commentary on the Gita.  Rather, The Nay Science begins with a quote from Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus.  A few comments:

1. The quote from Phaedrus shifts the context and informs the reader that the authors are not primarily concerned with history, even though the book is a history of German Indology.  The quote, found in the Prologue, suggests that there primary interest is in how German Indology replicates the concerns of Phaedrus and at the same time misses the concerns of Socrates.

2. In a footnote the authors write, “’Rough ingenuity’ here should be understood as a method of historicization or positivizing, as Socrates himself makes clear by his examples.  Truth is thus reduced to method.”

3. At the conclusion of this quote Socrates asks whether his nature is that of a beast or that of the divine.  The authors are suggesting that it is this kind of question, and perhaps this specific question, which is what the Mahabharata and the Gita (and Plato) are about.  The attempt by German Indologists to historicize Indian classics ignores this kind of focus and this shift in focus away from knowing ourselves is a kind of blindness.

4. In an earlier post where I wrote about various ‘regions’ of contemporary Platonism, I noted that I thought there is likely a region of Hindu, or Indian, Platonism.  Both Adluri and Bagchee are scholars of Platonism and have brought to their understanding of Platonism the cultural perspective of Dharmic India.  I think this is potentially fruitful because in many ways Platonism more closely resembles Dharmic traditions than it does contemporary Western philosophy.

5. In a youtube presentation by Adluri and Bagchee, that I watched a few years ago, Bagchee, in his closing statement, noted that philosophy is traditionally a salvific practice.  I recall being deeply moved by this statement.  I had felt that way for many years, but it is a perspective almost totally absent from Western philosophy today.  To hear this perspective stated so directly was very encouraging for me.

 

 

To See God

26 November 2022

To See God 

“Already in the second century we find the typical pattern for the interaction between Platonic philosophy and Christianity in Justin [Martyr’s] autobiographical account of his philosophical and religious journey.  Philosophy in the ancient world was not just an academic or scholarly exercise but also a very personal and life-changing thing.  In fact it was more like an alternative religion, a total way of life.  After all, the word ‘philosophy’ means ‘the love of wisdom,’ not ‘the game of cleverness.’  Justin says the aim of the philosophers had always been ‘to see God.’”

Peter Kreeft, The Platonic Tradition, Saint Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 2018, ISBN: 9781587316500, page 55.

 

1. Justin Martyr was an early Christian philosopher and theologian who lived from about 100 to 165.  He had studied Platonism and considered both Socrates and Plato to be precursors of Christianity.  This is what Kreeft means by saying that Justin Martyr used what would become a ‘typical pattern’ of early Christian thinkers with regard to Platonism.  They saw Platonism as leading to Christianity and as, in some sense, preparing the Roman culture for the appearance of Christianity.  This is not a view that non-Christians find compelling or attractive, naturally, but it does explain why early Christianity was so strongly Platonic in its emerging theology.

2. Kreeft states that Philosophy in the ancient, I would say ‘classical’, world was a “life-changing thing.”  This is seen in the stories about people who became Platonists and their life was completely altered by taking this step; for example they changed their diet, gave up luxuries and opulence, gave up political power, etc.  Contemporary philosophy is not like that because what contemporary philosophy offers is not compelling enough to want a student of, for example, analytic philosophy, to sacrifice and renounce worldly attachments and ambitious for the very meager rewards of contemporary philosophy. 

3. Kreeft quotes Justin Martyr as saying that the purpose of classical philosophy was to ‘see God’.  In other words, classical philosophy was salvific; I would argue that Platonism still is when it is taken seriously.

4. Kreeft states that classical philosophy, and Platonism in particular, was like an ‘alternative religion’.  My own view is that Platonism in the classical period was understood by the classical world to be primarily religious in nature; by ‘primarily religious in nature’ I mean that the purpose of Platonism was (and remains) union with the transcendental, the eternal.  When Kreeft says that Platonism is like an ‘alternative religion’ I think this remark is spoken not about Platonism’s status in the classical world, but, rather, Platonism’s status in modernity.  Platonism is an ‘alternative religion’ in the same way that Dharmic religions are ‘alternatives’ for westerners.  By ‘in the same way’ I mean that dwellers in Western modernity are just as distant from Platonism as they are from Dharmic traditions.  This means that the religious nature of Platonism comes as a surprise to many; this was true of myself as my studies in philosophy at University did not prepare me for comprehending Platonism as one of the great spiritual traditions of all time, a tradition that is still compelling in its beauty, scope, and transcendental understanding.

5. Today many people think of themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’.  Though the phrase is vague, my intuition is that a tradition like Platonism fits well into this kind of thinking because Platonism is not an institutionalized form of spirituality.  Yet at the same time, it has an attractive tradition of practice and study; a spiritual practice that people can access to the degree that they are able, and practice to the degree that their situation allows.

 

 

Becoming a Platonist

21 November 2022

Becoming a Platonist

I can’t recall a specific moment when I knew that I was a Platonist.  I became a Platonist slowly, over a long period of time.  Looking back, I can recall numerous episodes that, when considered, contributed to my becoming a Platonist.  I wrote previously about one of them; the post is titled ‘The Consolation of Boethius’.  There were others.  For example, when I was a graduate student in philosophy I read Phaedrus and enjoyed it hugely; this left a positive impression on my psyche regarding Plato’s Dialogues.  But reading Phaedrus didn’t result in a ‘conversion’ experience and for many decades I dwelt in other spiritual domains.

Here are a few comments about becoming a Platonist based on my own experience:

1. There is no conversion ceremony in Platonism.  In Christianity, the various traditions have a structured set of lessons, usually culminating in baptism, and this makes you a Christian in that particular tradition.  In Buddhism the standard ceremony is called ‘Taking Refuge’, wherein an individual recites a three-fold commitment: “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.”  This is often combined with pledges to commit to basic ethical practices.  Though different Buddhist traditions vary in their specifics, this basic structure of Taking Refuge and Taking Precepts is very widespread.  After participating in such a ceremony, a person is considered to be a Buddhist.  In the Islamic tradition there is a simple prayer that an individual can recite that converts them to Islam.

2. Because of these examples we tend to look for specific ceremonial occasions that mark the entrance of an individual into Platonism.  But I suggest that Platonism more closely resembles a group of spiritual traditions and practices that do not have such a ceremony.  For example, Tea Ceremony has no conversion ceremony.  You become a ‘Tea Person’ by going for lessons, practicing the ceremony, reading the literature, and hanging out with other Tea People.

Or take something more ordinary like baking.  You become a baker by copying other bakers’ habits and recipes, possibly going to a baking school, regularly baking breads, muffins, etc.  Again, there is no ceremony of conversion that makes you a baker; slowly, over time you become a baker and at some point you realize you have become a baker and can say to someone else with ease, “I am a baker.”

3. What are the practices that slowly turn someone into a Platonist? 

3.1 I think the first one is simply reading Platonic literature.  The two most important works are the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus.  I feel that there is a spiritual energy, or transmission that flows from these works to the reader.  I’m not the only one who has had the experience of a kind of charge, or opening, or insight, or a sense of metaphysical and contemplative understanding, or a sense of awe, that arises from reading these works.  The regular contemplative reading of these works, and I recommend daily reading, is spiritually transformative.

The topic of ‘spiritual reading’, as opposed to ‘mundane reading’ is a big one, a topic that I might post on later.  But I would suggest that one thing that is required is a sense of humility when approaching these works; it is similar to the humility one would feel when approaching someone who has vast knowledge about something you are interested in.  In such a case you would be willing to listen to what they have to say, what they have to offer.  In a similar way, approaching the Dialogues and Enneads as a repository of wisdom and insight will open the reader to what these works have to offer.

For those interested in exploring the nature of reading as a spiritual practice, I recommend Chapter 5, Transforming Through Reading, found in Discovering the Beauty of Wisdom, by Mindy Mandell.

3.2 The second set of practices is focused on ascetic purification.  The three primary ascetic practices are vegetarianism (possibly veganism), abstaining from alcohol and other drugs that ‘cloud the mind and lead to heedlessness’, and sexual restraint.  As I wrote in a previous post, these purification practices are needed to ‘cleanse the lens of perception’, to calm the psycho-physical organism, and to turn that psycho-physical organism towards the transcendental.

3.3 The third set of practices are often called ‘virtues’.  There is a lot of overlap between purifications and virtues.  In a sense, virtues are also purifications, but I tend to look at purifications as ascetic practices, types of renunciation, and virtues as characteristics that need to be grown and cultivated. 

3.3.1 The first type of virtue is ‘civic virtue’, and it refers to being a good member of your community, or ‘polis’.  It means following the laws and customs of one’s community and to not unnecessarily give rise to friction at this level.

3.3.2 The second type of virtue refers to individual characteristics such as Courage, Fortitude, Temperance, Honesty, Justice, Generosity, Stability, etc.  In the literature on ethics, these are generally grouped under ‘Virtue Ethics’ and there is a vast literature about this topic.  

3.3.3 The third type of virtue is contemplation; but it is so significant that I think I will separate it and give contemplation its own slot.

Civic Virtues purify our social relations.  Ethical Virtues purify our habits and our way of living our personal life.  Contemplative Virtues turn our attention away from the world of the senses to the transcendent.

4. Contemplation is, like the Ethical Virtues, a big topic.  It is the third practice that, I think, leads to someone thinking of themselves as a Platonist.  There are many contemplative practices touched on in the Platonic literature; you can find them in Plato, Plotinus, Maximus of Tyre, etc.  But interestingly, I am not aware of what I would call a “Manual” of contemplation.  That is not all that unusual.  For example, scholars say that there was no manual of Chan (Zen) Meditation for the first 1,000 years of its existence.  It was only when Chan teachers began to teach different approaches to meditation (some using kung-an (koan) introspection and some using silent illumination) that the need for manuals arose.  I think something similar applies to the classical period of Platonism.  Perhaps such a manual is something that a contemporary iteration of Platonism can offer?

Contemplation in the Platonic tradition means to turn the mind within and to settle the mind in interior silence.  Once there the light of transcendence may shine forth.  Great patience is needed for this practice to bear fruit. 

5.  That’s a lot!  But my observation is that Platonists, particularly in the earlier parts of their journey, practice one aspect and then another.  For example, they may focus on ascetic practices, or they may focus on spiritual reading, or they may focus on cultivating the virtues, or they may focus on contemplation, etc.  That makes sense because all of these nourish each other so that over time, they grow together.

6.  The big three Platonist practices are 1) reading, 2) basic ascetic commitments or purifications, and 3) contemplation.  I see these as foundational and it is upon their foundation that the other practices can be built.

7.  The world of Platonism is vast.  And the journey outlined in Platonism is a long one.  But it is also a rewarding one.  It is a journey of many lifetimes.  The path of Platonism crosses mountains and deserts of breathtaking beauty.  There are likely to be setbacks, but after the lesson is learned the way to the path is recalled and the journey resumes.

 

 

Dawn

18 November 2022

Dawn

“Just so Intellect, veiling itself from other things and drawing itself inward, when it is not looking at anything will see a light, not a distinct light in something different from itself, but suddenly appearing, alone by itself in independent purity, so that Intellect is at a loss to know whence it has appeared, whether it has come from outside or within, and after it has gone away will say ‘It was within, and yet it was not within.’

“But one should not enquire whence it comes, for there is no ‘whence’; for it does not really come or go away anywhere, but appears or does not appear.  So one must not chase after it, but wait quietly till it appears, preparing oneself to contemplate it, as the eye awaits the rising of the sun; and the sun rising over the horizon (‘from Ocean’, the poets say) gives itself to the eyes to see.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V.5.7 & 8, Plotinus: Ennead V, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 179.)

 

I think this is one of those passages where Plotinus is describing an actual contemplation that Platonists used.  I mean that they actually waited for the sunrise as a contemplative practice.  This idea is not original with me; it has also been a view held by some Plotinian scholars.  In contrast, other scholars argue that this passage is allegorical and does not refer to an actual type of contemplation.  Backing up this perspective is the fact that Platonic writing is filled with allegories and the idea is that this passage is also one of those allegories.

I don’t think it can be definitively determined which perspective is correct, one way or the other, although I think it is worthwhile pointing out that the two interpretations are not mutually exclusive or logically contradictory.  My own inclination to read this passage as an actual description of a Platonic contemplative practice is based on my own contemplative experience as well as the view that such practices were at the core of Platonism as it was practiced in the Classical world.

A few comments:

1. There is a practice in the Quaker tradition known as ‘waiting worship’.  It is the practice of waiting in silence, silence that is both exterior and interior.  In that waiting the light of the Lord may appear.  There are manuals in the Quaker tradition that outline this practice that are consistent with the outline given above.  One such manual is called ‘A Guide to True Peace’. 

2. Plotinus writes that ‘one must not chase after it’ but wait patiently for it, the transcendental light, to appear.  There is a kind of passivity in this type of contemplation; or perhaps a better word is ‘acceptance’.  I mean by this that with this kind of contemplation it is not a matter of doing something to cause the light to appear; one simply waits for it to appear.  It is like waiting for a guest whom you have invited to your home, but you don’t know exactly when they will arrive.  You remain attentive to signs of your guest appearing, but at the same time you are patient, you may even do some minimal or basic household chores while waiting.  But you don’t want to go too far away because you don’t want to miss the invited guest should the guest appear.

3. I connect this kind of contemplation to Platonic Grace (this kind of passage is one of the reasons I think that the idea of grace has its origin in Platonism and then was adopted and adapted by Christianity).  The light’s appearances is not due to causation or a predictable response to one’s efforts.  The light simply appears when it does; not as a reward for one’s efforts; this kind of contemplation is not about making effort, rather it is about a relaxation into spaciousness, like the sun at dawn rising in vast space.

4. In the pre-modern world the material sun was thought of as a symbol of the transcendental sun.  Just as the material sun gives light and warmth to all living things on Earth and is the progenitor to all things on earth, so the transcendental sun, what Platonists refer to as The Good, The One, and The Beautiful, is the source for all things in the cosmos, and for the cosmos itself.  Because of this I think that there is an intimate link between the practice of waiting for the sun at dawn and waiting for the transcendental sun to appear within.

5. Plotinus says we must ‘wait quietly’ for the transcendental sun, this light that is both inner and not inner, to appear.  This refers to interior silence, the quieting of the mind as a preparation for being able to perceive the subtle presence of eternity, manifesting as the transcendental sun.

6. I think this kind of contemplation could be a daily practice for the Platonist Contemplative.  It might not be the best contemplation to offer a beginner; I say this because though such a contemplation of waiting patiently for the transcendental sun is simple, the mind is easily distracted and runs off in many directions.  Until someone experiences interior silence, for example, it is difficult to understand exactly what is being pointed to.  I think this is because this kind of contemplation is not a concentration practice.  But a concentration practice can be a kind of platform from which to step gently into this kind of formless waiting. 

7. I understand this contemplation as outlining a practice that takes one past Being (and Intellect) to that which transcends Being, that which is beyond Being.

8. The experience of the transcendental sun is Great Peace.

Beauty is Beyond

15 November 2022

Beauty Is Beyond from Return to the One, by Brian Hines

“After all this talk about the One being formless, limitless, and ineffable, the reader may be getting an impression that the One is some sort of amorphous blob of pure existence without any qualities: shapeless, featureless, colorless.  In a sense this is correct, since the highest encompasses all that is below and so is not any particular thing, but all things.  Yet Plotinus leaves no doubt that the One is the source of all beauty.

‘Therefore the productive power of all is the flower of beauty, a beauty which makes beauty.’ [Ennead VI-7-32]

“Thus the spiritual seeker desiring to return to the One needs only a simple direction.  Follow beauty . . .

“. . . Plotinus tells us that what we dimly recognize in every beautiful object is the beauty beyond.  We dart from one delight to another yet remain unsatisfied.  For we never are able to gaze upon pure spiritual Beauty, only its shadowy material reflection.

‘The lower . . . has a kind of memory of beauty.  But he cannot grasp it in its separateness, but he is overwhelmingly amazed and excited by visible beauties . . . Then all these beauties must be reduced to unity, and he must be shown their origin.’ [Ennead I-3-2]”

(Brian Hines, Return to the One: Plotinus’s Guide to God-Realization, Adrasteia Publishing, Salem, Oregon, 2004, page 65, ISBN: 9780977735211.  Note: Hines quotes from the translations of A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library.)

 

1. There is a wonderful balance in Platonism between its teaching of turning away from the world of the senses and the recognition that Platonism has of the beauty of that same world.  It may, at first, seem like a contradiction, but I don’t think it is.  Because for Platonism beauty is a sign of the transcendental in a material context.  From a Platonist perspective, beauty is the material cosmos reminding us of the source of beauty which is the same as The Good and The One.

2. I write poetry with a strong, though not exclusive, emphasis on Japanese forms.  These days I am primarily focused on English Language Haiku (ELH).  As I was studying the brief history, about 100 years, of English Language Haiku, I came across an article written in an early English Language Haiku Journal that explicitly rejected a Platonist view of beauty.  It seems that this idea had legs in the ELH community in the 70’s and 80’s; that beauty is something to be left behind in writing contemporary ELH.  This surprised me because it has no basis in Japanese poetic theory; it is strictly a feature of modernist theories of art.  It arises from thinking of beauty as nothing more than a culturally contingent preference; and it is often depicted as something less than that.  From this perspective, beauty is an arbitrary claim that has no real significance. 

3. I believe the Platonist view of beauty emerges from direct experience of higher hypostases, such as the forms, in Platonist contemplation.  By this I mean that when Plotinus writes about beauty it is on the basis of contemplative experience of Beauty as such, the source of all beauty that we observe in the material world. 

4. In Platonism the beauty of a poem, of a well-constructed house, of a stone found on a beach, of a melody, of a sunset, all have a common transcendental source.  It is possible to experience that source.  In this way beauty in the world is a gate that is at the same time a path, to The Good and The One.

5.  In Beauty It is Finished

On a sleepless night while the crickets sang

I took a road that went under the sea,

Following the sound of the bells that rang

At the gate that leads to eternity.

 

I wasn’t the only one on that road,

Numberless people were walking with me,

It was effortless, we carried no load,

We were unencumbered, totally free.

 

The waves of the sea, the sound of the bells,

Light in the distance that glows ceaselessly;

They are always speaking, they always tell

Of the way to end all hatred and greed.

 

Follow the beauty to its source, its start;

There’s the pure well of the infinite heart.

 

(Jim Wilson, A Night of Many Sonnets)

 

 

Between Two Realms

14 November 2022

Between Two Realms

“The activities of Intellect are from above in the same way that those of sense-perception are from below; we are this, the principal part of the soul, in the middle between two powers, a worse and a better, the worse that of sense-perception, the better that of Intellect.  But it is generally agreed that sense-perception is always ours – for we are always perceiving – but there is disagreement about Intellect, both because we do not always use it and because it is separate; and it is separate because it itself does not incline towards us, but we rather look up towards it.  Sense-perception is our messenger, but Intellect is our King.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V.3.3, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus Ennead V, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 81.)

 

1. I understand mysticism as a shift of attention from that which is ephemeral to that which is eternal.  I see humanity as caught between these two realms; the realm of impermanent things and the realm of eternal realities.  I think this quote from Ennead V.3 as a good presentation of that human situation.

2. In a previous post, where Plotinus refers to this hypostasis as ‘Intellect and Being’, I wrote that I appreciate Plotinus’s reference to being in this context, as I think it clarifies the nature of this realm (the Greek word is ‘nous’).  If we reconfigure the translation by emphasizing Being it might look something like this:

“The activities of the Realm of Being are from above in the same way that those of sense-perception are from below; we are this, the principal part of the soul, in the middle between two powers, a worse and a better, the worse that of sense-perception, the better than of Being.  But it is generally agreed that sense-perception is always ours – for we are always perceiving – but there is disagreement about Being, both because we do not always use it and because it is separate; and it is separate because it itself does not incline towards us, but we rather look up towards it.  Sense-perception is our messenger, but Being is our King.”

3. The separateness of Being/Intellect has to do, I think, with the Platonic view that material existence depends upon Being, but Being does not depend on material existence.  This is difficult to understand in a materialist dominated culture such as ours.  Under materialism, the activities of Intellect and Being are understood to be abstractions from material experience and are thought to be, at best, epiphenomenon of material conditions.  In the Platonic view this is reversed: material things are understood as instantiations of the eternal realities found in Being/Intellect.  From this perspective, material things could not exist without Being, but being can exist without material things.

4. The terms ‘worse and better’ refer to the causal efficacy they have for the spiritual ascent.  Sense-perception is ‘worse’ because of its inherent impermanence.  The activity of Being/Intellect is ‘better’ because becoming aware of the activities of Being/Intellect involves a shift away from the transient to the transcendental.

5. Sense-perception is a messenger.  What is the message?  The message is that all material things are impermanent.

6. Being is our King because Being and its activities apply to all existing things; like numbers and the laws of their relationships.  We might say that Being establishes and maintains the regularities and universalities of the cosmos that lie behind individual, transient, manifestations. 

7. In the Platonic system Being/Intellect is not the ultimate reality of The Good, The One, and The Beautiful; but it is very close and experiencing this reality is a significant spiritual realization.

 

 

12 November 2022

“At the center of the Phaedo beats an anti-modern, or rather a premodern heart, whose rhythm radiates the following lesson: to attain metaphysical truth one must resist the intellectual assumptions of modernity (i.e., empiricism, materialism, and misology); to resist modernity one’s soul must be healthy; a healthy soul is a pure soul; purity results from purification, which is the practice of philosophy as a disciplined way of life that everywhere yields to the authority of the natural hierarchy of being and value.”

(Mark Anderson, Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One, Sophia Perennis, San Rafael, CA, 2009, ISBN: 9781597310949, pages 98 and 99.)

 

A few comments stimulated by this quote:

1. ‘Empiricism’ is the view that everything that is real is that which the senses can experience.  It is the view that everything can be quantitatively assessed.  'Materialism' is the view that only material things exist.  From the perspective of materialism abstract entities are derived from material experience.  In Platonism material things are understood to be instantiations of abstract entities such as forms and other hypostases.  ‘Misology’ is a distrust, or even a hatred for, reason, reasoning, dialectic, and philosophical inquiry.  In Platonism such approaches are tools used to help with the ascent to higher realities and, ultimately, The One.

2. I like the way that Anderson links Phaedo to both an ‘anti-modern’ and a ‘premodern’ stance.  In a sense, being a contemporary Platonist means returning to a way of comprehending the cosmos, and a way of life consistent with that comprehension, that existed widely in the premodern world.  However, such a way of life will not look exactly the same as it did in the premodern world.  There will be differences as to how it manifests; my suspicion is that we are not at a point where we can know exactly what it will look like in the future.  But a sense of continuity with Platonism’s premodern presence will be observable.

3. Anderson refers to a healthy soul and that highlights one of the difficulties of being a Platonist in the midst of modernity.  For in modernity the existence of the soul is questioned, whereas in the premodern world it is taken for granted.  It’s not that no one in modernity believes in the existence of the soul, or in its immortality.  It’s that the dominant cultural institutions and what they teach do not.

4. This quote brings back to me my great fondness for Phaedo.  This is evidently shared by Anderson as his long essay ‘Pure’ is kind of a paean to Phaedo.  For a long time, I have thought of spending a year just on this single dialogue.  Perhaps 2023 is the year for doing this.

10 November 2022

The Three Levels of Reality

“It has been shown that we ought to think that this is how things are, that there is the One beyond being, of such a kind as our argument wanted to show, so far as demonstration was possible in these matters, and next in order there is Being and Intellect, and the nature of Soul in the third place.  And just as in nature there are these three of which we have spoken, so we ought to think that they are present also in ourselves.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V.1.10, On the Three Primary Hypostases, Plotinus: Ennead V, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, pages 45-47.)

 

This is a wonderfully succinct description of the metaphysical structure of traditional Platonism.  One of the things I have found helpful in this quoted passage is that Plotinus refers to the second level, the ‘next in order’ after The One, as ‘Being and Intellect’.  I have persistently had difficulty with the word ‘intellect’ because of its contemporary meanings related to being smart, as in ‘he’s an intellectual’, and the relationship the word has these days to a kind of analysis that separates things rather than unifying them.  There is even the phrase ‘an intellectual analysis’.  In this quote, however, Plotinus explicitly links Intellect with Being, implying, I think, that this is a region of unification from the perspective of the material world; Intellect and Being are not as unified as The One, but from the perspective of someone starting out on the Platonic Way, it is a movement towards the unity of The One. 

I don’t know Greek so I can’t enter into issues of translation.  I don’t know if there is a ‘better’ word than ‘Intellect’ to use.  Sometimes I think the word ‘mind’ might be better, but, as I say, I don’t know enough to argue articulately for that.  I have found, though, that keeping passages like this in mind helps me to understand ‘Being and Intellect’ more clearly. 

9 November 2022

Psychology and Spirituality

The other day I listened to a youtube post about Freud’s relationship to a contemporary mystic, Romain Roland.  It was a well done post with a lot of information about Freud’s hostility to religion and spirituality that I had not been aware of before.  This brought to mind some thoughts I have had about the role of psychology in contemporary spirituality that I have considered for a long time, but have never brought them together in a way that would make an essay or small book.  Here are a few of those thoughts:

1. Psychology has positioned itself as the arbiter of what counts for legitimate spirituality; in a sense Western Psychology has redefined spirituality to be a therapeutic process and that is why Psychology feels confident in its critiques of religion and spirituality.

2. For about thirty years I was involved with Western Buddhism in the U.S. (I don’t know what is happening in Western Europe.)  What I observed over those thirty years is that Western Buddhism gradually dropped, or perhaps we can say carefully ejected, anything in Buddhism that could be construed as transcendental or as relying on non-sensory experience.  In addition, Western Buddhism was gradually transformed into a therapeutic modality, or an adjunct to Western therapeutic modalities; so much so that in many Western Buddhist groups even the ideas of enlightenment and Nirvana no longer function.

3. Freud reinterpreted religious experience by imposing on those experiences psychological categories and explanations.  For example, the unitive experience reported by numerous mystics, from various traditions, was interpreted by Freud as a longing to return to an infantile state where the infant does not distinguish between their own experience and the mother’s presence; that is to say the feeling that mother and infant are merged. 

This set the tone, and provided the specific strategy, that psychology has taken towards spirituality ever since.  From this perspective the yearning for transcendence, for a return to The Good, The One, and The Beautiful is simply the imprint of infantile longings asserting themselves. 

4. One reinterpretation offered by Western Psychology is to understand enlightenment, realization, etc., in therapeutic terms.  Specifically, this means operating from the assumption that realization means being free from psychological afflictions such as neurosis or obsessions. 

What I want to suggest is that there is no reason to think that spiritual realization means having no neuroses or obsessions.  I look at it this way: if someone experiences a broken bone early in life, I mean a serious brake, it is likely that there will always remain a weakness in the bone for the rest of their life.  Some healing can take place, of course, but there are consequences for such deformation and they are lasting.  In a similar way, experiencing psychological difficulties early in life will likely leave as a residue similar weakness.  This is not a bad thing for someone on the spiritual path.  Having physical difficulties is not a barrier to transcendence and, I would argue, being neurotic is not a barrier either.  (I’m leaving aside the issue of what neurosis means because it would take me too far afield.) 

5. Another trend I noticed over my thirty years of Western Buddhist involvement is how ethical commitments have been sidelined.  Partly this is due to Western hyper-individualism and consequent strong resistance to being told how to behave.  But recently I have been thinking along the lines that the reason ethical commitments have been sidelined is because therapy has taken the place of ethical commitments.  Partly this is due to the fact that going into therapy is very common today and is seen by many as praiseworthy.  In contrast, taking on ethical commitments, particularly if they are traditional ones, is seen as backward, and, I would add, neurotic; that is to say if someone takes on commitments, for example, regarding sexual restraint this is interpreted by Western Psychology as a negative, as something that will lead to suppression of natural impulses, things like that.  In this way, for example, Western Buddhists can cheerfully ignore the basic ethical commitments of the Buddhadharma resulting in a behavioral profile that is no different from that of ordinary secular Western society.

In a Platonic context this appears as not seeing the practices of purification, such as vegetarianism, abstaining from alcohol, and sexual restraint, as foundational. 

6. There’s nothing that can be done about the place that Western Psychology holds in our culture at this time.  I mean there is nothing that can be done to displace its grip; at least from my observation it seems to be getting stronger and its assumptions have become almost entirely unchallenged.  For example, many Western Buddhist organizations are run by therapists who see nothing wrong with imposing Western Psychological categories on Eastern Spiritualities. 

But it is possible for individual practitioners to see through the distortions of Western Psychology’s reinterpretation of spirituality.  But there are consequences for this; the main one is that seeing through the strategy of Western Psychology will likely leave the individual who does so feeling alienated, to a greater or lesser degree, from fellow practitioners who operate under these assumptions; and this includes many spiritual leaders.  In my own case, this meant striking out on my own.  When I did so I found many others who had gone through the same process already walking on the Way to Transcendence and Eternity.