23 June 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 52
1. I’ve been thinking about a friend who died about four years ago. He went by the name Gregory Wonderwheel. Gregory was a very dedicated Zen student and also a serious student of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Gregory’s favorite Sutra was The Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala which he translated (from the Chinese, if I recall correctly).
The reason he has come to mind recently is that Gregory was a strong advocate for the centrality of Buddhist ethics for the Buddhist tradition and he was seriously committed to the Precepts of his Zen tradition that consisted of the five core precepts of Buddhism, plus five additional precepts that elaborate a bit on the five core precepts; this is a standard Japanese Buddhist structure. Gregory’s strong commitment to the necessity of taking the precepts seriously and applying them to your life is rare in Western Zen. Gregory realized this, yet he nevertheless continued with his perspective. For example, I can remember Gregory stating that if you are a Buddhist, and you have taken the precepts, then you cannot vote for a war monger. This generated more than a little pushback and I can remember some intense exchanges on Facebook centered on this topic.
I’m sure that at this time of assassinations, riots, and multiple simultaneous wars, Gregory would be adamant about how the Buddhist precepts restrain and require Buddhists to disengage from that kind of activity and return to meditation.
I have been thinking how this also applies to Platonism and its ethical teachings, not so much the Virtues, but the Platonic tradition’s teachings on ethical restraint found in Dialogues such as Phaedo and The Republic. It is rare that I run across someone who takes these restraints seriously (such as to refrain from harming others, refrain from eating meat or sacrificing animals, refrain from luxurious living, and so forth) and think of them as a necessary facet of what it means to be a Platonist. Such people are not completely non-existent, but they are rare. Partly that is because the word ‘Platonism’ tends to refer to discussions about the nature of the noetic and how it relates to material reality; that is to say, that people consider themselves to be Platonists if they align with certain views about eternal objects that reside in the noetic realm. Ethical restraint is not part of this discussion.
And partly this has to do with the ethical teachings of Platonism being displaced many centuries ago. In the case of Christian Platonism, for example, its ethical teachings are biblically derived and its relationship to Platonism is more concerned with metaphysics. And in the case of theurgy, the teachings of ethical restraint were displaced by a commitment to ritual efficacy and have become, at best, secondary issues.
At this time Platonism has the opportunity to recover its ethical teachings on restraint and renunciation as a foundational part of what it means to be a Platonist. Though I often criticize modernity, I think modernity has opened a space where Platonism can reconnect with these teachings and cultivate them and live in accordance with them.
2. There is a branch of contemporary philosophy called ‘Philosophical Quietism.’ This type of Quietism is not related to the Quietist movement of the 1600’s; from what I have read philosophical Quietists are not even aware of the existence of that movement. Instead, Philosophical Quietism grew out of linguistic philosophy, particularly Wittgenstein and an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, and analytic philosophy in a watered down way. (As an aside, I’m not saying Wittgenstein was a Philosophical Quietist but Philosophical Quietists are interpreting his philosophy in a particular way.)
The basic view of Philosophical Quietists is that it is not possible for human beings to adequately answer, or talk about (it varies a bit), things like metaphysics (as an aside, metaphysics seems to be their main target though they also, at times, argue that ethical issues are beyond human capacity to clarify). Personally, I see in the Philosophical Quietists the same hostility to metaphysics as is found in analytic philosophy, but the tone is different. Whereas analytic philosophy if often militant, aggressive, and ill-informed regarding metaphysics (and also how language works), the Philosophical Quietists seem to be more in the mood of resignation and possess more than a touch of humility.
One of the main ideas of Philosophical Quietism is that there is no ‘progress’ (their word) in metaphysics like there is in science and technology. I think this is true, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. (I’m leaving aside the critique of scientific and technological progress that exists on the fringes of society; though it is well thought out, for the purposes of this post, I’ll accept the idea that there is progress in science and technology.)
The comparison I use to explain why I’m not bothered by the apparent lack of progress in metaphysics is to that of the symphony and similar realities. 19th century symphonies are not superior to 18th century symphonies; there is no progress from composer to composer. There is change in how the symphony is presented, but there is no progress. The same could be said for many other activities.
I think metaphysics is a similar activity. Each metaphysician resembles a composer; and just as a symphony has certain parameters that a composer explores, metaphysics has certain topics that are explored, and methods that are used, in its presentations.
My intuition is that metaphysics does not progress because metaphysics deals with eternal realities and eternal realities do not change. But different metaphysicians highlight different facets of reality as understood by human consciousness. And I think that is a great service to humanity.
3. It has been my observation that Western philosophers are not, with some exceptions, at all acquainted with Eastern philosophy, such as that found in the Indian and Chinese cultural spheres. This contrasts with Eastern philosophers who are, for the most part, very familiar with Western philosophy and have often given Western philosophy serious attention. It’s not a reciprocal relationship.
This observation has been made by many; it’s not an original insight of mine. I bring it up because of my view that Platonism is better understood as a Dharmic tradition along the lines of Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga, and Hinduism. One of the difficulties with having this view is that, for the most part, Western philosophers, academic or non-academic, will likely not understand what I mean when I make that assertion because of their not being familiar with Dharmic traditions. This means that I have to unpack what it is about Dharmic traditions that I find Platonism also has, but that contemporary Western philosophy does not have, in order to bring clarity to what I am suggesting. That’s not a burden; in fact it helps me to better understand what Platonism is.
If I had to pick one thing that I think qualifies Platonism as a Dharmic tradition it is that Platonism is a salvific tradition; I mean that the ultimate goal of Platonism is liberation, or awakening, or enlightenment concerning ultimate nature, or ultimate reality, or that which is eternal, and so forth. Contemporary Western philosophy is not concerned with salvation and, in addition, contemporary Western philosophy often dismisses the idea of salvation and liberation from material reality as ‘metaphysical’ and therefore not meaningful, or at least not philosophical. Western philosophy did not start out that way, but it has become that way.
If I had to pick two things, the second thing I would pick is the place that ethics holds in Platonism maps very closely to how ethics is understood in Dharmic traditions. In both approaches ethics is a type of purification and assists practitioners on the spiritual path. Platonism understands ethical commitments as ways of separating the soul from the body; not all Dharma systems use this kind of language, but some do. For example, in the Classical Yoga tradition the ethical restraints are purifications that help to distance the practitioner from material reality, from mind (citta), and awaken to the soul or purusha.
Just as there are differences among Dharmic systems, so also there are differences between Platonism and Buddhism, Platonism and Jainism, Platonism and Classical Yoga, Platonism and Hinduism, and so forth. But I have found it remarkable that in spite of these differences, there is significant overlap among these traditions as to what philosophy is and what is the purpose of philosophy.
4. Impermanence is sweet. It is the antidote to sorrow.
There was a period in my life where I “studied impermanence.” That was how I put it, I studied impermanence. The reason I decided to study impermanence and really focus on impermanence and its implications is that I had noticed that many people are unable to grasp impermanence and its range. Ultimately I developed a series of impermanence contemplations, about thirty in number. Some of these were simply variations, but I still considered them to be their own meditation.
This period of study, lasting about five years, has benefitted me; but I have noticed that even now I sometimes have to remind myself of impermanence and its implications. As human beings in general, it is easy to forget spiritual lessons even when those lessons come from intuitive and experiential sources.
The meditation on impermanence I chose to engage with was on the sound of a bell. It goes like this:
I sit or stand in a comfortable posture. I have in front of me a bell bowl. Don’t worry about the size of the bell bowl. I use a small bell bowl, maybe two inches across. But I have also used much larger bell bowls as well and I find different sizes to be equally effective.
I strike the bell and listen to the sound of the bell until it has completely faded. When the sound of the bell has faded into silence I pause for a few moments. Then I strike the bell again, repeating this process. Sometimes I strike the bell only three times. Sometimes I strike the bell many more times; reaching 108 times that the bell is struck.
Alternatively, I sometimes strike the bell for a given amount of time, like ten minutes or half an hour. You can experiment with different possibilities.
When the last striking of the bell has happened I recite the following:
Following the recitation I slip into silent contemplation. The amount of time for silent contemplation varies depending on circumstances.
I find this contemplation to be helpful when I get stuck by the negative circumstances of human life. I find this to be a soothing meditation and contemplation. It is based on what I call ‘metaphorical inference.’ The inference is from an appearance that is obvious to our senses (such as the sound of a bell), to things where this is not obvious. This happens by meditating on how ‘all things resemble the sound of a bell.’ By using metaphorical inference I universalize the experience of the sound of the bell so that the mind shifts to a larger, more universal context, placing the sound of the bell into vastness from which it emerges and to which it returns.
This kind of practice, and its use of metaphorical inference, teaches the mind how to shift contexts in order to have insight into broader meanings. This is what happens in Platonism when we shift from observation of material things to their noetic source. The example of this kind of contemplation that I have referred to before is the contemplation on beauty that begins by observing three beautiful objects such as a house, a stone, and a melody. Having fixed the mind on the beauty of each object, we then shift our attention to beauty as such, which is noetic beauty. Although this is not the same as metaphorical inference I think there is a kind of overlap. The point is to teach the mind that it has access to, and can observe, higher realities that are broader and more pervasive than the realities that material objects have. In addition, these kinds of meditations offer the contemplator the experience of abstract objects and their relationship to material objects; in the case of the sound of a bell contemplation, it is impermanence. In the case of beauty it is beauty as such.
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