WIlhelm Vossenkuhl's The Possibility of the Good

Wilhelm Vossenkuhl is a German philosopher who was born Dec. 11, 1945 in Engen, Germany. He is the author of many books, essays, and articles, and has taught at many universities, including Bayreuth (1986-1993), Halle-Wittenburg (1990-91), Freiburg, Krakow, Lodz, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (1993-2011). He is currently professor emeritus of philosophy at LMU Munich. His writings have included Ludwig Wittgenstein (1995), Philosophie für die Westentasche (Philosophy for the Vest Pocket, 2004), Die Möglichkeit des Guten (The Possibility of the Good, 2006), Solipsismus und Sprachkritik (Solipsism and Language Criticism, 2009), Philosophie: Basics (2011), and Die Grossen Denker (The Great Thinkers, with Harald Lesch, 2012). His research has centered on epistemology, ethics, the history of philosophy, action theory, and the philosophy of language, and he has explored the work of such philosophers as William of Ockham, Immanuel Kant, Henry Sidgwick, Rudolf Carnap, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

      Vossenkuhl appeared with Harald Lesch, the German physicist, astronomer, and philosopher, on the television series, Lesch & Co. (2001-2006), and Denker des Abendlandes (Thinkers of the Western World, 2008-2014). Lesch is currently professor of theoretical astrophysics at LMU Munich, and professor of natural philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy.

      Honors that Vossenkuhl has received include the International Prize for Philosophy from the Margrit Egnér Foundation (1998), honorary membership in the Sokratischen Gesellschaft (Socratic Society) since 2009, and fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Democracy (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 2004-2011).

      In 2010, Asteroid no. 210174 was named “Vossenkuhl” by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris and the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University, at the suggestion of Rolf Apitzsch (Wildberg Observatory, Wildberg, Germany), who discovered the asteroid.¹

      As of 2016, Wilherlm Vossenkuhl’s major writings have not yet been translated into English. Philosophie für die Westentasche has been translated into Dutch, Italian, and Korean, and Die Möglichkeit des Guten has been translated into Polish. Lexikon der Ethik (2008, co-edited by Otfried Höffe, Maximilian Forschner, Christoph Horn, and Wilhelm Vossenkuhl) has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Chinese.²

      In Die Möglichkeit des Guten: Ethik im 21. Jahrhundert (The Possibility of the Good: Ethics in the 21^st Century), Vossenkuhl describes ethics as a practical science that seeks to answer two basic questions: how “the good” is possible, and how the good, in the form of “the good life,” can be actualized. He says that these two basic questions are inseparable, and that the clarification of the possibility of the good is actually the first step toward the actualization of the good life.³

      The clarification of the possibility of the good involves both a theoretical and a practical commitment. The theoretical commitment to internal and external consistency in our ethical judgments must underlie a practical commitment to coherence. We cannot find the best solutions to ethical problems (those solutions that enable the best possible life, under the given conditions, to be actualized for all human beings) unless our ethical judgments are coherent. Such judgments should enable the actualization (or contribute to the actualization) of the best possible life for all human beings, even when moral, legal, or political conflicts between different individuals or groups cannot be resolved. Without the theoretical commitment to consistency and the practical commitment to coherence, our ethical judgments can make no claim to objectivity.⁴

      Vossenkuhl explains that in every judgment that something is good or bad, we employ a basic standard of what is good or bad. This standard may be moral, ethical, aesthetic, technical, or functional in nature. But within certain limits, the good or bad may change, and thus within certain limits, our standards of what is good or bad must also change.

      The pivotal point of any ethics, according to Vossenkuhl, is the issue of human freedom. Ethics not only presupposes human freedom, it also offers the possibility of promoting and ensuring it. The possibilities of the good increase or decrease with the possibilities of human freedom.⁵

      Two problems for ethics arise from (1) the fact that there may be a scarcity of goods to be allocated to different individuals or groups, and (2) the fact that it may be difficult to determine how unquantifiable normative claims to goods are to be matched to quantifiable shares of distributable goods. These two problems are the source of what Vossenkuhl calls “the basic methodological problem of ethics,” i.e. the problem of how manifold and diverse goods are to be integrated into a whole, whereby a good life becomes possible for all members of society. He proposes a “maxim method” as the solution of this problem, and he explains that this method provides a means of answering both the question of how the good is possible and the question of how the good, in the form of the good life, can be actualized.

      In considering the relation between ethics and morality, Vossenkuhl says that ethics presupposes morality, and that ethical judgments are always in some way connected to moral presuppositions. Ethics therefore has only a limited independence from morality, and must rely on basic moral norms in order to justify its judgments. Such norms include “moral facts” (sittliche Tatsachen), e.g. the fact that killing human beings is wrong, and the fact that human dignity should be respected. These facts are basic and foundational to ethics, and they do not require further explanation.

      Ethics, on the other hand, seeks to explain why actions are right or wrong, good or bad, and thus it attempts to achieve objective validity for its judgments. Criteria for the objective validity of ethical judgments include truth, understandability, verifiability, relevance, and revisability in light of new facts or knowledge. These five criteria of objectivity are not proposed as absolute or final, but they indicate how ethical validity (ethische Geltung) may be distinguished from moral justification (sittliche Rechtfertigung).

      At the same time, the scientific authority of ethics presupposes the natural authority of morality. Ethics, on the one hand, can have scientific authority only if its foundations are independent of morality, but on the other hand, it would have no scientific authority if it were not rooted in morality.⁶ Ethics can therefore criticize morality only by deriving its truth claims from morality. This kind of critique is possible only if moral facts can change or be replaced by new moral facts.

      Vossenkuhl explains that conventional morality is usually recognized and accepted as long as it fulfills its customary functions and is supported by regular social practices. It becomes problematic only when it gives good reasons to mistrust regular social practices, and when it puts its own validity into question on ethical grounds.⁷

      Kant claimed that subjective principles of volition can become objective principles of reason if they comply with the "categorical imperative," which is to act only in such a way that the principle according to which an action is performed can be taken as a universal law of morality. Universal moral commands, such as “keep your promises,” “tell the truth,” “have compassion for others,” and “help the needy as much as you can” correspond to what Kant would describe as objectively valid principles of morality. Vossenkuhl, however, questions whether universality is a meaningful methodological requirement in ethics, and he argues for a situational ethics whose requirements are objectively founded for determinate problems under determinate conditions. He says that every ethics is in some way situational, because it contains elements that characterize the particular individual and collective context of action.⁸

      Vossenkuhl also describes “ethical normality” (ethishe Normalität) as a conflict-free condition in which there is, for a given moral problem, only one rule that must be followed in order to solve it. Other criteria for ethical normality include: the rule to be followed in a situation must be morally valid, and there are no other rules or obligations that conflict with the rule. If the criteria for ethical normality are not all fulfilled, then there are at least three kinds of problems that may occur: (1) there may be moral conflict when more than one rule or obligation holds in a situation and only one can be fulfilled, (2) there may be moral disagreement over the interpretation of moral facts or the application of ethical principles to particular situations, and (3) there may be "normative overloading"(normative Überforderung) if multiple moral duties or norms cannot all be complied with simultaneously. In the case of (1), two kinds of moral conflicts may occur: those that can be resolved, and those that cannot (moral dilemmas).⁹

      The limits of ethical normality, according to Vossenkuhl, are not the same as the limits of ethics. If there is no single rule that can be used to resolve a moral conflict, then there are still right and wrong responses to that conflict.¹⁰ Moreover, the resolution of moral conflict does not necessarily mean the restoration of ethical normality. In cases of normative overloading, for example, we may be limited to achieving some degree of normative unloading. Such cases of unfulfilled moral duties or obligations cannot simply be resolved like pain is resolved after ingestion of a painkiller. We cannot merely address the symptoms of moral conflict or normative overloading; we must also address the causes of those symptoms.¹¹

      The goal of ethics is the clarification of the question of how the good, in the form of the good life, is possible.¹² Among the presuppositions under which the goal of ethics is achievable are that human beings are capable of acting freely, and that they are capable of accepting moral responsibility for their actions. These presuppositions, however, are not purely moral in character, insofar as the nature of human freedom may be partly determined by political, legal, economic, and social conditions.¹³

      Vossenkuhl says that ethics has presuppositions in a wider, and in a narrower sense. Presuppositions in a wider sense include the importance of respect for human life, the importance of respect for human rights, and the importance of respect for human dignity, and these presuppositions belong to morality. Presuppositions in a narrower sense include the existence of legal jurisprudence, legal protection of civil rights, and legal guarantees of basic human freedoms, and these presuppositions denote the conditions without which ethics could not claim to be a practical science and thus argue independently of morality.

      If the clarification of how the good life is possible is the goal of ethics, and the good life is not of a purely moral nature, then the question of how the good life is possible cannot be answered merely by producing a list of virtues that must be fulfilled or duties that must be complied with.¹⁴ It’s always possible for individual actions to be morally good even though the person who performs them has not always acted morally and does not live in a society that makes the good life possible for all. The morally good is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the good life of an individual person or whole society.¹⁵

      Morally good actions form the “cement” of the individual and collective good life, and they hold together other elements that are necessary for such a life. Morally bad actions do the opposite; they disrupt the good life.¹⁶

      We assume that the good life is possible if a variety of conditions are met, such as when human rights are respected, when no one lives in poverty, when no one is discriminated against, when everyone has equal opportunity for employment, when everyone has access to health care, when everyone can live in peace and security, and when everyone fulfills their duties to one another. Since it seems unlikely that all these ideal conditions will ever simultaneously be fulfilled, we learn to understand the good life as basically incomplete. The good life as a whole is never actually achieved beyond the stage of the possible; its modality is that of a possible actuality.¹⁷

      The basic methodological problem of ethics arises from the fact that the goods we need in order to live a good life are often scarce, and from the fact that these goods frequently have an unquantifiable as well as a quantifiable quality. The successful integration of these quantifiable and unquantifiable goods into a whole is one of the conditions of a good life, and successful integration is possible if we can solve the basic methodological problem of ethics, that is, the problem of how material and nonmaterial, normative and non-normative claims are to be recognized as independent from, but at the same time intertwined with, one another.¹⁸

      The problem of determining how scarce goods can be distributed in the best possible way in order for the good life to be achieved by all members of society is a problem of moral economy.¹⁹ Regional and global markets, with their respective operating mechanisms, do not necessarily guarantee a fair and equitable distribution of goods to everyone. The basic methodological problem of ethics, i.e. the problem of determining how indivisible, incommensurable, and indispensable goods are to be connected to divisible, commensurable, and dispensable goods in order to form a social whole, presupposes that in constitutionally governed, democratic societies there are collectively generated goods that serve the welfare of all members and that can accordingly be justly and fairly distributed. However, the basic methodological problem is only solvable if not only gains in, but also losses of goods are fairly distributed.²⁰

      Vossenkuhl proposes two maxims that can be used to solve the basic methodological problem. The first maxim is: a normative claim is changed when it leads to a distribution of goods that cannot be accepted. The second maxim is: a quantitative distribution of goods is changed when it infringes on normative claims. The first maxim is called the “maxim of scarcity,” and the second maxim is called the “maxim of norms.” The second maxim is an essential correlative to the first, because if the first maxim alone were applied, normative claims would, over the long run, be radically relativized, and would become meaningless whenever conflicts of distribution arise. On the other hand, the second maxim may be difficult to satisfy, because no normative claim contains a clear criterion of its own material infringement.²¹ Both maxims must be simultaneously applied in order for the basic methodological problem to be solved.

      Because inequalities in the distribution of material goods can be arbitrated but not abolished by the two maxims, they must be supplemented by a third maxim, the “maxim of integration.” This can be stated as follows: normative claims and distributions of goods can only be changed when neither absolutely indispensable goods nor the value structure of goods as a whole are thereby compromised.

      Vossenkuhl explains that a good life in a social whole is only possible if the goals of processes of distribution are cooperatively determined. The maxim of integration therefore has political consequences, because it requires that the claims of individuals and groups to indispensable goods be protected against infringement. The maxim of integration also corrects any morally unacceptable restrictions of normative claims and distributions of goods.²²

      The maxim method of solving the methodological problem of ethics may not always make possible the good life; even if the method is correctly applied, the possibility of the good life is neither guaranteed nor exhausted.²³ One reason that the maxim method may sometimes be ineffective is that the integration of goods into a social whole is a necessary condition for the good life, but not a sufficient one. Without a just distribution of goods and burdens, the good life is not possible, Conflicts between various group interests and political ideologies regarding the meaning of “the good life” may underlie failure to achieve just distributions of goods and burdens. Thus, pluralism, political compromise, and social cooperation are necessary.

     

      

FOOTNOTES

¹Prof. Em. Dr. Wilhelm Vossenkuhl: Offizielle Homepage, online at http://www.wilhelm-vossenkuhl.de/vita/

²Ibid., at http://www.wilhelm-vossenkuhl.de/publikationen/.

³Wilhelm Vossenkuhl, Die Möglichkeit des Guten: Ethik im 21. Jahrhundert (München, C.H. Beck, 2006), p. 16.

⁴Ibid., p. 21.

⁵Ibid., p. 30.

⁶Ibid., p. 49.

⁷Ibid., pp. 66-67.

⁸Ibid., p. 84.

⁹Ibid., p. 121.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 132.

¹¹Ibid., p. 140.

¹²Ibid., p. 236.

¹³Ibid., p. 236.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 240.

¹⁵Ibid., p 244.

¹⁶Ibid., p. 250.

¹⁷Ibid., pp. 251-252.

¹⁸Ibid., p. 296.

¹⁹Ibid., p. 346.

²⁰Ibid., p. 347.

²¹Ibid., p. 352.

²²Ibid., p. 377.
²³Ibid., p. 417.

The Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra

The Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra is a Mayahana Buddhist scripture that dates from the second century CE. It was originally composed in Sanskrit and produced in India, but was later translated into many other languages, including Chinese, Tibetan, Sogdian, Khotanese, Uighur, Mongolian, and Manchu.^1,2 The original Sanskrit text was subsequently lost, and the most influential Chinese translation became that of the Buddhist monk Kumarajiva (406), on which the English translations by Charles Luk (1975)³, Burton Watson (1997)⁴, and John McRae (2004)⁵ are based. Robert Thurman’s English translation (1976)⁶ is based on the Tibetan translation by Chos Nid Tshul Khrims (ninth century CE).  Étienne Lamotte’s French translation (1962)⁷ is based on both Chos Nid Tshul Khrims’s Tibetan translation and Xuanzang’s Chinese translation (650), and was translated into English by Sara Boin (1976)⁸.

      The following summary of the Vimalakirti Sutra is based mainly on Robert Thurman’s translation, which is perhaps the most helpful and rewarding one for beginner students like myself who are interested in Buddhist philosophy. Thurman’s translation is clearly presented, extensively annotated, and beautifully rendered in prose and poetry. It includes a preface, introduction, translated text, and glossaries of Sanskrit terms, Buddhist numerical categories, and technical terms.

      “Vimalakirti Nirdesha” can be translated as “Discourse of Vimilarkirti.”⁹ The setting of the sutra is the garden of Amrapali, in the ancient city of Vaisali, India. Buddha appears before a large assembly of Brahmas (creator gods), Sakras (heavenly kings), Lokapalas (guardian deities), and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who follow the way of the Buddha, and who dedicate themselves to enabling all beings to attain Buddhahood). The assembly also includes heavenly musicians and various supernatural beings, as well as bhikkus (monks), bhikkunis (nuns), laymen, and laywomen.

      Buddha (whose name in Sanskrit means “Awakened One” or “Enlightened One”) explains that a Buddha-field (buddhakshetra) is a field of skillful means and virtuous application. It is a field of high resolve and total dedication. It is a field in which human beings are freed from all hindrances and afflictions. It is the state of an upright mind, a deeply searching mind, and a mind that aspires to enlightenment.¹⁰

      A Buddha-field (or Buddha land, or pure land) is also a field (or land) of the four immeasurables,¹¹ the four means of unification,¹² the four stations of mindfulness,¹³ the four right efforts,¹⁴ the four bases of power,¹⁵ the five spiritual faculties,¹⁶ the five moral powers,¹⁷ the seven factors of enlightenment,¹⁸ the eightfold path of righteousness,¹⁹ and the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment.²⁰

      Vimalakirti (whose name in Sanskrit means “undefiled fame or glory”²¹) is a wealthy layperson, public servant, and teacher of the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha, the lawful order of the universe), who lives in the city of Vaisali. He is a model of wisdom, understanding, patience, and generosity. In order to gain further opportunity to teach the Dharma, he makes it appear that he is sick, and a vast multitude of people come to visit him in order to inquire about his health. He teaches them that the body of a Buddha is born of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. It is born of the knowledge and vision of liberation. It is born of gentleness, kindness, and compassion. It is born of awareness (chitta), quiescence (samatha), and transcendental insight (vipashyana).²² It is born of the four kinds of fearlessness,²³ the six transcendental powers,²⁴ the ten powers,²⁵ the eighteen unshared properties,²⁶ and the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment.²⁷

      Buddha knows that Vimalakirti would like others to take pity on him, but when Buddha asks his disciples to visit the layman and inquire about his health, they all are reluctant, because they are so in awe of his extraordinary wisdom. Each of the disciples recounts an episode that left him awed and astonished by Vimalakirti’s powers of insight and understanding. 

       Maudgalyayana, for example, recalls Vimilakirti’s telling him that the Dharma is like infinite space. Vimilakirti had said that the Dharma is empty of self, and that it cannot be made an object, because it transcends all movements of mind. It is without any coming or going, any beginning or ending.  It is remarkable for its emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. It cannot truly be taught, and thus the attempt to “teach the Dharma” is presumptuous.²⁸ Maudgalyayana had been left totally speechless by Vimalakirti’s wisdom, and thus he now is reluctant to visit him in order to inquire about his health.

      The bodhisattva Maitreya (whose name means “Loving One”²⁹) recalls Vimalakirti’s telling him that enlightenment is perfectly realized neither by the body nor by the mind. Vimalakirti had said that enlightenment is the eradication of all signs, and that it is free of all presumptions concerning objects. It is also free of the functioning of all intentional thoughts. It is the annihilation of all convictions, and it is free from all mental constructions. It is without subjectivity, and is completely without object.³⁰ Maitreya had been left totally speechless by Vimalakirti’s wisdom, and thus he also now is reluctant to go see him in order to inquire about his health.

      The bodhisattva Prabhavyuha (whose name means “Light Array”³¹) recalls Vimalakirti’s telling him that the seat of enlightenment is a seat of generosity, morality, patience, and perseverance. It is a seat of meditation and wisdom. It is a seat of truth and understanding. It is a seat of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. It is a seat of liberation, and a seat of the means to unification. Prabhavyuha had been left totally speechless by Vimalakirti’s penetrating insight, and thus he also now is reluctant to go see him in order to inquire about his health.

      The bodhisattva Jagatimdhara recalls Vimalakirti’s telling him that the joy in the pleasures of the Dharma is the joy of unbreakable faith in the Buddha. It is the joy of renunciation of the whole world, the joy of helping living beings, and the joy of sharing through generosity, morality, patience, and effort.³² It is the joy of extending enlightenment, the joy of exploring the three doors of liberation,³³ and the joy of the realization of liberation. Jagatimdhara had been left in awe by the superiority of Vimalakirti’s wisdom, and thus he also now is reluctant to visit him in order to inquire about his health.

      Finally, the bodhisattva Manjushri (whose name means “Noble and Gentle One”³⁴) consents to go see Vimalakirti, and the others follow him to Vimalakirti’s house.

      Manjushri enters, and asks Vimalakirti how he is feeling. He also asks Vimalakirti whether he knows what is causing his illness. Vimalakirti answers that his illness is due to ignorance and the thirst for existence, and that it will persist as long as the illnesses of all living beings persist, because for the bodhisattva, the illnesses of all living beings are his own illness, and his own illness can only be relieved by relieving the illnesses of all living beings.³⁵

      Manjushri then asks Vimalakirti why his house is empty, and Vimalakirti answers that his house is empty because all Buddha-fields are empty. All Buddha-fields are devoid of any fixed nature, and they are empty of any differences or distinctions.

      Manjushri then asks Vimalakirit again what kind of illness he has, and Vimalakirti answers that his illness is formless and invisible, and neither mental nor physical, but due to disturbance of the elements of all living beings. The illness can only be eliminated by the elimination of egoism and attachment, which arise from dualistic conceptions of the world. Dualistic conceptions such as self and non-self, mental and physical, internal and external are empty constructions and have no reality.

      Vimalakirti explains that in order for the bodhisattva to liberate others from bondage, he himself must be liberated from bondage. Liberation is attained by the integration of wisdom (prajna) and skillful means (upayakausalya). Wisdom without skillful means is bondage (bandha). Wisdom with skillful means is liberation (moksha).³⁶ The liberation of wisdom with skillful means consists of not only concentration on the development of living beings, but also concentration on the adornment of Buddha-fields, by planting the roots of virtue in them for the sake of enlightenment.³⁷

      The domain of the bodhisattva is the domain of the four immeasurable minds, the four right efforts, the four bases of power, the five spiritual faculties, the five moral powers, the six perfections,³⁸ the seven factors of enlightenment, and the eightfold path of righteousness.

      The domain of the bodhisattva is also the domain of cultivation of the aptitude for mental quiescence and transcendental insight,³⁹ the domain of realization that all Buddha-fields are uncreatable and indestructible, and the domain of the realization of the unborn nature of all things.⁴⁰

      Whoever is interested in the Dharma is uninterested in attachment, even attachment to liberation.⁴¹ Whoever is looking for secure refuge is not interested in the Dharma, but rather in secure refuge. Whoever holds onto things or lets go of things is not interested in the Dharma, but rather in holding on or letting go of things.⁴²

      The bodhisattva generates the kind of love that is peaceful, because it is free of grasping, the kind of love that is serene, because if is not disrupted by afflictive emotions, and the kind of love that is non-dual, because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal.⁴³

      A goddess in Vimalakirti’s house suddenly makes herself visible to the assembly, and she scatters heavenly flowers over the disciples and bodhisattvas. The flowers adhere to the disciples, but not to the bodhisattvas, because they do not engage in dualistic thinking. To illustrate the teaching that all dharmas (all phenomena) are without determinate characteristics, the goddess transforms her own body into a male body like Shariputra’s, and she transforms his body into a female body like her own. Then she reverses the process, and their bodies return to their previous form. She explains that all dharmas are similarly without occurrence or non-occurrence, existence or non-existence, birth or death. Enlightenment or Buddhahood is not something that is attained; it transcends present, past, and future. To say that enlightenment is, or has been, or will be attained is to say that it is not, or has not been, or will not be attained.

      When Vimalakirti asks all the bodhisattvas to explain how they may enter the Dharma door of nonduality, they each provide an example of a kind of dualistic thinking that must be avoided, e.g. the separation of creation and destruction, the separation of sinfulness and sinlessness, the separation of happiness and misery, and the separation of knowledge and ignorance. Manjushri tells them that they all have spoken well, but that their explanations, by focusing on some particular teaching of the Buddha as distinguished from other teachings, are themselves dualistic. Manjushri therefore tells them that not to say or explain anything is the way to enter the door of nonduality. When he asks Vimalakirti for his response, Vimalakirti merely remains silent. Manjushri applauds, having seen that remaining silent is the way to enter the door of nonduality.

      Buddha later asks Vimalakirti how he would see the Tathagata (the “Thus Come One,” one of the ten honorific titles of the Buddha), and Vimalakirti replies that he would see the Tathagata by not seeing him at all. That is to say, he would see him as not being born from the past, not passing on to the future, and not residing in the present. He would see him as neither present nor absent, neither here nor there, neither this way nor that way, because the Tathagata is neither weak nor strong, neither concentrated nor distracted, neither conditioned nor unconditioned, neither compounded nor uncompounded.⁴⁴ The Tathagata is without equal, and yet equal to the ultimate reality of all things.⁴⁵

      Still later, after the Buddha has explained to the assembly how to investigate, uphold, and correctly teach the Dharma, he transmits his teachings to Maitreya, so that under his protection they may be transmitted to others. Maitreya and the other bodhisattvas vow to transmit the Dharma to the rest of the world. Buddha then bestows upon his disciple Ananda (whose name means “Bliss”) an exposition of the Dharma, and the name of the exposition is “The Discourse of Vimalakirti.”

FOOTNOTES

¹Robert A.F. Thurman, The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti [1976] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014), p. ix.

²Burton Watson, The Vimalakirti Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 2.

³Charles Luk (Lu K’uan Yu), The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra (Boston: Shambhala, 1975).

⁴Watson, The Vimalakirti Sutra, 1997.

⁵John McRae, The Sutra of Queen Srimala of the Lion’s Roar and the Vimalakirti Sutra (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist translation and Research, 2004).

⁶Robert A.F. Thurman, The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti [1976] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014).
⁷Étienne Lamotte, L’Enseignement de Vimalakirti (Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1962).

⁸Lamotte, The Teaching of Vimalakirti, translated by Sara Boin (London: The Pali Text Society, 1976).

⁹Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, et al., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994), p. 406.

¹⁰Watson, The Vimalakirti Sutra, pp. 26-27.

¹¹The four immeasurable qualities of mind are love (metta), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity (upeksha).

¹²The four means of unification are generosity (dana), loving speech (priyavadita), beneficial activity (arthacharya), and exemplication (samanarthata).

¹³The four stations of mindfulness are mindful contemplation of the body (kayanupassana), mindful contemplation of feelings (vedananupassana), mindful contemplation of the mind (chittanupassana), and mindful contemplation of phenomena (dhammanupassana).

¹⁴The four right efforts are the effort to avoid unwholesome states, the effort to overcome unwholesome states, the effort to develop wholesome states, and the effort to maintain wholesome states.

¹⁵The four bases of power are: concentration of intention, concentration of energy, concentration of consciousness, and concentration of investigation.

¹⁶The five spiritual faculties are faith (saddha), energy (viriya), mindfulness (sati), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna).

¹⁷The five moral powers are: the power of faith, the power of energy, the power of mindfulness, the power of concentration, and the power of wisdom.

¹⁸The seven factors or limbs of enlightenment (sambodhyanga) are: mindfulness (sati), investigation of phenomena (dharmapravicaya), energy (viriya), joy (priti), tranquility (passaddhi), concentration (samadhi), and equanimity (upeksha).

¹⁹The eight paths of righteousness are: right views, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

²⁰The thirty-seven aids to enlightenment include the four stations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the five spiritual faculties, the five moral powers, the seven limbs of enlightenment, and the eightfold path of righteousness.    

²¹Taigen Dan Leighton, Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and their Modern Expression (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 275.

²²Thurman, The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, pp. 23-24.

²³ The four kinds of fearlessness of a Buddha are (1) fearlessness because knowledge of all knowledge has been acquired, (2) fearlessness because all afflictions have been eradicated, (3) fearlessness in explaining hindrances that obstruct realization of enlightenment, and (4) fearless in explaining the right path to end suffering (Rulu, Bodisattva Precepts, Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2012, p. 285).

²⁴The six transcendental powers are supernatural powers that are said to belong to Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and include (1) the power of being anywhere at will, (2) the power of seeing anything anywhere, (3) the power of hearing any sound anywhere, (4) the power of knowing the thoughts of all other minds, (5) the power of knowing past lives, and (6) the power of eradicating all illusions. (Watson, p. 156.)

²⁵The ten powers of a Buddha are: (1) the power of knowing what is right and wrong, (2) the power of knowing the karmic consequences of actions, (3) the power of knowing the various inclinations of living beings, (4) the power of knowing the various realms of living beings, (5) the power of knowing the capacities of living beings, (6) the power of knowing where all paths lead, (7) the power of knowing all stages of meditation, liberation, and concentration, (8) the power of knowing the past lives of living beings, (9) the power of knowing the deaths and future lives of living beings, and (10) the power of knowing the destruction of all illusions. (Thurman, p. 154.)

²⁶The eighteen unshared properties belonging only to Buddhas and bodisattvas include (1) freedom from illusions, (2) eloquence, (3) absence of attachments, (4) impartiality, (5) constant concentration of the mind, (6) insight into all things, and absence of attachment to them, (7) untiring intention to lead beings to salvation, (8) incessant endeavor, (9) consistency of teachings with those of other Buddhas, (10) perfect wisdom, (11) perfect emancipation, (12) perfect insight, (13) consistency of words with wisdom, (14) consistency of mind with wisdom, (15) knowledge of the past, (16) knowledge of the future, and (17) knowledge of the present. (Watson, p. 149.)

²⁷Watson, p. 36.

²⁸Thurman, p. 25.

²⁹Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, et al., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 217.

³⁰Thurman, p. 35.

³¹Ibid., p. 120.

³²Ibid., p. 38.

³³The three doors of liberation are: emptiness (shunyata), signlessness (animitta), and aimlessness or desirelessness (apranita).

³⁴Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, et al., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, p. 219.

³⁵Thurman, p. 43.

³⁶Watson, p. 71.

³⁷Thurman, p. 47.

³⁸The six perfections (paramitas) are: generosity (dana), morality (shila), patience (kshanti), perseverance or exertion (virya), meditation (dhyana), and wisdom (prajna).

³⁹Thurman explains that this kind of insight is called “transcendental,” “because it does not accept anything it sees as it appears,” but instead “penetrates to its deeper reality.” (p. 165)

⁴⁰Ibid.,, p. 49.

⁴¹Ibid., p. 50.

⁴²Ibid., p. 51.

⁴³Ibid., pp. 56-57.

⁴⁴Ibid., p. 91.

The Lankavatara Sutra

The Lankavatara Sutra is a Mahayana Buddhist scripture that dates from the fourth century CE. The author (or authors) is (are) unknown. The text was originally written in Sanskrit and produced in India. The first Chinese translation was completed in 430 CE, and the second in 443.¹ The second Chinese translation is probably the one given by Boddhidarma (c. 470-543), the first Chinese patriarch of Zen, to his student, Hui-k’o (487-593), the second Chinese patriarch of Zen. The sutra thus had an important influence on the development of Zen Buddhism, as well as on the development of other forms of Mahayana Buddhism in China, Japan, Tibet, and Nepal.

      The Lanka consists of nine chapters of prose and poetry, and an additional chapter, called “Sagathakam” (which means “the one with verses”²), consisting entirely of poetry. The title, “Lankavatara Sutra,” may be translated as “Sutra of the Descent into Lanka” or "Sutra of the Entering into Lanka.”³ The setting of the text is the mythological city of Lanka, site of the castle of Ravana, king of the nature spirits and sea serpents. At an assembly of bhikkhus (monks) and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings), Buddha answers a series of questions posed to him by the bodhisattva Mahamati.

      Throughout their dialogue, Mahamati humbly and respectfully addresses Buddha by his various honorific titles, such as Bhagava (“Blessed One”), Tathagata (“Thus Gone One”), Sugata (“Well Gone One”), Arhat ("Holy One"), Maitreya (“Compassionate One”), and Samyaksambuddha (“Fully Enlightened One”). Buddha kindly and patiently responds to each of Mahamati’s questions, and answers them successively in a very direct, thorough, and systematic way.

      According to Buddha’s teachings in the sutra, all things are devoid of self-nature or self-substance (svabhava), insofar as they are not self-caused or self-existent. All things are unborn, because they are not born of themselves; they are born of causation.⁴ All things are empty of self-nature or self-existence, because their nature or existence is not inherent or self-caused; it depends on causes and conditions other than themselves.

      Self-nature is merely a thought construction (vijnapti). The ego, individual soul, or personal self (atman) is also merely a thought construction. Indeed, the ego or personal self is merely an illusion (maya). Absence of self-nature (or egolessness) is the true nature of all things. Truth (satya) is to be found in emptiness (shunyata), egolessness (anatman), suffering (dukkha), and impermanence (anitya).

      When things are falsely seen as having their own self-nature, wrong discriminations are made among them. Discrimination (vikalpa) arises from attachment (abhinivesa) to the notion that things can be differentiated according to their own self-nature, and that they can therefore be categorized according to their being or nonbeing, existence or nonexistence, individuality or generality.

      When the world is understood to be nothing but mind (chitta), false distinctions among things are no longer clung to. When the egolessness of all things is recognized, wrong discriminations are no longer made. When there is perfect knowledge (parinishpanna), there is no longer discrimination regarding the various appearances of things, and the world is understood to be mind-only (chittamatra).

       Ignorance (avidya) consists in attachment to distinctions among things. Ignorance also consists in attachment to dualistic notions of being (sat) and nonbeing (asat), self (atman) and non-self (anatman), individuality (avalakshana) and generality (samanyalakshana), unity (ekata) and multiplicity (bahulya), sameness (samata) and otherness (anyatya), cessation (nirodha) and continuation (prabandha). In order to see things as they truly are, we must avoid dualistic thinking, and we must remain within the realm of non-discrimination (avilkalpa). When mind-only (chittamatra) is understood to be the true nature of things, discrimination is abandoned.⁵ Non-discrimination is a state of understanding the non-duality (advaya) of mind-only.

      Insofar as all things depend on causes and conditions of existence, they have no self-nature, and they do not exist inherently. They are devoid of self-existence. All things are empty (shunya), unborn (anutpanna), non-dual (advaita), and without self-nature (nihsvabhava).⁶ Things are not born of themselves; they are without self-nature, and thus they are in a constant state of becoming.⁷

      Emptiness itself is devoid of self-existence, and has no self-nature. Thus, it transcends both eternalism (sasvatavada) and nihilism (ucchedavada). Eternalism may be described as the theory that all things are eternal and unchanging, and that there is an eternal and unchanging self. Nihilism may be described as the theory that nothing is eternal and unchanging, and that there is no eternal and unchanging self. Eternalism may also be described as the theory that things exist eternally, while nihilism may be described as the theory that nothing exists at all. Emptiness transcends such dualistic concepts, and is the true nature of things. Thus, it is the middle way (madhyama) between eternalism and nihilism. When things are seen as empty, they are recognized in their suchness (tathata).⁸

      To be enlightened is to be free of such concepts as being (sat) and nonbeing (asat), existence (bhava) and non-existence (abhava), permanence (nitva) and impermanence (anitya), eternity (nityata) and non-eternity (anityata). Being and nonbeing, individuality and generality, and sameness and otherness cannot rightly be predicated of things. When such concepts are abandoned, egolessness (anatman) is attained. The appearance of difference between being and nonbeing is actually a result of maya (illusion).

      The Enlightened One does not engage in dualistic thinking and is able to comprehend the truth of mind-only (the truth that the external world is only a manifestation of mind). Buddhahood transcends discursive reasoning and attachment to the external appearances of things. Perfect knowledge is the essence of the Tathagata-garbha⁹ (the womb of Buddhahood, and the place in which Buddhahood is conceived, nurtured, and matured¹⁰). The Tathagata-garbha is emptiness, non-attachment, non-discrimination, and nirvana.

FOOTNOTES

¹Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Studies in The Lankavatara Sutra [1930], (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999, p. 4.

²Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text, translated for the first time from the original Sanskrit (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1932), p.xliv.

³Suzuki, Studies in The Lankavatara Sutra, p. 3.

⁴The Lankavatara Sutra, p. 132.

⁵Ibid., p. 254.        

⁶Ibid., p. 65.

⁷Ibid., p. 67.

⁸Suzuki, Studies in The Lankavatara Sutra, p. 446.

⁹The Lankavatara Sutra, p. 60.

¹⁰Suzuki, Studies in The Lankavatara Sutra, p. 405.

Stigmas as Signs of Social Rejection

What are social stigmas, and what is the meaning of being stigmatized? Being stigmatized may mean being shunned, being avoided, being viewed as loathsome or repugnant, being treated as an outcast, and being seen as shameful or disgraceful. It may also mean being considered unrespectable and disreputable, and being viewed as morally deficient or socially inferior.

      Being stigmatized may also mean being seen as flawed or blemished, and being labeled as faulty or defective in some way.

      To stigmatize someone or something may be to inflict that person or thing with a stigma (a sign of reproach or disapproval). A stigma may be a sign of rejection, a mark of disfavor, or a symbol of disgrace.

       Stigmatization may involve the branding, writing, or inscription of a stigma on the identity of the stigmatized. It may also involve the assignment of a lower social status to stigmatized individuals or groups.

      Stigmatized people may sometimes be regarded as if they were grotesque, strange, odd, or freakish. They may be made objects of derision or ridicule. They may also be made to feel unwanted, and they may be made to feel as if they have no place in, and do not belong to, society.

      Stigmatized people may be targeted for social rejection, and thus may become victims of prejudice and discrimination. They may be made to feel unclean, tainted, contaminated, and untouchable. The stigma may be seen as a stain or blot on their moral character. They may be regarded as objects of curiosity, contempt, revulsion, or disgust. They may also be treated as if they were sinful, debased, subhuman, or uncivilized.

      To be stigmatized may be to be temporarily or permanently excluded from participation in society. It may also in some cases be to suffer from a kind of discredit and disrepute that no effort on the part of the stigmatized individual can overcome.

      Stigmatized people may be subjected to hate speech, taunts, and verbal abuse that may destroy their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. They may be forced to endure harassment, threats, and intimidation.

      Physical conditions for which people may be unfairly stigmatized include physical disabilities (such as limb amputations, contractures, tremors, and paralysis), speech disabilities (such as dysarthria, articulation disorders, vocal tics, and stuttering), physical deformities (such as facial, spine, and limb deformities), genetic disorders, infectious diseases (such as leprosy, herpes, and HIV), skin conditions (such as acne, psoriasis, surgical or burn scars, birthmarks, vitiligo, neurofibromatosis, skin ulcers, and skin cancer), and other conditions (such as tall or short stature, baldness, impotence, overweight, blindness, and deafness).

      Mental conditions for which people may be unfairly stigmatized include intellectual, developmental, and learning disabilities, and mental illnesses (such as schizophrenia and bipolar depression).

      Social conditions for which people may be unfairly stigmatized include poverty, homelessness, joblessness, drug or alcohol addiction, and previous criminal record.

      People may be unfairly stigmatized because of their race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. They may also be unfairly stigmatized because they have family members who have been unfairly stigmatized or because they belong to social groups that have been unfairly stigmatized..

      Examples of social, racial, or ethnic groups that have been unfairly stigmatized include disabled people, poor people, refugees, immigrants, gays, lesbians, transgender people, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, Haitians, Romani, Dalits, Biharis, Yazidis, Hazaras, and Rohingyas.

      Consequences of being socially stigmatized include loss of educational opportunities, loss of employment opportunities, loss of housing opportunities, loss of insurance benefits, rejection of loan applications, rejection of license applications, rejection of various kinds of membership applications, and loss of other social privileges that have ordinarily been granted to others with similar abilities and qualifications.

      Social stigmas may vary in the degree to which they are internalized or externalized by their bearers. They may also vary in the extent to which they can be disguised or concealed by their bearers. Some social stigmas may be easier to disguise or conceal than others.

      Motives for stigmatizers to stigmatize others may include: (1) to promote their own sense of self-worth and self-esteem, (2) to reinforce their own position of social advantage and privilege in relation to the stigmatized, (3) to strengthen their own position of power over the stigmatized, (4) to better their own social position, by excluding the stigmatized from social, educational, and employment opportunities, (5) to respond to the perceived threat to their own privileged status that is represented by the aptitudes and abilities of the stigmatized, (6) to promote their own prejudices about the stigmatized, (7) to avoid having to learn anything about the stigmatized or having to try to see things from their standpoint, and (8) to facilitate their own cognitive biases (such as the confirmation bias of considering and relying only on information that confirms their already held beliefs, and the framing bias of selecting only those frames of reference that tend to confirm their already held beliefs.)

      Remedies for social stigmas include: (1) recognition of the unfairness of many social stigmas, (2) recognition of the pervasiveness of many kinds of stigmas in contemporary society, (3) recognition of the arbitrariness and lack of justification of many social stigmas, (4) disregard or challenge of various social stigmas, and (5) confrontation of those who try to promote their own advantage by stigmatizing others.

REFERENCES

Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963).

Edward E. Jones, Amerigo Farina, Albert H. Hastorf, Hazel Markus, Dale T. Miller, and Robert A. Scott, Social Stigma: The Psychology of Marked Relationships (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1984).

Stigma and Group Inequality: Social Psychological Perspectives, edited by Shana Levin and Colette Van Laar (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006).

Stigma and Mental Illness, edited by Paul Jay Fink and Allan Tasman (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1992).

The Social Psychology of Stigma, edited by Todd F. Heatherton, Robert E. Kleck, Michelle R. Hebl, and Jay G. Hull (New York: The Guilford Press, 2000).

Destination Infinity

I once knew a man

who could put words

into images,

and images into words.

He had a glass box

full of ants that he studied.

Music was playing,

and he was dancing,

but his dancing was more like twitching.

His twitching was in time to the music.

He was losing the images in his head.

And he struggled over whether or not

the ants

should be experimented upon.

Then the box was smashed,

and the ants were everywhere.

He felt they were inside him,

and he stuck his tongue out rhythmically,

so they could come out.

He told me

about Alpha Centauri and the Aquarian.

He told me 
how far the earth is from the sun.

He said,

“You have to move your body to the funk.“

He could talk without moving his mouth.

There is a world of sound.

There is a world of vision.

Sometimes the worlds come together.

His glasses had two-way mirrors

so that when he looked out,

he looked into himself.

He represented a collision

between matter and anti-matter.

There was too much energy

to be measured in candle-power.

He made me ask myself,

“When a rocket

accelerates through the atmosphere,

what determines the boost factor?”

When he talked,

he  created an electrical storm.

When he cried,

his words were raining.

The storm windows

were smashed, and

the power lines were down.

The cables were swinging

into epileptic outcry.

He gazed upward,

and looked

at the burning holes in the sky.

A bat was hanging on a wire.

The unconscious became conscious

with the smell of noseblood.

He taught me

how to see people coming out of the shadows.

They were doing a new dance routine.

They tried new top hats on.

Their melancholy

could not be measured with a light meter.

Their faces were expressionless,

and they couldn’t feel anything.

They were practiced

in the art of the poseur.

They said that everything

was a copy of something else.

They were on a platform,

and the floor was tilted.

The shoes of those that passed by

were all I could see.

I could see no higher.

He asked me,

“What world do you want to live in?

The world of lasers and starships?

The world of clouds,

where you float in the sky?

The world of water,

where your boat is tossed

gently by the wind?”

I said to him,

“Are you talking about

the present or the past?”

But he answered,

“When you finally get ready to act,

it will already be too late.

Your life will be over.

Your time will have passed.

The nuclear rockets

and the guided missiles

will already have been here.

The thunderclouds

will have broken.

The next man to be killed

by another man

will already have died.

Today’s newspaper

will already be old news.

Tea will have been served.

What you thought about yesterday

will not be done tomorrow."

So he climbed a rope

to contemplate his theosophy.

I couldn’t follow him,

because I wasn’t skilled enough.

“What is the reverse of God?” 

he asked.

“Maybe the reverse of God is God,”

I said.

But then I thought,

“Isn’t there a presence in absence,

and an absence in presence?

Isn’t there a disorder in order,

and an order in disorder?

Doesn’t the absence of meaning

mean something?”

The meaninglessness of something

may be defined 

by what gives meaning 

to everything."

I went places with him,

wanting to find out who I was.

But my rainbow break was shorted out.

I couldn’t hang it on a gliding board.

I knew where I was going,

but not where I’d come from.

Australopithecus was picking his teeth

on the bones of my ancestors. 

I went to a graveyard

and slept with the dead.

The tenth book of tombs

had been written

before I entered in.

I looked around

at the gravestones.

The aurora was following 

the midnight sun.

The land had footprints on it.

It had been lived on.

I laid down on the earth,

and had visions.

A man with a trumpet was playing jazz.

A nightmare was sitting next to him.

The nightmare was a man

whose face couldn’t’ be seen

because of his hat.

He was wearing a trench coat,

and had pockets of blue.

He spoke through an alto saxophone

that didn't need to be translated.

I found myself in a bedroom,

looking at a chest with brass handles

that had a mirror over it.

A magus was hiding in the back drawer.

His kidneys weren’t functioning properly.

He had endured many tests

on his kidney function,

and he didn’t want to be tested anymore.

I lifted him out of the drawer,

and we went downstairs to the backyard.

He’d invited people over for a cricket match

that he didn’t want to attend.

People were standing about silently,

waiting for him to show up.

There were gate crashers

whose attire clashed with the others.

Garden parties were out of season.

The art of mime was in rehearsal.

The rain from yesterday

left tears on a jonquil.

I had to learn more

from the man who’d told me

about the present and the past.

He told me about life and death.

He said, “I’ve already had my death.

This is the afterlife.

So anything in death,

I’ll have lived as life.

I’m one of the living dead.

What’s been given birth

will have death and rebirth.

And what is, will always have being.

As long as I have life, I’ll know death.

And what I know of those who have life,

I can know of those who are dead.

I can learn to know those who are dead,

just as I can learn to know

those who have life.

To be one with life is to know death.

But to commit oneself to death

is no longer to know life.

What I can say to the living,

I can't say to the dead.

And what I’m concerned with

is not death, but life.”

He took me walking on a rock.

He told me the planet was dividing.

The rock was split

by a force moving.

All movement was faceted,

and anything that could fly

had struts in its wings.
The trees were bare, 

and blood was spattered 
across a black sky.

I saw his fingers stretching out

in a network over the scorched earth.

Thousands of locusts

were coming in and out of the invisible.

We went into a house

where we met an old man.

He opened a closet door,

and there were incredibly dirty rags inside.

Spiders were regimented

into an attack force.

We went into the closet

and my friend asked the old man

to let him sit in the electric chair.

The clamps were placed on his skull,

and the message was transmitted.

An array of cubes over his head

was organized spatially

to generate controlled acoustics.

The walls of the closet fell away.

We were standing on a glass floor

as vast as a convention center.

There were prisms sliding back and forth

across the axis in which he stood.

He was in an arcade of spheres

that was orbiting over his head.

Whorls of dim stars

signaled him

like sidelights on a marquee.

Pulsars and quasars

were contracted into him.

Searchlights were swinging

in arcs of increasing complexity.

We walked to the edge of the platform.

We stepped down and walked to a door.

The door opened to a small dumbwaiter

and he climbed in.

There was a smell of garbage inside.

His vision was iridescent,

and he saw infrareds he’d never seen before.

The birth image he had

was of being born in a walnut.

It was burning,

and some of the ashes

were clinging together and crawling away.

He moved over,

and I got into the dumbwaiter.

We crawled down a tunnel

and came onto a stone floor.

There were vertical steps

projected out of a wall onto a parapet.

It was sunset,

and the clouds were ascending.

Someone was coming toward us,

and we couldn’t tell

if it was a man or a woman.

We climbed upward

and found ourselves 
in a city at midnight.

Thousands of kilowatts 
had been snuffed out.

Mortuaries were brighter places.

The street we were on

was a corridor

that led toward an edifice.

The lines that were drawn

were demanding a definite conclusion.

In front of us, 
a man stood next to the monolith

that stood at the end of the street.

The inscriptions on the obelisk

told of something that was unknowable.

The man had a visor over his head,

and inside his helmet nothing could be seen,

no features were visible.

He had a creed that was one for all places.

It was really calendar-gone.

I asked the man

who told me 
about the present and the past

if there is light 
that doesn’t produce light.

Is there light 
that doesn’t travel through space,

and that travels only into itself?

Can there be light

that doesn’t have 
the physical properties of light?

Somewhere there is someone

who has such a beam of light.

    

He tried to tell me what the bottomless was.

The place where there is no light.

The bottom of the soul.

The bottom of the world.

The abyss without a bottom.

The bottomless underbelly of endlessness.

The beginning of the bottomless emptiness.

I couldn't come up from the bottom.

     

We walked around the city.

It was dawn.

A new day was coming.

A wino was standing on a street corner.

He could see train wrecks,

and was on a bender

that was rocking his mind.

He just let the scotch

run ‘round his mouth,

and said he could do

the mashed potato.

He had a friend named Shortwave

who was into mainlining.

She said she wanted

to cut us some smack,

give us a taste

of what would rock our minds.

Let us see a backdoor man

playin’ a funky blues piano.

Even if he could see,

and we were all blind.

     

We came to an iron works.

A furnace was burning.

Clouds of ash

brought the hydrocarbons

that were making the rain fall.

Axes to grind

came from the blacksmith.

He swung his blade against a wall,

and plaster chips fell away.

The fathom riot

of his drunken speeches

founded a liberal paganism.

     

Miscreants were throwing

rolls of toilet paper

into the street.

We talked with a poet

who wrote

about what they were doing.

She took us to a printing house.
The assistant editor 
was reading a manuscript,
and was asking, 
"What are the ambiguities?"
The apogee of the grammarian

was his triumph
over sentence structure.
The psoriatic stenographer
put camphor on his wounds. 

There were amazing 
structural possibilities.
Shamans were talking to ex-bankers.
The cause that men died for
was given the once-over
by a brilliant ideologue.
Band-aids were made ready
by professional pundits.
The bunions of the Manicheans
foretold concepts of destiny.

     

I told the man who’d told me

about life and death

about a dream I had.

It was a dream

about faces of people

I’d never seen.

People with no faces

were talking to me.

I looked into a mirror,

and saw that I had a face.

In fact, it was inescapable.

But each day

I looked into the mirror,

I saw I was losing

more and more of my face.

I became one of the faceless.

I no longer had a face,

and there were no more faces.

I couldn’t remember my name.

I couldn’t remember who I was.

I walked along the street,

and saw other faceless people.

We were all faceless people.

I knew the only way

I could regain my identity

was by remembering

that I’d once had a face.

I did things

that weren’t approved of

by the faceless people

but they couldn’t show me

their disapproval

in a way that would change me,

because I couldn’t see their faces.

I saw that the only way

to regain my identity

was to express myself,

to care for others,

to love and share

with even those

who’d been faceless to me.

And the more I was able to do this,

the more I saw

that I was regaining my face.

And then I was able

to give faces to other people,

who, in turn, were able

to give faces to others.

And then

there were no more faceless people.

     

We met a little boy

who wore spectacles

and had dirty smudges on his nose.

He was in a sheet,

playing a ghost story.

He held a clock book in his hand,

and asked me what was in it.

There were suns inside the sun.

He opened his mouth,

and it was the sun talking.

He asked me

how long I could look at the sun.

     

I walked to school,

and went to class,

trying to find out

which class I belonged in.

I didn’t belong in History.

I didn’t belong in Math.

I didn’t belong in English Lit.

I ended up waiting in the hall

until all the classes were over,

and then I went into each one,

and apologized for not being there.

     

The wind was blowing

a stack of papers away.

I was trying to run

and catch hold 
of each sheet of paper,

but I couldn’t catch them,

and they were all blowing away.
I knew that each sheet of paper

that I couldn’t find

would be a part of my mind

that was lost.

     

I walked into a seminar 
on existential psychology.

The instructor lectured

on the history of ideas.

Besides politics, her interests

included psychiatry

and the philosophy of rationalism.

She said the course of history

was changed by logic.

There were no inner truths

to be marsupialized.

I asked myself whether it’s logical

to say there are no inner truths.

Isn’t it better

to labor under the illusion

that there are basic truths?

To say there are no basic truths

is to try to state a basic truth.

     

She let me visit her apartment.

In her living room,

she'd painted clouds on the walls.

She'd been doing cartwheels

in a photographer’s dream.

She opened her pocketbook

and showed me a picture

of a blind man with dark glasses.

“He used to be my lover,” she said.

She took a mirror out of her pocketbook.

“We're all mirrors for each other,” she said.

“I’d rather be my own mirror,” I thought.

     

We went riding in a sedan.

We arrived at an estate.

I talked to the motorman.

He sat with his legs crossed.

He’d been to the petrified forest.

His white jersey was freshly laundered.

He described accidents

for which he’d written a tone poem.

Collisions of belief.

Thrusts on the brake pedal of his hostility.

The kindly

wicker basket carrying lady

of the black shroud

at the estate had requested

letters of introduction

to his great-aunt.

She served spaghetti

in an uncontrollably

steamy deep dish

that hardly demanded

any inquiry

as to what

it was laden with.

Her masseuse had showered her

with a sense of longing for former protégés.

Her rusted carriage

was a silhouette of afterthought.

Her smile was simple and uncalculated.

She was in love with the motorman.

     

We came to the sea,

and walked on the beach.

Our feet were wet.

Lights were glowing in our eyes.

My eyes were like headlights.

The philosopher who was with us

had taken so many tranquilizers

that his face was numb.

The griots were far away.

They had asked for a day’s journey

to the place from which reasons

for unreason come.

The rational man

had observed that patterns

always intersected each other,

so that the conclusions

that could be drawn from one plane

could be drawn from another.

But the philosopher said

that to find the answer

for anything,

you had to enter

the realm of the imagination.

He said the only drugs

he took were freebies.

His only drug was experience.

He said,

“Where the known becomes unknown,

that is where I begin.”

     

We were in a place

where all the colors

were reds and yellows.

The sky was yellow.

The water and earth

were red.

I was dark red,

and my eyes were yellow.

There were only two colors.

We didn’t have bodies.

We only had forms.

All concepts were two-dimensional.

There were only two planes in space.

If you walked through a door,

you walked

into the plane the door was in.

You always walked in the same plane.

     

We walked into the other plane again,

where we had bodies

and not just forms,

but were human beings.

We were with many others.

Everyone was naked.

We were all naked.

There was no thought

of hiding or concealing

anything from one another.

We didn’t have to touch one another.

We all accepted our nakedness.

There was something impenetrable

that proposed our honesty

to one another.

The fact of our nakedness.

We talked and accepted our bodies.

No one belonged to anyone else.

Every individual

was accepted as a human being.

     

I asked, “What is the meaning of our nakedness?

When you're naked,

is anything changed in your identity?

Do you become a different person?

Maybe the more naked you are,

the more that others know about you.

But if your nakedness is known,

what control do you have

over what others know about you?

Do you lose something

of yourself perhaps,

when others 
know your nakedness?

When is it good

to want to make yourself

naked in front of others?

There’s no way of taking back

your nakedness,
once it’s known.

But if you're naked,

maybe the more naked you are,
the more you know yourself."

     

We walked

into another part of the city

that was in ruins.

Architects were trying to reconstruct it.

Wrecking crews were deciding

in what way it would be a finished product.

The remnants of a lost deity

were collected for description.

The people who were there

piled stones to their creator.

The Myrmidons

who bent their backs to an overlord

were summoned by an agèd paraclete.

Everyone had found out

how to put the fragments together.

The thorn brake of ontology

was broken by one mind redivivus.

     

I gave cards to all the people in the street.

I wanted them to know

where I was to be buried.

The tombstone sank into the earth

deeper in February.

Alabaster columns

were in front of all our tombs.

I wanted to talk to the funeral director.

He felt that a casket should rise

and expand after it is closed,

like a French crescent roll.

I went to a funeral.

There was a graveyard for crucifixes,

but not for the dead.

There was a hearse that had

beaming headlights

and was a radiant black

and had curtains in the windows

that looked like white icing.

But I started to smell an old smell,

and I told myself,

“I have to get out of here 
as soon as I can.”

     

We came to a sacred place.

It had been erected from rocks

that had fallen out of the sky

from another planet.

The coloratura of divinity

outdistanced all thoughts of being.

The parson’s testimony

was mostly not taken.

His findings were inconclusive.

The answer that he found

measured zero on the Richter scale.

He didn’t know whether God was dead.

He lectured on the meaning of faith.

The evangelist had a marble in his mouth.

The heaven that was browsed upon by agnostics

was condensed into a tin can.

But the parson didn’t know

that they couldn’t be taught

how to run quickly.

Meridians of varying densities

were what they exalted.

His only remonstrance

was the subject of a baccalaureate.

He told us that answers were being given

by people with no questions.

The nature of divination

was characteristically arcane.

By way of metaphor,

he turned from cerebration

to seminars on how to cope.

Basic mechanics

were as necessary as grocery shopping.

     

We sang the Agnus Dei

and the Sursum Corda.

The life ever after,

and the resurrection.

The dogs were dead.

The curses of caves

were echoed with songs of faith.

The strumpet put on the mitre

of the archbishop.

Her labors brought her

to an altered epiphany.

The beauty of her ugliness.

The ugliness of her beauty.

     

I asked the parson about his sermon.

“If everything living were dead,

would there still be God?

If God is what has created life,

and there were no more life,

would there still be God?

Is God being?

Is God meaning? 

Is God a condition?

Is God a state of mind?

Is God the creator?

Is God in the past or present?

What does being closer to God mean?

Why do some people think

they're closer to God than others?

Who can tell someone else

what God is? 

If I ask whether this is God,

is that the same

as asking whether there is life?

If there is life,

does that mean there is God?”

     

I asked whether there is a point

at which life starts

in the physical structure of things.

Is there something mystical called life,

other than what is defined

by the physical structure of things?

Is there a point

at which an object in itself

becomes a living thing?

And who can define that point?

And why that point

and not another?

The man who had told me

about life and death

asked me if I had found out

where to start to look for life.

I said,

 “When I’ve found what I’m looking for,

I’m not sure I’ll know I’ve found it.

Because I’m involved in

a struggle with death.

Yes, I’ve seen death.

But I can’t hold death in my hands.

I can’t really know

what I’m struggling with.

When I’ve found

that I’ve lost the struggle for life,

death will already have taken that life.

I’ll have nothing to struggle for.

I want to find out

if whatever has lived will always have life.”

Time was traveling incredibly fast.

The frequency of radio waves

was all I could hear.

My brain waves

had become only alpha activity.

I was lost in heat, light, density,

time, space, numbers of events.

There was a new day,

and the time was coming.

I lived in a prehistoric forest

with an old man,

and we made a soup

with crushed plants.

The water we used

was heavy water.

The old man tested it

with a strip of litmus paper.

The litmus turned a color

that wasn’t defined by acid-base.

The old man drank,

and he was at the dawn of life.

He sharpened a stone

that he used to make a fire.

His invention was tested

on a frictionless wheel.

It was a time

when humankind

had not yet started

its history on the earth.

There were mud skulls on the ground

that had real teeth.

The eyes in the skulls were watching us.

The old man had a book

that was filled with recipes for truth.

The halo that surrounded his head

gave me a migraine.

He rededicated his parsimony

with an aspirin.

The outside of my brain was burning.

It was burning

between the pia mater and dura mater.

There was no ectoplasm or endoplasm.

There was no white matter or gray matter.

I felt as if I could do anything.

I could make myself invisible,

disintegrate matter

and reconstitute myself.

The flash uncoiled a spring

of orgasmic feeling.

I felt that if I were the dealer,

I could throw down.

I went to the school of mother wit.

I did improvisational dance steps

to boring speeches.

I grew images in a bouquet of flowers.

I copied mathematical equations

and subscribed to a philosophy of poverty.

I lived in a tree for twenty-three years,

and grew very dry.

I was an aesthete,

fascinated by denying myself macaroons.

I knelt on the floor of a cave,

and played marbles

with the stones on the floor.

I let vultures pick at my liver.

I denied there was any such thing

as the thing in itself.

Destination zero.

The beginning and the end.

And death infinity couldn't do me in.

I asked myself,

“What impulses do I want to control,

and what do I not want to control?

What impulses do I have?

If I controlled every impulse,

what would I have left?

Where would my impulses take me,

into a method or a lack of it?”

I was in a world

where smells, tastes, sounds,

images, and sensations

were all interchanged.

I could feel colors

and see sounds.

I could see

whatever colors I wanted.

I couldn’t shut

any doors of perception

without opening others.

We played with gyroscopes and radiometers.

The concepts of quantum physics

were totally within our understanding.

All computers were constructed 
in the image of Man.

Dirigibles collided in the air.

It was the earth that was moving,

and the sky that stood still.

The farmer opened his almanac.

He said, “If you’re not watching television

at the right moment,

you’ll probably not know

when the missiles are in the air,

and you won’t know

when there are a few minutes left

before the world is blown to smithereens.

The eclipse will be rhythmic,

and right-sided,

and soft caramel.

But the land masses were moving.

The waters were opening,

and the surface of the earth

was totally changed.

There were numberless continents.

The clouds that covered the earth

were only in one hemisphere.

The earth was spinning and rolling.

It had no orbit in relation to other planets.

There was no day or night.

Hardly any people were left.

The earth had no force of gravity.

Everything was vertical.

The surface of the earth

became impenetrable,

and as hard as plate glass.

Those that were left behind

clung to the earth with picks and axes.

The others had fallen off.

I lived in a realm of space

where there were no directions.

To travel in any direction

was to travel in all directions.

There was no here and there.

To be there,

and to be infinitely far away

were one and the same.

If you reach the center of things,

is there any other place to go?

If the universe is infinite,

doesn’t that make any point

the center of the universe?

I reached critical mass.

My circuits were connecting.

I reached someone else in the universe.

I was going to go off

with the force of a hydrogen bomb.

I told the man who’d told me

about life and death

that I thought I ‘d found life.

He said, “To be given birth

is to realize there is no death.

It was birth to come to life.

But before birth, you already had life.

Your being given birth

means that

there had to have been something

to be given birth.

Your life is a rebirth.

Birth, life, death.

Is death the end of life?

There is something in life

that doesn’t end in death.

When you’ve seen what death is,

then you’ll know

whether you are one with others.

When you become one with others,

then you’ll have found life.”