You have to make the pilgrimage to truth yourself
Maverick Philosopher Bill Vallicella concludes a blog post titled “On Hitchens and Death”, by suggesting that “if materialism is true, then I think Nietzsche is right: truth is not a value; life-enhancing illusions are to be preferred. If truth is out of all relation to human flourishing, why should we value it?”
Paul Tillich, on the other hand, wrote that “being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.”
Of course, Tillich presumed that truth is a value precisely because he did not believe — as I presume Vallicella doesn’t, either — that materialism is true.
But suppose someone pursued the truth “religiously” and concluded, to his great hurt, but inescapably, that materialism is true. This would lead him, presumably, to reject “religion” in any conventional sense. But that would be the “religious” thing to do, if Tillich is right and the passionate inquiry into the meaning of existence is what religion is all about. Hard to see how finding out that the answer to the question is that existence has no meaning would change that.
The problem with the notion that a life-enhancing illusion would be preferable to such a truth is that once one knows something to be true it is pretty hard to counter it with what one knows to be an illusion. People may believe things that are not true, but not because they are untrue.
There is another problem as well, and that is that truth is not exclusively — or even primarily — a matter of thought. The only truth worth embracing is a living truth, one that is a product of experience, not ratiocination.
I am not an irrationalist. I have the greatest respect for the intellect. I use it all the time, I hope correctly.
I also like philosophy. But philosophy as an academic discipline is not the same as philosophy as a way of life, and a professor of philosophy may not necessarily be a philosopher. I’m sure there are people who are both, but I have met a number of people with graduate degrees in philosophy who struck me as being among the least philosophical of humans.
I am writing this in a cabin in the middle of a woods overlooking a stream that, this summer, had mostly dried up — though now, thanks to a steady, ongoing rain, it has swollen to something more than its usual burbling self.
I have been reading Basho up here. The great haiku master is a perfect companion for a trip to the mountains. Reading him, though, I got to thinking about why I read him.
In large part, it is because — like the Zen masters and certain mystics — he prompts you to feel that the key to the meaning of life is right there under your nose — in the sound of a frog jumping into a pond, at the sight of some blossoms scarcely visible beneath a hedge — just waiting to be noticed. He certainly reminds us that truth is something to be encountered, not figured out.
We imagine that if the sort of encounter Basho hints at over and over could happen to us we could make our way through life serene and content, unperturbed by its slings and arrows, pitfalls and pain. In other words, our pursuit of enlightenment is another subset in our pursuit of pleasure. We do not want to know the truth for its own sake, no matter what. We want to know it because we think it will make us feel good.
Basho’s life was by no means serene. His health was frail He died at 50. The pilgrimages he undertook in the final decade of his life were often arduous:
Exhausted
Seeking an inn:
Wisteria flowers.
This is Robert Aitken’s translation, in A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen. Aitken notes that “Basho traveled on foot, often in rather poor health,” and he translates a passage from Basho’s journal describing the experience leading up to this poem:
Most of the things I had brought for my journey turned out to be impediments and I threw them away. However, I still carried my paper robe, my straw raincoat, ink stone, paper, lunch box, and other things on my back — quite a load for me. More and more my legs grew weaker and my body lost strength. Making wretched progress, with knees trembling, I carried on as best I could, but I was utterly weary.
Basho’s exhaustion was real, overwhelming and not at all pleasant. It was also integral to the experience recorded in the haiku. His joy in the wisteria blossoms is inseparable from the pain he endured.
This haiku seems to me a perfect illustration of truth as something that must be experienced, not simply thought about. But the experience can only be hinted at. No one can tell you the truth, because the truth for you must be something that you encounter on your own. Basho can point you in the right direction. But you have to make the pilgrimage yourself, on your own dime.
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Hi Frank,
Wonderful article to read in the morning. Thank you.
As a footnote, as I bet you’d know, Robert Aitken was born in Philly in 1917, and died this month, on the 5th at 93:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-robert-aitken-20100810,0,7194137.story
Yours,
Rus
Nice stuff, Frank.
Reminded me of a thought experiment I’ve been contemplating. In short, even though I’m a crusty-atheistic-material plane-kind of guy, I recognize that prayer, for example, has quantifiable benefits. And I’ve started to wonder about the “placebo effect” of prayer, and “placebo theism” and if I could access all of that without actually submitting to religion, or God.
I’ve read somewhere that placebos can supposedly cure 30% of diseases. Granted, I’m suspicious of how accurate that figure is, and it does sound like B.S. on its face. Nevertheless, supposing that the number is semi-accurate, or at least a half-mile from the ballpark, I wonder if a non-believer such as myself can somehow reap the benefits of a placebo in this way.
Secular psychonaut-types go this route when they consume mushrooms and ayahuasca plants; they “access the divine” through material means. They submit to (what some of them believe is) a deception and experience mental/intellectual stimulation, which a lot of them characterize as spiritual enlightenment.
And I’m curious — with no disrespect to believers — given that I adhere to the shrill Dawkins’ idea of god as an illusion, does that preclude me from applying the duplicitous reasoning of noted philosopher and Yankee employee George Costanza, who once said:
“Remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
What would one call this tack? An exploitation of Pascal’s Wager? A cynical short-cut to transcendence? It’s been buzzing around in my head for some time now.
Well, Michael, I don’t believe in the God Dawkins doesn’t believe in, either, because it strikes me as an unimaginative 11-year-old’s version of God. I found reviewing Dawkins’s book painful because he knows next to nothing about either philosophy or theology and made no effort to learn about either. That said, most God talk is idol-talk, arguments over ideas about what Tillich called the ground of being, and John Hick calls the Reality behind ordinary reality, what the Greeks called the Logos, and the Chinese the Tao. I think the fundamental choice is between a view of being as vital or a view of it as strictly mechanical. Since our direct experience of life is vital, I prefer to go with that, after which it is all a mystery. Experience trumps all theories, and just because we can’t explain something in terms of our favorite notions, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Meister Eckhart said that if the only prayer we ever utter is “Thank You,” it will be enough. So I don’t think one has to subscribe to a notion of an “unmoved mover” to think that there is something wise and vital at the very heart of being and, from time to time, raise one’s mind and heart toward it. What would I call what’s been buzzing around in your head? An insightful hunch. And I always go with my hunches.
“The problem with the notion that a life-enhancing illusion would be preferable to such a truth is that once one knows something to be true it is pretty hard to counter it with what one knows to be an illusion. People may believe things that are not true, but not because they are untrue.”
I would argue that it is almost impossible to believe an illusion once you know it to be an illusion — so it’s not even a real choice. Like trying to re-see one of those mirages on a highway, once you know it is not a puddle.
“”We imagine that if the sort of encounter Basho hints at over and over could happen to us we could make our way through life serene and content, unperturbed by its slings and arrows, pitfalls and pain. In other words, our pursuit of enlightenment is another subset in our pursuit of pleasure. We do not want to know the truth for its own sake, no matter what.”
But I want to drink all the cups that are offered, right down to the bottom — whether they are serene or not! That’s one way to keep it from being a subset in the pursuit of pleasure.
Or is that another way of saying what Tillich said?
“I would argue that it is almost impossible to believe an illusion once you know it to be an illusion …” I quite agree.
Though there is the problem of knowing what is good for you — say, not taking that third drink — and taking it anyway, which is a kind of self-delusion. But I’m with you: If it’s the truth you say you want, then don’t complain when it turns out to be different from what you expected. Of course, there is then the problem of criteriology. I think what one must have reverence for is the mystery of being — accepting the possibility at least that it cannot be fully — or perhaps even adequately — explained.
“what is good for you…” The way I look at it: You paid for the whole movie. You don’t walk out of a theater because you got to the sad part, or the suspenseful part. You want to see the whole movie, and how it all ends — even if it’s a tragedy.
You’re tough, Cynthia. But am forced to agree.
With those words said, Frank & Cynthia, I want to revisit that quoted Basho paragraph:
“We imagine that if the sort of encounter Basho hints at over and over could happen to us we could make our way through life serene and content, unperturbed by its slings and arrows, pitfalls and pain. In other words, our pursuit of enlightenment is another subset in our pursuit of pleasure. We do not want to know the truth for its own sake, no matter what.”
The idea of the Zen masters sitting in a lotus position always struck me as “pursuit of enlightenment” as subset of “pursuit of pleasure”–not that it necessarily is. No monk in a room full of monks chanting “Ohm” were ever writhing in pain from doing so. They rather seemed to be serene in their enlightenment journey(s).
And Buddha laughs. This becomes important when we imagine the Sci-Fi versions of possible realities that project this world as part of a system of suffering, or when philosophies try to blow in the directions of all being mundane. The nature of these encounters give us a hint that neither can be so, if we include them in our set of “givens” with which we then proceed into our suppositions.
The encounters that Basho had on his journeys, were not painful as such either. We don’t read his, or any haiku from the Tang Dynasty, for the painful truths they bring to us. They are rather shamanistic in the sense that we read them to glimpse the “aha” that was there for Basho, and is there, at least in a glimpse, for us. Haiku, in this sense, can be pinhole penetrations, to what is outside our ratiocination, and there to inform our conversations.
On the other hand, our conversations and arguments that branch out from our ratiocination are too often simply part of our times, and too far out on the limbs of our politics, foci, and fears within our cultures. When the wind blows another way, the brashness of a new generation takes over the philosophy departments, say, or a decidedly different government takes control, where the ousted or previous thinkers went with their reasoning, can flutter away like leaves in the fall.
But the insight from the experiences of enlightenment remain what they always were, ready to establish a new base. Basho’s haiku transcends times and cultures. We still “get” them. As a corollary, this is one of the reasons that poets can be dangerous to regimes, which want to control what people think.
Hi Rus,
I agree almost entirely. But, if I read Robert Aitken’s commentaries on Basho’s haiku correctly, the suffering in a necessary constituent of the aha! moment. To pursue enlightenment for its own sake surely is different from pursuing it in the hope that it will enable us to feel good all the time. Of course, genuine enlightenment, I suppose, would enable one to face suffering with equanimity.
Best,
F
Hi Frank,
That suffering exists is a given. But that enlightenment, in the sense of the mystic or transcendental anyway, brings suffering is not. One may suddenly regret having done something, but that is not part of the mystic, only part of the journey.
Another side to this, though, a forgotten thought in what I was going to write above, is that, even after one’s greatest enlightenment, the greatest anchor one could internalize from a transcendental experience, or the greatest combination of all of them in the most enlightened person ever, one still needs to re-enter the mundane world, to be part of it, and to a large degree not to face suffering with such equanimity. We are here to be part of the world we are in, and to be us in it, to be part of “the whole movie” as Cynthia put it.
Yours,
Rus