HW 30 - Psychological and Philosophical Theorizing of Cool

*While researching the term "Emptiness" I constantly found several Buddhist articles discussing this. This could because this religion has interesting and powerful insights explaining human emptiness or simply because no one else actually dedicates time thinking and theorizing about this. *

"Gotama Buddha said. when he was an old man, "This body like an old cart, held together by straps; this body only keeps going by makeshift repairs. The only way I can feel comfortable is to absorb my mind into signless concentration."

Based on this quote and based on the analysis of it in the article, I do think that even the Buddha are not satisfied with their own being. Often times we feel discomfort with ourselves so we feel the need of improvement. This improvement is based on many different factors, but all coming from what the majority think is "best". This would bring the recently studied concept of "Cool". If one is not satisfied and comfortable with himself then he would continue with these "makeshift repairs" as opposed to reflecting on his actions and desires and concentrate on accepting himself. By not doing so we only enforce the idea that we are indeed empty, and this is because we focus too much on the outside to realize what is on the inside. Unlike most Buddhist we adopt these different shapes and roles to identify ourselves and what we do. Without mentioning we believe that this is what we truly want and need (to become better!) and therefore spend so many hours working towards it. So then, Why are we still miserable if we are working towards what we WANT? I actually think that we do not care about ourselves at all. As long as our strong suit is Okay then the emptiness can remain, at least for now.

How does emptiness feel? In my own perspective emptiness is the feeling of awareness that your existence is not needed to anyone or anything. Although I cannot describe the discomfort of this feeling, I do know that it causes one person to become apathetic and have no satisfactory purpose in life. Others would argue that emptiness can be interpreted as a hole and as human beings we feel the need to feel this hole with whatever may be necessary to avoid feeling lonely.
And others would argue that it is simply one's perspective of experience. For example, as Thanissaro Bhikkhu said,

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

In other words this feeling of emptiness lies on our perspective of our world and people in it. It is possible that thinking differently about one self can lead this feeling to banish. This would lead to adopt other ways of being because we perceive our current self as unsatisfactory to a point that causes us to feel empty.

Whence this emptiness? This emptiness has many different sources. As discussed in class it could come from feeling isolated/misunderstood since early age or by the continuous lack of achievement. It is most likely that those who feel emptiness feel that something missing, but knowing what it is and how to get it is something most people do not know. Our culture suggests that in order to fill that emptiness we must live a fulfilled life. Because we focus too much on becoming something or someone "better" we do not think of the fact that one day we are going to die. Because of this we might not realize that all our hard work might be in futile, and this is because one day it will die with us and eventually be forgotten by everyone. However, thinking of this might actually bring more emptiness to our lives. What is the point if we are going to die anyways? Therefore I do not think that death or "the end" is actually the source of our emptiness, but the rejection and unacknowledgement of our being. I consider that either when our physicality or mentality is rejected then we begin to feel empty. It is ironic because nothing is actually being taken out from us to become in such way, but it is just a way to describe the feeling of loneliness.

Ultimately I think that the emptiness we feel is due to all the inauthenticity of our beings trying to become someone else or chase after some value to explain our existence and the rank of it, which would be how cool you are.

Having this in mind, how could we live without emptiness? In other words how could we live authentically?

I think that while living under some culture and idealism it is not possible to live authentically. And this is because we do not know who we truly are. As human beings we do not recognize ourselves as animals, which is what we truly are, therefore if we deny our identity from the very beginning how could we live truthfully? In other words I do not think we can live without this emptiness, just learn to live with it.

How does cool relate to our attempt to live in relation to this emptiness? As previously mentioned this emptiness is due to the inauthenticity in our lives. And at the same time we live our lives attempting to feel this emptiness with an absolute truth and label it reality only if we understand. Bikkhu Amaru explains his theory on the source of emptiness and examples of how the term of coolness might be interpreted. He said,

"when we talk about deathless, or the Absolute, of the goal, or the other shore, the mind goes a little bit blank trying to get a hold of it. Even in the way we speak about 'Nibbana'- 'Cooling down', 'Coolness' - we don't use any dramatic or emotive term, it's all a bit bland, non-descriptive. We talk about 'emptiness': the realisation of Absolute Truth, or of our true nature, the realisation of the non-conceptual pure mind, we describe as 'the ultimate emptiness'.

We use that kind of terminology not because there is nothing there, but because when the conceptual mind tries to grasp ultimate reality, since it cant be formed into a pattern, it finds that there is no THING there. It is like picking up a book in Chinese; if you can't read Chinese you are picking up a book in a foreign language. Here is a book, perhaps full of profound and wonderful teachings and pure truths, but you can't read the script, so it's meaningless. This is like the conceptual mind truing to grasp Ultimate Truth, the nature of the Godhead. The thinking mind says, 'Well what is it?" "How do you describe it?" "Where is it?" "Am I it?" "Am I not it?" It gropes for some kind of handle. In the same way, the thinking mind falls flat, as when trying to read a book in Chinese or Devanagari or whatever when it only knows English.

So because to the conceptual mind the experience of the Ultimate Truth has no form, it can be described as 'emptiness'. But the non-conceptual wisdom-mind, the realisation of Truth is like the Truth seeing itself. Pure Mind, aware of it's own nature.

Perhaps indeed only being fully aware of our own nature can make us realize that this emptiness is inauthentic. And that our need to know the absolute truth of our existence is perhaps nothing more than something to hold on to and understand it for the sake of our beings. We all need some type of explanation. Somewhere to belong. Otherwise we would feel incomplete and empty for not being a part of anything. Therefore as Amaru said, there is not actual term used to describe this emptiness. It is taken as a simple definition of our state as opposed to the right word to communicate our true feelings. In other words people adopt these different words, cool, empty, etc. without actually knowing if these are actually accurate to what they are or feel. People simple adapt to this vocabulary and use it to "describe" emotions. I do not think that it is honest to say that "I am empty" when a person is actually in reality never empty. Otherwise he would be dead.

Sources

Emptiness

Emptiness and Pure Awareness