The second half of Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion (2nd semester of 2014) was taught by Dr. Milos Hubina. The focus was mainly on the cognitive approach to religion. This essay is the first one for this part, but the third of the course. It is undoubtedly highly technical and difficult to read.
The question raised as the topic of this essay is simple and straightforward. Can we count experiences from vipassanā, a Buddhist meditation technique, as mystical experience? My pursuit comes out of a controversy between constructive and perennial approaches to mystical experience. On one hand, Robert M. Gimello, who is on constructivist camp, insists that vipassanā or Buddhist path as the whole is not relevant to be counted as mystical experience because it still has a kind of interpretation or analytic component. On the other hand, Milos Hubina, my mentor, who more or less sides with perennialist camp, contends that vipassanā is in fact by all means mystical experience. My task is to evaluate both claims and offer my own view on this issue. At first I will present general ideas about the topic, and then try to elucidate the point. In the end I will open my cards and offer another way out.
What is vipassanā?
In the Pāli canon, the word vipassanā is rarely used. The word itself means ‘insight.’ In the context to be discussed, this word usually appears together with samatha, “calm, serenity, or tranquility.” The distinction between the two words shows that there are two approaches to the Buddhist way of practice. We can combine two words together forming the Buddhist Meditation, an essential component of the Noble Eightfold Path—the path to liberation.
The distinction between samatha and vipassanā described in Aṅguttara Nikāya (Numerical Discourses) describes two kinds of liberation. We liberate mind from lust by serenity (samatha) and we liberate ourselves from ignorance by wisdom or insight (vipassanā).
Bhikkhus, these two things pertain to true knowledge. What two? Serenity and insight. When serenity is developed … The mind is developed. When the mind is developed … Lust is abandoned. When insight is developed … Wisdom is developed. When wisdom is developed … Ignorance is abandoned.
A mind defiled by lust is not liberated, and wisdom defiled by ignorance is not developed. Thus, bhikkhus, through the fading away of lust there is liberation of mind, and through the fading away of ignorance there is liberation by wisdom.
There is no connection between the two in the sutra above. It is like two tools with different purposes. But in other place, the Venerable Ānanda gives guidance that serenity can either be developed before or after insight, or they can be developed in conjunction. This shows that the two methods have a connection in some way. It also shows that the sequence of development does not matter, but cultivation of both is important.
And in another place, the Buddha says, “A bhikkhu may be endowed with faith and virtuous, and he may gain internal serenity of mind, but he does not gain the higher wisdom of insight into phenomena; thus he is incomplete with respect to that factor.” This shows that, to the Buddha, development of serenity is not enough. Developing insight has more substantial value.
As we have seen, on theoretical ground we have a clear picture that there are two tasks for practitioners to accomplish: (1) making one’s mind calm by samatha and (2) liberating oneself by vipassanā. But on practical ground we have some problem. There is no clear demarcation between samatha and vipassanā. In the canonical text, the two practices are mixed together. What we call the Right Concentration is explained in the suttas as the development of jhāna. This explanation is clearly at odds with Visuddhimagga that classifies jhāna as samatha. (I will not touch the issue of this discrepancy here.)
It is later scholars who make samatha and vipassanā practices more systematic and distinguishable, for instance, in Visuddhimagga as mentioned above, typically the explanation on mindfulness of breathing. In Visuddhimagga, samatha is associated with jhāna, which makes one calm or absorbed; and vipassanā is associated with contemplation on three characteristics, i.e., ever-changing, painful, and non-self of things, which makes one see things as they are. However, for some practitioners it is difficult to draw a line, as shown by this explanation of Ajahn Chah:
Meditation is like a plank of wood. Let’s say vipassanā is one end of the plank and samatha is the other. If you were to pick the plank up, would just one end come up or would both of them? Of course, when you pick up the plank, both ends come up together. What is vipassanā? What is samatha? They are the mind itself.
Let me recap here before we go further. Samatha and vipassanā are somehow a conceptual invention of scholars to represent the two approaches of Buddhist practice. If someone goes on the right track, the two are indispensable. If we talk about Buddhist meditation, we must embrace both. Only in theory can two things be separated. Even though vipassanā is more analytic in nature, it is wrong to say that vipassanā does not bring serenity, because while we investigate something, our mind calm down to some degree. And when we practice samatha until some level of calm is reached, we must take phenomena experienced into investigation. (How much calm is needed is another problem. But it seems unproblematic practically, since from both theory and practitioners’ experience, as far as we are conscious, any level of calm is workable.) Only by this manner can it be counted as Buddhist meditation, at least in Theravāda traditions.
What is mystical experience?
William James (1842–1910) proposed four marks that characterize mystical experience. The first is ineffability, the experience somehow defies description in words. The second is noetic quality in the sense that mystical states are states of knowledge, insight or illumination. The third is transiency, the states rarely last for a long time. And the fourth is passivity, the circumstances cannot be induced to order at will, or one’s will is suspended.
Many other writers have made different lists but nearly all include these four qualities. Robert Gimello made a list of six characteristics: a feeling of oneness, a strong confidence in objectivity of the experience, a sense of ineffability, a cessation of normal intellectual operations, a sense of the coincidence of opposites, and an extraordinarily strong affective tone. We can find three of James’s list in Gimello’s, transiency is not mentioned by the latter. I think Gimello believes that the effect of this kind of experience can last for a long time.
However, we can get the key idea here. Mystical experience is a direct experience that one who feels it cannot describe in any way, like we cannot describe the taste of salt. This experience cannot be controlled at will, and it has a strong sense of reality, nothing can be real than that.
Buddhist meditation and mystical experience
If we associate samatha with jhāna as Buddhaghosa does in Visuddhimagga, samatha can be understood by five factors, i.e., applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, pleasure, and equanimity. The deeper we go in jhāna, the fewer factors will be presented. At the final stage, only equanimity remains. (I am concerned only rūpa jhāna here.) In Visuddhimagga, equanimity means one-pointed concentration fixed on a single object. At this stage, physical body and changing phenomena are not experienced. The mind is fully absorbed with concentration, and the will is suspended. By this account, we can regard samatha as mystical experience, so does Gimello.
How about vipassanā? According to Visuddhimagga, the practitioners must leave the one-pointed state of jhāna before they take the phenomena into contemplation. That is because in fully absorbed state it is too deep to discern anything. This contemplation in vipassanā is not an intellectual activity. It is just an observation with a high degree of attention, and the reality will appear by itself. We do not impose anything on the process. Therefore, we can regard vipassanā by this account as a mystical experience as well. I think the state of mind in vipassanā is not too far from samatha, even the two states have different objects, if we approach to the jhāna first.
Does Gimello miss this point when he rejects vipassanā as a mystical experience? I think the point he does not regard vipassanā as a mystical experience is about interpretation, not the meditative state. Once we perceive something, we must interpret it in some way. To Gimello, we are able to perceive nothing in samatha, but not in vipassanā. Interpretation is a kind of intellectual activity that comes together with perception, so vipassanā is not a mystical experience that all intellectual activities are dropped.
Is contemplating phenomena with three marks—impermanence, unbearableness, and non-self—a kind of interpretation? If we see things ever-changing and unbearable, is it an interpretation? I think Gimello is off the mark on this point. Perceiving something changing and unbearable is not an intellectual activity. It is like we see some colors, or undergo some pain. But contemplating on non-self is more elusive, because the concept of ‘self’ itself is intellectual invention at the first go. (We can understand it as our natural cognitive process, but I will not go that far.)
To see something as non-self, we must impose the notion of ‘self’ on it first and reject it later. What is the difference between meditation that seeks non-self and meditation that seeks true-self? It is conceptual presupposition that makes the difference. Now, Gimello’s argument seems to have some merit. We really do impose some concept in vipassanā process. The notion of ‘self’ is a conceptual categorization, even though it is very natural to us and common to all human culture, even in some animal species. It seems to me the constructivist position is more tenable here.
There is another point worth mentioning here. In Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa recognizes what he calls bare-insight or dry-insight worker, who has not made the jhāna the basis for insight. Only the first jhāna, thoughts do not fully subside, does the bare-insight worker possesses. Whether we count this kind of experience mystical or not? If so, there will be a problem of degree subsequently. How deep the meditative state that can be counted as mystical? And what will be different between doing some meditation and watching a movie? In the theater, we lose the sense of our self, many thoughts come and go, we undergo some rapture, pleasure, and pain, and we have one point of concentration with a variety of content. At the end we might also undergo some significant shift in character and ethical concern. Mystical or not?
Conclusion and reflection
Perhaps, I offer more questions rather than providing a definite answer. That is because this issue is indeed very elusive because it deals with subjective experiences. I evade at all costs in this essay to talk about ‘pure consciousness’ and link this event to meditation. To my view, only consciousness is enough in Theravāda Buddhist doctrine. This consciousness, like other phenomena, is conditioned. It has no its ‘pure’ form. I feel somewhat startled when Robert Forman associates nirodhasamapatti with pure consciousness, because to my understanding nirodhasamapatti is the state that consciousness itself ceases, not just sensation and perception. That is why I focus around only on vipassanā.
Another point I want to make here is the Buddhist path is more than meditation, and Buddhist meditation is more than the way to induce mystical experience. Undoubtedly, mystical experience plays a very significant role in Buddhist practice including by the Buddha himself. But from the early Pāli sources, very early disciples of the Buddha, such as the first five monks, the Jaṭila, Sāriputta, Yasa, to name only a few, liberated by just listening and contemplation.
In the same line of thought, I resonate with Gimello’s idea. Enlightenment has nothing to do with mystical experience, at least as the direct cause. Enlightenment is about understanding not just abiding in some unusual state of mind. Since such a state of mind can be also induced by drugs. If vipassanā is the heart of Buddhist practice, we can conclude here that it is not necessary to be a mystical experience.
As we have seen so far, I suggest that it is better to separate mystical experience from liberation, and we should study mystical experience and consciousness itself by scientific means, not notoriously vague anecdote-based phenomenology of subjective experience. (There is no ‘pure consciousness’ is cognitive science’s vocabulary, because consciousness itself is an emergent phenomenon that comes out of many components working together. There is no monolithic entity called consciousness, let alone its pure form.)
Also we must understand liberation in a holistic way, not just a part of some experience. While many kinds of experience are common among human beings, many experiences share the same physical and brain states, liberation is grounded on culture. We learn the concept of liberation from culture, or cultures. We practice the way we choose in some culture. And finally we are liberated within that culture, or by that culture’s definition.
Someone who seeks emancipation from the illusion of self may share the same psychological states and brain states with someone who seeks the ultimate self, or someone who seeks the unison with God. If we separate liberation from mystical experience and see vipassanā as a Buddhist technology, a better way to response to the question “Is vipassanā a mystical experience?” is “It is a wrong question” or “Anything goes.”
Finally, it seems that I side with constructivist camp rather than perennialist. I admit so. However, I still believe that all human experiences have some universal commonality, and this commonality does not go far beyond our body. Since we are all body-bound beings, and by no means can we go beyond this condition.
Notes