That is, we may divorce our spiritual practice from the science on which our whole society depends. There is also a terrible danger in refusing to be intellectual about spiritual matters. Like “Who am I?”, “What is this?” or (one I have struggled with) “What drives you?”. You can bring a question to such a state of intellectual confusion that it can be held, poised, in all its complexity and simplicity. In my own tradition of practice, Zen, there is much room for intellectual struggle for example, in the cultivation of the “don’t know mind,” or in working with koans. It is true that intellectual understanding is not the same as realisation, but this does not mean it is useless. Some say there is no point in striving for an intellectual understanding of spiritual matters. These are just fictions – part of the story the brain tells itself about a self within (Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992 Dennett, 1991).
The more we learn about the way the brain functions the less it seems to need a central controller, a little person inside, a decider of decisions or an experiencer of experiences. The most obvious (and scary) conclusion from modern neuroscience is that there is simply no one inside the brain. And what’s more they nearly all involve “me.” It is a short step to wondering who this suffering self is, and why “I” can’t stop the thoughts.įinally clues come from science. From the truly trivial to the emotionally entangling, they go on and on. Typically these are not wise and wonderful thoughts, or even useful and productive thoughts, but just endless chatter.
#PILLARS OF ETERNITY DREAM AND MEMORY FULL#
Probably the first thing that anybody discovers when they try to meditate, or be mindful, is that their mind is constantly full of thoughts. Other clues come from spiritual practice. Some clues come from spontaneous mystical experiences in which people “see the light!,” realise that everything is one, and go “beyond self” to see the world “as it really is.” They feel certain that the new way of seeing is better and truer than the old (though of course they could be mistaken!). However, there are many clues that this ordinary view is false. This makes no sense to someone who looks around and is convinced there is a real world out there and a self who perceives it. There is a long history, in spiritual and religious traditions, of the idea that normal waking life is a dream or illusion. From what are we to awaken? And how? My answers will be “From the meme dream” and “By seeing that it is a meme dream.” But it may take me some time to explain! These are the questions I want to tackle today. What do you mean, “wake up”? I’m already awake. How silly! Of course, now I see it wasn’t real at all. I really thought I had to escape from the slurb, and it mattered terribly to get to the cupboard in time. Errrr, ummmm, grrrrggr, Oh yes, I’m awake now.