by Greg Goode
The realist critique also depends on a notion of awareness as a container of content. This kind of idea about awareness has been termed “the container metaphor.”7 Being a container is fine for a can of soup, but it’s not a helpful analogy for awareness. Awareness isn’t a physical object and has no border between an inside and an outside. In fact, the container metaphor gets special attention in the direct path. You investigate it and find that it doesn’t make any sense. You discover that there’s no experiential basis for a belief in ideas such as objective existence beyond awareness.
The realist critique’s other misunderstanding is based in the goals it attributes to the direct path. The direct path doesn’t have those goals. The direct path doesn’t attempt to make empirical, objective claims about the existence of objects. It’s not saying, “I have searched the entire region outside of awareness, and I can assure you there’s nothing out there.”
Instead, the direct path says that if we go by experience, there’s no basis for the various dualisms and separations, such as inside of awareness versus outside of awareness, self versus other, subject versus object, existence versus non-existence, separation versus togetherness, and happiness versus unhappiness. These dualisms seem convincing from the perspective of being a person, and they make us suffer. The direct path shows us that if we follow experience, we don’t need to believe these dualities. We don’t need to suffer. The realist critique is further discussed in chapter 6, “Witnessing Awareness—Introduction.”
The direct path doesn’t seek to devalue the vocabulary of the mind or the body. If you’re a psychotherapist or neurologist, the direct path doesn’t ask you to find different employment or require you to abandon conceptual vocabularies that speak of minds, brains, or perceptual objects. As you study the direct path, however, you may come to think of those professional vocabularies differently. You may even come up with creative new approaches in your field!
The Direct Path Is Flexible
Sometimes teachers of the direct path speak in different ways about the same things. In books, meetings, or videos, sometimes you’ll hear “The world is seen through,” but then you’ll hear “There is no world.” Or you’ll hear a lot of talk about the witness, but then you’ll hear that the witness dissolves. Or, as part of an experiment (as in chapter 6), you’ll be told to place an orange on the table. And then you’ll be invited to discover that no orange can be found!
What’s going on? Do these things exist or not? Why the inconsistencies? Is there a stable language that we can rely on to be consistently true across all these situations?
The direct path, like other paths, isn’t trying to create a mirror image of the world and report on things using accurate labels. Instead, it’s designed to be in affinity with the student. It works with the student’s own concepts and perspectives in order to provide freedom from attachment. The student’s concepts and perspectives change over time, and so does the direct-path language that addresses it. The direct path isn’t alone in this regard. Other paths of inquiry, such as traditional Advaita Vedanta and Prasangika Madhyamika, employ flexibility in a similar way.
For example, in the beginning, you think that the orange really exists. It really seems to be out there, separate from you. You also feel as if you’re “in here,” perhaps inside the body. You feel separate from the orange and the rest of the world.
But this changes as you investigate. At some point, it doesn’t feel as if the orange is separate anymore. But other things feel separate, such as the power of choice or attention, or the standard of excellence for judging spiritual paths. And then at some point it doesn’t feel as if these are separate. It may feel as if only arisings are separate. Things get more subtle, and your sense of separation diminishes accordingly. The language of the direct path is sensitive to these changes. It’s sensitive to the way you think and communicate as a student. It tries to meet you where you are, not where it’s trying to push you. One of the benefits of this sensitivity is that the direct path doesn’t prescribe an official “non-dual” way of talking. This gives you a great deal of freedom as a student and communicator.
Sometimes teachers of non-dual paths talk about the “relative level” and the “absolute level.” The direct path takes a considerably more nuanced approach to communication. Although it occasionally speaks in terms of these levels of reality, it speaks more often about perspectives. And there are many more than two perspectives. It’s helpful to see the path as a developmental, temporal process, always in flux. As a student, you change as you go. Each time your understanding becomes clearer, your perspective shifts, even if just a little. In these shifts, also called “sublations,” your previous model of the world is deconstructed into a simpler, more non-dual model. These sublations continue until you’ve reached freedom from models altogether. Some of the shifting language in the direct path has to do with meeting you where you are in terms of these sublations.
Another part of the shifting language in the direct path has to do with the rhetorical flexibility that all languages have. Let’s say a book about the direct path tells you to begin an experiment by placing an orange on the table. So you go get an orange. You place it on the table so that you can do the experiment. Then the steps in the experiment lead you through several stages. With the help of these steps, you see that in your direct experience, no orange can be found and that the only thing in evidence is awareness itself. The author of the experiment didn’t have to believe the orange truly exists in order to be able to write the experiment. The steps of the experiment aren’t trying to contradict or falsify the setup instructions. It’s just that they use language in different ways.
You could see this as a rhetorical register shift. The setup instructions are communicating in the rhetoric of an instructor who deals in the vocabulary of everyday objects such as tables, chairs, and the student’s bodily position. The instructions aren’t meant to imply that any of these items truly exist. As you read a bit further, a register shift happens. The steps in the experiment use a different vocabulary, one that helps you attune to your direct experience.
These register shifts are a natural part of language itself. Also, the direct path takes a self-aware, nonreferential approach to language. In the direct path, language is used in a way that doesn’t entail the truly separate existence of anything. In fact, I wrote this entire book in the mode of joyful irony. For more about these topics, see chapter 3, “The Language of Joyful Irony,” and chapter 10, “After Awareness: The End of the Path.”
Which Path Is the “Highest”?
As a student inquiring into the direct path, you may want to know which is the best and highest path. You may feel sure that there is a best and highest. You don’t want to follow the wrong path and end up in the wrong place. You don’t even want to end up in a second-best place. Thus you may feel as though you should perform your due diligence and settle this issue before you get started.
The direct path doesn’t argue that it’s the best or quickest or truest path. It doesn’t critique other paths. It doesn’t say that they’re wrong if they disagree about the idea of witnessing awareness. Instead, the direct path leaves it up to you, the student. If you feel an intuitive connection to the idea of a brilliant, loving clarity that unifies things, then this may attract you to the direct path. But if you don’t feel this intuitive connection, you’ll most likely encounter other paths that resonate more deeply with your experience, and the direct path won’t consider you wrong or misguided for going a different way. If you ask in all seriousness about the highest path, a teacher of the direct path may say that paths are tools, and the most effective path is the one you resonate with the most. The same teacher might say that paths are nothing more than arisings in awareness.
But these responses probably won’t hit the spot if there’s a deep yearning behind your question. You may feel sure that there’s a best path. Reality must have an optimal description, mustn’t it? You may want someone to direct you to the optima
l path, not to give you lukewarm, evasive, or relativistic answers. If there’s a best path, you want to know about it, whether you resonate with it or not. You want the highest, maximal enlightenment.
The question about which path is best gets its force from various objectivist assumptions people already have about experience and reality. They assume that spiritual attainment is a fixed quantity that can be measured as if it were a vertical distance (the “highest” path). They also assume that there’s an independent standard of preeminent excellence that would decide in favor of one path over all others.
These objectivist assumptions aren’t about rocks and trees but about subtle objects such as language, states, and standards of truth. As objectivist assumptions, they’re perfectly analogous to broad assumptions about the existence of the world, the body, and the mind. The direct path doesn’t grant the truth of these assumptions and point out the objectively best path. Instead, it invites you to look at the assumptions behind the question. The assumptions presume that things truly exist outside of awareness. The direct path helps you look into this presumption and discover that it makes no sense.
Another way to look at this is as a play of concepts. The idea of a best path is a concept. When you discover that concepts and their purported referents are unfindable in your direct experience, then any questions you have about the best path subside into peace, harmony, and contentment.
Chapter 2
The Path and the Heart
King: Venerable teacher, I have summoned you here to teach me non-dualism.
Teacher: Very well, Your Majesty. But first, please allow me to teach you compassion.
King: I want to learn non-dualism first, then compassion.
Teacher: Your Majesty, I heard that you weren’t happy with your previous teacher and that you had him put to death. If I teach you non-dualism first, you might do the same to me. And then you wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn compassion. But if I am able to teach you compassion first, you will learn both.
How should we treat others? Non-dual teachings, particularly Western versions, haven’t said much about the matter. In this chapter, I explore ethics, altruism, and compassion in the context of the direct path. But this is an exploration only—I have no final answers or prescriptions. The topic is rich enough to fill a small library, and I’d simply like to open lines of discussion so that we all may further integrate ethics into our lives. As I said, this is only an exploration.
I believe that non-dual teachings should say more about some sort of kindness, respect, and love. Some of my reflections are highly personal, because engagement with ethics is an individual matter. This chapter is based on my experiences around ethics that I’ve found helpful with non-dual inquiry. I explore several reasons in favor of including such ethical topics in non-dual teachings. I also examine the strongest popular arguments against the inclusion of ethics in non-dual teachings.
It’s not too soon to talk seriously about ethics and non-duality. The non-dual community is more mature and experienced with non-dual teachings than it was in the late 1980s, when the teachings were new and exotic in the West. Even though the question of ethics comes up easily enough when we hear of scandals involving gurus, there’s wide disagreement about whether ethics should be integrated into non-dual teachings and, if so, how. I’m voting yes on “whether,” but I have no general answer on “how.” I just feel as though it’s time to talk about it.
How Can There Be Conduct Toward Others When There Are No Others?
I consider the question of how to treat others a different issue from the typical non-dual question “Are there others?” (I investigate this in chapter 7, “The Opaque Witness.”) I’m in favor of embracing kindness toward others, even if non-dual investigation reveals that there are no separate others and no personal self. There are several reasons why. One reason is that the no-separate-existence question is global, and it isn’t restricted to persons. In the beginning of the non-dual path, everything—persons, tables, chairs, homes, and monthly bills—seems to exist in an independent, separate way. But as you proceed, this global sense of separation diminishes. Even though non-dual investigation reveals that there are no truly existent others, it also reveals that there are no tables, chairs, homes, or monthly bills. Everything is on a par in this way. Realizing the truth of things, you can continue to treat tables, chairs, homes, and monthly bills as if they exist, but in a joyfully ironic way (see chapter 3). There’s just as much reason to treat others well.
Another reason I consider the question of how to treat others to be separate from the question about the actual existence of others is this: at the beginning and middle stages of the direct path, it certainly seems as though there are others, even if you want to believe that there aren’t. I’ve even heard non-dualist students claim that there are no others and yet sooner or later complain about the poor treatment they received from another person. So why not bring a bit of Golden Rule insight into your non-dual approach and treat so-called others as you (also so-called) would like to be treated?
There’s one more clarification I’d like to make before getting started. In thinking about this chapter, I wanted a term that I could use to talk about this entire issue. What should I call the kind of teachings that I’m advocating? In Buddhism, these teachings are about compassion. In Vedanta, they’re sometimes referred to as dharmic living, and sometimes love. Western monotheistic traditions speak of caritas: loving your neighbor or acting as God would have you act. Ancient Greek philosophers spoke of civic virtue.
Philosophers and scholars of comparative religion use the term “ethics” as an overall label for these issues. For the purposes of this chapter, I would like to follow their lead, with one critical distinction.
The concept of ethics—even the word “ethics” itself—has an unpleasant connotation for many people. It brings up images of overbearing, dogmatic, and abusive authority figures. It may bring up memories of personal experience with rules and laws, manipulation, threats, fear, and physical punishment. Some people who grow up with dogmatic ethics end up feeling a lifelong aversion to the very idea of ethics.
In fact, many people have moved from traditional Western religions to modern non-dual paths partly because of the freedom from dogmatic ethics they perceive in non-dualism. Non-dualism is free from the intolerant moralistic heaviness that can accompany traditional religions.
But ethics has also been taught in a generous, loving, heart-centered way, even in traditional Western religions. This chapter is about heart-centered ethics. Examples are the teachings communicated by Christian gospel music and the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37); by Buddhist metta meditations; and by the selfless service tradition of seva in Hinduism, in which others are seen as manifestations of divinity or global awareness and in which our actions should manifest ahimsa (the absence of harm). Each of these examples teaches love in an inspiring, heart-opening, non-punitive way. In fact, for the rest of this chapter, if I use the word “ethics,” I’m usually referring to heart-centered ethics.
I would like to encourage those who articulate non-dual teachings, including myself, to incorporate an emphasis on heart-centered ethics.
There are many different systems of ethics. In this book, I’m not arguing for one specific ethical system among others. Rather, my point is that non-dual teachings should include some emphasis on ethical teachings, rather than omitting or rejecting ethics altogether.
Why Ethics?
Why am I in favor of including rather than excluding ethics? My preferences are based on my own experiences, as well as on respect for the traditional paths upon which most non-dual teachings are based. I have two fundamental reasons to prefer that ethics be a part of non-dual teachings. One is that, years before I ever encountered non-dual teachings, learning to care for others made me happier, kinder, and more peaceful. Of course, receiving heart-centered ethics teachings is no guarantee that a person will be happier or kinder. But I think the odds favor i
t.
The other reason that I advocate for ethics to be part of non-dual teachings is that non-dual insight seems to come a lot more readily when enabled by an open heart. The discoveries are deeper and more lasting. Heart-centered ethics teachings, when put into use, open the heart and reduce the felt insistence that everything should be about oneself. This opening assists in the exact kind of inquiry used in the direct path. I expand upon both these reasons below.
I can’t lay down a prescription for a particular brand of heart-centered ethics teaching, but I can say that these teachings have helped me become happier. They have also helped me discover for myself the insights spoken of in non-dual teachings.
My Experience
I don’t wish to offer my experience as something to emulate. I’m not suggesting myself as a role model. Quite the contrary. I wasn’t raised with any ethical system or sensitivity to other people. There were no teachings about ethics of any type in my family. Whatever ethical sensitivities I have today were instilled by spiritual teachings. All this happened during my adult years. It’s precisely because I wasn’t raised with an ethical awareness that I’ve found that spiritual teachings can open the heart.
My parents were supportive in the way parenting was understood in the United States of the 1950s and 1960s. They weren’t malicious or unkind. They treated us children pretty well. But we had no religion or guiding ethical view of any sort. I came to learn that there had been no religion or philosophy in my family going back at least as far as my great-grandparents’ time. My parents never taught us how to be good or kind to others as a general teaching. It’s not surprising that my three siblings and I have all reached out and adopted some kind of spiritual or religious teaching as adults.
