Being and Thou: Excerpts from my last book

The Heart Sutra says: “Nothing is as it seems, neither is it otherwise.” In other words, either side of the claim, taken separately, is rooted in dualism. All we can claim with certainty is that things are not as they seem, and that things are as they seem. Both options comprise the totality of the possibilities of Being, that is to say, nothing is possible precisely because all is possible, and vice versa. We can say: Being is not dasein, nor is it not dasein. With Zen we can say that Being is, and we won't give it a name. Or Being isn't, and we won't give it a no-name. Nagarjuna, studying the concept of sunyata, emptiness, well said: “nirvana is samsara, samsara is nirvana.” In other words: The dualism that posits two opposites is wrong, and the non-dualism that posits itself as an alternative to dualism is likewise wrong, and for the same reason. If there is no-one, there can be no-two, and yet, we must choose to say Thou or to say It to the no-one and to the no-two. Once we say Thou to a Being we realize that there is no distinction between nirvana and samsara, there is only the narrow bridge of dialogical encounter. The Prajnaparamita speaks of two shores: the shore of enlightenment and the shore of non-enlightenment. The Buddhadharma is likened to a vessel that can ferry us from this shore to the next. Ultimately, however, there are no two shores, we already are in the shore, and the vessel must be discarded lest its weight and upkeep become an hindrance. Whether it is a vessel or a narrow bridge, once we say Thou to the ten thousand things, there is nowhere we need to go. Zen master Dogen said it too: “If you can’t find enlightenment here and now, where else do you expect to find it?” It is in this sense that we can properly understand Nagarjuna's sunyata, the underpinning of non-dualism. Sunyata is an existential project, not a discourse on philosophical ontology. Baseball's Casey Stengel taught his own version of non-dual philosophy. According to Stengel “Good pitching will always stop good hitting: and vice-versa.” That is to say: Within their designated existential context, this one thing exists and it is true as-is, and the other thing also exists and it is also true as-is. Furthermore, the fact of pitching does not exist and it is not true without the fact of hitting that confronts it and stands over against it, and vice versa. And this is what Buddhism calls “dependent co-arising.” Or in Zen Master’s Think Nhat Hanh, “interbeing.” It is not no-being or intra-being, but the existential fact of Beings in relationship. In the absence of a hitter, to throw a ball is not pitching, and in the absence of a pitcher, to swing a bat at a ball is not hitting. One exists because the other does, and one does not exist because the other does not. Each individual action represents an opposite existential function, and in their suchness each creates its own creator. None of the ten thousand things can emerge into existence, nor can they continue to exist without each perennially creating the other. Likewise it is with God. God emerges into existence to the extent that we create God in the between of I and Thou. In the between we create the God that creates us. But what emerges in the interaction of I and It is not God, it is Mara, the deceiver.  It is not possible to discern the nature of Being for we have constructed a concept of Being that is non-discernible by means of reason. Being is a conceptual construct. This is not a deficiency of Being per-se, but of our ways of utilizing language. In a circular argument, reason tells us that we cannot define Being, but that discernment is itself a conclusion of reason. In other words, given its purported deficient nature, reason cannot point at its own limitations, for that conclusion about itself would itself be suspect. When we argue that Being is beyond words it is because we have avail ourselves of a carefully defined sequence of words to construct a concept to be beyond words. But it is in error to advance the claim that reason is structurally limited and not capable of perceiving the entirety of the truth of Being. How can we possibly know this to be the case? If reason is not capable, using reason to assess the nature and extent of its capabilities is itself suspect. Perhaps nothing reason perceives is wrong, nor limited, but what reason perceives is the actual noumena, and in our dukkha, our unhappiness with reality as-is, we refuse to accept the truth of Being. Our dukkha prompts us to imagine a different, deeper realm of existence, one behind the eyes and ears, but this, of course, it only exacerbates the source of our despair. Zen says “this is it,” and it is only a delusion of “wrong understanding” to think otherwise. Accepting this is the entirety of the Buddhadharma, and the cessation of dukkha depends entirely on realizing this truth. From a dialogical perspective, the concept of an abstract, even mystical Being that is beside and beyond words, eyes and ears, it is an error of understanding. Being is not a matter of ontology, and non-dualism does not refer to the epistemological merging of subject and object. Being is to-be, that is, a call to manifest Being as existence. Any other concept of Being is what in Buddhism is called “wrong understanding.” The Buberian understanding is that whether Being is or isn't, or neither is nor isn't, or whether subject and object are a duality rooted in dualism that ought to be overcome with a non-dual, hence non-rational apperception of reality, our essential human task is to say Thou to the neighbor. The Dialogical Being is the one engaged in the sacrament of the neighbor. From the perspective of Dialogical philosophy, Being is an existential call, not an ontological category. Therefore, whatever Being is or is not, our responsibility is to say Thou to Being. How do we say Thou to Being? by the embrace of a Being. A Jewish existential version of the Heart Sutra was proposed by Reb Yaakov Yitzhak of Pshushka (1766–1814.) Reb Yaakov said: ”There are no 'rules of thumb' in serving God, and this, too, is not always true." In this statement we find the essence of a Buddhist teaching about the non-dual nature of things expressed as a Jewish teaching concerning the practice of a spiritual path. The concern here is with the practice of the spiritual path, and that without consideration given to the apparent internal conceptual contradictions. The perceived contradictions are at the level of conceptual thoughts, but the practice is at the level of deeds. From a dialogical perspective deeds precede thoughts and dialogue precedes both. Much later, poet Fernando Pessoa of Lisbon wrote something similar in both form and content: "There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn't exist." A breeze of radical freedom emerges from Pessoa's words, but he was careful to note that "poets are fakers." Following Reb Yaakov and Pessoa we can add the following thought: When we think of it, there isn't any thing to think about. These are Zen Koans, in which the sense of the statements lies precisely in their lack of it. The entirety of their meaning is in actualizing the teachings in the practice of existence.  God is the “Eternal Thou.” This does not mean that God is everlasting in time and infinite in space. Eternal Thou means that God can only be a Thou, and as such, god can never be an It. The Talmud asks whether God, the omnipotent, can create a rock He himself can not lift? Either answer would deny his omnipotence. We can likewise ask: Can God create himself as an It rather than a Thou? The answer is that when we say It to God we have created an idol, for God is forever and always only a Thou. In that sense, God is not omnipotent, God is OmniThou. But since Thou and It are modes of relationship and not ontological paradigms of Being, whether God is “here and now” can only be understood in relational terms. In other words: God emerges and becomes present with us if and only if we do the deeds of Thou, and those deeds of Thou are themselves the presence of the emergent God. Otherwise, God, who can never be an It will remain forever hidden behind an existential eclipse. From a dialogical perspective, God's existence, if we use the concept of existence as it applies to the Beings of the universe, is not a relevant existential fact. The dialogical call is to say Thou to God, and we say Thou to God through the embrace of a Being. God the creator is created in the between of I and Thou. Similarly, when Gautama Buddha was asked if he believed in God he responded, “what does the belief in God have to do with your own liberation?” In other words: liberation is not from God, nor it is from the Buddha: liberation it is a deed we do. In Buberian terms we can say that Buddha emerges in the between of I and Thou, for the foundation of the Buddhadharma is the creation of a dharmic society on earth. God is not the wholly other, nor is God the wholly same: God is the wholly between. We ask: How many Buddhas are in the universe? Buddhism says: multiple ones. By not ascribing a numerical value to the existence of Buddhas the implicit teaching is that every person can be a Buddha. To be a Buddha all one needs to do is to act as a Buddha. It is different when it comes to the Abrahamic God: there is only one God, and that is to indicate that no one person is God nor a claim to divinity can be raised in regards to any person, animal or object. Both understandings of divinity or buddhahood are correct. But as Buber well said, it is not important to know about God, it is important that we address Him in the embrace of a Being. The I-Thou duality is not an ontological discourse on the dualism or monism of Being, it is an existential response to the living challenges of Being. The Tao’s wu-wei, the action of no-action, is a call to cease interfering in the free flow of nature. Spinoza said that there is a natura naturata and a natura naturans. If Tao is true, our interference in nature is what we find as natura naturata. Practicing wu-wei would allow the naturans aspect of nature, that is nature as unfolding, to actualize itself in its true essence. But we must understand that interference is a term that refers to many different types of activities for it is essentially a deed we do. Saying Thou to nature is not a form of interference, but a form of actualizing the true nature of Being. In that sense, wu-wei is an existential teaching. But wu-wei should not be confused with passivity, for it requires the actual engagement in a relationship with nature in the manner of I-Thou. In other words: wu-wei is the choice we make to cease and avoid, to the extent possible, the using, manipulating, defining, or in general, the instrumentalizing of the Beings of nature. The wu-wei’s no-action implies our ceasing and our avoiding to interfere in the self-expression and the inner and outer unfolding of the true essence of the Beings of nature. Or in other words, wu-wei requires an I-Thou mode of relationship with the ten thousand things. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh explained this idea from the perspective of his Zen practice: “Mindfulness is above all the capacity simply to recognize the presence of an object without taking sides, without judging, and without craving or despising that object.” In other words, from a dialogical perspective, wu-wei, or mindfulness, means to cease and to avoid saying "It" to people and to all Beings of nature. It is an existential call. From a Buddhist perspective we can say that manipulation implies instrumentalizing the Beings of nature to serve the purposes and interests of our inner samsara's ego. The interactions of I-It give birth to the ego, while the relationship of I-Thou gives birth to what in Zen is called the true-self. It ought to be clear of course, that we do not know what nature’s true essence is, therefore, it is also true that some forms of intervention in nature are consistent with the ways by which nature reveals itself to us. As Buber said, we cannot completely avoid the realm of It, but we must determinately orient ourselves toward the real of Thou. Essentially, it is not important to know what the true nature of things is, what is essential is to recognize our existential task to relate to all Beings in a Dialogical manner. All Beings have in-born Buddha nature, not original-sin, therefore, from a dialogical perspective, we can define Buddha nature not as an ontological predicate, but simply as an existential mode of relationship.