If You Missed Part 1 and Part 2: You can find Part 1 in the archive (grey column left of the page) in the 12/08--12/14/2002 archive, under Part 2 which comes first on that page (so scroll down to Part one). Guess what? Part 3 is under Part 4 which is under Part 5 whicht itself is right under part 6 (this last part of the chapter) on this very page.Complicated huh, well read on!
On To: Part 6
The Interview With Boris on The Subject of G-d continued from Part 5: Where Bernard the biographer asked Boris "... what do you have to lose if there is no such thing as reincarnation? Do you have any other reasons for reifying it?" Read on for Boris' answer.
Synopsis:
If you read the synopsis before skip down to Part 6 (blog) for some more of Boris' rap on Being and such!
Boris Dov Lanter, an American, New York Jewish guy, is an internationally known celebrity who had been a professional painter living in Kaasdorp (Lit: Cheese Town) Holland. He became famous not because of his paintings but for inventing, or creating, kind of a kitsch spiritually-material 'teaching' called "The Gift". When marketed "The Gift" outsold pet rocks, cabbage dolls, hula-hoops, and all the other previous worldwide fads and marketing phenomenon. Consequently, many spiritually starving, confused individuals look to Boris as a Guru; that is a notion, which Boris ridicules publicly, time and time again. Boris has "taken refuge" in the Buddha and considers himself a Buddhist. He takes his spirituality seriously: however, because he was born Jewish-is still a culinary Jew-and gets a kick out his Jewish brethren; he answers, "I'm Buddhish!' when asked his religion.
Because of his following, the continuing marketing success of "The Gift", and his outlandishly extroverted performances on celebrity interview shows, a major publisher commissioned Bernard Wisser to write his Biography. Wisser is world renowned for his hip biographies, the most famous being, the official biography of Mick Jagger titled "The Unrolling Rolling Stone." Boris and Bernard, who Boris calls Nardo or Nard, have been friends for years and love to diss each other; therefore, Boris agrees to have his good buddy Nardo write his biography; figuring, anyone reading his life story immediately will shed the notion that he Boris, is a Guru and will perhaps find a legitimate teacher or spiritual path.
The two buddies keep up there kibitzing ways constantly teasing each other and pointing out each others foibles, and flaws all during the course of the interviews, while working on the biography, and their 'raps' becomes interwoven into the writing of the biography.
Bernard has been trying to rein Boris in from the beginning; since, Boris has a tendency to meander, and has many tricky ways of seducing Bernard into spending time listening to his rambling anecdotes. Originally, Nardo had allocated two years time to writing the book but now five years has passed and Boris is only 10 years old in the Biography. It has become obvious they will not be able to cover Boris' whole life, so they are thinking about ending the book when Boris attains manhood with his Bar Mitzvah.
In the Following Chapter Bernard (the biographer) decides to break away from the form "I Do Art.." has taken so far, (if you can call it a form) and conduct an interview with Boris on the subject of his spiritual beliefs and his beliefs about God.
The Interview With Boris on The Subject of G-d
I have decided this Part will be conducted like a magazine interview. In case you have Mad Human's Disease and cannot put it together BW stands for me Bernard Wisser, and BDL stand for Boris Dov Lanter--enjoy :
Part 6 (Blog)
We left off with:
BW: "Well it seems to me according to what you are saying there is just action, and there is no self; therefore how can someone be held responsible for their actions."
At this point Boris did not give me an immediate answer. He just sat their in a brown study until I must confess I was getting uncomfortable with his silence. Boris not having an immediate answer to a statement of mine and being silent for a relatively prolong period, while he thought about what I said, was something that I would have to get use to….
BDL:" I’m sorry I have taken so long to answer you, but your statement triggered a new and I think novel train of thought in my mind. Your criticism is similar to a criticism that Hindu’s make about Buddhist thought. The traditional Buddhist answer to that particular form of criticism goes something like this. I’ll put it in modern day language: Look at this oak table that we are sitting around as we are rapping, nibbling at our halvah and sipping our coffee. Now, this table seems perfectly solid to us but it’s common knowledge nowadays that from the standpoint of contemporary physics it lacks solidity. Everything in my everyday experience makes me believe in the solidity of the this table, and you can bet I am not going to test those explanations by slamming the table with all my might, and risk breaking my hand. I think you will agree that would be an improper test of that theory, besides being kooky.
Though it solid quality may be illusional (or illusion like) from the level of non-attenuated experience it is a very real quality on our relative level of existence. Trying to confound that relative reality will definitely, with no if, and's or but's, cause pain and suffering.
Just as the table feels solid, or for that matter we feel ourselves as being solid, every object and person’s existence appears perceptually continuous to us. To attempt to confound or argue against that perception can only lead to pain and suffering in any culture including a Buddhist one. If I killed you now it will do me little good to argue that person I call me, is not the same person as the murderer, nor will the person on trial be the same person being charged with the crime. No matter how enlightened spiritually, and no matter how sophisticated his or her knowledge of contemporary physics is, there is no jurist in the world that would accept that as a defense.
Let’s say a hole in the hose that connects my running washing machine to the water faucet, bursts open while I’m in another room. I'm unaware that my kitchen has become a wading pool and the water in, is seeping down, through cracks in the floor, to my downstairs neighbors apartment. If then, my neighbor desperately rings my bell, and the two of us, track-down the cause of our mutual misery, it will do little good for me to tell my neighbor that the water leaking out of the hose, making my kitchen floor into a wading pool, is not the same water which is on the floor; and, the water seeping through the floor, is not same water that is ruining his living room, since in each of those stages the water has undergone an infinitude of changes, therefore I am not responsible for damages.
BW: Thanks! You just proved my point, talking about no-self is like talking about nothing. Even if it’s a true description of reality, for by your own admission it can have no practical effect on daily life. And to be quite honest, it is not view, belief, or accurate description of reality, which would attract me to a religion, or inspire me to practice meditation."
BDL: "Right-on as far as what you said about no-self. Wrong-on about what you have to say about practical effects. Moreover, that formulation is not what attracted me to Buddhism either. What attracted me was the quality, bearing, actions and the obvious compassion of it’s advanced followers. But I had anticipated your practical objections to the notion of no-self, and that’s what I was thinking about when I was silent. I anticipated you because that very same critique has cross my mind more than once. Nevertheless, I did come up with a few practical consequences of seeing the world through those glasses; moreover, a new thought arose in my mind, that I had never entertained before, nor did I ever hear of it.That’s what I want to tell you about.
The fact is, according to the theory of no-self, we can extrapolate that every one of us is an innocent recipient of the consequences both good and bad of choices made by our previous “virtual” selves. Therefore, if I thoroughly accept and believe in the conceptual formulation of no-self a new factor arises that may effect the type of choices I make. For any choice I make can cause a future virtual self to suffer. Moreover, I know much of the suffering I have endured was the result of some past self that called itself by my name. Therefore every choice I make no longer, just involves, not making a certain choice because it could result in my own suffering, it also involves the suffering of future virtual selves. Not wanting to make that choice because it may cause a future virtual self to suffer, is therefore no longer merely a fear response, instead it’s also is a compassionate response made on behalf of an imagined future virtual Boris’ The same goes for positive choices which I believe may increase my happiness, peacefulness, or perfect my understanding. In the latter case it is no longer merely a self-enhancing or a selfish response. Thus, if the “I” which has become aware of no-self has developed a desire to live morally and ethically, its choice process, will be elevated to a different level of consciousness.
If that pattern becomes strengthened through the continuity of consciousness, the tendency towards compassion will generalize outwards towards other sentient beings
By the way did you notice the pronouns used in this discussion--I, myself, virtual selves, ourselves, etc. Language doesn’t handle the concept of no-self very well; since language demands a subject for every verb or verb phrase."
BW:" I think you are playing glib head games with your self, Boris. C’mon, can you hear yourself? It sounds like gobbledygook to me, when you say as a result the belief in non-self, there is another factor which helps to avoid making self destructive choices and that factor is involved with the development of compassion for the suffering of future virtual selves.
Intellectually, you may, believe or make-believe in non-self, however that’s not how you experience life. You don’t really experience future virtual selves at a choice point, what you really experience is projection of what you might harvest in terms of good or bad consequences, having made that choice. The point is, what you are truly worried about, is the present you, receiving those consequences in the future. And no matter what your belief is about no-self, that is the primary condition under, which choices are made, unless due to habit, addiction or bad reality testing, only the immediate benefit of tension reduction serve as the overriding factor. To sum up dear Boris, in my opinion you are talking like those guy counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. By the way I suppose the guys who came up with that one thought there was some positive spiritual consequences resulting from them dealing with that question."
BDL: "Wham, bam, thank you Nardo! Well, what can I say. It is obvious to me that any formulation, that diminishes the idea that you have a separate self or no-true-self, can’t help but diminish, pride, vanity, selfishness, cupidity, and a lot of other negative qualities. However, when you first asked me whether I believed in reincarnation, which led to the discussion of non-self, I said Reincarnation, afterlife, heaven, or hell makes for interesting speculation but that I couldn’t take those issues too seriously. I am willing to add non-self to that list. At some time during our discussion, I also said that Buddhism, generally discourages metaphysical speculation, and encourages spiritual and spiritually oriented practices, for just the very reasons we have just experienced.
Even if we are right about our metaphysical understanding of our human condition, we can’t really transmit them in language very well. Language only enables us to draw maps with so many blind paths built into them, that it is easy to get lost without a knowledgeable guide.
I know that both of us, have somehow absorbed kabblistic scholarship in our blood and it has inundated our brains; So, when you said you wanted to interview me on my spiritual beliefs, I figured we would get into metaphysical speculation at some points; therefore, I armed myself with a little reminder that I would like to share with you. It’s from the World Bible edited by Robert O. Ballow which I retrieved from a site on the World Wide Web titled Lumiere, produced by Joseph Morales. So here it:
At this point Boris slipped a pieced of paper with print matter on it out from between the pages of a magazine which had been laying on top of a bunch of stuff he planned to read. He began to read from that piece of paper…"
“Questions Which Tend Not to Edification--
Accordingly, Malunkyaputta, bear always in mind what it is that I have not explained, and what it is that I have explained. And what, Malunkyaputta, have I not explained?
I have not explained, Malunkyaputta, that the world is eternal; I have not explained that the world is not eternal; I have not explained that the world is finite; I have not explained that the world is infinite; I have not explained that the soul and body are identical; I have not explained that the soul is one thing and the body another; I have not explained that the saint exists after death; I have not explained that the saint does not exist after death; I have not explained that the saint both exists and does not exist after death; I have not explained that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death.
And why, Malunkyaputta, have I not explained this? Because, Malunkyaputta, this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamentals of religion, nor tends to aversion, absence of passion, cessation, quiescence, the supernatural faculties, supreme wisdom, and Nirvana; therefore have I not explained it?
And what, Malunkyaputta, have I explained? Misery, Malunkyaputta, have I explained; the origin of misery have I explained; the cessation of misery have I explained; and the path leading to the cessation of misery have I explained.
And why, Malunkyaputta, have I explained this?
Because, Malunkyaputta, this does profit, has to do with the fundamentals of religion, and tends to aversion, absence of passion, cessation, quiescence, knowledge, supreme wisdom, and Nirvana; therefore have I explained it. Accordingly, Malunkyaputta, bear always in mind what it is that I have not explained, and what it is that I have explained.
Majhima-Nikaya, in The Portable World Bible”
BDL: "And that in a nutshell is what I felt was the problem with that whole metaphysical rap we just had even while I was participating in it. I’m glad you called me on it, although you did set me up. You were generally right when you felt I was talking gobbledygook from a practical viewpoint. In that sense, I would have to agree with you. Moreover the important thing in any spiritual practice or religion is to deal with people and the world with as much love, and compassion, and understanding of their suffering that you can marshal; and with as much commitment to help them reduce their suffering that you can bring to bear. Of course that involves practice.
Tell me Nardo don’t you agree we can skip any further discussion on what I think about heaven and hell?
BW: Boy oh Boy, do I ever! Anyway I already know the answer: heaven is not getting into that discussion; and hell is to proceed with it.
The End! I bet you thought this chapter would never end! Well the truths in it won't! Click in next week when the real Bernard Wisser (not the fictional one) once again starts writing Blodg's on everything under the sun.
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