Nice, provocative article! Some more thoughts on the age issue: agree that older people 'die' through succumbing to fixed habits, but younger people 'die' too. The young tend to be very hung up on how they appear to others, and on what others think of them, so it's very often social conformity that 'kills' the young rather than habits. Through my ancient eyes I sometimes notice how many of them don't even seem to be aware of this. Although I've noticed myself becoming more set in my ways as I've aged, I'm far less concerned and influenced by social pressures than I used to be. I just don't care so much about what people think of me. This seems liberating in many respects and has helped me with my practice (or so I currently believe).

On this path I've been left feeling stupid and amazed over and over again regarding what it is and what it isn't possible to experience. :-)

A 'fact', or a view? And certainly not a Buddhist view, because *what* is this person that is dead and no more? If we can't even find or define *what* has died, how can we say it's dead?

Buddhism looks to a lot of people in the West simply like liberal secularism with its ass on a cushion. It might not be so simple.

Nice article! Well put! But there are dangers here also...

We shouldn't need to rely on extraordinary states (e.g. NDEs) to support our views. The safest (most 'Buddhist') route is to base our views in ordinary experience, in what is apparent right now, not in ideas about it.

Looking and seeing how our consciousness is utterly conditioned does not concede truth to the materialists. Indeed, we must see precisely that in order to encounter Emptiness / The Unconditioned. Materialism is not the positing of a causal relationship between brain and mind so much as the identification of the brain as something with a necessary priority, as a 'self'.

So what, if my brain conditions completely my behaviour and experience? So what, if someone knows where to stick an electrode in order to make certain behaviours arise? This simply makes it even more apparent that what is being influenced is not a 'me', even though it may arise prior to consciousness.

Buddhism trains us to see how consciousness may be completely determined, but is always empty of self. Regardless of whether the brain is 'transmitter' or 'generator'. You don't have to have any unusual experiences (e.g. NDEs, psychic experiences) to see that. And this is not a view that's necessarily incompatible with modern science or neurology.

Hi Joel -

My difficulty is with the definition of enlightenment as a 'state', which it can't be if it is the realisation of the unchanging and the non-contingent. Otherwise, should we suppose that the Buddha was more enlightened at some times than others, or that his enlightenment depended on what his circumstances happened to be at a particular moment? I don't think we should - and we don't have to, if we discard the idea of enlightenment as state.

'The God helmet', on the other hand, certainly produces a state - which ceases when the helmet is switched off. A so-called 'enlightenment drug' would be unlike any medicine that I can think of, in that it would have to produce an effect that never wore off and wasn't contingent upon the organism of the taker. All drugs so far invented produce states, wouldn't you say? It's like supposing there might be a drug which enabled us to speak and understand Russian when we took it! Maybe that's possible (although I personally doubt it), but I'd hazard that it's somewhat further off than your friend might suggest.

These imminent promises of devices to store 'neurological data' also provoke my scepticism. They may turn out to be as indefinitely postponed as our personal jet-packs and our holidays on the moon! As I mentioned in my last post, such ideas seem to contradict the teachings on emptiness. How are we to regard our experience as 'data'? Imagine a coin pressed into some putty - certainly, it leaves an impression or an image, but where is the 'data' in this? What has been 'stored' and in what?

Call me a cynic! ;-)

'We have such an extraordinary paucity of any hard evidence that people have ever been reborn', was Stephen's wording, according to the podcast transcript.

My reaction to all this is that I don't think we can exclude 'magick' from Buddhism, and I don't think that we can reconcile Buddhism with materialism.

If we adopt materialism, then matter is the fundamental source of all our knowledge. Matter is taken to be real and substantial and the teachings on Emptiness fall by the wayside. If matter is reality and not Emptiness then enlightenment is a 'material' configuration also - presumably some kind of brain state. Enlightenment would therefore be a 'seeming' and not the underlying nature of all things, in which case the practices of Buddhism would lead merely to this 'seeming' also, rather than insight into the truth of things. So there would be no special advantage to Buddhism above any other religious or ethical system. Hence: Buddhism could not survive materialism.

The term 'magick' has been used disparagingly above, but it should be noted how many traditions of Buddhism include magical practices to a greater or lesser degree. What magick is very good at enabling us to realise is the contingent nature of reality. Our desire shapes our belief, which shapes our perception, which shapes our reality. Magick is the fundamental art of bending reality with our desire, employing this chain of dependencies.

There is no objective evidence for magick. Likewise there is no objective evidence for Emptiness, for enlightenment, or for your most amazing experience on the meditation cushion being what it seemed to be. Magick depends upon subjective experiences. The evidence of science for magick is often statistical, yet it's the subjective experience that is the vital aspect of magick. The lack of such evidence for magick should not be something that troubles Buddhists - unless they also believe they will reach enlightenment by being presented with evidence of its reality, rather than through first-hand practice.

In other words, as with Buddhist practice, so with magick: you will only experience and find 'evidence' for them in your own experience.

Although magick is great for demonstrating to us immediately the contingent nature of reality, people can get hung up on the simple trick of bending reality to their will without taking that extra step of realising that the 'self' performing the magick is also a part of a contingent reality. It is in this sense that the Buddha warned against the siddhis. Magick itself is an essential but implicit aspect of Buddhist practice.

Hi Benoit -

Okay, so let's take the teaching that 'an Arahant is someone who has automatically become celibate'. How could we possibly verify this if we're expected to ask an Arahant? Who do we go to? Presumably to someone who has automatically become celibate, if this is the criteria for an Arahant, but in that case the teaching is merely a self-fulfilling article of faith. Or do we turn to someone who is sexually active, in which case how do we know we're talking to an Arahant?!

I'd suggest that who we regard as 'the wise' is therefore also a matter of personal experience. I think that personal experience and logic are very valuable faculties indeed, because I don't think we can escape the view that some of the suttas are far more valuable than others!

Hi Benoit -

Surely, mindfulness of sensations is what makes sex so pleasurable? Being mindful of our arousal and our desire makes the experience far more pleasurable than if we're not. Mindfulness of the sensations of an erection - for example - surely makes one *more* horny, rather than making the horniness go away?!

If mindfulness of something destroyed the arising of that thing, then mindfulness of anything would be impossible. It's not the presence or absence of 'tanha' that is at issue, in my view, but the recognition of the nature of 'tanha' - impermanent, devoid of essence, and unsatisfactory. And if we look, we can see that these apply even to mindfulness itself!

Sexual activity can weaken the impression of self, in that it produces certain powerful sensations which are seen to be impermanent, unsatisfactory and devoid of essence.

Sexual activity can strengthen the impression of self, in that it produces certain powerful sensations which are *not* seen to be impermanent, unsatisfactory and devoid of essence.

Sexual sensations arise in living beings according to instinct. We might argue that identifying with these sensations can strengthen the impression of self, but you seem to be arguing that the self somehow precedes these sensations and is strengthened by them - which is an odd view to take, for someone who asserts there is no self!