Metaphysics can seem to be a rather slippery term. On the one hand it can be taken to be “the study of the most general features of reality, including existence, objects and their properties, possibility and necessity, space and time, change, causation, and the relation between matter and mind” (Wikipedia) but on the other, being the study of, in one sense, how things come to be, it is too easily conflated with religious creation myths, or with cosmologies intricately involved with religious doctrines of causality and phenomenology.
But “according to modern scientific knowledge, mental events and processes presuppose the existence and reality of material things. Thinking, for example, implies the existence of a bird or a mammal with a brain. Or a momentary event, such as the proverbial cat sitting on the mat, presupposes the real existence of the cat, the mat, the earth under the mat, as well as a real human observer of the event.” (Morris)
But for me, that which is intended by using the term “ground of being” (Tillich) is precisely that which can be known directly as “no-thing” in contemplation. I am not talking here of an idea, a common factor in a Huxley-like perennial philosophy, but of a repeated and very direct experience of what Quakers have referred to as “the light”, as described for instance by Emilia Fogelklou (she writes in the third person): “Without visions or the sound of speech or human mediation, in exceptionally wide-awake consciousness, she experienced the great releasing inward wonder. It was as if the ’empty shell’ burst. All the weight and agony, all the feeling of unreality dropped away. She perceived living goodness, joy, light like a clear, irradiating, uplifting, enfolding, unequivocal reality from deep inside.”
This kind of experience can of course not be described terribly clearly, nor can it be communicated directly, and any attempt is likely to fall into superlatives such as Fogelklou’s. But the experience is as real and direct as any sensory experience, perhaps more so, and it has a curious undeniable quality, a great lifting and healing of the heart. I use Tillich’s term for it not because I have any particular attraction for that as an idea, but because it seems to get closer than anything else I have read to the encounter itself. There is a visual analogue that sometimes occurs in meditation – and which can lead to the experience I am trying to describe – of the visual field itself, seen through closed eyes, extending suddenly through and beneath what ought to have been the observing mind, but which is no longer there.
Now, I have long enough experience in contemplative practice to know that experiences are not things to hang onto, still less to seek after, and I would not be happy if any words of mine sent anyone on a quest for experiential chimeras. Yet the experience itself, with all its indelible affect, has occurred so often over the years, since childhood, that I find myself referring to it over and over again, and it remains for me a kind of lodestone.
Are these metaphysical experiences, insights? Are they therefore somehow at variance with the fundamental insight of atheism that the idea of another, supernatural, layer to existence, within which the human self can somehow transcend, or survive, the electrochemical apparatus of the central nervous system, is illusory? I don’t think so. Daniel Dennett’s insight into human phenomenology as a “benign user illusion” coincides well with the Buddhist conception of things as empty of intrinsic existence (śūnyatā) – all of which seems to me to be a formal expression of what I have come to experience as “no-thing.” Andreas Müller:
All there is is oneness. The unknown. No-thing appearing as it appears. It is already whole. It is already complete. That which seems to be missing – wholeness – is not lost…
What remains is indescribable. It is indescribable simply because there is no one left who can describe it. There is no one left who experiences oneness (which, by the way, would then not be oneness anymore) and could possibly know how that is. Yes, there is no one left who knows how it is. That is freedom.
An Open Ground 
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Thanks, Mike. What you say raises all kinds of deep issues, upon which, needless to say, I’m not really competent to comment. One thing that does occur to me is to what extent our thoughts, beliefs, faith (for religious people), though presumably distinct from the ‘electrochemical apparatus of the nervous system’, are nevertheless an essential component – like a kind of lubricant without which this apparatus would seize up and cease to function. That doesn’t necessarily mean there is another supernatural layer to existence, but it may lead into some pretty murky waters.
I rather like the idea of some modern Shin Buddhist thinkers that Amida, traditionally seen as a beneficent saviour, actually corresponds to the deepest layer of human consciousness, I think it’s called ‘storehouse consciousness’ in Buddhist terminology, which I believe Jung once claimed was a property transcending any one human brain (though how he knew that, don’t ask me!)
It seems to me there’s quite a lot to this riddle, and I’m always slightly sceptical of those who claim to know the answers based on their interpretation of the latest science. Or am I being unfair? Like the scientist JBS Haldane I think this world is ‘not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.’
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Yes, Tom, you’re absolutely right. As I pointed out in my ‘Blogging, an aside’ (June 21) I am way out of my depth with this entire blog! The JBS Haldane quote reminds me of Jennifer Kavanagh’s Little Book of Unknowing, which I’ve often quoted here. Also, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in [any of our] philosoph[ies]!”
I hadn’t come across the Amida/ālaya-vijñāna parallel. What a hugely exciting idea! I know the ālaya-vijñāna from Yogacara references, and I have come across the sense of Amida as infinite light, not “merely” as a personal supernatural “ascended” Buddha, but can you point me to something to read concerning the equivalence of the two?
I wonder if your “essential lubricant” idea isn’t in some way related to Jung’s archetypes, as well as to my own sense that we sometimes need a language that we’ve somehow lost (babies and bathwater, and my own ‘Looking for a language’ (April 9))?
These are deep waters indeed, and I’m sorry for this slightly incoherent reply – I’ve only just had my first mug of coffee! Thanks, as always, Tom, for such a thought-provoking reply.
All the v best,
Mike
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Not incoherent at all! Less so than my comment, probably. When I said I was sceptical about explanations of these things based on the latest science, I wasn’t referring to anything you had said, incidentally, but thinking of various books I had come across. I should have made that clear.
‘Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism: Yasuda Rijin and the Shin Buddhist Tradition’ by Paul Watt might be the best place to go for this kind of discussion. It’s quite academic, of course. Rijin knew Tillich well, who himself had a strong interest in Shin. Another book, not academic at all, which I found extremely interesting (and sympathetic) is ‘Dharma Breeze: Essays on Shin Buddhism’ by Nobuo Haneda. A very unusual book, which touches on this. It seems that modern Shin Buddhists in Japan are much exercised by the question of who or what Amida is….
All the best to you too!
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Thanks, Tom. I’ve bought the Haneda book. As you say, very readable. I quite like his take on the ‘bombu’ nature of people! I’m havering about Paul Watt. I get easily bogged down in overly-academic writing! All this puts a very interesting slant on the practice of the Nembutsu, doesn’t it?
I don’t think I’d heard of Tillich’s interest in Pure Land Buddhism. A quick Google reveals lots of discussion.
I can see I have a great deal of reading to do… 🙂
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