Basically, all experiences are like seeds (bija) in a field, planted by karma. When the conditions are right, these seeds sprout and bloom into experiences. How we respond to experiences determines whether new seeds will be planted or not. Everything, from our predispositions and feelings, to the way the sky looks to you at twilight is the ripening of these seeds. Buddhism involves knowing which seeds to water, and then watering them.

 

By Johnathon Lee

 

I sat on break, broken by emotional agony, thinking, “I don’t matter.”

I have Autism and a mood disorder, so depression and burnout always come for me eventually. Not even Buddhadharma really helps much in the depths. The teachings on impermanence and dependent arising just point to an oblivious, mechanistic universe.

Karma, rebirth and enlightenment save Buddhism from nihilism, but they take faith, and faith is the first thing to go when the big sad sets in. Without faith, all the world’s religions and philosophies start to crumble. I have faith in the physical, because there’s evidence that matter and cells exist. However, physicalism paints a picture of an apathetic cosmos devoid of justice, meaning and free will.

That’s why Nietzche said, “God is dead, and we’ve killed him.”

“If I don’t matter,” I replied, “then my sadness doesn’t matter. So, there’s no point to even feeling it or thinking about it.” Ironically, that cheered me up a bit. The week long depressive episode started to lift. I got up, and went back to work.

Melancholy happens when we don’t take nihilism far enough.

You’ve got to make it annihilate itself—if not then it seems significant—which is illogical. If everything is meaningless, pointless and insignificant, then that insight itself is also meaningless, pointless and insignificant. We are microscopic, and our suffering is even smaller than we are. In fact, it’s basically an illusion. Neurotransmitters flowing through meat; ions zooming through space.

There isn’t even a self, just a sense of self that changes from moment to moment depending on the body and environment. The mind is like foam on a wave, riding along the blind tide of causality.

There’s peace in that, if we can fully surrender to it. Of course, whether we do or don’t has nothing to do with us. We’re just watching it all happen. Complete nihilism is the gateway to a tranquil life, and it’s backed up by science. Even psychology, the most humanistic science, shows that we’re afterthoughts of nature-nurture and zip-zaps in gray and white matter.

Any other view requires a leap into faith, which doesn’t come easily to me.

Theravada, Vajrayana, Pure Land, Zen and Secular Buddhism are amazing and rich, but they can’t survive the alluring logic of nihilism. Especially when we take karma, rebirth and Buddha-nature out of the picture.

The last hope for meaning is compassion for others, including future generations. But, if we’re just ghosts of matter, then what does it matter? The most compassionate thing to do would be to convince people to stop giving a fuck and surrender to the present moment.

That’s an option, but I’d like to avoid it if I can. I love Buddhadharma, so I want to save it from myself.

There’s only one hope: that consciousness doesn’t arise from the physical. For anything to matter, the mind needs to be equal to, or independent of matter. There’s hope because science still doesn’t know what the mind is. There’s an explanatory gap between the physical and mental that we haven’t been able to bridge.

This brings me to my favorite Buddhist school: Yogacara (Weishi/Hosso). Yogacara’s tagline is vijnapti-matra, nothing but mind.

Some Yogacarins believed that there was only consciousness and no matter, but I can’t believe that. The evidence for atoms is too overwhelming to deny. However, without consciousness, there’d be no experience or knowledge of the physical universe at all. No matter how much we learn through inference and experimentation, we’re still just this flow of consciousness.

Here, we can save karma, enlightenment and rebirth from the abyss because consciousness is karma, and it’s reborn each moment. It’s also fundamentally free of affliction, like how a flashlight is free of whatever it illuminates. Like other Mahayana schools, Yogacara compares everything to an illusion or mirage, but it points out the fact that it’s a real illusion. The reality, the Suchness of it is present in the fact of experience itself.

The alayavijnana (storehouse consciousness) is one of Yogacara’s main innovations.

Basically, all experiences are like seeds (bija) in a field, planted by karma. When the conditions are right, these seeds sprout and bloom into experiences. How we respond to experiences determines whether new seeds will be planted or not. Everything, from our predispositions and feelings, to the way the sky looks to you at twilight is the ripening of these seeds. Buddhism involves knowing which seeds to water, and then watering them.

What are these seeds? Where are they? Why are they?

This is where I’ve got to take the leap. The seeds are atoms. Science studies atoms from the outside. Consciousness is what atoms are from the inside. The proof is simple. We’re 100% matter, and yet we’re conscious, so matter is conscious.

Rather than emerging from matter, consciousness is an intrinsic aspect of it. There’s no separation between the mind and body, the physical and the mental. They’re the same universe viewed from different angles. This, in my opinion, is the only thing that saves Buddhism—and everything else—from the nihilism of physicality. The other alternative is that we’re passengers in self-driving cars who think that they’re controlling them.

Yogacara came about as a way to connect all the Buddhist schools together. Now, I’m endorsing it as a way to connect Buddhism with physicalism without giving up the vital stuff that makes Buddhism matter. The real test here is to see if Yogacara can survive my depression, if it can convince me enough to stay faithful even when the lights go out. I’m tired of my castles crumbling, and I don’t want to surrender to the senseless stream of materiality.

If you’re interested in starting a Yogacara Sangha or learning more about it, leave a comment. It’s still alive in Japan as Hosso Buddhism but it hasn’t come to the West yet.

May you be free of suffering.

 

There’s no separation between the mind and body, the physical and the mental. They’re the same universe viewed from different angles. This, in my opinion, is the only thing that saves Buddhism—and everything else—from the nihilism… Share on X

 

Photo: Pixabay

 

Did you like this piece? Want to tip the author? Here is his tip jar: paypalme/jpendall

 

Were you inspired by this? You may also like:

Philosophy and Depression: The Need to Understand Keeps Me Going

I Wanted Robes, but Life Gave Me a Shirt & Tie.

Comments

comments

Johnathon Lee
Latest posts by Johnathon Lee (see all)