Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

80 Edward S. Ragsdale
identical with its parts, since self would thus become a mere redundancy, utterly
synonymous with its parts (e.g., mind and body), with no meaning aside from
them (see Hopkins, 1987, p. 264). Also, as in the previous example, if self and
aggregates were identical, there would be many selves. Here my nose is myself,
my arm is myself, my leg is myself, my mind is myself, and I become an incredibly
vast number of selves. Imagine that each part is “I,” and as Hopkins suggests,
try to figure out which “I” is to answer the door (1987, p. 266). Besides this is
the problem that the proposition, in claiming an identity of whole and part, is
bidirectional: Not only is my ear claimed to be myself, but myself is claimed to
be my ear, in which case it becomes harder to assert that it is my eye.
The problem is redoubled when we consider the temporal continuity of
“real” selfhood, to try to see how the self at one moment, subject to laws of cause
and effect, and prone to change, is identical with the self of another moment. Is
the self of yesterday, or the self at one’s birth, or – if you will – the self of a former
birth, truly the same as the self of today, or tomorrow? To say yes is to affirm
a truly permanent self, incapable of change, and for that matter incapable of
encounter or relationship, nor able to sow seeds or bear fruit of the law of karma.
Satisfying ourselves that the self is not utterly the same as its parts, we ask
if it is utterly different. We find that it is as hard to assert utter difference as it is
to assert utter identity. There is no self that we can find that is observable separate
from its parts. Moreover, says Nagarjuna, if self and its aggregates were altogether
different, self “would not have the character of the aggregates” (as cited in
Hopkins, 1987, p. 272). Yet self does have the character of the parts that compose
it. It has the characteristics of the mind and body. Selves do what minds and
bodies do. We cannot find a self apart from its parts, any more than we can find
a self as identical to its parts.
This deconstruction of the object of negation demands successful navigation
past the Scylla and Charybdis of “extremist” views. If we define the object (of
negation) too narrowly, we may negate too little, and remain trapped in the illusion
of absolute existence. Defining it too broadly, we may succumb to the even greater
danger of nihilism: We may negate too much and deny absolutely the conventional
world, including the sentient beings we aim to help (see also Napper, 1989).
Here it is critically important to realize that this unfindability of things calls
into question their inherent, or intrinsic, or independent existence. It exposes our
mistaken reification of apparent reality, in which we superimpose a sense of
absolute existence onto things that exist only relationally. It does not deny conventional
reality, that is, the authentic existence of things as dependent upon
causes and conditions beyond themselves – though our reifying minds can abide
only so much veridicality. Thus the conventional truth of things is also a “concealer
truth.” It hides authentic reality behind false appearances (see Hopkins,
1983, pp. 400–421). Yet as the illusion of independent existence is overcome,
it eventually becomes possible to have valid cognition and valid perception