3 0 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 2 abstract knowledge into the world because, as Aristotle explains, it is not enough to intellectually discern the path that leads us to happiness; it is necessary for the human being to act on that knowledge [12], to walk the path that reason allowed us to see. If this is not done, then reason becomes the main block to happiness. The world is filled with subjects who have studied what the great thinkers have said about happiness throughout history. What does not abound are happy people. Huang Po (2007, 56), a mystic from the Zen tradition, puts this idea beautifully into words when saying that merely acquiring a lot of knowledge makes you like a child who gives himself indigestion by gobbling too much curds. Those who study the Way according to the Three Vehicles are all like this. All you can call them is people who suffer from indigestion. When so-called knowledge and deductions are not digested, they become poisons, for they belong only to the plane of samsāra. In the Absolute, there is nothing at all of this kind. So it is said: ‘In the armoury of my sovereign, there is no Sword of Thusness.’ All the concepts you have formed in the past must be discarded and replaced by void. Where dualism ceases, there is the Void of the Womb of Tathāgata. Reason is very useful since it allows us to set the stage in which the world unfolds as such to human beings (and not as a mere distorted image), however, it is not capable of taking us all the way. That is why, as Huang Po says, there is a point at which the books must be put aside, and the practical journey must be undertaken on foot. How, then, can we achieve this inner silence (absence of projections from the mind)? How can we receive the world as it is and not how our mind interprets it? What the mystics tell us about this matter is nothing new but rather reinforces what practically all spiritual and/or religious traditions point out: Spiritual practices (meditation, contemplation, prayer, among many others) are essential for overcoming the finitude and precariousness of human understanding. Spiritual life and the practices associated with it, then, are a manner through which the subjective disposition of the mystic, that of silent openness, comes to life. This is because serious spiritual practices, whichever they may be, tend to aim toward shifting the attention of the practitioner away from the world, and into the “I” that perceives the world. This introspection is usually accompanied by a subsequent critical analysis in which the spiritual aspirant seeks to distinguish what is real from what is not. This shift from a perspective directed towards what is out there, to one centered on the “I” or “Self” that perceives the inner and outer world allows us to gradually (but inevitably) dismantle the projections we throw onto the world. In Hawkins’s words (2020, 1:54:00), through the constant repetition of spiritual practices, “there is letting go wanting to change anything as it is, because you see the only thing you want to change is your perception of it all and your judgmentalism about it.” That is, these types of habits don’t “add” new knowledge for a better understanding of the world, but rather seem to be of purgatorial nature. Through them, the practitioner goes through a process of purification, which demands letting go of erroneous concepts from which we interpret (and therefore distort) reality. This disarticulation of the horizons of meaning from which we apprehend what is presented to our senses triggers the appearance of the world as it is. The condition of possibility of the emergence of the world as such (and not as a mere image), then, is the letting go of the a priori concepts from which our intellect interprets what is perceived as real. In the words of the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (2009, 33), “the very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within. When the powers have been completely withdrawn from all their works and images, then the Word is spoken.” In sum, a manner through which we can cleanse our perception of the world is through spiritual practices. Intellectual knowledge, though extremely useful for clearing the path and showing us the way towards human happiness, is not a tool powerful enough for taking us all the way. Spiritual practices, on the other hand, are useful devices for learning how to let go of erroneous concepts of the world. This makes them very suitable for allowing us to perceive reality as such, because once the obstacles are removed (the a priori concepts from which we project meaning to the world), the truth of reality shines forth.
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