#stephen batchelor

in ‘Buddha, Socrates, and Us’, stephen batchelor discloses the story of a disciple approaching the Buddha and asking two questions: “is there a self?” and “is there no self?”. the Buddha’s response to both inquiries is complete silence. this highlights a heavy theme in the faith (lacking attachment to the binaries of “is” and “is not”, “real” and “unreal”, “being” and “ceasing”.). the author then explains a fable where a layman views this same disciple lustfully and is promptly transformed into a woman, who proceeds to run away and start a new life (if you’re interested, it is the story of kaccāna and soreyya). i was not expecting the beautiful commentary on queer identity that followed.

“This tale shows how marginalized people, who did not fit into the normative identities of their culture, could have found acceptance and companionship in the single-sex renunciant communities emerging in India at this period. They may have also been naturally drawn to a philosophy that questioned some of the binary categories that excluded them, while valuing paradox, fluidity, and uncertainty. Rather than prompting a queer person to walk away, Gotama’s silence might have come as a welcome relief.”

Great works of art in all cultures succeed in capturing within the constraints of their form both the pathos of anguish and a vision of its resolution. Take, for example, the languorous sentences of Proust or the haiku of Basho, the late quartets and sonatas of Beethoven, the tragicomic brushwork of Sengai or the daunting canvases of Rothko, the luminous self-portraits of Rembrandt and Hakuin. Such works achieve their resolution not through consoling or romantic images whereby anguish is transcended. They accept anguish without being overwhelmed by it. They reveal anguish as that which gives beauty its dignity and depth.

Excerpt from Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor

“The consequences of what we do now will outlive us. The irrevocability of our actions implies that we are responsible not only for our own conduct in this life but for the impact of our actions after our death. “

Emptiness is not something sacred in which to believe. It is an emptying: a letting go of the fixations and compulsions that lock one into a tight cell of self that seems to exist in detached isolation from the turbulent flux of life.”

— Stephen Batchelor

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‘Rather than seek God - the goal of the brahmins - Gotama suggested that you turn your attention to what is most far from God: the anguish and pain of this life on earth. In a contingent world, change and suffering are inevitable. Just look at what happens here: creatures are constantly being born, falling ill, growing old, and dying. These are the unavoidable facts of our existence. And when I am honest with myself, when I drop all my stoic conceits, this is unbearable.

To embrace the contingency of one’s life is to embrace one’s fate as an ephemeral but sentient being. As Nietzsche claimed, one can come to love that fate. But to do so one must first embrace it, though one instinctively recoils at such a prospect. To steady one’s gaze on the finitude, contingency, and anguish of one’s existence is not easy; it requires mindfulness and concentration. One needs to make a conscious shift from delight in a fixed place to awareness of a contingent ground…’