The Little Purple Notebook On How To Escape From This Universe
                       Copyleft � 1998 by Maximilian J. Sandor, Ph.D.
                   Subscription Information: Maria Loren [email protected]
                        Website: http://transmillennium.net/pnohteftu/



   The Paradox of Talking about 'Awakening'

The occurence of a fully awakened person who is also a teacher (in Pali
called a 'sammaasa.mbuddho') is, according to Gotamo, a paradox that would
be extremely confusing to think about. His advice has, of course, not
prevented many Buddhists to come up with a myriad of stories,
explanations, alterations, and ramifications of this phenomenon.

The problem itself is a paradox of the catch-22 class: for someone who has
eradicated all roots of entanglements with this Universe, any further
meddling in this game will necessarily be a nuisance of magnitude.

In order to prolong the stay in this world and to teach, a
'sammasa.mbuddho' has to create a couple of temporary new body/mind
attachments after all of the old ones were cleared. This is necessary in
order to enable communication with the body which is obviously needed to
teach 'ordinary humans'. At the same time, new 'case' is created
automatically (described in more detail in the chapter on 'Dependent
arising of conditions')

Such a person is walking on the 'edge of a razor blade' until the body
itself perishes.(Note, that the proposition of  the 'rebirth of a
[sammasa.m]buddho' has neither any traces nor a foundation whatsoever in
the teachings of Gotamo Siddharto.)

While, at first glance, this phenomenon may not be of great interest to
someone who is not yet 'fully awakened', it is creating a problem of
magnitude if one tries to communicate about the experience of 'awakening'
to others.

Unless a person is merely rephrasing the insights of another person (and
thus unavoidably altering them), the person who is writing about either the
state(s) beyond ordinary realities or about processes that are leading
there, will have to 'look'  at them. While doing that, the person will be
automatically kicked out of 'this' reality, losing immediately the urge to
talk or write about it to a larger or lesser degree.

Now, except for the extremly rare case of a 'fully awakened teacher', the
person writing about 'awakening' has  a twofold problem: s/he has to
recreate the urge to communicate just like a 'sammasa.mbuddho' . But the
person also still has the tendency to recreate 'case', and also has, more
likely than not, some remainders of old or renewed 'case' left which is now
being stirred up by the re-creation of the urge to communicate about it.

As mentioned, this problem does not arise for those who are echoing words
rather than trying to formulate their own experiences or meta-experiences
but it is a recurring stumbling block otherwise.

Assuming this problem has been overcome, another one is coming up: words
are part of this Universe, a closed and complete system.

Any experience beyond this Universe cannot possibly be expressed in
words (which are part of this Universe).

To overcome this hurdle, descriptive examples have to be found and
formulated. However, in order to have examples that make sense to an
audience within its cultural context, the teacher to be has to 'dive' deep
into the thinking of the audience which may include criminals, suppressive
persons, and generally confused people.
As it can be observed: insanity is contagious.

(A better, less flashy, but more complicated wording would be: the units
that are bearing and causing insanity are able to multiply and migrate on
its own as well as under direction of supervising beings.)

Thus, a person at the verge of awakening, exposes itself to the potential
of being overwhelmed by the very same phenomena it is a trying to liberate
itself from.

All these potential problems aside, another basic task of communication is
still to be accomplished: how to establish rapport and context to other
persons regarding this subject. Both require an interactive process, a
dialogue. A monologue is likely to fall short. A book is even more
problematic in this aspect even when efforts have been made to ease the
difficulty by structuring it in a certain way. Even originating with the
best intentions, a miscommunication can never be excluded.

In any case, as with any verbal communication, the reader should always be
on the guard and attempt to look behind the words rather than taking them
verbatim:

                       "The word is not the thing!"



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              Copyleft � 1998 by Maximilian J. Sandor, Ph.D.