Alienation & Unconcoctability — The Change That Enlightenment Brings

Does Becoming An Enlightened Being Actually Make A Difference?

Does becoming an enlightened being actually make a difference? Is there something that enlightenment brings that was absent before? Does meditation bring about enlightenment? Is it guaranteed to do so? Why meditate if not?

Zen Kōan: Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

There are actually two answers to the first question — does enlightenment make a difference: one related to alienation, which is the inner comportment that enlightenment empowers, and the other is métis,⁠¹ which is the mode in which an enlightened being functions in the world. This dialog will discuss alienation, and the next dialog will speak about métis.

There are many today, who have taken to heart, a misunderstanding arising from the assertion — heard from many quarters — that enlightenment does not change anything because we are all already enlightened. These people who say this, have assumed that there is “nothing to do,” in part because “there is no one to do it.” They have confused the Absolute and the mundane, the Real and that which (contingently) exists, God and creation.

For example, Oceans are beautiful, home to an infinite number of sentient and insentient beings, self-nurturing and self-healing. A human being is roughly 60% water, the same water that is everywhere on the Earth, especially in the Oceans. So one could say that Humans are not all that different from the Oceans. But Humans have chosen to pollute the oceans, kill off as many species of beings as is (humanly) possible, and feed off what remains, drilling into the seabeds for oil, digging for minerals… in short, the oceans are a combination extraction site, buffet, garbage and chemical/radioactive waste dump. The Oceans are perfect as they are, except when humans arrive. Humans can believe that they are as beautiful as the Oceans, but they are not. They neither nurture themselves, nor any other sentient or insentient being; they seem to abhor self-healing — preferring external interventions and chemical cocktails; they have, in short, become anathema to the survival of the Oceans. A human can believe they are as beautiful and perfect as the Oceans, but their actions speak louder than their beliefs. It is like this in spiritual matters as well. Humans can believe that they are as beautiful as the Perfection of Reality, but they don’t comport themselves that way — they need work.

They also seem stuck to the idea that for something to happen, there needs to be someone to do it. Thus in the absence of a being with an independent self-existence — an early insight that comes with training one’s mind to notice these things — there is nothing that can be done. These crazy understandings go against thousands of years of commitment by millions of humans to follow a spiritual path, in which meditation, contemplation or yoga, is learned and practiced until a sufficient level of competence is achieved, and then performed constantly until the fruit of enlightenment is accomplished.

What people who hold to these crazy understandings are missing is that they steer their way along their path. They don’t cause anything to occur, but they do lay the conditions for what does manifest in their lives — much as Humans in general have created the conditions that exist in the Oceans today, that are manifesting the plague of problems that are leading towards the death of the Oceans. There will still be water, which Nestlé can pump, filter, and bottle for our consumption, but the Oceans, as a living ecosystem, will be no more — because of the conditions that have arisen in response to the comportment of Humans in general to the Oceans.

So there is work to be done, and a result to be had, even though nothing Real changes. And that result makes all the difference in the world.

This work proceeds through continuous mind-training and the arising of realizations, until enlightenment arises. Along the way, your way of being in the world necessarily changes. It does so because of the insights that come about through the realizations that are the product of mind-training. And then enlightenment, after a long and perhaps difficult path, along which it can sometime seem as if nothing is being accomplished, spontaneously arises — not like a thunderbolt with its flash of light and rolling rumbles, but like a clearing in the sky that appears as all the clouds move away.

Realization is both an activity (naturing) and the result of mind-training practices that open up the possibility that a realization will arise; but this word, realization, has a different meaning in each case, though only an apparent difference of meaning.

To realize something means, in one sense, to bring that something into being, and that is what is being referred to as the activity — the naturing of all that manifests, our sudden intuitions of insight, our very thoughts — this Uni-verse — are realized through the activity of naturing.

To realize something, in another sense, is to come to an understanding of that thing, usually in a kind of epiphany. Using this sense, the word “realization” refers to the result of these practices. And these realizations are both additive and subtractive — sometimes coming to understand something new, or something in a new way; other times undermining something already understood, making a clearing for a new understanding to possibly develop.

The reason why these are not truly different meanings is because everything is the product of naturing — the activity that is both we ourselves, and all that we “do” — all of this is that which manifests as knowing-presence. Thus, “realization” in both a macrocosmic and a microcosmic sense.

Along my way, I have noticed that words per se have no absolute meaning. Speakers and writers have an intent — a direction they hope to move in — and words spontaneously arise as a result of that intent and the current context of what is possible and who is there.

The hearer or reader apprehends (“understands”) what their attentive focus and current context allow to spontaneously manifest. If they are not focused, or the contextual conditions are such as to obviate the possibility of true understanding to arise, than communication breaks-down. That any meaning at all is actually shared is a wonder in itself; that we misunderstand each other often is totally natural.

I’ve also noticed that “realization” and “realize” have two different senses: the least significant is that an intellectual understanding is gained; the meanings of different words, taken together, cohere in some way that the hearer/reader finds satisfactory (i.e., rational). As the possibilities latent within the hearer’s context changes over time, that coherency can be lost, and then regained in a different way.

This cycle repeats in an unending process because this kind of realization can never be more than an approximation of the truth. And in truth, we tend to find a ‘place’ somewhere along that process to which we become attached, and remain stuck there — with an understanding that we find the most acceptable, but which may not be, or which may be shown over time to be, less than optimal.

That is not to say that this type of realization is valueless; nor that the process is defective. The process is necessary, and thus, the contextually limited realizations that arise, are of practical use, but they must be seen as steps along the path to a clearer understanding that is closer to the truth, or we may become stuck in place somewhere along the path to Truth.

The second form of realization is not intellectual; it is imperiential — as an epiphany of meditative insight.

These realizations are important in a necessarily true sense because of their limited content and the actual effects they have upon your very being. So, for example:

The difference between understanding that there is no doer, which is an intellectual (abstract) understanding, and no longer ever experiencing anything as having occurred as the result of your intentional action, is the effect — over time — of the imperience of spontaneity in all things that manifests over-and-over again. We can say it is the obvious lack of a doer in anything that arises, which also sounds intellectual, but there is a difference in how that intellectual statement arises.

Which also brings to light the difference between the conceptual understanding that “your” thoughts arise spontaneously and are not created by you, and never experiencing thoughts as anything other than a wondrous and spontaneous naturing within the Now — conditioned only by the coherent possibilities of your current context.

The first type of realization is an intellectual post-processing that we call experience, which is the result of apperception, in which, in this example, while it habitually “seems” (i.e., is apperceived into your existing understanding) that thoughts are self-created, we override that understanding with the “correct” understanding, but which is not yet realized directly in imperience. For example, a teacher tells you that it is not true that your thoughts are self-created, and because of the authority you have imbued their words with, you correct your understanding.

The second form of realization is when the correct form of understanding arises as an a priori structuring of our experience, like “space” and “time” are in our normal way of understanding events in our lives. This second form of realization is a kind of habituation brought about by repeated imperience of the fact of a lack of active “doer-ship” in any manifest appearances, including our thoughts.

Enlightenment is when such a dualistic structure no longer manifests at all, and all “space,” “time,” and “causality” evaporate like the phantasms of the intellect that they are.

But note here: “time” as a constructed clock-time is dualistic; but “duration” as the necessary character of our imperiential knowing is seen to be nothing other than that which we intellectually label as “awareness,” but which is necessarily not dualistic — because then it would truly be something separate and apart from that of which it is aware — but is, rather, the knowing of all that appears within the Now. And this knowing is merely a synonym for the naturing of all that appears.

The result of all of this is that, seeing through these understandings — because they become such very brittle things in our mind — you do not become attached to them. You are no longer defined by them. You no longer identify with them. Because you are alienated from them.

Alienation is defined as: A withdrawing or separation of a person or a person’s affections from an object or position of former attachment. And here we can see that affections — our feelings (not our emotions, but what it is like to be: sad, happy, angry, a human, etc.) towards something or someone — operate at the level of imperience, and not at the level of apperceived experience. At that later level, we manifest emotional and intellectual responses, including desires and aversions.

This alienation is systemic — it applies to the whole of our imperiential life. Thus we become unattached to the content of our understanding, as well as being unattached to the structured experiences that we “have” after our imperiences are extruded through our current understanding.

This does not mean that we cannot proceed in our lives as before. As the koan quoted above points out: life continues to be comprised of the same activities as before enlightenment. The difference — and such a difference it is — is that we are not “invested” in that structure. If it works, we use it; if it doesn’t work, we change easily and without any ill effect.

In a sense we are dead to the outside — that which is a construct of the understanding. We are no longer led around by our desires, nor by our beliefs. We can confront the suffering of others — all others — and see it for what it really is. Our response is spontaneous and free to be compassionate without limit. So, while we are dead to the outside in the sense that we remain unaffected by the dramas of the world, we are fully and completely present to them, and will respond to them openly and freely with compassion.

This is not intellectual; it is, rather, our way of being.

I have only run across this idea, framed from the perspective of one’s comportment towards the events of the world, in a fairly recent revival of the doctrine of “Unconcoctability” (in Pali: Atammayatā) today found in Theravada Buddhism. Part of the reason why it is absent from the more general spiritual conversation may be because of the conversational/teaching focus on the intellectual realizations, rather than the comportment changes that arise as a result of a prolonged and consistent meditation practice. But even in this revival of the doctrine, there remains only a vague understanding of what it actually consists in:

Regarding atammayatā, Santikaro Bhikkhu points out that even the classical commentarial tradition, while recognizing the importance of the term, interprets it quite vaguely, essentially connecting it with the three basic constituents of mental proliferation, papañca.² “Atammayatā appears in a number of Pali suttas and each context suggests that the term has important meaning. The traditional commentators, however, never caught on. They glossed atammayatā in a way that suggested the term was out of their depths: they rendered it as an absence of taṇhā (craving), absence of diṭṭhi (wrong views), and an absence of māna (conceit).”⁠³

In the Atammayasutta:

In seeing six rewards, it’s enough motivation for a monk to establish the perception of not-self with regard to all phenomena without exception. Which six? “I won’t be fashioned in connection with any world. My I-making will be stopped. My my-making will be stopped. I’ll be endowed with uncommon knowledge. I’ll become one who rightly sees cause, along with causally-originated phenomena.” In seeing these six rewards, it’s enough motivation for a monk to establish the perception of not-self with regard to all phenomena without exception.⁠⁴

And completing the depiction:

In the commentary on the Atammayasutta Buddhaghosa states once more that: the practitioner is not “made of that,” namely that he is devoid of thirst, and — this time adds — wrong opinions: tammayā vuccanti taṇhādiṭṭhiyo, tāhi rahito: “Made of this’ are said to be thirst and [wrong] opinions. He is devoid of both.” The reference to the erroneous opinions explicitly occurs also in verse 853ab of the Suttanipāta. It appears in the Aṭṭhakavagga, the oldest section of the text and one of the oldest of the Canon, towards the end of the ninth chapter, where we find the teachings that the Buddha had given to Māgaṇḍiya. The topic of the chapter can be summarized as follows: there is no need to embrace or reject a system of thought. The one who compares himself with others embraces a system and likes the discussions. The wise one does not compare himself with others, because he gives up conceit (māna).⁵

Does this Pali word, Atammayatā, truly mean what I wrote above in this dialog about realizations, insights, and enlightenment? Here is how Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu has explained it:

The word atammayatā is quite difficult to translate. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking how to translate it into Thai, and then into English. So far, the word that we feel is most correct as an English translation is “unconcoctability,” or the inability to be concocted, where there’s nothing that can concoct the mind. This is how we would like to explain or translate atammayatā. If we take the word atammayatā and break it up: a means ‘not’ or ‘un’; tam means ‘that’; maya means ‘to fabricate, to make, or to concoct’; and then ta means ‘the state’. So it’s the state of not being concocted by that, meaning not being concocted by anything. Atammayatā is when the mind is free. The essence of atammayatā is the mind is completely free, so there’s nothing that can concoct it, that can condition it. By the way, this word ‘concoct’, if you’re not used to it, comes from the Latin word ‘to cook’. It means ‘to cook together’, and we use the word concoct to mean the way the mind is brewed up, cooked up, conditioned, concocted by things. When the mind is so free that nothing can touch it — nothing can concoct it — we call that state, that realization, that understanding atammayatā or ‘unconcoctability’. The essence of which, the mind that is free of, has transcended everything, and so nothing can affect it, nothing can concoct it.⁠⁠⁶

The third and highest use of atammayatā is to signify the state of mind that is totally free, independent, liberated. Tan Ajahn Buddhadasa prefers to describe this state as being “above and beyond positive or negative.” Human beings instinctually feel and perceive all experience as either positive or negative. This leads to evaluating and judging those experiences, which turns into liking and disliking those experiences, which in turn fosters craving, attachment, and selfishness. Thus arises dukkha (misery, pain, dissatisfaction). The mind that has gone beyond positive and negative cannot be pulled into the conditioned arising (paticca-samuppada) of dukkha. Thus, atammayatā in this, its most proper sense, describes the state of the Arahant, the perfected, liberated human being.⁠⁷

However:

The term atammayatā cannot be found in the Pali Text Society Dictionary. Readers will find it difficult to discover references to it in scholarly works, whether they come from West or East. The meditation masters of Tibet, Burma, or Zen do not seem to be interested in it. Mention it to most Buddhists and they will not know what you are talking about. Yet there is clear evidence in the Pali Canon that the Buddha gave this word significant meaning.⁠⁸

You are to know that this knowledge of atammayatā is very ancient but it’s been forgotten. This knowledge used to exist, but then has been overlooked.⁠⁹

The principal problem with my characterization of this change that enlightenment brings is that the word “alienation” evokes psychology and the limited ideas of psychologists, in which alienation looks like a form of disassociation:

The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. Dissociation is commonly displayed on a continuum.⁠¹⁰

And for Psychology, “reality” means their definition of reality, and not that which I have presented in this book as that which is non-contingent, necessary, simple, and evidenced. Theirs is a phantasm made out of the modern world, colored in such a way that they deem it “sane,” and anything outside of that definition, is “not sane.”

And as we have seen over the history of our race, such definitions are not necessarily free of political motivations that allow Psychology to become a way of punishing those who are not liked by the State.

My only answer to this, which I must frame in a personal way, is that from the time I was an infant and first learned how to comfort myself after the death of my mother, I didn’t disassociate from what was happening, I turned towards what is evidence of the real — thus I was fully responding to that which I now refer to as inner spontaneous sound, which is the reverberation or resonances of the very naturing of the world — and not the story unfolding around me. I was able to not allow it to concoct me in any way, starting initially with learning how to shunt aside the most damaging “negative” behaviors of those around me.

As well, having discovered the presence of inner spontaneous sound, I always had that as a counter-presence to reduce the possible trauma of the direct meditative insights that came my way — the A&P, no inherent self-nature, as well as the perspective-reversal of the Now, which some psychologists today are so focused on as being evidence that meditation is dangerous.

Secularized meditation spread by the inexperienced is dangerous, much as weight-lifting without knowing what you’re doing is dangerous. But I was always reassured, when the traditional insights arose, that there was still something real that I could always rely upon.

When your mother calls and you turn away from your play, is that a dissociation that is occurring? My answer is: Not at all, your mother’s call is what is real, your play is just a story.

Which is healthier? To be so lost in the story that you ignore what is real (your mother in this case), or actively paying attention to she that gave you life?

You will have to decide that on your own.

Alienation — the comportment that enlightenment brings — is one aspect of the full change that occurs when complete freedom is attained. The other is Great Responsiveness (Mahākarunā).

It is very important to understand that Great Responsiveness is not possible unless one becomes alienated from what is experienced, regardless of how fitting your understanding is, of the world.

That is to say: you don’t have to be right in your understanding to escape being concocted by what is happening around you; nor does being very wrong in your understanding make matters worse for you. To be alienated is to be untouchable — unconcoctable — regardless of how true your apperceived experiences are. And this is a good thing.

Because neither Alienation, nor Great Responsiveness is dependent upon the development of an understanding of anything, anyone can accomplish the attainment of enlightenment by following a serious practice of meditation. The expected series of meditation insights are sufficient to correct the most harden and wrong understanding.

And just so that we are clear, these sequential steps are standard, for the most part, within all doctrinal systems, with the apparent exception of Alienation as the quotes from the two Bhikkhus showed. To be sure, the names and portrayals will differ from tradition to tradition, but with dedicated effort, and the clarity that dedicated and substantive meditative practice brings about, it is possible to see how different doctrinal systems coalesce.

Thus, when Alienation increases, so does the spontaneous manifestation of Great Responsiveness. And in fact, it is necessary that Alienation takes place, otherwise, still being concocted by our experiences, beliefs, and understandings, we are unable to provide the clearing for spontaneous compassionate responses to occur with any frequency. In brief, we are too wrapped up in ourselves and the dramas of our lives, to notice the suffering of others.

It should be clear also, that Alienation is being dead to, or unconcocted by both “positive” and “negative” things, for the simple reason that “positive” and “negative” no longer arise.