Existential Buddhism brings together the concepts of existential philosophy and the principles of Buddhism into one comprehensive understanding. Buddhism clarifies Existentialism and provides for a practical application of its insights. Existentialism explains why Buddhism works and makes it more accessible to the modern mind.
Existential Buddhism does not add or take away anything from traditional Buddhism. It makes Buddhism easier to understand and makes Enlightenment easier to achieve. It offers a modern understanding of traditional Buddhism.
If you are not familiar with the basic Buddhist teachings, there is an excellent introduction in the blog section.
Existential philosophy, or Existentialism, is most recognized as a cultural movement in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s. It focused on the individual experience of existence. It is most characterized by anguish in the face of the absurdity of the human existence. Jean Paul Sartre (b.1905, d.1980) attributed this condition to the Nothingness of consciousness, which he expressed as “existence precedes essence.”
The Nothingness is the very nature of human consciousness: a consciousness that is an absolute subjectivity.
Emmanuel Kant (b.1724, d.1804) was the first to realize that there is the empirical self, which we recognize as our person. But there is also an awareness which unites all perceptions but does not perceive itself. He writes in his Critique of Pure Reason:
No knowledge can take place in us, no connection or unity of one item of knowledge with another, without that unity of consciousness which precedes all data of intuitions. . . This pure, original and unchangeable consciousness I shall call transcendental apperception. (B144-A108)
This pure awareness, this apperception, is an absolute subjectivity. It is also the foundation and the culmination of Buddhism.
Two and a half millennia earlier Siddhartha Gautama (circa 400 BCE) rigorously dedicated himself to finding a cure for human suffering. He discerned that the malady was due to craving.
Gautama formulated the Eightfold Path to set the mind free from chains of suffering. This is achieved through a process of meditation leading to a profound insight into the nature of the mind.
The path is based on the recognition of the impermanence of human existence. It also considers the consequence of actions and the importance of morality. But most characteristic, however, is the Not-self doctrine. It is the Not-self Doctrine that radically distinguishes Buddhism from other religions:
Form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction…
Feeling is not-self…
Perception is not-self…
Determinations are not-self…
Consciousness is not self. If consciousness were self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction. One could have it of consciousness: let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus… (SN 22.59)
With much effort and dedication, the Eightfold Path releases the mind from all craving. This then frees the mind from identification with an idea of Self. This freedom is Enlightenment.
Unfortunately, over time, the Not-self doctrine became misunderstood as a No-self doctrine. This is the idea that there is no individual or true being that exists. The human being then becomes a chain of interdependent causes with an illusion of a perceiving individual. This creates much confusion and obscurity as to the nature of liberation, or Enlightenment. If there is no individual being, then there is also no one who suffers, and no one who becomes Enlightened.
The Buddha did not describe what is realized after the Self-idea is released with Enlightenment. This is because the very description would lead to confusion, and back to the idea of Self. But he did leave a clue, which is well known but greatly misunderstood:
There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — un-made — unfabricated. If there were not that un-born — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an un-born — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned. (Ud 8.3)
Here the Buddha is referring to the Unconditioned consciousness. This is Kant’s transcendental apperception, and Sartre’s absolute subjective consciousness. The Not-self doctrine and the Nothingness point to this reality.
Existential Buddhism attains greater insight into the nature of human consciousness and the individuality existence. It clearly explains why a No-self Doctrine is contradictory.
Human consciousness is a Pure Awareness and at the same time Not-self and a Nothingness.
This website will visit in the themes above in greater detail and many more relating to Existentialism and Buddhism.