The City of Separation: A Tale of Transformation

There was once a city covered by clouds. In it were great office buildings, schools, stores, and factories. The city was a place where raw materials, both physical and human, flowed. It was the centre of the economy. It was where you had to be if you wanted to be an important, successful person, but it was also a place where many terrible things happened. The majority of people in their own estimation were failures; no person or place was secure from unlawful behaviour; and the result of this environment was an infinite variety of illnesses, some of them deadly and contagious. This city was very dark. To be noticed more, the people improvised various extreme forms of behaviour and dress. They lived in fear and suspicion. Even so-called friends withheld much from one another. If you asked who was in charge, you would be told, "We are all free here; we follow our own selves. No one controls us. This is just the way things are."

At first I had found this city interesting. I was drawn to walking its dark streets at all hours. Eventually I began to wish to find some other life, or change something inside myself, but as often as I thought about it, nothing ever changed. I once asked someone, "Am I the only one who feels that something is not right? Or do other sometimes feel this way?" "Sure, we all complain," he answered. "But this is life. We have to adjust to reality. Why whistle in the wind? But there is a neighborhood of this city where you can find people who feel the way you do."

I was informed of the neighbourhood of Remorse, as it was called, and came to know the people there. They were in every respect like the other people of this city, except that they felt remorse over some of their actions. Among the population were many arrogant, envious, and insincere individuals who took pleasure in getting the upper hand in every situation. I came to know them well – their selfishness and doubt, their obsessions and hesitations, their remorse, and their inevitable acceptance of their weakness. I asked, "Why don't people change? Why do they only think about it and never do it? Why don't we consider how all this will end?"

By some chance a few of the people of this neighbourhood found their way out of the city and came to the village of Sharing. They found it either through real desperation or by accident. A sign at the village limits said, "Spirit in us All". The people here enjoyed many forms of togetherness. They had many occasions for celebration, and they sang songs together and danced. Their children were respected and allowed plenty of play time, and they were also given useful work. Travellers were always welcomed and cared for. Family members did not fear getting old and useless. If someone fell sick, others took this as a special opportunity to visit. Married people did not fear judgment or abandonment. Lovers were guiltless and pure. Each person valued his or her work because of how it fit into the whole, and everyone had something to work at because all were needed by the others. But more than anything, what kept the people happy was the totally irrational and immeasurable love they felt for a goddess of affection who walked amongst them. Once people had met her there was little chance of their ever returning to the city.

Painting: "Horae Serenae" (detail) by Sir Edward John Poynter

Unlike the people of the city who acted solely and predictably from their own selfish-interest, these people of Sharing were unpredictable. They acted irrationally, giving always the best they had and expecting nothing in return. These people lived in a mist of love. They would not have survived well in most other places, but here in Sharing one found rich and poor together. The most educated were humbly teaching those who wished to know more. Those who were served respected those serving them. I immediately felt relaxed and at home, even joyous. My life went along smoothly for some time before I began to feel unsettled in my heart. When I saw a certain old man whose face was radiant with life and compassion, I told him, "Maybe you can help me. I cannot seem to remember what it is I really want."

"What do you deeply love?"

"When I was in the city I had forgotten about love. When I came to this village, I realized that there was nothing I wanted more than to be here with these people, but now I am not sure."

"Beyond this village, my son, is a place you might visit," he said. "Don't worry, I can easily take you there. In this place, you may meet, God willing, four kinds of people:

"First, there are the Pretenders. You will see them reading and talking about the Truth, even doing the postures of meditation and the forms of worship, but their minds are often somewhere else. And yet they are practicing the ways of love, the fruits of love, as if they really knew love, and this will save them in the end. They are learning that the One has many names. May their imitation become reality.

"Then there are the Warriors. They practice the Greater Work, the struggle with the ego. They are quiet and gentle, thankful and courteous. The activities they love are the simple acts of living, prayer, and spontaneous service. They have shed the artificialities of the ego and its many distractions. Their egos have been tamed by love, found submission, and learned to serve their great Self. If you find them, stay with them long enough to learn patience and the real contentment.

"Third, you may meet, God willing, the People of Remembrance. They remember the One inwardly in all they do. They eat little, sleep little, and speak little lest distract one another's attention from the presence of the One. They are the easiest people to be with — light as feather, never a burden on anyone. If you spend many years with them, God willing, you might overcome your forgetfulness, doubt, and withholding. But even when you do, you will still have the hidden contradiction of I and He."

At this moment I was overcome with such sadness, and the tears were flowing before I knew it. I wanted to drown in this sea of sorrow, because I felt so far from anything real — so lost — but the sight of the radiant face of my old friend took away my sense of hopelessness.

"Oh dear one," he said, "slave of your own ego, orphan, exile, beggar, the fourth group you will meet, God willing, are the People of Total Submission. They undertake no unnecessary action on their own, but there is no obstacle to the will of their great Self, no hesitation, no second thoughts, no bargaining. They have reached the most subtle state of themselves and know their own nothingness. These people ask nothing for themselves because they are identified with the creative power Itself. You may live among them for many years until you know of their state and your actions appear as theirs, but you will not be inwardly one of them if you still suffer from separation, if you are still yourself, if you still feel lover and beloved. While your experience still comes from the well of your own subconscious, by your own inner faculties — as long as a trace of you remains in you — you have not attained your purpose. Know that there is a knowledge and certainty that comes through Spirit alone. Spirit plus Nothing: that is your highest destiny.

The above is a version of a story from an unpublished nineteenth-century Sufi source as re-told in "Living Presence" by Kabir Helminski:

so that those of us who are searching will reflect —

on where it is we live and 

where we are going?

Emily Dickinson & Charles Baudelaire

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) & Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) lived in different continents, but for both their religion – 
and intoxication — 
was poetry!

Dickinson:

I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior — for Doors —

Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of eye —
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky —

Of Visitors — the fairest —
For Occupation — This —
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise —

Baudelaire, ‘Get Drunk’

(trans. Amelia Hasard)

Always be drunk.
That is all
there is to it.
Do not feel
Time’s horrible burden
chip at your shoulders
and crush you into the earth,
by getting drunk and staying so.
On what?
On wine, on poetry, on virtue, on whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you find yourself
at the steps of a palace,
on the green grasses of a gutter
or in the bleak dejection of your room,
waking to find your drunkenness
already fading, disappearing,
ask the wind,
wave,
star,
bird
or clock,
ask anything that flees,
anything that whimpers,
ask anything that rolls,
sings
or speaks, ask what time it is;
and the wind,
wave,
star,
bird or clock
will all answer you,
‘Time to get drunk!
Avoid becoming Time’s martyred slaves,
by getting drunk;
by getting drunk endlessly!
On wine, on poetry, on virtue, on whatever.’ 

Dickinson:

I taste a liquor never brewed —

From Tankards scooped in Pearl —

Not all the Vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air — am I —

And Debauchee of Dew —

Reeling — thro endless summer day —

From inns of Molten Blue —

When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee

Out of the Foxglove's door —

When Butterflies — renounce their “drams” —

I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats —

And Saints — to windows run —

To see the little Tippler

Leaning against the — Sun —

Samatha Practice — A Study Guide

This is based on the introductory chapters from
Alan Wallace, “The Four Immeasurables”
    

Foundation of Practice – Ethics

The fundamental obstacle of the spiritual path is delusion, the mental afflictions that distort or twist the window of the mind so that we misconstrue reality. The Tibetan word for an adept is drang song, meaning straight, not twisted. While the antidote for hatred, self-centredness and indifference is loving kindness, the antidote to delusion is insight.

The perception of self without identity — this does not mean self does not exist but that it is not separate and autonomous — realized as an experience (not just as a philosophy) can be a precious treasure and utterly transformative, or it may be perceived as the loss of the greatest possible treasure. If the latter, then meditation is time not very well spent! Some groundwork is therefore needed to ensure insight can be welcomed so that it enriches and empowers rather than giving you a sense of existential impoverishment. In inter-relationship, our ego softens. This is not self-negation, but rather self-contextualization. It is possible to get tantalizing glimpses that drift away elusively, like smelling something cooking. Some groundwork is needed so that we can sustain our realizations and they are not reduced to mere episodes in memory. If worthwhile, how much more so to enter repeatedly, deepen, and let it saturate your experience. With continuity and clarity, this is radically transformative. Otherwise, it is mere flirtation.

Ethical discipline is the via negativa, entailing a quality of protection, that allows our efforts in spiritual practice to take root and flourish. The 253 precepts of the Buddhist monk all come down to a single precept: avoid inflicting harm on yourself or others. As our wholesome qualities become stronger, the virtue of our own mind protects itself and the need for discipline falls away. An enlightened being can be utterly spontaneous without restraint. When we notice our minds occupied by an affliction, the eighth century bodhisattva Santideva counsels us to stop and do nothing. Do not repress or pretend it’s not there, just pause, be present and wait until it passes. Restraint is not eradication, but a kind of quarantine. It helps prevent the illness of a thought or of a person from spreading to other thoughts or persons until we find the cure.

The positive approach is the guidance of intuition, opening up to all the insight, love and realization that is latently present. The purpose of spiritual practice is merely to awaken and bring forth the limitless potential for compassion, insight and power. The metaphor is of the cosmic atom-splitter revealing Buddha nature within each atom. The sense is of discovery rather than cultivation, a simple unveiling rather than arduous effort. If the heart leaps to affirm something positive beyond your knowledge, then don’t forsake it.

It is said that when the wisdom of the mind has been completely unveiled, you can raise a question, attend to it, and the truth will become evident. It is said that a Buddha’s compassion for every sentient being is like that of a mother. It extends like an ocean: even, calm, embracing, and with an ocean’s depth of concern and caring. It is said that a Buddha’s mind has extraordinary power, a power that can engage with the physical world to transform reality. In so emphasizing our material power, we have, perhaps inevitably, de-emphasized the power of the mind. “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” When Jesus said that, he was speaking literally of the power of the Holy Spirit.

The foundation of ethical discipline is so simple that if we care for that foundation, a lot will become evident, but if we skip it, the foundation is missing. Note that it’s a matter of restraint, rather than doing good. When we try to avoid things that cause harm, the goodness arises in and of itself. This may seem negative, but the implicit message is very optimistic. This may be experienced first-hand without any deep mystical realization with regard to quiescence of the mind. In so far as the mind is free of turbulence and torpor, a sense of well-being and calm arises from your mind. Knowing that well-being is not utterly dependent on things outside your control is a great insight. It gives us back our freedom.

The jewel in the lotus, Om Mani Padme Hum is a wonderful metaphor for the essential nature of the mind. It integrates two very different approaches, that of engaging in practice, and that of recognizing the perfection that is already there. The mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” is associated with Avalokitesvara, the embodiment of enlightened compassion. Om signifies the manifest body, speech and mind. Mani in Sanskrit means “jewel”. Padme, pronounced pémé in Tibetan, means “in the lotus”. Hum, pronounced by the Tibetans as hoong, is a syllable suggesting the transcendent deepest essential nature of consciousness. On the one hand, “Strive diligently!”, on the other, “the jewel is right there!”.

As you chant the mantra, bring out the poetry of the metaphor. Imagine this jewel of the purity and perfection of your own Buddha-nature as a pearl of white light emanating from your heart and suffusing your body from the inexhaustible source of joy and compassion, so that your body becomes this light. Then let the light spread forth in all directions, bringing the same quality of purification, joy and compassion to those individuals and communities in the world who most need it.

There are three major emphases in traditional Buddhist practice: ethics, stabilizing the mind, and insight practice. All too often, the first hardly even gets mentioned; we skip past the kid’s stuff. Many come away from ten-day retreats with their lives radically changed by insights into avenues of experience they never knew were possible. The experience is valuable, but also fragile. The stronger the ethical grounding, the longer the half-life of the practice before it degenerates after the retreat, faced with real-world challenges. Not-harming is an on-going introspection throughout the day. That is not to say we need to be too hard on ourselves. A gentle approach fares best, and over time our need for indulgences will fall away. It’s a matter of timing. If an indulgence seems redundant or pointless, it probably is. That is the time to drop it. All of this is a path of freedom, not just a path to freedom, as we begin to be able to free ourselves from compulsive behaviour.

  

Entering Practice – 

Peaceful Concentration

What impedes the flowering of loving kindness? I have no answers, but one thing which certainly bears on the issue is our sense of inadequacy and neediness with which we engage with other people, and in so doing objectify them. This is the realm of the eight mundane concerns: our desire for material acquisitions, pleasurable stimuli, praise and acknowledgment, and our fear for the opposites of these four. A mind that reaches out to other people to provide what it seems to lack itself is a mind ignorant of its own resources for peace and happiness. Through attention to something as simple as our breath, we may learn to recognize and experientially come to know that there is nothing we need.

The purpose of samatha meditation is to make the mind serviceable, that however you wish to use it, it is fit for purpose. The dysfunctional mind is heavy, stiff, dark and prone to negative influences. The samatha mind is buoyant, light, stable and clear, ready to devote itself to the cultivation of wholesome qualities.

Abide in the moment, and rest your awareness on the tactile sensations of your body. Do a body scan from the contact of your body to the ground to your head and back to the ground. Witness the sensations of your breath as it enters deep within your belly and then out again. Soften your abdomen. Observe the shallow breath that is felt only in the abdomen, the deeper breath that raises your diaphragm, and the yet deeper breath that moves up into the chest. Then move your attention just to the point of entry of the breath at the mouth or nostrils, and rest with the rhythm of the oscillation, noting particularly the sensation just following the in-breath and just prior to the out-breath. Let your awareness rest in this soothing place.

There are three keys to the practice of meditation to attain peaceful mind: relaxation, stability and vividness. In two words, peaceful concentration.

Relaxation is the beginning of the end to distraction, not directed concentration, but rather the resting of awareness from its roamings. Instead of clamping down on mental agitation and distraction, we release it and return to the rhythm of the breath. Especially on the out-breath, release the energy and effort you are expending on distraction letting it blow away like the autumn leaves, and so that it’s as if the body breathe itself. Can we witness without trying to control? This is not just a superficial problem. Can we just let go and like a surfer ride the wave from the end of the out-breath to the beginning of the in-breath. Posture is very important; the breath effortless, the mind awake. You can also do this lying flat on your back, the spine slightly extended by stretching out at the chin and tail-bone. Shoulders relaxed, face relaxed, eyes soft. Each breath is an adventure. Can you relax fully for one full cycle? This would be a great accomplishment. Can you do better?

One breath after another, and we attain continuity. The main problem is the unwitting disengagement of the mind from the breath or gross excitation as it attends to something else. It is time now to attain stability. Keep going, but gently, without losing the quality of relaxation. Discipline is valuable, but not if you sacrifice the sense of ease.

With good continuity, of five, ten, twenty minutes or more, it’s almost certain that a laxity or complacency sets in, called laya, a feeling of deep settling like sinking into a huge armchair. The third and crucial component is vividness. It gives a feeling of being on a high. If the vividness lacks stability, it is fragile and tends to collapse, so just as relaxation must precede stability, stability must precede vividness. Sustain ease, maintain focus, and then when you find the first trace of laxity setting in, observe more closely, increase the sense of interest, even imagine flooding your body with light. If necessary, wash your face with cold water, or switch to objects of meditation which inspire, uplift and invigorate you. Breath awareness is the staple, but some prefer more complex visualizations. In the case of the latter, imagine turning up the brightness of the object by a million volts. Laxity is conquered by the vividness of illumination.

 
If the attention and breath can move like two dancers, without one grabbing the other and pulling it around, then there is not much space left for a gross sense of ego. The fine-tuning of samatha requires you to be so much in the moment that you are very near insight practice, and it’s relatively easy to develop one from the other.
 
Overcoming laxity is difficult. Try shortening your practice. Recall your original motivation. If you can start to get a taste of vividness along with continuity, then it will be much easier to keep going as the meditation reaps its own rewards in a sense of well-being. It is also useful to meditate in a bright environment, and to imagine inner light. When the mind closes down it needs to be centred with effort. Bring in some high-voltage awareness.
 
The practice of samatha meditation seeks not only controlled attention, but also mastery, so that we have the freedom to place it where we choose. William James is very insightful on the subject, as are the Buddhist teachings. The Tibetans distinguish between mindfulness and introspection. The sole task of mindfulness is to attend to the object with continuity. Introspection serves rather like quality control, checking on how it’s going. Note that the latter is not continuous, but an intermittent pause, for example if we notice gross excitation or agitation and the object of meditation is forgotten. With practice, this doesn’t arise any more, but still there may be a chatter of subtle excitation about the edges. This too disappears in time. Like a row of dominoes, the spaces in between the moments of mindfulness get smaller and smaller until it is fixed in a smooth continuous chain. Laxity is now almost bound to arise. The Tibetan word for it bying ba literally means “sinking”, and you need introspection to detect this. Then you need to add a spark of vividness. Even when vivid, a subtle degree of laxity may remain in which the object does not have full intensity. Gross and subtly laxity overcome, you no longer need introspection and it is even a hindrance. A feeling arises of just being. No more needs to be done. And yet, do not be premature about this.

Subject and object break down and you are left with the pure experience. This is the beginning of samatha. It is an advanced state, peaceful and incredibly creative. What to do with the ideas that arise in it? Just hold onto the spark. When you come out of meditation, you can let that spark re-ignite. Write down the ideas, follow them through as you like, and come back with a sense of completion. Sometimes buried difficulties will arise also. Then it is time for stalking the self, processing them with self-acceptance and compassion. In the words of Tiffany William,

You weren't born to feel guilty all the time. So cheer up,

promise yourself not to make the same mistake again 'cos
it’s your time to SHINE!
 

In summary,

I think the way Wallace imagines the practice is as a sequence of successive refinement of mental circuitry (as we establish greater and greater ability to maintain concentration on the object of our practice, from a relaxed awareness, to the addition of stability as we turn away from distraction, to the addition of vividness as we turn away from laxity), and each time we practice, we make progress, though it may not feel like it. Yet between our practice, we also lose some of that progress. So it's a very simple equation... of building more than we lose... and it's here where ethical foundations help minimize our losses and keep us on track. This is a very goal oriented approach, so we risk falling into a “desire to become” if we are not careful but perhaps it is merely motivation to set us on our way…

So, what do we need in between practice to keep the practice strong? A suitable environment? Perhaps the quietness and spaciousness on the outside can help us to cultivate quietness and spaciousness inside, which is why Tibet became such a centre for spiritual practice in the past. Quietness and spaciousness both come with their opposite urges to fill the space, so this is where we must rest content in our inner space to not be disturbed by their lure. Again and again, we will be attacked by the idolatorous desires such as the eight mundane concerns mentioned already: material things, pleasure, praise, acknowledgement, and fear of the opposite of these four, and no doubt there’s a supra-mundane list also, which will also be worth looking up some time, including such things as the desire for security expressed through ideas and beliefs, and the “desire to become” and the “desire to extinguish”. And as the other Alan, Alan Watts, would say, it is only when the iron bull once and for all rejects the futile attempts of the mosquito to bite its iron hide, that the natural instincts of the mosquito are vanquished. And in the pause, there opens a way for grace and awakening. Or else we keep on biting the same old mind-addictions forever.

Another thing which occurred to me is that the moment immediately after waking is particularly interesting… because it is a natural pause! And our mind seeks to quickly fill that pause with thoughts, often futile or busy, and the movement of our mind after that pause is a powerful sign of our mental addictions. They are mostly harmless probably, and yet they exist. They might change from month to month, and yet they always lurk beneath the surface of consciousness. Are they mundane concerns? Or supra-mundane concerns? Or are we genuinely aware of them as expressions of our purpose. If we are to hope to make any progress, the strength of our practice must be greater than the strength of our mind-addictions, and our greatest aid is awareness and acceptance of their existence. That which is understood is no longer threatening. That which is named is recognised. That which is recognised triggers a reminder in us to "pause", to "stay", to "concentrate". And if we should fail, then to forgive and move on and not make the same mistake again. As Wallace says, the "road to freedom" is in fact a "road of freedom". And the Tibetans are really great! When the completely vivid, stable and tranquil samatha mind is realised, they have another four stages of practice to go beyond it, lol.
   

Another pause: the moment after you complete something! The mind is addicted to "next, next, next..." and sooner or later our actions follow, "next, next, next..." The authentic action on the other hand is always nestled within the pause and does not seek to end it. It comes from within, instead of coming from without in an attempt to fill a "gap".

But this example is just that of agitation (one of the five hindrances to meditation). The mind is also addicted to day-dreaming, boredom, doubt and aversion, and then the actions follow, either time-wasting or sleepiness, or hesitation, or judgment, so the five hindrances are just as much a reality of life as of meditation.

The rest of Wallace's book is then devoted to the cure to all afflictions of the mind, and that is love. The four immeasurables" of the title are: loving kindness, compassion, joy in the joy of others, and equanimity.

Happy practicing!

Postscript:
This is an alternative Zen guide to meditation
 

Lecture given by master Sheng-yen during the Dec. 1993 Ch'an retreat

(edited by Linda Peer and Harry Miller)
Source: Chan Newsletter #106 (Feb. 1995)

The Japanese term "shikantaza" literally means "just sitting." Its original Chinese name mo-chao means "silent illumination." "Silent" refers to not using any specific method of meditation and having no thoughts in your mind. "Illumination" means clarity. You are very clear about the state of your body and mind.

When the method of silent illumination was taken to Japan it was changed somewhat. The name given to it "just sitting" means just paying attention to sitting or just keeping the physical posture of sitting and this was the new emphasis. The word "silent" was removed from the name of the method and the understanding that the mind should be clear and have no thoughts was not emphasized. In silent illumination "just sitting" is only the first step. While you maintain the sitting posture you should also try to establish the "silent" state of the mind. Eventually you reach a point where the mind does not move and yet is very clear. That unmoving mind is "silent" and that clarity of mind is "illumination." This is the meaning of "silent illumination."

Faith in Mind a poem attributed to the Third Patriarch of Ch'an Seng-Ts'an (d. 606) begins with something like this: "The highest path is not difficult so long as you are free of discriminations." "Discriminations" can also be translated as "choices" "selections" or "preferences." The highest path is not difficult if you are free from choosing selecting or preferring. You must keep the mind free from discrimination and attachment. The method in which the mind is kept free from discrimination and attachment is what is called "silence" here. But "silent" does not mean the mind is blank and cannot function. The mind is free from attachment clear and yet it still functions.

We also read in Faith in Mind that "This principle is neither hurried nor slow. One thought for ten thousand years." "This principle" is the mind of wisdom and from its perspective time does not pass quickly or slowly. When we meditate or work we may fall into a worldly samadhi state and feel that time passes very quickly. In an ordinary state we may feel that time passes quickly or slowly. However in the mind of wisdom there is no such thing as slow or hurried time. If we can say there is thought in the mind of wisdom it is an endless thought which never changes. This unchanging thought is no longer thought as we usually understand it. It is the unmoving mind of wisdom.

In the Song of Samatha of Master Yung-chia Hsuan-chueh (665 - 713 also the author of the Song of Enlightenment) two Chinese terms are used which can be translated as "quiescence" and "clarity." Master Yung-chia uses them in two phrases "quiescence and clarity" and "clarity and quiescence." They describe a person whose mind is both clear and unmoving. When an ordinary person's mind is clear and alert it is usually also active and full of scattered thoughts. Quiescence of mind is difficult to maintain. When the mind is quiet it usually is not clear even in a samadhi state. But Yung-chia describes these two states quiescence and clarity as well as clarity and quiescence as goals.

Master Hung-chi Chen-chueh (1091-1157) who invented the term "silent illumination" in his poem the Song of Silent Illumination said this

In silence words are forgotten.
In utter clarity things appear.

"Words are forgotten" means you experience no words no language no ideas and no thought. There is no discrimination. This in combination with the second phrase "In utter clarity everything appears" means that although words language and discrimination do not function everything is still seen heard tasted and so on.

Someone told me that when he uses the Silent Illumination method he eventually gets to a point where there is nothing there and he rests. That is not true Silent Illumination. In Silent Illumination everything is there but the mind is not moving. A person may think he has no thoughts because the coarser wandering thoughts are absent but there will be fine subtle wandering thoughts of which he is unaware. He may think there is nothing there and so stop practicing. In Chinese this is called "Being on the dark side of a mountain in a cave inhabited by ghosts." The mountain is dark so there is nothing to see and in the cave of ghosts what can one accomplish?

Now I would like to explain how to use the method of shikantaza. First your posture should be upright. Do not lean in any direction. Be clear about your posture because if you practice shikantaza just sitting at the very least you should be conscientious about sitting. It is also important to remain relaxed.

Next be aware of your body but do not think of it as yourself. Regard your body as a car you drive. You have to handle the car well but it is not you. If you think of your body as yourself you will be bothered by pain itchiness and other vexations. Just take care of the body and be aware of it. The Chinese name for this method can be translated as "just take care of sitting." You have to be mindful of your body as the driver must be mindful of the car but the car is not the driver.

After a period of time the body will sit naturally and cause no problems. Now you can begin to pay attention to the mind. If you were eating your mind should be the "mind of eating" and you would pay attention to that mind. When you are sitting your mind should be the "mind of sitting." You watch this sitting mind. Two different thoughts alternate: the mind of sitting and the mind or thought that watches the mind of sitting. First you watch the body sitting with little attention to the mind. When the body drops away watch the mind. What is the mind? It is the mind of sitting! When your attention dissipates you will lose awareness of this sitting mind and the sensations of the body will return. Then you should again watch the body sitting. Another possibility is that while you watch the mind you fall into a dull state like "Being on the dark side of the mountain in a cave inhabited by ghosts." When you become aware of this situation your bodily sensations return and you should go back to watching them. Thus these two objects of attention the body and the mind are also used alternately.

In the state where you watch the mind are you aware of the external environment sound for example? If you want to hear sound you will and if you do not want to hear sound you won't. At this point you primarily pay attention to your own mind. Although you may hear sounds they do not create discriminations.

There are three stages in this practice. You should start at the beginning and progress to deeper levels. First be mindful of your body. Then be mindful of your mind and of the two thoughts alternating in it. The third stage is enlightenment. The mind is clear and as the poem quoted said "In silence words are forgotten. In utter clarity things appear." When you first practice you will probably be in the first or second level. If you use this method correctly you will not enter into samadhi.

This last point needs clarification. It depends on how we use the term "samadhi." In Buddhadharma samadhi has many meanings. For instance Sakyamuni Buddha was always in samadhi. His mind was not moving yet he still continued to function. This is wisdom. Sakyamuni Buddha's samadhi is great samadhi and this is the same as wisdom. When I said that in the practice of Silent Illumination you should not enter samadhi I meant worldly samadhi where you forget about space and time and are oblivious to the environment. The deeper kind of samadhi which is the same as wisdom is in fact the goal of Silent Illumination.

What good is this explanation of Silent Illumination for people who are not using this method? If you are using another method of practice and you reach a point where it is impossible to continue you can switch to Silent Illumination and watch your body and mind. For instance if you use the method of reciting Buddha's name with counting and you can no longer count switch to Silent Illumination. If you use the hua-t'ou method but find that rather than generating great doubt you are simply repeating your hua-tou you may reach a point where you can no longer recite it. You can then switch to Silent Illumination and watch your body and mind. Eventually you will be able to use your own method again. Silent Illumination can provide a continuum for you in this in-between state so that you do not waste time.

I was just asked whether the enlightenment that comes from Silent Illumination is sudden or gradual. Enlightenment is always instantaneous. It is the practice that is gradual. As I mentioned earlier the third level of Silent Illumination is enlightenment. But how does one get there? As you practice your attachments discriminations and wandering thoughts gradually subside. Eventually you simply have no discriminations but this change is instantaneous. When the change happens you are in the state Hung-chi Cheng-chueh described as "In silence words are forgotten. In utter clarity everything appears.

After you have some experience practicing the sentiments and vexations you ordinarily experience may not arise during practice. It does not mean that they are gone. It just means that when you practice they do not arise. When you use Silent Illumination this may happen especially at the second level but that is not enlightenment. Practice is not like trying to clear thoughts from your mind and vexations from your life as if they were dust on a mirror. You cannot wipe the dust away and make yourself enlightened. It is not like that. Whether you use the methods of the Lin-chi or Tsao-tung sects within the Ch'an tradition once enlightened you realize that enlightenment has nothing to do with the practice that brought you there.

So why bother to practice? Practice is like a bridge that can lead to enlightenment even though enlightenment has nothing to do with practice.

Rousseau's “Social Contract”

From the famous opening line: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” we deduce three things: Rousseau loves paradoxes, he loves freedom, and he is nostalgic for the freedom man enjoyed before he became a member of society.

The second line: “Many a one believes himself the master of others, and yet he is a greater slave than they.” Another paradox! Rousseau is reminiscent of the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu and perhaps he was even inspired by the philosophy of the Tao. The emperor who thinks he has power over everything is in fact the slave of everything, like a rat on a treadmill running desperately just to keep still. But why a greater slave? Perhaps because the oppressed know they are enslaved. Society’s bonds are part of their everyday experience. The oppressor by contrast may not realize it.

The third line: “How has this change come about? I do not know.” Rousseau first defines what his purpose is not before going on to say what it is. It is not genealogy. That task will be taken up a century later by Nietzsche in his “Genealogy of Morals”.

The fourth line: “What can render it legitimate? I believe that I can settle this question.” Thus ends the first paragraph of Rousseau’s “Social Contract”. His purpose is what makes society legitimate despite the loss of freedom it entails. As he writes in the final paragraph of the whole work, it is to “lay down the principles of political right and attempt to establish the State on its foundations” and he concludes by saying that though he might have originally contemplated discussing external relations between one people and another: “law of nations, commerce, right of war and conquests, public rights, alliances, negotiations, treaties etc.”, these were beyond his limited scope. This is interesting in light of Nietzsche’s answer to how the social relation came about as being a consequence of external imposition in the first place. Nevertheless, Rousseau’s subject as we said is not speculative history nor external relations, but the current legitimacy of forms of authority internal to a society.

The structure of Rousseau’s work, like his first paragraph, is four-fold, and while seemingly disorganized conceals a hidden structure noted by Hilail Gildin. Following the introductory chapter to book one, the first four chapters concern false views of political authority, whilst the remaining four chapters establish its true foundations. The first six chapters of book two treat the sovereign as the source of law, the remaining six the legislator as its creator. The first nine chapters of book three discuss the institution of government, and the remaining nine how government might be prevented from usurping sovereign authority. The first four chapters of book four concern assemblies of the people, and the next four concern other public institutions besides the popular assemblies.

We focus primarily on the first book. What makes a moral obligation legitimate? Moral obligations are not secured out of prudence as might be the case in a state of nature under threat of force. By definition, legitimacy is not based on force. Nor is it custom based on psychological contentment because “man born in slavery” might not know better, “loving servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their brutishness”. Turned into pigs by Circe, they lost the desire to be changed back. Nor is it ordained by God, because of the unknowability of divine will, and loss of faith in any authority who might claim to know it better. Nor is it grounded in nature because its truth or falsehood, though not dependent merely on contentment, does rely on consent. What we are left with is legitimacy as a secular concept based on something more than psychological contentment or natural law, as a covenant. Since it cannot be to God, it must be between men.

Any covenant alienates the individual will either partially or wholly, and either to a part or to the whole of society. This gives four possible kinds of covenant. He rejects any kind of total alienation of the will to some person or group of people because “to deprive your will of all freedom is to deprive your actions of all morality”. Without personal accountability, any talk of legitimacy is vacuous. A master-slave relation can never be legitimate even if voluntary. Slavery, far from terminating a state of nature, intensifies it: the covenant is only as valid as the force that enforces it. Hobbes’ convention to Leviathan fails on this count. Even partial alienation to a person or government is a paradox because it alienates to a legitimate authority that part of one’s will for which one is no longer morally accountable. So any alienation must be to a whole. The original aggregate of individuals can only consent to be governed if they become a whole, a people, a unity.

Rousseau also rejects the possibility of partial alienation to the whole. This appears a rejection of inalienable rights beyond the purview of society. One reason he gives is because of the impossibility of managing conflicts when these rights conflict and so the inevitable breakdown of such a society into either anarchy or tyranny. The covenant must completely alienate the rights of each member to the community as a whole. Since the covenant is by consent, any member may always withdraw from it in exchange for the restoration of their natural rights, but doing so means withdrawing from the possibility of making any moral claim, for example if they think society’s punishment is unfair.

Thus Rousseau conceives of the social contract: a contract of association between all members of a society which simultaneously generates both a moral community and sovereignty. Each individual has a dual role both as active participant in the sovereign process and perfectly obedient to its law. This law is legislated by the sovereign body of all people according to the general will and executed by the government they appoint. But what is the general will? The risk is that it becomes merely the will of a majority. Rousseau attempts to preclude this, as well as the usurpation of sovereign legislative power of the people by its government. Following John Noone, we may enunciate some of the terms of Rousseau’s social contract (scattered throughout his work):

1) All citizens have a voice in the popular assembly, none may lawfully be excluded. (§1.6; §2.2; §4.1)
2) Sovereignty is inalienable and indivisible. (§2,1; §2.2) The assembly cannot bind itself, much less future generations. This precludes legislation in perpetuity. (§1.7)
3) Except for the original contract which is unanimous, the majority will is binding, the necessary size of majority subject to legislation. (§4.2)
4) The assembly of all citizens is a permanent assembly that meets regularly at arranged times, elects magistrates and appoints or dismisses government according to the general will. (§3.13; §3.18)
5) The life and property of all members of society are subject to the sovereign body and its laws. (§1.9; §2.5)
6) Legislation is limited to areas of common concern. Any proposed legislation must first be voted on to determine if it is a common concern, and secondly if it is a common good. (§2.4)
7) Only those laws are binding that are universal and impersonal, not singling out a person or group for special treatment, favourable or unfavourable. (§2.6)
8) Citizens are to vote not according to personal desires, but on the basis of their estimation of the common good. (§4.2)
9) Sovereignty may be suspended in an emergency, but for a very limited time period.
10) A civil creed that includes tolerance of all faiths not subversive to peace. (§4.8)
11) Goals according to a pre-existing general will that all the members of society commit to.
          etc.

In particular, note that the social contract is not a contract between the people and their government. This is a popular misunderstanding. Rousseau was especially critical of contract theories of government because they alienate the individual will to but a part of society (government) which he had already rejected (except for very limited time periods in case of emergency). Rousseau conceives of legislative authority remaining always with the people, so that government could be dismissed at any time if that were the general will.

In contrast to Locke who believed in the inalienability of property rights, and that any contract needed moral agents to begin with, Rousseau’s social contract is what makes its members moral citizens in the first place “substituting justice for instinct as the guide to conduct”. Duty becomes meaningful for the first time, so also legitimacy. On the face of it, this seems like the grossest nonsense, because it precludes morality and duty as conceived by reason, conscience or natural law. We will see however that the morality of the covenant arising from Rousseau’s social contract aims for something different, something encompassing and empowering individual and natural morality. In Buddhist terms, the social contract is the foundation for the moral being (Buddha), the moral law (Dhamma) and the moral community (Sangha), but the latter is deemed essential for the first two to find expression. There is something quite insightful in seeing these three as inter-dependent, yet by making moral law dependent on the community, what if the community is wrong? Are there not moral ideas or feelings that transcend time and space? Rousseau, following Locke, rejects innate ideas but not innate feelings. He writes in “Emile” that God has given him “conscience that I may love the right, reason that I may perceive it, and freedom that I may choose it”. Reason is not a sufficient source of moral obligation, so man must be endowed with the affective capacity of conscience to feel obliged, but he must also be motivated. This is the role the social contract plays. It is the motivation of reciprocal obligation which Rousseau seems to believe is necessary for the moral sentiment to bear fruit, that gives man “freedom” to do good.

John Noone’s explanation of what Rousseau means by freedom goes some way towards deciphering both the idea of a contract giving freedom, and also the kind of morality (that of the covenant) that occupies Rousseau. There are three kinds of freedom for Rousseau: natural freedom, political freedom and freedom to act from one’s own conscience. The social contract clearly restrains natural freedom, and leaves conscientious freedom alone, that is freedom to do good from individual conscience, independent of any obligation. However, it enforces political freedom. The idea of obliging freedom seems paradoxical. But political freedom is based on equality. Law must regulate everyone equally, universally and impersonally, and not lead to inequality. Thus Rousseau’s idea of obliging political freedom should be understood as obliging equality, so people are free to act according to their reason and conscience without being disadvantaged for doing so. Put this way, morality is strictly political morality, a duty to fellow citizens that reciprocates a corresponding duty of others to oneself. To recall Rousseau’s noble aim:

To find a form of association which defends and protects the person and goods of each associate with all the common force, and by which each uniting with all yet obeys only himself and remains as free as before. (§1.6)

Freedom is the cornerstone of Rousseau’s philosophy, but freedom in harmony with the general will. If not, then it would harm others’ freedom. Does the social contract succeed in its noble objective? In theory, Rousseau thinks so, but in practice he requires a wise legislator, like the prophets of old under the guise of divine authority and even then the course of history never did run smooth. Rousseau does recognize this — he is a pragmatic realist.

Though his philosophy is not historically or empirically sound and though dogged with speculation, there is behind the seeming disorder a certain coherence. Whether the social contract that emerges is workable we leave to human imagination, but is it even theoretically viable? One criticism that comes to mind is that it seems to subordinate morality for its own sake to morality for the sake of the community. Another is that while procedurally sound, the commitment to substantial content in the form of the civic creed and social goals risks betraying something of the freedom for society to define these for themselves. A third is that morality emerging from community runs the risk of being restrictive to that community so community identity could come to be defined negatively in terms of other communities. In truth, community is a nested concept of family, tribe, city, country, even religion, but it is one kind of community which Rousseau believes must take precedence to avoid conflicting loyalties. One possible remedy to all these criticisms is a combination of Kantian autonomy of the individual will that chooses its communitarian commitments and a theological idea of regarding the covenant to any one of these communities not as end in itself, but as a means of training the will to subservience to divine will under the universal community of all beings.

While Aristotle and the medieval scholastics had extolled the virtue of a pre-existing natural law (Dhamma), Rousseau is the philosopher of the community (Sangha) and Kant would later favour the autonomy of the sovereign being (Buddha). Each tries to improve on their predecessor, but in reality Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha are all necessary and all inter-dependent. In the perfection of one, the other two will also come into fruition. For example, the participants of Rousseau’s social contract will need to be autonomous judges of morality in order to elect officials and make decisions while the wise legislator will need to bear consideration on what are the underlying natural virtues of their particular society in order to create suitable laws. However, in the face of widespread social inequality, Rousseau’s emphasis on communal solidarity as his starting point seems well-placed. For all those passionate about freedom and equality, his “Social Contract” will continue to be a source of inspiration.

Islamic Law & The Modern State (Wael Hallaq)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Religion & Philosophy
Tagline:	An Islamic State is a contradiction in terms

This is one of those rare books that changes the way you see the world, so long as you can forgive its occasionally unnecessarily adversarial style, in particular its unfair dismissal of all things Kantian in the Western philosophical tradition, but as a starting point for self-reflection and critical enquiry, it is perfect. The events of 2014 re-enforce how the desire for self-independence of peoples has been translated in modern international society into the desire for the State. This expresses itself in diplomatic initiatives as in Scotland and Catalunya, but can also  degenerate into violent resistance as in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. The State is a site of decolonisation and self-determination, but also a source of potential sectarianism and civil war, especially when the mechanisms of the state do not represent and care for the peoples under its dominion.

The Israel-Palestine problem has often been framed as requiring a two-state or a one-state solution, but reflecting on Hallaq’s book, we see that perhaps the state itself is the problem in limiting our imagination of what a harmonious world should look like. The Jewish people needed a refuge after the horrors of the Second World War, and the state offers such a refuge, but for whom and against what? It was part of the solution to a problem that it had itself created in its extreme form in the Nazi state. How else to protect a people from the oppression of other states, but to create a state oneself? There are no easy answers. The State is the gold standard and only symbol in contemporary society of a people’s emancipation. Nevertheless, it is interesting to join Hallaq in tracing back the intellectual history within an Islamic context of what the state has come to stand in the place of, and how it has failed by comparison. And indeed, what we might discover is relevant in a non-Islamic context also.

Photo: “Man praying in Morocco”  —Umbreen Hafeez

Introduction:

Until the early 19th century and for twelve centuries before then, the moral law of Islam had successfully regulated customary law and local practices across the Muslim world, from North Africa to India. Beginning in the 19th century, it was structurally dismantled by colonial powers and lost its autonomy to the modern state. Nevertheless, it still remains a source of religious and moral authority, a spiritual source of moral ends, procedural laws and “technologies” for caring for the self. Islamic law is no longer the living breathing entity it once was, and what remains of it are distillations in special cases or appropriations to legitimize the modern state’s own structural violence. Semerjian’s “Off the Straight Path” tells how Islamic law was never as harsh in its punishments as it stipulated in theory, and as it is reputed to be. Judges were encouraged to be forgiving, finding loopholes to justify lesser sentences. For example, adultery met with a fine, while prostitutes were at worst expelled from the community.

Modern Islamic thinkers and scholars take the modern state for granted as a timeless phenomenon, but the state is a false idol of our times. Hallaq claims it is incompatible with the bottom-up nature of Islamic governance, and indeed with any reintegration of morality within modernity. Morality he claims has been displaced by the paradigm of the Enlightenment. Despite its internal multiplicity, despite its rebels in Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Marx and Herder, what Enlightenment thinkers shared was the assumption of a critical rational morality, secular, humanist and binding universally on all civilizations. To say this is the Enlightenment paradigm is not to say that there were not exceptions. Indeed, a paradigm shift occurs when the subversive discourses become the new norm. In drawing on pre-modern Islamic thought, just as modernity draws on the Enlightenment, Hallaq believes that we can engage with what is truly important, namely morality as end in itself, and not politics or law which have replaced it, not to mention economic growth, as a standard of human flourishing.

Islamic law rested on a concept of jihad (striving) toward the accomplishment of a moral end (the Arabic word is much misunderstood in late modernity with its political usage that I choose not to use it, just as the word Sharia for Islamic law has become symptomatic today with barbaric punishments when British colonial administrators had once criticized it on the contrary for being “too lenient”). In this striving for a moral resource from an earlier age, Hallaq defends himself against the charge of nostalgia. In the first place, this project is no different from an archaeology of ancient Greek and Roman thought with which Islam too has a shared heritage. The project is not one of revival of institutions, but of ideas. Any claim that we cannot learn from others is either one of self-diminution (that we are incapable of transcending the narrow self) or of hubris (that we have come too far already). Secondly, whilst Islamic law is defunct, its “five pillars” and their consequences are still preserved in the spiritual memory of all Muslims. Thirdly, disenchantment with modernity is not an Islamic concern, but a shared and distinctly modern, even postmodern, concern. It transcends both religious faith and the modern paradigm. Fourthly, and most importantly, any charge of nostalgia is closely allied with an ideology of progress, which dogmatically adheres to current ideas of truth, claiming to “know better” and in so doing ignores profound existential and moral questions regarding underlying causes, unwitting assumptions, as well as the ephemerality of the present moment that one day will also be history.

The Modern State:

Despite vast differences in theories of the state (Weber’s bureaucratic, Kelsen’s legal, Schmitt’s political, Marx’s economic, Gramsci’s hegemonic, Foucault’s cultural and so on), all these are merely differences of perspective. Despite also vast discrepancies in the actual content of the modern State, ranging from the communist Soviet Union to the democracies of Sweden and the United States, its essential characteristics are shared form-properties: (1) a historical product of a particular culture at a particular time, (2) its metaphysics of sovereignty, (3) its legislative monopoly and monopoly over law and violence, (4) its bureaucratic machinery, and (5) its cultural hegemony and production of the national subject.

(1) All things are historically specific, but the state defined in terms of territorial boundaries is concretely so. Through a scientific process of self-observation beginning in the early eighteenth century, the European state conceived of itself as universal and timeless and subject to scientific analysis. This analysis of content presupposed a prior metaphysics of existence. (2) The concepts of statehood are secular translations of Christian theological ones. The omnipotent God becomes the omnipotent sovereign, but the structures remain the same. Sovereignty presupposes not only a state, but also the shared imagination of a nation by its people. It exists for its own sake, an end for which the individual may even be sacrificed. This false idol is made explicit by Hobbes’ Leviathan. (3) Sovereign will gives birth to sovereign law and violence to realize that will. (4) The administrative order is a necessary extension of the legal order, and the image is of the blind lady of justice. Bureaucracy does indeed prioritize equality, but it also conceals structural inequalities and creates top-down pyramid structures of power controlling every aspect of life. It intrudes into the private sphere and fosters community, but on its own terms, the community of the state. (5) The internal strength and coherence of any state depends not only on organizing society, but also penetrating it culturally to form national identity. Should any of these five form properties change, the state would necessarily be a very different concept. But these five are also very closely intertwined, so any change in one would necessarily also entail a significant change in all.

I agree with Hallaq that the modern state identifies society’s interest with national interest. However, this identification is not purely ideological, but also representational. It is less an idol than an ideal of coherence, a tool bringing people together in the pursuit of moral ends. The belief in the state even to the point of sacrifice is a belief that the state is protecting morality and so worth fighting for. In so far as this ideal fails, the state is indeed weak, and falls into disrepute. Hallaq is right to warn that the state can become an ideology, continuing to exert its will when no longer serving its intended function. However, since it is constructed on human belief, it can also fail in its moral ends as a mere consequence of people no longer believing in it. When people lose confidence, are no longer willing to put the good of society before personal interest or are too cowardly to fight for an ideal in which they have lost faith (be it the nation or another kind of spiritual community), the result is the breakdown of society, and susceptibility to both internal and external corruption, criminal elements, and even military power. Hallaq is of course right that the state should not be an end in itself, and most Europeans do recognize that. Europe’s history testifies to the dangers of nationalism.

I would like to suggest the possibility that the modern state is not of European origin at all. The bureaucracy of the Chinese state comprising its emperor and civil service were over a thousand years old before the corresponding British institutions were even born, and perhaps even inspired them. The rise of the state in Europe follows the discovery of China. The birth of capitalism attributed to Adam Smith built upon the ideas of the French physiocrats who were in turn heavily influenced by the Chinese. Like the Chinese, they valued agriculture above all, identified society with the human body, compared money in the state to the circulation of blood round this body, from which they deduced the importance of exchange and saw the need for a general will to regulate this body’s well-being. For Rousseau, this general will arose through respect for the state, love for one’s fellow citizens and equality under the law. The correlative of the frontier which limits the state externally is the absence of internal limit of the “police” state (governing subjects, regulating economic activity, production, and the price of goods). The compensating mechanism for this absence of limit is law and political economy, or what Foucault termed the rise of “governmentality” in 18th century Europe. This Tang dynasty poem by Du Fu from 8th century China, inspired by sources even earlier, brilliantly encapsulates one aspect of “governmentality”, namely the skilful and appropriate use of force. It is not far-fetched to imagine the modern state and its law to be a translation of Chinese ideas into an Enlightenment context.

Ballad of the Frontier (Du Fu)

If you draw the bow, draw the strongest.

Choosing arrows, take the longest.

To down the man, aim for the horse.

Confronting bandits, aim for the chief.

Killing, let there be a limit,

And to each land, its own bounds.

If you can repel invaders,

What use in killing, maiming more?

To conclude with an even crazier thought, while the British imposed a Chinese-looking bureaucracy on India (and its other colonies, including Victorian England itself in the 19th century), it used a more Ottoman or Indian-looking extra-territorial law of the sultan to control (through treaties of tax and trade) China and other countries which it never formally colonized. There is something almost paradoxical and unnatural that this should have functioned with any degree of success. On one level it did, yet at a deeper level this also perhaps explains why the experience of European colonialism is said to have been traumatic in ways that even centuries of despotism or pre-modern colonial movements were not.

Separation of Powers:

There is an ideal in Western democracies enunciated by Montesquieu of a separation of powers to ward off the dangers of authoritarianism. In practice there is only a loose separation of functions (legislative passing law, executive and administrative enacting it, and judicial interpreting it), with power resting absolutely with the elected legislative body to indicate how law should be applied and interpreted. As the body supposed to represent the general will of the people, and accountable to them, it seems right that this should be so, and indeed breakdowns of democracy have always been allied with a ceding of legislative power to a presidential or military executive ruling by decree without consultation or to a judiciary forming an anti-state within the state.

Islamic governance also achieved a separation of powers with ultimate authority in the legislature, but by very different means and it is interesting to explore how it did things differently. First, there was no such thing as an “Islamic state”, but an Umma (Community). Muslim territories were known as Dar al-Islam, and non-Muslim as Dar al-Harb. The Community did not possess sovereignty, nor autonomous political or legal will. Sovereignty lay with God alone, and decision-making was by consensus, but restricted by general moral principles beyond the Community’s control. Care for the poor for example was their right, as all members of the Community were equal, and all wealth belonged to God. Islamic law was a bottom-up system of governance, and the power of the executive (the sultan) was limited, derivative and compared to the modern state relatively marginal. The sultan had little influence over the local culture and legal system. Analogous for example to native White Cap Chiefs in African customary law, they were not owners of territory, but holders on trust.

Meanwhile, the jurists of Islam lived with and by the values of the common social world, representing especially the lower and middle social strata of which they were mostly part. They were advocates of the disadvantaged to the higher reaches of power, and represented for the masses the ideals of piety, rectitude and fine education as “heirs of the Prophet”. As well as playing a pedagogical role, two particular legal functions were that of the mufti (legal specialist)  and the qadi (judge). The mufti was the legislative authority who issued legal answers to abstract questions he was asked to address. Consultation was free, so accessible to all. With time, these answers were brought together and systematized both in memory and in writing as “law books”. Legal opinions, called fatwas, though non-binding, were routinely upheld and applied in the courts. A judge in Cairo might even send a letter to a mufti in Muslim Spain or Syria. Because legal knowledge was widespread, social underdogs knew their rights before appealing to the courts, so won the great majority of their cases when they were plaintiffs. They could also ask for an opinion which then dissuaded them from proceeding to court, opting instead for informal mediation. The Muslim court could not make up its own law, its ultimate reference neither the executive nor itself but the authority of the mufti.

The qadi was a member of the community who, for a small and affordable fee, was expected to apply the law to judge cases and resolve disputes. He was not required to have the same expert legal knowledge as the muftis or author-jurists. The language of the court was the common language, so understandable to all. Unlike a jury member today, the qadi’s scope of consideration was not limited by a superior power (they might for example address underlying causes to a dispute), they were expected to be intimately familiar with the local customs and ways of life of the community they served, and their decisions were final. As well as passing judgments in court, they also oversaw public works and endowments to the poor and helped arbitrate in non-legal family disputes. Though chosen by rulers, qadis held their positions only a few years in parallel with existing employment, so they could not be so easily pressured or corrupted.

The law applied by the qadis was the result of a centuries-long hermeneutical project. However, it was also legally pluralistic, with different legal schools developing very different legal opinions. Each jurist could exercise ijtihad (creative reasoning) to arrive at the best guess of what the law should be. This chimes with Lauterpacht’s optimistic vision of the lawyer as a Herculean gap-filler applying law for law’s sake, law assumed a priori to be logically coherent. But contrary to modern law, it was stable only in form while being remarkably flexible in both place and time depending on social and popular interests and concerns. On the one hand, only God knows the truth. On the other hand, it was an established maxim that every mujtahid (jurist conducting ijtihad) is correct!

The sultan possessed no real sovereignty, and without the bureaucratic machinery of the modern state was unable to penetrate society. The sultan could appoint judges and raise taxes so long as he protected life, property, and communal harmony (a sacred concept in Islam), his executive authority (the final decades of the Mamluk’s rule being an exception) restricted to protecting against disorder, including any reported misconduct by government servants or by the qadis. The system was based on an ethic of moral accountability of the individual, seen as indispensable for political legitimacy (corporations didn’t exist) and the well-being of society and dynasty. Qadis, muftis and tax collectors sat in governors’ assemblies, acting as intermediaries representing their communities’ interests. There were even times when the rulers of Islamic lands were non-Muslims, yet local Islamic values, customs and language remained.

Perhaps one reason why Islamic law persisted for twelve centuries was because of local homogeneity despite differences between localities. Rawls’ conception of a “well-ordered society” is one in which (i) everyone accepts (and knows everyone else accepts) the same principles of justice, (ii) social and political institutions are respected for satisfying these principles and work in harmony, and (iii) citizens comply with these principles and institutions. However, once local homogeneity is lost, and established principles are no longer accepted as obviously true, then the risk of arbitrariness becomes a problem, and a central presiding authority is inevitably needed to maintain predictability of the law. Islamic law in its time was a model of the separation of powers with legislative power residing with the private unpaid scholars within society, who through the mouthpiece of Islamic law represented the poor, protected their interests, and acted as intermediary to the politically powerful. However, that age has passed, and the future will need new ideas, with lost consensus locally reconstructed.

The Legal, the Political, and the Moral:

Hallaq next addresses the distinction in the Western history of ideas between the “is” and the “ought”, between positive law and morality. For Christian as well as Islamic theology, there was only morality. For Bentham, Nietzsche and Schmitt, there is only positive law. Law that once expressed a moral ideal or utopia has for some modern thinkers become entirely political, regulating a conflicting mass of private interests and dividing the world into friend and foe. Hallaq blames the possibility of such moral evacuation of law on the creation of the is/ought distinction in the first place.

He derides Kant in particular for his categorical imperative as well as much of Western philosophy in a strident tone uncharacteristic of the rest of the book. Kant’s imperative is not without its problems: it dictates one ought to act in such a way as one would wish to be a universal law. It is the duty of the moral subject to unite the “ought” and the “is”. Kant was a deeply moral man. If Germany had been a Muslim society, Kant would be a mufti, and his categorical imperative a fatwa which would have been widely respected and applied by the qadis in making their judgments. If Hallaq cannot respect Kant as a mufti of his age, how can the reader respect Hallaq as a mufti of our own age, and if not Hallaq, then who? This only goes to emphasize how the age of the mufti has passed.

Let us criticize ideas, but not people or traditions (unless done in good humour). Instead of polluting the wells of our mutual intellectual heritages, we should be asking, “what is wrong?” and “how to purify it?”. Islamic fatwas would be equally susceptible to critique, though this does not serve Hallaq’s purpose to recover a subjugated source and balance out against Western prejudice. Nevertheless, the dangers of Schmittian distinctions exist in Islamic law also: for example between Muslim lands, and non-Muslim; between the Muslim citizen and the “slave soldier” who had no choice but to fight; between the law as written and as applied by the qadi who used ijtihad and forgiveness; and even in the Quran itself between the prescribed forms of violence which say one thing (legal), but “better to forgive for God is all-merciful, all- compassionate” (moral). Hallaq’s very own argument takes on a friend/foe characteristic in pitting Enlightenment and Islamic law as enemies, instead of as in the rest of his book as merely incompatible ideas in need of new thinkers to find the best from both and reject what rightly should be rejected from both.

The identification of “is” and “ought” is reflected also in ancient language. For example in Pali, the language of the Buddha, the word “dhamma” means nature itself, the law of nature, the duty that must be performed according to that law of nature, and the fruits or benefits that arise from the performance of that duty. No distinctions are made between these four. However, once these divisions are made which Kant was trying to heal, no doubt unsuccessfully, there is no going back unless we can have faith in a kind of wisdom that transcends personal opinions. The contradiction between “only God knows the truth”, and “every mujtahid is correct” is no longer acceptable. Since God’s truth is inaccessible, Kant’s injunction is both demanding and inspiring: every person must become a moral subject and mujtahid in their own right! However, Kant falls short on an egalitarian ideal because those whom Kant deems incapable are not afforded equal dignity in his moral system.

Some Concluding Thoughts:

Whenever a society’s homogeneity of belief breaks down, some amount of positive construction is surely needed, which then needs to be mythologized. There follows an age of disenchantment and the cycle repeats. Enlightenment values of reason, progress and the state should perhaps be seen as temporary mediators to any breakdown of consensus, to try to help build it up again. What Hallaq warns is that they can also be divisive and a source of civil strife.

One important part of the cure is what Hallaq calls “technologies of the self” that build up the moral subject from the inside out instead of the outside in. The term, borrowed from Foucault, means techniques of self-transformation for the sake of “happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality”, in short a positive kind of self-discipline, founded less on rationality (self-knowledge) and more on love (care of the self). These techniques of self-mastery and virtue are universally known and ingrained in the pre-modern mind, but also easy to forget, so it is worthwhile to continuously remind ourselves of and practice them. They contrast with the biopolitics that engenders the docility and utility of the subject through systems of surveillance, education and healthcare, operating not from the volition of the subject, but from a political will located outside it, whereby the state constitutes itself as a problem-solving machine in the service of the people, the child a site of institutionalization, and in which the patriarchy of the family is replaced by that of the state. The crisis of the family and disintegration of the social fabric (which Durkheim termed anomie) seem to coincide with the emergence of the modern state that problematises the individual. In the place of religious, tribal and familial identities, we see on the one hand the emergence of nationalism and on the other the rise in consumerism and narcissism of the modern subject who rejects his or her own problematisation, yet does so in ways that are socially sanctioned and unwittingly encouraged. So what are the technologies that might liberate us?

In Islam, they are built upon the five pillars: (1) the faith in one God and in His Messenger, (2) prayer, (3) alms-giving, (4) pilgrimage and (5) fasting. While Rousseau concludes his “Social Contract” with a discussion of religion, Islamic social tracts always began with religion, and in particular the five pillars. As discussed previously, law and morality could not be separated. Through the five pillars (as well as ritual purification), practiced with niyya (intention), the Muslim comes closer to God and trains the heart to be compassionate and to do good. I cannot do justice here to Hallaq’s beautiful explanations, but suffice to say that each of these pillars and their performative acts carry a deeper mysticism and meaning, accomplished not out of obligation but with willingness and pleasure. They engender an inner peacefulness of the nafs (soul, or consciousness).

Ultimately, the risk of breakdown of the state is just as much a problem of the state as its continuing existence, so I do not read Hallaq’s book as anti-state, but as a thorough dismantling of the ideology of the state. As with any negative project, we need a positive vision. Hallaq’s vision is a re-centreing of society on the moral. What of the enlightenment ideal that if the moral is not discovered for oneself, with one’s own heart, then it is externally imposed and so replicates patterns of domination that regulate the individual externally as if he or she were a child from birth till death? Does this Kantian ethics of autonomy stand in contradiction to Hallaq’s autonomous morality? I don’t believe so, but Hallaq’s misgivings run deep. Citing Gray from “Enlightenment’s Wake” (1995):

“The most fundamental Western commitment, the humanist conception of humankind as a privileged site of truth, which is expressed in Socratic enquiry and in Christian revelation, and which re-emerges in secular and naturalistic form in the Enlightenment project of human self-emancipation through the growth of knowledge, must be given up…It is in reaching a new relationship with our natural environment…in which human subjectivity is not taken to be the measure of all things, that a turn… can be accomplished…dwelling together on earth in peace.”

But what else is there apart from subjective experience and revelation? Is that not the meaning of enlightenment — the turn must come from within. I believe so anyway.