The Jealous Gods

In traditional Buddhist cosmology, there are six Lokas or realms into which a sentient being may be born: as devas (gods), asuras (demigods), humans, animals, pretas (”hungry ghosts”), or as denizens of hell. The usual understanding is that based on one’s actions and dispositions in past lives, it is possible to be reborn in any one of these realms, and certainly Buddhists around the world hold such beliefs very strongly. There is in fact quite an extensive literature giving precise descriptions of each of these worlds and their various subdivisions, and in the history of Buddhism, there is tell of various people who, convinced they would be reborn into one of the purgatories, made an all-out effort to attain Buddhahood in one lifetime in order to avoid such a terrible fate (Naropa, for instance, according to the telling of David-Neel, and also Milarepa).

Surely some people reading this will think it all utter nonsense: rebirth, heavens and hells, and all that. But as usual in these things, there is a second, dual reading beside the literal one: the various descriptions of these realms can also be read metaphorically, as vividly rendered portraits of psychological states that each of us may pass through. None of these states is permanent, of course — one may morph into another in a blink of the eye; in fact we may pass through all these realms in the course of the day, or even in an hour.

Personally, I think some of these psychological portraits can be pretty witty, and if I had to pick one realm that corresponds to typical mental states of mathematicians, it’d have to be the asura realm, also known as the realm of the “jealous gods”. Here is the brilliant Chögyam Trungpa, describing a “monkey” in transit from the human realm to the realm of jealous gods (from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism):

But the monkey discovers that, although he is intelligent and can manipulate his world to achieve some pleasure, still he cannot hold on to pleasure nor can he always get what he wants. He is plagued by illness, old age, death — by frustration and problems of all kinds. Pain is the constant companion of his pleasures.

So he begins, quite logically, to deduce the possibility of heaven, the complete elimination of pain and achievement of pleasure. His version of heaven may be the acquisition of extreme wealth or power or fame — whatever he would like his world to be, and he becomes preoccupied with achievement and competition. This is the Asura Realm, the Realm of the Jealous Gods. The monkey dreams of ideal states that are superior to the pleasures and pains of the Human Realm and is always trying to achieve these states, always trying to be better than anyone else. In his constant struggle to achieve perfection of some sort, the monkey becomes obsessed with measuring his progress, with comparing himself to others. Through developing increased control of his thoughts and emotions and therefore greater concentration, he is able to manipulate his world more successfully than in the Human Realm. But his preoccupation with always being best, with always being master of a situation, makes him insecure and anxious. He must always struggle to control his territory, overcoming all threats to his achievements. He is always fighting for mastery of his world.

The ambition to gain victory and the fear of losing a battle provide a sense of being alive as well as cause irritation. The monkey constantly loses sight of his ultimate goal, but is still driven on by his ambition to be better. He is obsessed with competition and achievement. He seeks out pleasurable, appealing situations that seem beyond his reach and tries to draw them into his territory. When it is too difficult to achieve his goals, he may shy away from the struggle and condemn himself for not disciplining himself, for not working harder. So the monkey is caught in a world of unfulfilled ideals, self-condemnation, and fear of failure.

That, I find, is a very accurate sketch of how I guess a lot of mathematicians often feel, and I’m no exception!

Interestingly, it’s said in Buddhism that only in the human realm is it possible to break the karmic chain. You could say that the human realm is the realm of action based on discrimination, of using one’s intellect and passion to shop around between alternatives. (”Choosy mothers choose Jif!” would be a quintessentially human utterance.) In the other five realms, there is either too much fascination with one’s world or projections at work (whether of a more heavenly or more hellish sort), keeping ego in thrall, or else (in the animal realm) there is a kind of ignorance or stupidity at work. Whereas in the human realm there is at least some possibility of stepping back a bit and examining one’s situation, to question the whole process of struggle. Therefore in Buddhism it is said that birth in the human realm is the most fortunate of all, even more so than birth in the realm of gods.

You might be curious about this business of “hungry ghosts”. In the traditional iconography, hungry ghosts are depicted as beings with enormous guts but pencil-thin necks. They have more freedom of movement than hell-born creatures, but suffer from intense longings and cravings that have essentially no chance of ever being satisfied. There’s even a little symbolic ritual practiced during sesshin (in the Zen tradition), where at mealtimes the participants put aside a little morsel of their food, offered up with a kind of prayer to feed the hungry ghosts!

Zen and the Brain

About ten years ago there emerged a most remarkable book,

• James H. Austin, Zen and the Brain (MIT, 1998).

The author is a neurologist cum Zen practitioner, and the book itself is a fascinating glimpse both into the science of brain and neural biochemistry, and into one man’s inner experience of Zen meditation and the “peak” experiences (kensho) which may accompany committed practice. From the preface:

Aldous Huxley called mankind’s basic trend toward spiritual growth the “perennial philosophy.” Herein, I take a different perspective. To me, the trend implies a dynamic, intimate perennial psychophysiology. It is a series of processes, slowly evolving, that culminate in defining moments of extraordinary character. What are such “peak” experiences? How could they both profoundly enhance, yet simplify, the workings of the brain? This book summarizes the latest evidence.

This is also the story of one neurologist’s personal quest and professional search. These two paths converge in ways that lead to one straightforward thesis: awakening, enlightenment, occurs only because the human brain undergoes substantial changes. Does prior meditation help the brain to change in this direction? If so, how? This subject is explored throughout the book.

To me, the book had something of the character of feeling its way into new territory, and I’d be interested in learning more about what has come of the science in the last ten years. (Although I admit that I found the “neurologizing” pretty hard going — Austin is a graceful writer and a fine expositor, but the science is presented at a pretty detailed, technical level, far beyond my competence to judge.) It also reminded me of another book at the crossroads between neuroscience, phenomenology, and Buddhism:

• F.J. Varela, E. Thompson, and E. Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1992)

not because of any explicit mention of this line of thought, but because of the intensely phenomenological descriptions of Zen experience that Austin presents. Here, I have to say that I really admire Austin’s courage in probing and describing unusual “states of mind” (from his personal experience) in such a detailed, concrete way: experiences which are usually simply passed off as “ineffable” — beyond description. [I mean, of course all that's true -- but all the more reason to admire Austin's effort!] Here, let me give an excerpt (from Chapter 94, The Feel of Two Hands): “… On one occasion, I felt this latent tactile world leap out by itself. It did so, unannounced, in the following manner.”

On an average morning, after 25 minutes of zazen, I will shave and casually rinse my face. Then, eyes closed, rubbing rhythmically with both hands, I’ll dry it off with a towel. It’s an old routine, overlearned for decades. I am not thinking at the time, nor will I be paying any special attention to the way messages from either hand enter my sensate consciousness.

So at first, nothing about this particular Saturday morning seems any different from any other. Around 7:30 A.M., five minutes after zazen ends, I shave, rinse my face in my hands with cold water, pick up a towel, and then start to dry my face as usual. Suddenly, for the first time ever, I really feel my hands. Abruptly, during toweling, my tactile sensations are enormously enhanced. Perception increases dramatically on the right hand and shades off around the elbow. On the left, it increases perhaps one third that much and extends above the wrist. Only the sense of touch is enhanced, as it is elicited by the towel in my hands. The way the towel feels on contact with my face is the same as usual. I still retain all the usual distinctions between myself as subject and the towel as object. Vision, hearing, and other sensate experiences are unchanged. My hands are as strong as before. No fingers are jerking (as they might if this were some kind of seizure).

Astonishing, delicious perception! How much richer this tactile experience is than ordinary feeling! The episode lasts perhaps five or ten seconds, then gradually fades over a second or two.

“Never before, or since, has my tactile sense so vastly expanded. For five or ten seconds, I was witness to acute touch perceptions which sober estimation placed as being amplified perhaps fifteen times more than usual. These were perceptions that one usually tunes out. What had released them?” There follows several pages of speculation on what had transpired neurologically.

And, speaking now to Vishal’s post Enlightened Teachers, Austin’s book is also moving testimony to his Zen teacher, Nanrei Kobori-Roshi, and the towering state of mind attained by this modern-day master.

I would enjoy hearing other reactions to this book.