Saturday, December 21, 2019

Buddhist Phobiology or Buddhist Fearology


When one is doing or supposed to do an assignment “x” but ends up doing or wants to do “y,” then one is under the spell of māra. This is the idea of mārakarman (bdud kyi las). It is one of the many kinds of mārakarman. Such a karman is not necessarily evil or intrinsically unwholesome. It just hinders one from getting things done. I am right now under such a spell. My article on secrecy is not getting done in time. It is dragging on. There are so many obstacles. There are so many details that need to be traced and verified. One such detail is the element of fear or phobia. The more I think of it, the more I think it is desirable to talk about “Buddhist phobiology” or “Buddhist fearology,” that is, a kind of Buddhist philosophy or psychology of fear.
            Here are some points to consider. (1) The semantic distinction between “fear” and “danger/risks” is warranted. Both Sanskrit bhaya and Tibetan ’jigs pa have these two semantic facets. (2) Psychologists would tell us that there is difference between rational fear for real dangers and irrational fear for imaginary dangers. (3) Perhaps from a Buddhist perspective, although I am not sure, perhaps one may state that strictly speaking all “fears” are irrational. That is, fear is a psychological state of mind associated with conceptual construction, which is not a valid cognition. Some, on the one hand, even without knowing any real danger, may be gripped with fear. Some, on the other hand, may remain fearless even while knowing the dangers and risks. (4) The Buddha is said to be characterized by four kinds of fearlessness. The question is what makes a buddha or beings like himself fearless and what makes one fearful? (5) Perhaps the most fundamental cause that makes fear possible is the notion of self. The fear of losing one’s existence and continuance. Let us call it “existential fear.” And then comes the fear of losing what one believes is one’s own. The fear of not getting what one wants, the fear of getting what one does not want. The fear of becoming what one does not want to be, and the fear of not becoming what one wants to become. The list can go on. (6) Normally a regular being would be fearful of, let us, hellish existence, and be hopeful of celestial existence. Wise beings, according to Buddhism (e.g. CŚ 7.14), are, however, said to be as terrified of celestial existence as of hellish celestial existence! Why? The axiological orientation is different. Similarly, normally it is said that one should be afraid of saṃsāra, and seek nirvāṇa. But for bodhisattvas, who wish to remain active in saṃsāra for the benefit of sentient beings, premature or undesired slip into nirvāṇa is seen as a kind of danger. This, as I pointed out elsewhere presupposes an early notion of nirvāṇa. No such danger would be posed by, for example, non-fixed nirvāṇa. (7) From a Buddhist point of view, saddharma is like a powerful medicine. The more profound a saddharma is, the greater is the benefit but also greater are the risks involved. Vajrāyānic saddharma is said to be even more profound and thus even riskier. These risks are not imaginary. There are real risks involved. The risks involved are as real as the risks of playing with a king cobra! (8) The idea of fear seems to be closely related with the idea of kṣānti. There are many kinds of kṣānti. It seems to be a kind of intellectual-psychological capacity to bear or encounter any entity or reality, no matter how unpleasant, how painful, how disgusting, or how profound!