It is interesting that the more one thinks about life and truth, the harder it becomes to actually live it; that those who do not understand themselves, and what they live and do, might be living more truly than the intellectual—but, perhaps in the way that my cat is “more enlightened” than me since he has a better harmony with his place in the world than I do. And yet, an ignorant doer is not enlightened; far from it. This is what I have written about elsewhere when it comes to the caveat of thinking that one can “just do,” or “just be” without doing the work to get to that kind of place.
It is this idea I have been thinking about lately—is thinking living, or are they contradictory? So many of the brilliant philosophers seem to think that thinking is the best way to live, is the way to live most truly, is to live the most, so to speak. Is there a difference between thinking (being “rational”) and being mindful? I think there is. I think that Socrates was, in this way, closer to the Buddha than he was to Plato and the so-called rationalists.
The difference between thinking rationally and mindfulness is one of action, activity; that mindfulness involves doing, living, action, for you need to be mindful about what you do; that is the point, to be mindful (i.e., not ignorant) about how you live. It is about awareness. Thinking rationally can involve activity, but it does not need to—just see Descartes. The rationalism of Descartes seems to say that one does not need to do to be. This is where I wholly disagree with him. I think that to do is to be. To live is to be. This is sort of what existentialism says, if I am correct.
I think that this is how Buddhism (and Eastern philosophy, I suppose) reconciles the mind/body problem, the question of which is better: thinking or doing? The answer is that it is best to do mindfully. One cannot/does not exist without the other. The point is that the separation of mind and body, of rationalism and empiricism, is artificial, unnatural. There simply is no distinction between what we think of as “mind” and what we think of as “body.” Aristotle was close to this in his understanding of substance (matter and form). But it is also the “flux” of Heraclitus, that there is no “matter” but only flux, only “energy,” motion, movement, which is not only the cause of everything, it is everything. Our minds determine for us how we experience this reality-flux.
This is why if you spend all your life thinking about life, then you are not really living—you can never really be happy. Conversely, if you simply do without being mindful of what you do, then you are also not really living—you can never really be happy either.
We analyze too much. I think that analyzing is good, and even necessary in such illusory conditioned existences, but we also need synthesis, to see that what we have separated has been artificially separated. The point is to get to the point where thinking and doing are the same, are not separate functions. This is what it is to be (or, live) mindfully. This is what it is to be “Enlightened.” Be—Mindfully. It is to synthesize what has been artificially analyzed, to unite what has been separated. If you are mindful of everything you do, of every moment of your life, then there is no difference between “thinking” and “doing.” That is enlightenment, being awake.
Happiness is not achieved by thinking about life. It is achieved by living life. And that means to live mindfully. To be awake. To be uncontrolled by the illusions of your conditioned existence. Ignorance is to be unmindful. Awareness is not to know what some people consider to be knowledge, for it seems to me that what most people consider to be “knowledge” is but phenomenal, it’s really so much trivia. Life is not (about) knowledge, it is (about) understanding/awareness. Understanding comes with living mindfully. To be mindful of what you do—this is one way to see the path to enlightenment. This is the way towards happiness.
I think that this is what Socrates really meant by “knowledge is virtue.” That he who is mindful of what he does will do what is “right.” For right is what is true. That which is consistent with harmony, with reality, is love, is happiness. I wish people could see this.
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From my personal notes, 9/28/99.
