Part 1
I want to present some ideas I’ve been having. I’m sure some of you will see holes in my il/logic or errors in my understanding, so I’m open to critique. I also apologize if I’m simply repeating ideas in other posts in this sub that I have not yet read. Also, fair warning, a lot of Tibetan philosophy is wrapped up in this post.
These ideas are around how it is both possible and profound to use a framework of animism within an overall framework of subjective idealism.
Animism can embody a physicalist mindset or can fall on the side of idealism. I would say that animist frameworks would most often fall in the middle with some form of objective idealism—a philosophy that asserts that common-sense physical matter actually exists and that mind/spirit/consciousness inhabits or interplays with this matter. A mind/spirit may exist as some sort of ideal state of the matter itself. It could be perceived as something like the forms of Plato’s allegory of the cave or as a perfected archetype of its manifest self–one that holds the true mind of that individual. On the slightly more physicalist side, you have panpsychism, and on the slightly more idealist side, pantheism, both of which can fall, in a general way, under the umbrella of animism, though animism does usually account for greater individuation of being than those do.
I’m relatively new to subjective idealism in a western sense. Solipsism seems a popular topic on this sub, as it seems to be a very powerful form of subjective idealism and perhaps its most extreme expression. Don’t get me wrong, solipsism interests me, and dabbling in it certainly has revealed it to be powerful, but it also feels lacking to me, like it’s missing something important, and I have felt drawn toward other frameworks within the overall framework of subjective idealism.
This may due to having been deeply involved in the Bön tradition for the last five years or so. Bön, I’ll argue, practices what could be considered a hybrid of subjective idealism and animism.
In general, Buddhism (Bön included in this usage) is considered to espouse its own form of subjective idealism. (See the Wikepedia page of Idealism, where it differentiates between the Pantheism/Panentheism/Objective Idealism of the Hindus and the Subjective Idealism of the Buddhists.)
Tibetan Buddhism is a culturally-specific expression of vajrayana/tantric buddhism, with much of the culture, and spiritual practices originally based on the indigenous Old Bön animist paradigm. While this has carried through into Tibetan Buddhism (brought to Tibet from India), it perhaps carried through even more strongly into the Yungdrung Bön (brought to Tibet from Zhangzhung), but both of these, at their core, hold subjective idealist paradigms.
To illustrate this greater level of animist qualities, my teacher, a Bön monk, often tells stories of how when someone in Tibet in real physical need, be it health problems, mental problems, spirit problems, or similar, the Tibetan Buddhists would often send that person to the Bön yogi as a last resort (something they would never do if the issue related to buddhist doctrine or attaining enlightenment). Apparently, the Bön are particularly respected for their ability to manipulate reality in order to heal/exorcise/etc.
Bön has three forms of practice, Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen. Sutra (which has the closest to a physicalist view, but is still idealist), is where one works toward enlightenment gradually and which, while being the most scriptural/philosophical/vow-oriented, also deals with the reality of spirits. For example, the famous Lu Bum text (a sacred text on the philosophies and rites for dealing with naga spirits), falls into the category of Sutra.
But within Tantra and Dzogchen, when understood correctly, there is a much stronger non-dual, subjective-idealist perspective. In tantra, spirits are now only seen as ‘poisonous’ aspects of the practitioner’s mind, while simultaneously understanding the emptiness of any inherent self. The deities that the practitioner transforms into simply constitute a magical paradigm shift. It is an overlaying the illusion of existence with a constructed illusion of perfected wisdom, compassion, power, and peaceful or wrathful energy -- depending on the deity. The texts are all clear that these deities are not inherently existent (because nothing is).
In the view (which can be different than the actual practice) of Dzogchen (a subdivision of tantra), “spirits,” like all of existence, are simply ephemeral displays of the mind, there one second and gone the next. In the true dzogchen state, there is neither self nor other, physical nor spiritual, mind nor matter. All is a perfected awareness of ultimate emptiness and clear light, and its spontaneous apparitions that are constantly on display.
Tantra and Dzogchen can be compared in some ways to active and passive subjective idealism. While one is manifesting effortlessly but interacts with that manifestation and transforms it with her Will, the other also manifests “reality” effortlessly, but within a state of realization that there is nothing that needs to be changed within that apparitional display.
However, because Dzogchen is considered the highest view of Bön, the Sutra and Tantra practices/texts are both colored by this ultimate understanding. Conversely, even within the context of tantra and dzogchen practice, preliminary rites related to appeasing natural wild spirits are performed. Within these contexts, the practitioner must hold multiple views within their mind at once. On one level—one that has a noticeable effect in the conventional world—spirits are “real” (as much as anything can be), while simultaneously within the realization that the spirits, the performance of the rite, and the practitioners themselves are all ephemeral displays of the natural state of mind. While holding seeming paradoxical understandings of reality simultaneously, a few things happen: the rites have the power to effect conventional reality while simultaneously advancing the awakening process in the practitioner. A middle way is achieved.
Furthermore, when one has a high enough realization/lucidity within the dream of subjective idealism, one can completely become the dream—they are completely transformed into the prayer or ritual that is unfolding within the dream. This adds an incredible layer of power to a conventional animist perspective, let alone the true or awakened understanding of its underlying reality.
This is the type of power you get what when you cross an animistic culture (Old Bön) with subjective-idealist ones (Vajrayana Buddhism and Yungdrung Bön).
I know this was long, but it’s easy for me to use Bön philosophies as a jumping off point for what I want to talk about, which is a generic inter-framework of Weirdway Animism…
I once read a comment from u/Nefandi that he did not like the Six Yogas of Naropa because they talked too much of the body’s central channel as if it were a real thing, and it talked about the subjective visions of old yogis as if they were real. These are texts that fall within a weirdway-animist framework. The animist portion is simply the tool for advancing the ultimate stance of subjective idealism, while simultaneously creating change within conventional reality.
The thing is, real Tibetan Bön and Buddhist yogis, the actual enlightened ones, understand that these visions/energies/energy channels/spirits are only “real” within the context of that particular tantric practice. Like any framework within an ultimate framework of subjective idealism, they are a tool—perhaps one of our most ancient ones to us as “humans.” They are a way to shift our mind. And these forms, such as energy channels within the body, or mountain spirits that become happier upon receiving offerings, or prayer flags that spread their blessings over the valley, are forms of animism that have WORKED for a large number of people for millennia. Using them within a context of subjective idealism adds power to BOTH the reality of the animist spirits and to the realization that this is a dream and that “you” are in control, should you choose to be.
Originally posted by u/nuadu on 2019-02-09 04:05:54