American Buddhism as a Way of Life

10 Analogue Consciousness Isn’t Just for Faeries

10 Analogue Consciousness Isn’t Just for Faeries Healing the Disjunction between Theory and Practice Roger Corless Buddhism and Christianity, although poles apart in their understanding of what is ultimately real, propose structurally similar ways of resolving the perceived division between the universal (or absolute) and the particular (or relative).1 Both traditions profess a view of reality that is ultimately nondual, but in practice both are frequently dualistic , displaying world-denying features, opposing the body to the soul or mind, and often being sexist and homophobic. This essay will first review the worldviews of Buddhism and Christianity, the structural similarity of their respective goals, and the disjunction between theories of equality and the practice of inequality. Second, it will suggest that the cause of the disjunction between theory and practice is an unexamined, reified, heterosexist symbol system existing below the level of institutional consciousness. Because it is reified it assumes a real, rather than merely operational, split between subject and object, and it therefore compels the traditions to act in dualistic ways that contradict the nonduality of their publicly professed doctrines. To heal the disjunction, an alternative, homophilic symbol structure will be proposed, based on Harry Hay’s notion of the analogue or subject-SUBJECT consciousness. This symbol structure, it will be 183 184 Roger Corless asserted, allows both Christianity and Buddhism to accept nonduality in practice as well as theory. The symbol structure can exist alongside the traditional models and is not intended to replace them. Both models can be understood as operational, and their interaction should prevent either Buddhism or Christianity from falling into the misplaced reification of hard dogma. If the alternative symbol structure is accepted along with the traditional symbol structure, the result should be more inclusive forms of Buddhism and Christianity in which their practice could be brought more effectively into line with their high teachings. Since this chapter is appearing in a volume on Buddhism, a word in defense of the comparison with Christianity is perhaps necessary. It is no longer possible (if indeed it ever was) to study religions in isolation, as if they were static and lifeless, like dead butterflies in a display case. Religions are dynamic, interacting with each other and with the cultures in which they are embedded. This is especially true in the twenty-first-century United States, where all religions are accorded equal protection under the law, so that it is possible to have comparisons that do not privilege the truth of one tradition over another, and that permit each to illuminate the other. The comparison of Buddhism and Christianity is especially fruitful, since their worldviews are so different that the similarity in their disjunctions between theory and practice cannot be attributed to internal causes alone. There must be something about human consciousness in general that has allowed two such different systems to make the same mistake. Thus, we proceed first to lay out the differences. Opposite Worldviews When Christian and Buddhist worldviews are compared, the discussion often focuses on something called the “Absolute.” The notion that a worldview has as a matter of course an Absolute is taken for granted, and God—or more exactly, “the Trinity”—is identified as the Christian Absolute. A search is then made for the Buddhist Absolute, and various candidates for this honor are proposed: the historical Buddha Shakyamuni; a cosmic Buddha such as Vairochana; the Dharmakaya; and even the law of karma. The search is spurious, however, since the Buddhist worldview does not have a placeholder for the “Absolute.” This is one of its chief differences from certain forms of Hinduism. If we shift our investigation from the search for the Absolute to a search for the ultimate focus of concern, we would 185 Analogue Consciousness Isn’t Just for Faeries still come up with God for the Christian tradition, but the Buddhist tradition would yield “interdependent arising” (pratityasamutpada). When we try to compare God and interdependent arising, we find it is worse than comparing apples and oranges. Apples and oranges, although very different, are not so different that they cannot be subsumed under the single term “fruit,” but God and interdependent arising exist in different worldviews. And since worldviews are by definition autonomous absolutes, designed to find a place for and an explanation of everything, there does not seem to be any way that God and interdependent arising could be compared...