Speculative Grace: More Non-Sequential Theology

Still speculating about an immanent approach to grace, I'd like to return to last week's topic and try an alternative way of examining the difference between a sequential approach to grace and a non-sequential approach to grace. To do so, I'll use the familiar phenomenological distinction between background and foreground.

1. Background/Foreground

The phenomenological point is straightforward: our awareness of the world unfolds as the interplay between a given focal point (or foreground) and a withdrawn periphery (or background). 

In terms of a foreground/background distinction we might say:

Sequential thinking is a kind of attention that foregrounds an awareness of the present moment as embedded in a temporal sequence of past, present, and future events.

Non-sequential thinking, on the other hand, is a kind of attention that foregrounds an awareness of the present moment as present. Present moment awareness narrowly focuses our attention in such a way as to allow the sequential connection of the present to its own past and future to significantly withdraw into the background.

Granted that sequential thinking has a variety of strengths to commend it, I'm primarily interested here in its weaknesses. 

The primary weakness of sequential thinking is that the present moment tends to itself withdraw and focal awareness tends to be dominated by the past and future.

This is a very common experience. In general, as human beings, sequential thinking tends to be our default mode of awareness.

2. Zombies

Perhaps more pressingly, this withdrawal of the present moment into the background is directly connected to why we, as humans beings, are so consistently unhappy. We might refer to this kind of life in which the present moment withdraws as a “zombie-life.”

What does sequential thinking have to do with the famously undead? The withdrawal of the present moment into the background may leave us feeling "undead." It may leave us living a zombie-life dominated by thoughts of the future (in the form of fantasy) and memory (in the form of regret, nostalgia, etc.). Living in memory or fantasy may leave us unplugged from the vibrant reality of the present moment.

A zombie-life in which we spend all our time thinking about what we wish were present (but isn't) is seductive . . . but life-sucking.

We might go so far as to say that getting stuck in the kind of intentional-patterns that structure the zombie-life is exactly what, at root, we classically mean by the word "sin" in a Judeo-Christian context. An undead zombie-life dominated by fantasy, anxiety, regret, and boredom coincides with that misery we refer to as a life of sin.

3. Paul Against Works

In this light, we might additionally point out why Saint Paul, the Christian thinker of grace par excellence, so strongly denounces any works-based approach to salvation. What is dangerous about a works-oriented approach to life, even if those works are “good”? 

A works-oriented approach to life is dangerous insofar as it plays into the weakness of sequential thinking and encourages the withdrawal of the present moment. Always working toward some other goal, we risk coming unplugged from the present moment and slipping into the misery of a zombie-life.

Non-sequential thinking, on the contrary, foregrounds the unconditionality of the present moment itself. Non-sequential thinking requires present moment awareness. 

Here, the necessity of the present moment is imposed and received as such regardless of how we got here or where we’re going. In this sense, non-sequential thinking foregrounds the unconditional “grace” of the present moment as the only moment that is every actually given. We must be where we are and attend to what is given regardless of the path that led us here or where we hope to go.

Here, grace is not a kind of supplement to the present moment that takes us to some other place we would rather be. Rather, grace is the unconditional fullness of the present moment itself. Grace is life.

Or, again: grace is not what restricts our experience to feeling only good and pleasant things. Grace is feeling itself. The choice isn’t between feeling good things and feeling bad things. The choice is more fundamental: it is between feeling and not feeling. Chasing after good feelings and running away from unpleasant ones is what leads to the zombie-life in the first place.

All of this leads, then, to what I take to be a non-sequential theology's basic thesis regarding grace: the more thoroughly the present moment has been foregrounded as the focal point of attention, the more clearly grace will appear as such.

4. A Note on the Practice of Meditation

We might note, here, a connection between this thesis and the kind of religious life advocated by the Buddha. The Buddha advocates one things in particular: meditate. Why? Meditation is a method for practicing how to foreground the grace of the present moment. In other words, meditation is a way of practicing non-sequential thinking.

To the degree that we’re capable of remaining, with our full attention, in the present moment without slipping off into memories or fantasies, to that degree we’ll come to see the truth about life and we’ll become capable of joy and happiness.

What do we see once we become capable of seeing with steady, attentive awareness the present moment?

The Buddha's claim is that the more clearly and persistently we focus on the present moment, the more clear it will become that the present moment is "empty."

By "empty," the Buddha means two things in particular. To say that the present moment is empty is that say that it is impermanent and that it is incapable of satisfying desire.

How could seeing the “emptiness” of the present moment lead to any kind of happiness?

The Buddha’s argument is that recognizing the emptiness of the present moment liberates us from the endless work of trying to attach ourselves to and substantialize the lightness of the present, passing moment with the weighty supplements of past (memory) and future (fantasy). In non-sequential thinking, past and future will continue to be co-given with the present, but our relationship to them will have changed: we will no longer try to use the past and future as supplements to the perceived "poverty" of the present moment.

This is a point of some importance. Note that we earlier described how grace, when seen from a sequential perspective, appeared to be a kind of supplement to the emptiness of the present moment that allowed us to move beyond point A to that other place, point B, where we would prefer to be. In relation to sequential thinking, the risk is that the present will always appear too poor and sorry a thing for us to ever be happy. But it is this judgment of the present moment as too poor and boring that prompts us to flee what’s real and hide in the zombie-life of memory and fantasy in the first place.

With respect to the nature of grace, we could put the point in the following way. Grace should not be understand as a conditional supplement to the present moment's "poverty." It should be understood as the vibrant and unconditional reality of the present moment. A non-sequential awareness receives the present moment as the unconditioned grace that it is and it stops trying to receive it as some substantial and permanently satisfying grace that it is not.

5. A Speculative Note on "Enlightenment"

To conclude, I'll float some speculative remarks about what the Buddha may have meant by salvation or “enlightenment.”

The Buddha's basic claim is that it is possible, with persistent meditative practice, to move beyond our typical, sequential, "everyday" consciousness and to progressively foreground the present moment to such a radical degree that our typical, default awareness of sequence drops out (though only briefly) altogether. 

This progressive foregrounding of the present moment follows the basic steps outlined by all the major meditative maps (Eastern and Western). 

Very roughly, the process looks something like this. Through deep and persistent meditation (i.e., by focusing profoundly on our present, given experience), we can become increasingly aware of our bodies and sensation. This awareness of our bodies can reach such a pitch that awareness of the body itself "dissolves" into awareness of a pure stream of flowing sensations. In turn, this awareness can then shift into an awareness of how sensation is also composed of thought and of how thoughts are themselves a flowing stream. From here, one can become increasingly aware of the deep background elements that frame our everyday experiences until these forms/frames do themselves drop out and there is nothing left but an awareness that continues to abide (though only temporarily) without focal point or background. Here, the meditative process culminates in a kind of non-dual awareness that is often referred to simply as "nirvana."

The Buddha's claim is that anyone can do this and that the experience of nirvana (though itself temporary) can bring about a fundamental and permanent shift in one's awareness such that sequential thinking is no longer our default mode of awareness.

Essentially, enlightenment means that, through persistent practice and a variety of peak experiences, the brain can be re-wired in such a way that in the course of our everyday lives non-sequential thinking now becomes our default mode of awareness.

Or, to frame this in terms of grace: when non-sequential thinking becomes our default mode of awareness, then each present moment will show up as a grace that must be gratefully received.

Comments

[John]

"In every generation, the Spiritual Masters of the past are dead and long gone on to their destiny in the Divine. Therefore, in every generation, those who have REALIZED what the Spiritual Masters taught in the past must come forward, alive, to teach the people. Those who have not themselves Realized what the past Spiritual Masters taught must remain silent, and submit to the process of Realizing the Truth--but the Adept-Realizers and their Realized devotees must give their Self-Radiant Witness and Demonstration. ONLY thus does the Truth survive, uncorrupted and alive, generation after generation. And, if any generation is without a Living SPIRITUAL Tradition (able to be continued, from generation to generation, by real and effective Spirit-Baptizing means), then its children are, likewise, without the (and the never-ending speculative "theologies") are piled up, one upon the other, like a fortress in the night".

There have not been any such Realizers in the West for over 500 years---ever since the Renaissance and the so-called "Reformation".

Which is of course why all of what is called "religion" is so much absurd and superficial self-serving nonsense.

[Adam Miller]

Thanks, John, for the comment. Are you writing here or citing? If so, where is the citation from?

If the citation is meant to burst my bubble a bit, then consider it properly burst. I'm not claiming to have experienced enlightenment first hand. I'm just "speculating."

Nonetheless, the whole business about "remaining silent" before past "Spiritual Masters" strikes me as counter-productive.

I certainly don't accept the notion that no one in the West has touched the Truth in the past 500 years. If I remember correctly, my 3 year-old touched it last Sunday. And the single-mom next door touched it only two days ago.

In general, I don't believe that there are any "Subjects Supposed To (Really, Really) Know" out there. There's only us. But this is no tragedy: there is truth here - among us, and in us -aplenty to keep us all busy thinking and loving and attending for quite some time.

I also, of course, don't agree that all religion for the past 500 years is so much absurd and self-serving nonsense - or, if it is, I would argue that this may itself be essential to understanding the truth and grace that have been (and are being!) given.