Splitting and the Denial of Death

Hi, Robert. I would like to understand what you call “splitting” in more depth. Would you please write something or point me towards something concise that you have already said on the matter? I ask because when I’ve heard you speak of splitting, I think you are naming the state I was in for some years, which I was mentored/bullied into by an “enlightened” man, and I’m still trying to understand and deconstruct that period of my life.

Thanks in advance if you can help me here, and for everything you share on Facebook. They have been precious to me. Appreciation.

Rock, Long Island, 2014

Thanks, Toby. You are most welcome. It always feels good to hear that my words have been helpful.

The most basic case of splitting consists of dividing this world into matter, on the one hand, and spirit—that which animates matter—on the other. That view is, by definition, dualistic.

To resolve that dualism, spirit, renamed “consciousness,” is defined as all that “really” exists, and matter is only a kind of perceptual illusion arising in consciousness or created by consciousness. That is the idealistic point of view. Its opposite is materialism, which sees matter as primary—the preexisting substrate of consciousness, that arises from matter.

People take sides on this topic and debate it from positions of false certainty as if they enjoyed some privileged insight, but no one knows which is true or if neither is.

Another kind of splitting divides each moment of this aliveness into experiences (perceptions, feelings, and thoughts) on the one hand and the experiencer who “has” experiences on the other hand.

The subject/verb/object structure of language reinforces that split. For example, I (subject) see (verb) a tree (object). But is there truly an "I" who sees a tree, or do I, the tree, and seeing constitute one indivisible, boundless event? After all, without perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, would there even be an "I?" Are not seer, seeing, and seen just three words for the same happening? Without any one of them, would the others even exist?

What if no discrete, autonomous “myself” ever existed or will exist except as a flowing, changing point of view? What if the point of view called “me” arises moment-by-moment, composed of various elements that are only loosely related, if they are related at all, and which have no permanence or ultimate staying power?

That was the observation of Gotama, the Buddha, who pointed out that the self is not a fixed entity with an essence of its own but a confection constructed preconsciously from five different elements: a body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and awareness of the body, feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.

Many contemporary spiritual teachers claim that “myself” is nothing but “pure awareness,” but that leaves out the other factors enumerated by Gotama. After all, is there truly a "myself" that can stand apart entirely from perceptions, feelings, and thoughts? Is there truly a “myself” that can know that the material world is only an illusion as such teachers maintain?

That "myself"—the “pure awareness” one touted by the know-it-all gurus—is the resultant of another variety of splitting, in this case, splitting “awareness” from the “objects of awareness.” To me, that split seems purely conceptual. As I wrote in The Ten Thousand Things, Without awareness, there are no objects, but without objects, there is no awareness. So, it is not that objects arise in or upon awareness . . . but that objects are awareness, and awareness is objects. [page 28].

I understand why people cling to the concept, unsubstantiated as it is, of so-called pure awareness. Identifying “myself” that way could offer psychological comfort. If the bodily element in the Buddha’s list can be split off from “myself,” then the fear of physical decay and death—the fear of not being at all—disappears, and eternalism, the sine qua non of religion prevails.

I don't need a body since all I “really” am is pure awareness. The body is just my “meat suit;” I am an immortal soul. Convincing themselves of that has been the goal of “spiritual” people since time immemorial: Vahalla, the Elysian Fields, the Happy Hunting Ground, Shangrila, Heaven with Jesus, etcetera ad nauseum.

We are death-obsessed animals, after all, and have been since the dawn of recorded history, if not before. Our oldest work of epic literature tells the story of King Gilgamesh and his struggle with mortality. “Death is sitting in my bedroom, and wherever I turn, there too is death,” he says, before setting out in search of a plant that promises immortality. Human cultures have devised richly symbolic rituals to precede death and to follow it. For more than 10,000 years, we have laid our lost children in the ground, surrounded by flowers. We are a species of faithful mausoleum attendants, pyramid builders, inventors of the three-volley salute. We have imagined a great many afterlives for our dead, in heaven above or here on Earth aboard the great turning wheel of reincarnation. We have sicced our philosophers, armed with fine distinctions and caveats, on death; their definition of it now runs to more than 10,000 words. —-Ross Andersen in The Atlantic

Oaxaca, Mexico, 2009

It’s not impossible, I suppose, that “myself” could exist entirely immaterially, but that is an idea—an attractive fantasy perhaps—not a fact. And it is an idea believed in without much, if any, evidence in corroboration, so ardent is the hunger to evade anxieties about not being at all. Meanwhile, this aliveness—this palpable experience of being a living creature—is undeniable, obvious, and completely evident.

This aliveness is our most intimate knowledge and does not depend on what one believes.

When that is understood, the split is healed. That is what I call sanity.

Be well.