Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘I should again like to note the overlap of the way in which a rejection of the self as a kind of geometric punctum for Taylor, and the rejection of the self as a discrete entity with unique self-existence and essence for various Buddhist schools, leads to a broadening of ethical concern and obligation to and for others. Indeed, there is a growing global convergence here, which ranges across feminist views of the self to deep ecology… in that the self cannot be severed from the other in a neat surgical fashion, or from the cosmos of which it is a part; or to put this differently, such a feat cannot be accomplished without distortion, and without profound cost and debilitating consequences for ourselves, our communities, and our natural environments. The overlapping consensus of the chorus of such a challenge to individualist ontologies of the self, as they continue to manifest in economic greed, destruction of natural environments and cruelty to non-human animals, shows the urgency of re-thinking such views, and opening a necessary global, inter-cultural, and inter-philosophical dialogue and exploration of what is required for a sustainable future for humanity. 

I take the purpose of all of these challenges to be that of conceptually widening the circle of our moral concern by chipping away at the false ontology of the self that divides us from the other. The purpose of Buddhist philosophical arguments however is not simply intellectual. The philosophical enterprise is conceived not merely as conceptual, but as a contemplative practice (at least, for many schools in India, China, Japan, and Tibet); its aim is to deepen and widen understanding so as to improve lived experience and to lessen suffering in the world. This is one reason that a practice such as mindfulness, dhyāna or zazen, may be intrinsic to such an enterprise. Philosophy cannot be neatly isolated from practice, as most modern Western philosophers would have it. Indeed, to paraphrase Marx, the purpose of philosophy is not simply to interpret the world, but (also) to change and transform it.’ (from The Punctual Self and Interconnection)

You might have observed that this is a little more scholarly than the typical post; I read an article recently about the philosopher Charles Taylor, and was more interested in his view of the self than I usually am with Western thinkers, so went looking for some more elucidation.