Greetings, Friendlies. :)
When Martine Batchelor mentioned this book, I remember a feeling of sinking. Sadness. Disappointment.
Martine asked: how can this book exist? [2] How can “mindfulness”, a term so central to dhamma, be married to something violent?
We could shrug off the question, dismiss it. “Different people define words differently.” But why? And if it is dismissible, why the dukkha?
What’s going on under the hood? And can “knowing what’s going on under the hood” aid my path-ing?
Cognitive Linguistics to the rescue! “Prototype Theory” holds that categories (words/concepts) are not fixed buckets with hard edges. Rather, any category/word/concept has a center, formed around an “exemplar”, and radiating out to “fuzzy” edges.
What this means is that words are not like lego bricks. Words (concepts/categories) are more like clouds of meaning. And these clouds have centers (exemplars) that are relatively solid and edges that are relatively diffuse (fuzzy).
For any particular category, my center, my exemplar, may be more or less close to yours. But edges vary wildly.
Returning to mindfulness:
- Is equanimously sitting on a cushion watching one’s breath mindful?
- What about brushing one’s teeth and feeling the physical sensations?
- Scrolling Instagram and knowing, “I am scrolling Instagram”?
- What about 3AM in the casino knowing, “It’s 3AM and I’m playing the slots”?
On the cushion, fairly central. In the casino? Edge case. We will disagree out here.
Returning to our earlier question: why is there dukkha? Because I think I’m getting hit with a brick. Something solid, hard-edged, “real”. But Prototype Theory tells me: I’m just getting hit with a cloud. There’s nothing to hit with, and nothing to hold on to.
“But if meaning isn’t solid, where do we stand? What do we build on? How do we know?”
There is no ground to defend. No place to plant a flag. Sound familiar?
“ErMehGerd! What’s left???”
There’s so much left. There’s care: how do I help another transcend dukkha?
There’s curiosity: how are these clouds of meaning shaped and shaping? What saṅkhāras are present?
Maybe even a little playfulness: I’ll show you my exemplar if you show me yours. ;)
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[1] Cover design generated with ChatGPT courtesy of OpenAI.
[2] Come to find out, the book doesn’t actually exist. But the blog post does. The _concept_ does. And that’s sufficient for our investigation.
Dharma PhD 