Mysticism, Buddhism, and science
While listing to the Secular Buddhism podcast, I wondered what is mysticism, and is a secular buddhist philosophy purely intellectual, or is there some aspect of mysticism involved?
I was not exactly sure what Mysticism means. I went to the dictionary seeking its wisdom.
Mysticism Oxford:
- Belief characterized by self-delusion or dreamy confusion of thought, especially when based on the assumption of occult qualities or mysterious agencies.
- Belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender.
The negative interoperation
I wanted to have both definitions, but I’ll focus on the first definition. This is a way to dismiss some idea or concepts as ridiculous and unfounded in science. While there is no doubt some mystic or sprital ideas can be wrong. Calling something mysticism to be critical, draws on the idea of dismissing the spiritual. I think this is a lack of openness or understanding of what spirituality is and what it’s not. While I’m still figuring this out myself, I think many “wo woo” ideas are associated with spirituality. I believe the mixing of these ideas to be poison, causing confusion and leading people away from spirituality. As I develop my understanding of spirituality, I’m sure there is much more to say about this topic.
The Neutral interpretation
I’d like to modify the second definition slightly. Moving away from any religious ideas here around a god or deity. I might rephrase it to be the fallowing:
Belief that some spiritual knowledge is inaccessible to the intellect and may only be attained through contemplation, experience, and meditation.
In this way, there is some knowledge that can only be gained though experience. There is no description, explanation, or data that can be used to convey this knowledge to another person.
Recently, this idea was described to me as Tacit Knowledge. It seems that parts of spirituality is a form of tacit knowledge which has its own field of study surrounding it. I know very little about this field, but it might be interesting to explore this further in the future.
Meditation
I can describe how to mediate, how it feels, and the benefits I get from the mediation. But as I describe them to another person they can intellectually understand them, but until they have their own experience they do not reap those benefits.
Hiking
Even the most experienced, skilled and brilliant poet can not give you the experience of hiking to a beautiful summit. Skilled photographers and beautiful drone shots can not give you that experience. The only way to understand that spiritual experience of hiking and looking over the summit is to do it yourself.
I’m not disparaging the beauty of poetry or the skilled photographer or videographer. These in themselves are unique experiences that can inspire and provoke the imagination. But that hard-to-seek out spiritual knowledge must be done with one's self.
Mysticism and science
I’d like to propose there is no conflict between spirituality and science. That you can fully embrace the realm of rational, logic, empiricism, and the scientific method, and also believe that there is a kind of mystic knowledge that can gained though mediation and experience. There is an old kind of knowledge, spiritual knowledge, that has been forsaken by much of society. I have always had a deep need for spirituality, but unable to find it in religous texts or understand what it even is. I’m starting on this path to discover what spirituality means to me and learning about the tools to do this though Buddhism, stoicism, and other philosophy. And along the way thinking about how science and spirituality are not at odds with each other but are complements.
A final thought. There is an intuition about spirituality that I wanted to share, and I do not think this post adequately conveys what I have in my mind. Despite this, in the spirit of developing a growth mindset and understanding my writing skills maybe a little rusty, I’m going to publish this article and maybe come back to these topics in the future.