Platonic deification sprinkled with manliness

The Beatic Vision of Vajrayoginī's Pure Realm (detail HA11162)

When reading Chapter 2 The development of the soul in Jordan Bradley Koffman’s dissertation Truth and Tradition in Plato and the Cambridge Platonists (Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2009), I was struck by similarities with Mahāyāna Buddhist ideas, in particular Yogācāra and Buddha Nature. Plato can be read and interpreted philosophically, epistemologically and theologically, as does JB Koffman here, but also mythologically, soteriologically, gnostically and practically (e.g. theurgy and self-deification).

Plato’s ideas on the development of the soul, as exposed in Koffman’s dissertation, could also be viewed through theories and practices of Indo-Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism and esoteric Buddhism. And that is what I had at the back of my mind reading the following selection of excerpts. Plato believed in the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis) and in the immortality of the soul (Phaedo). Buddhists believe in transmigration, but not in the immortality of a soul, i.e. a Self (s.ātman). Yet, Buddhism developed ideas that evolved into concepts (Storehouse Consciousness, alaya-vijñana) that with time could hardly be separated from a “self” and a “soul”, in spite of continuing to be qualified as "dependently originated" (s. pratītyasamutpatti) and empty (s. śūnya). The associated Yogācāra and Tantric practices go much further. If we “retro-engineered” Yogācāra and Tantric practices, the corresponding doctrines would certainly posit a transmigrating self or luminous soul on its way to reunite with a luminous divine reality.

Some excerpts from Koffman's Dissertation with my comments.

“According to the myth in the Phaedrus [246b-249d], the soul's original home and final destination is among the gods in perpetual contemplation of intelligible reality. To reach this goal, one is to 'become like god' to the fullest extent possible in this life, in preparation for the release of the soul from the body in death. One achieves divinity by becoming virtuous and wise; this, in turn, requires realizing one's essential nature as a purely cognitive agent, unburdened by the demands of sensuousness and worldliness. Since one begins this earthly life identifying oneself with the lower powers of one's soul, believing that one's good lies in pleasure, reputation, or power, the realization of our essence is possible only through a philosophical purification of the soul, through which one comes increasingly to desire the absolute and unchanging good. One must learn that those transient goods which satisfy our vanity and our desire for pleasure are only apparent goods; our true end and happiness consist, rather, in being in direct intellectual contact with 'the really real' [to ontos on]: the eternal and purely intelligible basis of all [Sophist, 248a].”

The gradual return to “the soul's original home and final destination” requires a sort of self-deification. First, the lower “powers of one's soul” are to be trained through virtue (e.g. pāramitā, upāya) and wisdom (prajñā). Wisdom is ultimately the access to “self-awareness” or reflexive awareness (s. svasaṃvedana).

“Therefore, the experience is of cognition [and] is of nature of cognition; it is not of anything else whatsoever. The fact that the [cognition] is the nature of the experience is what [constitutes it as] that which is directly, individually-experienced. And because the [cognition] is the nature of that [experience], it [reflexively] illuminates itself. Hence, it is also said to be “illuminating of itself,” like light.” Yiannopoulos (2020), Dissertation, The Structure of Dharmakirtis Philosophy.

Wisdom is both illuminating and self-illuminating. Its metaphorical “luminous” nature is essential in Yogācāra and Tantric Buddhism. It is the “true reality” of both itself and its “eternal and purely intelligible basis” that becomes the goal. The knowledge (jñāna) of this “true reality” is a positive knowledge, a "direct Yogic perception".

“For Plato, ethics is therefore ultimately a practice of self-transformation, whereby one identifies oneself increasingly with one's intellect-with that power which makes it possible to identify oneself in any way at all. But since the goal is to become pure intellect, which has only universal objects, becoming one's 'true self' involves an overcoming of precisely what we ordinarily think of as 'the self', which is the preoccupation with the idiosyncratic interests and tastes of the individual. The reification of the latter into a unified concept (the 'ego') is a only a passing moment, as it were, in the intellect's process of self-recognition as the essence of life and as a force which is fully active in knowing the unchanging ideas. That is, in self-knowing thought, one knows oneself not as a thing, but as actively participating in the divine principle.”

This philosophical (or spiritual) approach can be supported by deity practice, the transformation of body, speech and mind into the Buddha’s triple kāya. Koffman follows Lloyd Gerson's argument from his book Knowing Persons[1] and shows how a “person internally divided between desire and intellect (or reason) [can become] unified, [as a] divine self".

“[Gerson] calls the internally divided soul an 'endowment' of ours, while the unification of its parts is an 'achievement' for us.”

For Plato, the development of the soul consists of three modes of being: simple unity [immediacy], internal division [self-antagonism], and the inner reconciliation of opposing parts, “the model for a reconciled soul is the divine mind”. These three modes of being correspond to three stages of human life.

“Specifically, it seems to be implied [in the Laches] that childhood is the time of immediacy, adolescence is marked by self-antagonism, while proper adulthood or manhood is characterized by internal reconciliation-despite the fact that few men actually achieve this.”

“Men” because this is a “man's world”... and requires Andreia (ἀνδρεία), courage, bravery and fortitude. The corresponding Sanskrit term is Pauruṣa, in Tibetan skyes pa’i rang bzhin[2].

“Specifically, to the first mode of being, which I will generally call 'immediacy', corresponds an unreflective sort of sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη) and andreia (ἀνδρεία). The second mode of being, i.e., that of inner division or self-antagonism, is characterized by either 'self-mastery' (enkrateia) or 'weakness of will' (akrateia). In both cases, the intellect has been distinguished from the rest of the soul, but is at odds with it; it then either rules the lower parts of the soul by force or succumbs to their pressure. The final mode of being is internal reconciliation or harmonization, and to it corresponds virtue as an achievement; this, in turn, may occur with or without comprehensive knowledge-i.e., in a 'manly' or in a 'godly' form of virtue respectively.

These modes of being are presented, albeit fairly obliquely, in the Charmides and the Laches.”]”

“Manly” forms seem to correspond to “daimonic” models, with the possibility of “daimonification”. Mahāsiddhas, Yogis, Herukas could be such models. The domination of the lower parts of the soul require virile qualities, virtues. The word “virtue” comes from the Latin word “virtus”, "manliness, bravery, worth, moral excellence." Virtues are a “heroic” matter; dominating the lower parts of the soul (self-mastery) is not the end goal. Just like the five pāramitās, the virtues need to be unified through sophia [prajñā]. The soul needs to be wholly directed towards the good.

“The second comment concerns the thesis of the unity of the virtues. The position that I am assuming is that virtue is ultimately a single mode of being which can be described in various ways: if speaking only of the state of the intellect in this mode of being, then one calls it sophia; if one is speaking of how knowledge is active in the lower parts of the soul, directing them towards the good, then one may call it andreia in circumstances such as war, and sophrosyne at, say, a drinking-party; and if one is speaking of the general arrangement and orderliness of the soul, which leads to right and noble action, one calls it dikaiosune [equity]. Virtue is thus a complex unity.”

“Immediacy”/self-knowledge to resolve the inner war (self-antagonism[3]) is also a “manly” matter.

“[W]hen asked to observe this quality within himself, Charmides' resourcefulness is not very extensive [ Laches, 194b]. He does, admittedly, engage in a "manly effort at self-examination" [andreia tēs autoexetáseōs]: he observes what is "in him" by something akin to direct perception, and from this basis forms an opinion about the virtue [Laches 160e; 159a].”

“[T]he mode of immediacy is distinguished from self- antagonism [in the Charmides] in that there is no hesitation between one's initial impulse to act and the action itself. Whether it be instinctively or by habituation, one simply reacts to one's situation without any intervening thought [nirvikalpa]. In self-antagonism, by contrast, there is at least a moment of interruption in which the question arises as to what ought to be done. But the intellect and the lower parts of the soul-or reason and inclination-are at odds here: one either acts according to the 'ought' reluctantly by forcing oneself to do so, or one follows one's inclination in spite of the knowledge or sense that one ought not to. To jump ahead for a moment, when one is self-reconciled, one's action follows practical reasoning without hesitation.”

“Immediacy” is a quality sometimes attributed to children. “Like a small child looking (at the paintings of deities) in a temple”. The inner war is a manly matter, and inner self-reconciliation is achieved by “few men” only. “The model for a reconciled soul is the divine mind”. It is achieved through “Self- knowledge”, that consists of two components, an objective knowledge of various kinds and the “self-reflexivity of the activity of knowing”. For comparison in Atiśa's A Lamp for the Path:

“What is Insight? [322a] It is either innate [sahaja], or comes from study, or from reflection, or from contemplation - or as scripture says:
"He who penetrates to what is changeless In the words and states of all activity,
Let his be proclaimed as 'Insight of the Diamond Mind'.”

One who combines mastery of the means
With a true cultivation of insight,
Will swiftly attain enlightenment, but
Not by cultivating merely non-self. [Stanza 46][4]"

Koffman further specifies true knowledge (bold added for emphasis):

“Taking, as Gerson does, true knowledge to be a direct cognition of intellectual objects, what this definition of sophrosyne means is that one is directly cognizing both the intellectual objects and the subjective state of cognition. In short, it is a reflexive cognition of the relation between knowing subject and known object.

Among those in the Charmides, this definition is the one that comes closest to describing the ideal state of virtue, which, since it is the true ideal, belongs to a pure, disembodied mind. As Gerson explains, “an immaterial person is the only sort of thing capable of knowledge as Plato understands it. This is because an immaterial person is the only thing capable of self-reflexivity. It is the only sort of thing wherein that which knows is identical with the subject of the state that is known. Further, the ideal for a person is to be exclusively in such a state of knowing. In this way, achieving knowledge can be seen as the core result and meaning of authentic self-transformation. Finally, insofar as knowledge is the ideal cognitive state, the nec plus ultra of cognition, all other cognitive states have to be understood as defective or at least derivative versions of the ideal. The possibility thus presents itself that for embodied persons, unqualified --i.e. actual and self-reflexive-- knowledge is not available.

Insofar as it contains the components of actuality and self-reflexivity, the formula "knowledge of other knowledges and of itself" stands for the ideal form of knowledge, and is similar to Aristotle's description of the divine mind in Metaphysics .("knowing that is knowing of knowing")."

Only the “desembodied” “divine mind” “directly cogniz[es] both the intellectual objects and the subjective state of cognition”, i.e. true knowledge, and constitutes an “authentic self-transformation”, a sort of self-deification. Compared to that knowledge “all other cognitive states” are defective or derivative. Saṃsāra is embodied existence and nirvāṇa is "extinguishing" or "blowing out", “unbinding”, without “self-reflexive knowledge” or locked into it as in a bubble. In Buddhism, Yogācāra, Buddha Nature and Tantrism claim to be the only ones that help achieve the return of the soul to its original home and to its final destination (Ground Path Result), “among the gods in perpetual contemplation of intelligible reality”.

Welcoming beings to the Land of Ultimate Bliss (photo: Seven Jewels Gallery)

***

[1] Lloyd P. Gerson, Knowing persons : a study in Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

[2] “The [Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra] first recites a screed of misogynist complaints against women: they are a cause for all things evil (chos ma yin pa, *adharma); their lust, especially, is insatiable; they “guzzle” (’thung bar byed pa) the wealth, desires, and vital fluids of men. Basing itself on an apparent equation between masculinity and tathāgatagarbha, the text then claims that a pious follower will reject womanhood and seek masculinity. The gender juggling of the resulting passage is especially mind-bending if we keep the primary meaning of garbha [womb] at the forefront of our minds:

Thus, gentle sir, when you have heard this *Mahāparinirvāṇa, you should adopt a frame of mind that is not attached to womanhood; you should adopt a frame of mind [conducive to] transformation to masculinity (skyes pa’i rang bzhin, *pauruṣam). This is because this sūtra is a complete instruction in tathāgatagarbha-[cum-]masculinity (*pauruṣatathāgatagarbha-saṃdarśana). [??] is not to be taken as masculinity(??); it is tathāgatagarbha that is the “man” (*puruṣa). Any men (*puruṣa) that there are in the world, because they do not know that there is tathāgatagarbha in the/their self (bdag nyid la), are not [in fact] masculine. I [the Buddha, who is speaking] say that anyone who does not know tathāgatagarbha is a woman. Those who do know that there is tathāgatagarbha in the/their self, by contrast – they are to be counted among the supreme men (skyes pa’i mchog, *puruṣottama); even though they be women, they are to be counted among the supreme men.”

Michael Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine, 2015, Hamburg Buddhist Studies 5 Series editor: Michael Zimmermann

 

"I argue further that the elaboration of tathāgatagarbha doctrine in MPNMS is part of a much wider pattern of docetic Buddhology and its corollaries. In particular, the claim that all sentient beings have a garbha (“womb” or “embryo”) of the Tathāgata within them, I suggest, was elaborated as a type of soteriologically-oriented, positive substitute for the idea that Buddhas could have their genesis in an ordinary, fleshly human womb, which was unacceptable to docetic thinking." From Michael Radich's Introduction.

[3] “For now, the mode of self-antagonism is generally characterized by a conflict within the soul about what to do. That action follows without practical necessity indicates that both sides in the conflict remain at odds, despite the resolution to act. As in any conflict where one side overpowers the other, instead of being genuinely reconciled to one another, the soul is left in a state of agony, lacking quietude and equanimity. Plato (somewhat ironically) calls the two possibilities within this mode 'self-superior' and 'self-inferior' [ Laws, 626d; Republic, 430e]. “ When the soul is 'self-superior', the 'better desires' end up determining the will rather than the 'worse desires' ".

[4] A Lamp For The Path And Commentary Of Atisha Tr. Richard Sherburne S. J., 1983, ‎ Allen & Unwin.