A World of Signs
Clarisha
As remarkable as the formless layers might be, they are not the end “goal” of awakening, nor of the Shorter Discourse. Instead, traversing the formless layers provides a temporary vantage point from which we can see more clearly how we have conditioned ourselves to believe that we exist, and by which we suffer.
At one point, prior to awakening, the Buddha engaged with the formless layers as a practice under his teachers Alara Kamala and Udaka Ramaputta, taking the formless layers to their conclusion and reaching what turned out to be a dead end: he knew that merely suspending these illusions was not the goal. While those teachers concluded it was the ultimate experience available to us, the Buddha saw that temporarily dissolving illusions did not lead to the freedom he sought. The Buddha discovered that, rather than assuming we are at a dead end, we can just turn around and “see” what’s (not) there, namely the absence of all signs or indications of ourselves and all else, which is where the Shorter Discourse leads.
It may be curious that the discourse is called the Shorter Discourse on emptiness, but the final section of the discourse concerns the signless (animitta) state in which one is instructed to abide. What isn’t included in the text is that “empty” and “signless” are two of the three ways to describe this experiential state in which, though one is still conscious, mental activity has temporarily stopped. Such a state is (1) signless in that we no longer take or interpret sensory information as a sign or indicator that there is something “real” to know, perceive or otherwise experience; (2) empty because it is obvious that experience is now empty of all the “somethings” that typically populate it, as well as any infrastructure that could perceive “somethings”; and (3) aimless in that the intention or aim to experience anything in particular has temporarily ceased - it can feel as though there is simply no reason to interpret, recognize, grasp onto or otherwise respond to what is currently happening. Depending on your perspective, any one of these three descriptors can be interchangeably used to describe what the experience of this abiding is like.
But what exactly is the “signless state”? And why did the Buddha decide to use signlessness, rather than emptiness or aimlessness, when describing the final stages of the meditation? To answer this, we need to have an understanding of what a “sign” (Pali nimitta) is. A dictionary definition is “an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else”. In this regard, a synonym for the term “sign” is a “symbol”, which is “a mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function, or process”.
In daily life, we inevitably rely upon signs and symbols. The primary signs and symbols we use are words: symbolic language is a matter of relationships between signifiers (a word) and what is signified, such as a “coffee cup” which we have come to know when we see one. The words you are reading right now are symbols, or symbolic signs: the English language is a vast collection of them, with broadly agreed-upon meanings and interrelations. They are how we gain a conceptual understanding of what is happening, and how we can communicate with each other with what might seem to be a remarkable degree of accuracy and precision.
To the extent we think, read or recognize visual images as having a particular meaning, experience is significant and symbolic - use and recognition of signs and symbols make daily life possible. Recognizing a “frying pan” allows dinner to be prepared, and a “green light” means it’s safe to cross the street. Signs and symbols can also be manipulated - we can imagine how to assemble a bookshelf using “parts” and “tools” without having opened the box. Besides words, other signs or symbols can include sounds, gestures (such as sign language), odors, images, maps, pictograms - whatever is used to communicate meaning and/or understand what is happening in and around us.
Signs and symbols are not good or bad: they are just useful. The question, though, is whether or not we believe that signs and symbols refer to something actual or real. We might look around the room and note “that is a clock, that is a table, and that is a chair” and conclude we know exactly what is present. The use of such signs lends a sense of certainty, and even safety, since they seem to indicate we have a transparent or direct experience of exactly what is happening.
Thus, prior to awakening, we live in a world of what appear to be real, actual “somethings”. Even though we might tell ourselves that nothing is eternal or fully independent from all else, our experience of everything, especially ourselves, is of independent things that “are what they are”. As a result, all of the sensory information we take in and are conscious of, be it what we see, hear, smell or even think, becomes associated with one “something” or another; in other words, each piece of sensory information is a sign or indicator of the particular “something” we are currently conscious of.
This leads us to believe that we have what has been called a transparent experience of ourselves and the world, the sense that we are directly seeing things “as they really are”. As described by neuroscientist Anil Seth, we assume there is a “I behind the eyes” which detects objects and their features. This is something of a passive reception of sensory data, as if objects are out there and waiting for us to perceive them. It seems as though there’s a real world out there, and that the senses provide transparent windows onto a mind-independent reality. By this, the signs we receive are interpreted to be accurate and reliable indicators of what exactly we are observing. We assume that we perceive real “somethings”, and are conscious of them existing in time and space.
The most important set of signs and symbols are those which relate to “me”, and who or what we assume we are. In particular, when we use pronouns (i.e., signs) like “I” and “me”, this affirms that there is someone to whom those signs refer. The unfettering process explores this belief in sequential steps, starting with the belief in a separate “self” and concluding with the underlying beliefs that made the illusion of that separate “self” seem both real and necessary. As the unfettering process proceeds, we see that just because we can come up with and use signs and symbols such as “subject”, “perception” and “I Am” with which we identify, this doesn’t mean that these actually signify or point to anything (or anyone).
At one point, prior to awakening, the Buddha engaged with the formless layers as a practice under his teachers Alara Kamala and Udaka Ramaputta, taking the formless layers to their conclusion and reaching what turned out to be a dead end: he knew that merely suspending these illusions was not the goal. While those teachers concluded it was the ultimate experience available to us, the Buddha saw that temporarily dissolving illusions did not lead to the freedom he sought. The Buddha discovered that, rather than assuming we are at a dead end, we can just turn around and “see” what’s (not) there, namely the absence of all signs or indications of ourselves and all else, which is where the Shorter Discourse leads.
It may be curious that the discourse is called the Shorter Discourse on emptiness, but the final section of the discourse concerns the signless (animitta) state in which one is instructed to abide. What isn’t included in the text is that “empty” and “signless” are two of the three ways to describe this experiential state in which, though one is still conscious, mental activity has temporarily stopped. Such a state is (1) signless in that we no longer take or interpret sensory information as a sign or indicator that there is something “real” to know, perceive or otherwise experience; (2) empty because it is obvious that experience is now empty of all the “somethings” that typically populate it, as well as any infrastructure that could perceive “somethings”; and (3) aimless in that the intention or aim to experience anything in particular has temporarily ceased - it can feel as though there is simply no reason to interpret, recognize, grasp onto or otherwise respond to what is currently happening. Depending on your perspective, any one of these three descriptors can be interchangeably used to describe what the experience of this abiding is like.
But what exactly is the “signless state”? And why did the Buddha decide to use signlessness, rather than emptiness or aimlessness, when describing the final stages of the meditation? To answer this, we need to have an understanding of what a “sign” (Pali nimitta) is. A dictionary definition is “an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else”. In this regard, a synonym for the term “sign” is a “symbol”, which is “a mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function, or process”.
In daily life, we inevitably rely upon signs and symbols. The primary signs and symbols we use are words: symbolic language is a matter of relationships between signifiers (a word) and what is signified, such as a “coffee cup” which we have come to know when we see one. The words you are reading right now are symbols, or symbolic signs: the English language is a vast collection of them, with broadly agreed-upon meanings and interrelations. They are how we gain a conceptual understanding of what is happening, and how we can communicate with each other with what might seem to be a remarkable degree of accuracy and precision.
To the extent we think, read or recognize visual images as having a particular meaning, experience is significant and symbolic - use and recognition of signs and symbols make daily life possible. Recognizing a “frying pan” allows dinner to be prepared, and a “green light” means it’s safe to cross the street. Signs and symbols can also be manipulated - we can imagine how to assemble a bookshelf using “parts” and “tools” without having opened the box. Besides words, other signs or symbols can include sounds, gestures (such as sign language), odors, images, maps, pictograms - whatever is used to communicate meaning and/or understand what is happening in and around us.
Signs and symbols are not good or bad: they are just useful. The question, though, is whether or not we believe that signs and symbols refer to something actual or real. We might look around the room and note “that is a clock, that is a table, and that is a chair” and conclude we know exactly what is present. The use of such signs lends a sense of certainty, and even safety, since they seem to indicate we have a transparent or direct experience of exactly what is happening.
Thus, prior to awakening, we live in a world of what appear to be real, actual “somethings”. Even though we might tell ourselves that nothing is eternal or fully independent from all else, our experience of everything, especially ourselves, is of independent things that “are what they are”. As a result, all of the sensory information we take in and are conscious of, be it what we see, hear, smell or even think, becomes associated with one “something” or another; in other words, each piece of sensory information is a sign or indicator of the particular “something” we are currently conscious of.
This leads us to believe that we have what has been called a transparent experience of ourselves and the world, the sense that we are directly seeing things “as they really are”. As described by neuroscientist Anil Seth, we assume there is a “I behind the eyes” which detects objects and their features. This is something of a passive reception of sensory data, as if objects are out there and waiting for us to perceive them. It seems as though there’s a real world out there, and that the senses provide transparent windows onto a mind-independent reality. By this, the signs we receive are interpreted to be accurate and reliable indicators of what exactly we are observing. We assume that we perceive real “somethings”, and are conscious of them existing in time and space.
The most important set of signs and symbols are those which relate to “me”, and who or what we assume we are. In particular, when we use pronouns (i.e., signs) like “I” and “me”, this affirms that there is someone to whom those signs refer. The unfettering process explores this belief in sequential steps, starting with the belief in a separate “self” and concluding with the underlying beliefs that made the illusion of that separate “self” seem both real and necessary. As the unfettering process proceeds, we see that just because we can come up with and use signs and symbols such as “subject”, “perception” and “I Am” with which we identify, this doesn’t mean that these actually signify or point to anything (or anyone).