Teachings as Tools
Las enseñanzas como herramientas
A reflection on how spiritual teachings function not as absolute truths but as practical instruments, and how the inquiry "Who am I?" leads not to a final answer but to the dissolution of certainty.
Teachings as Tools
A reflection on how spiritual teachings function not as absolute truths but as practical instruments, and how the inquiry "Who am I?" leads not to a final answer but to the dissolution of certainty.
Being able to predict things more appropriately does improve life. That is what science is. One of its uses is predicting, inventing, creating, manipulating all sorts of possibilities. If a theory doesn't work, then it's the wrong theory.
Teachings are tools, not truths
In a sense, it's the same with spiritual teaching. Is it true? Well, if it works, it's true. If it doesn't, it's not. None of them are true in an absolute sense; they are all tools. This is where I see a lot of people getting hung up on the truth of a certain teaching: Buddhism versus Advaita, is there a self, is there no self. For some people, it might be better to hear that there is a self at a certain point, so that they can move forward. For others, the opposite is needed. If you believe there's a self, you probably need to hear that there isn't one, and vice versa.
I said believe, which is different from seeing directly. Seeing through the belief in a self leaves you in what you could call the true self. You could say it leaves you back in the true self, or you could say it leaves you in no self, or in emptiness. Those are all just words. But it is fair to say that the closer you get to something you cannot explain, the closer you are getting to truth.
The end of knowing what you are
When the question "Who am I?" or the injunction "Know thyself" arises, it is often interpreted as meaning: "Finally I know what I am. I've got it. I know what it is." It's not that. Neti neti: not that. The true seeing is more like, "I have no idea what I am, and I am definitely not what I thought I was." You find yourself in astonishment: "I'm not that. How could I have ever believed that's what I am?"
And then there is nothing you can grab onto as "I." The whole question of what I am, who I am, all of that dissolves entirely.