Alone With Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

by Stephen Batchelor

The ability to crave likewise implies that the being of man is such that he can be concerned with entities other than himelf.

At times an inclination to individuality at the cost of participation disrupts our existence, and at times our individuality is threatened with dissolution through submission, imposed or voluntary, to the will of another or to the force of an impersonal collective. As long as we remain human beings, it is impossible for either pole of this polarity to be entirely reduced to the other.

In the case of being-alone, we will see that such actualization of possibility is limited by ignorance and selfishness; in the case of being-with, by self-concern and disregard for others.

the Buddhist path is a means of overcoming this inauthenticity and of fully realizing both authentic being-for-oneself and authentic being-for-others.

We constantly are confronted with a future that irretrievably plunges to the past, but in doing so demands that we firmly seize it in the present moment and project our possibilities into actuality.

Anxiety is quite different from fear, which always has as its object a particular entity within the world, and can thus be dispelled through either removing the object or removing oneself from the object.

Anxiety is not focused upon any particular entity, but upon our existence as such. “That in the face of which we have anxiety is thrown Being-in-the-world; that which we have anxiety about is our potentiality-for-being-in-the-world.”

as Heidegger says, “Anxiety is there. It is only sleeping. Its breath quivers perpetually through man’s being.”19

It seems that a certain element of hope is necessary for any human life to effectively continue.

“What is the meaning of life?,” will never be satisfactorily answered by another sentence,

Not only are we inescapably alone in the realms of our private thoughts, perceptions and feelings, but we are also, paradoxically, inescapably together in a world with others.

On the other hand, the inner aim of thought is never fully realized until it ripens into vocal utterances through which others can have access—albeit indirect—to our personal experience. In fact, an inner experience only achieves true completeness when it has been spoken.3 No matter how profound an insight one may gain, as long as it stays inarticulately concealed within an introspective silence, it remains one-dimensional and incomplete.

However inadequate our words and concepts may be in accurately communicating our experiences, it is only in the act of conceptualizing them to ourselves and subsequently articulating them to others that they finally come to completeness.

This ‘inner demand’ refers of course to the deeply felt need to fully integrate into religious life the essential human characteristic of being-with-others.

Although being-with-others is a fundamental characteristic of the way we are, in our actual attitudes towards and behaviour with others it assumes one of two manifest modes: it is either authentically or inauthentically fulfilled.

Indifference is neutral in the sense that it neither tries to attract nor to repel others, but it is nevertheless inauthentic because it does not accept others equally, as does equanimity, but disregards them equally.

From this detached viewpoint one attempts to disentangle the actual person from the person as-he-appears-to-me-now.

In equanimity we recognize the equality between others—between this person and that person; now this needs to be personalized in the recognition of the equality between oneself and others—between me and you. This involves realizing that just as I seek comfort, security and happiness, and wish to avoid suffering, fear and pain, so do you. Just as I feel worried, lonely, anxious, and shudder at the possibility of meaninglessness, so do you.

Why do I protect myself and not others?”15 However, such questions as these do not arise as a result of intellectual speculation. They are not posed with our thoughts and mouths alone, but with our being.

We do not just happen to ‘bump into’ others, but are inescapably together with them in the world.

Anxiety is the mood of ignorance

Lasting and stable peace of mind is achieved not through discovering the permanence of anything, but through fully accepting the impermanent as impermanent and ceasing to insist that it is otherwise. Likewise, genuine contentment is found in realizing that what one previously assumed to be capable of providing satisfaction is actually unable to do so. It is in accepting this fact and not in an ever more strenuous attempt to force the world into an impossible shape that a realistic outlook is achieved which ceases to expect from the world something the world can never provide. Paradoxically, in this very act of acceptance one finds the happiness that had always eluded one before. But it is insight into the lack of self-identity that finally undermines the instinctive misconceptions we have of ourselves, others, and the world.

Self-grasping is a misconception that needs to be brought to a complete stop through perceiving the non-existence of its object, whereas self-concern needs to be transformed into concern for others.

For the aim of an awakening mind—meaningful being for others—is only fulfilled in the actualization of Buddhahood. But in addition, active participation in the lives of others is demanded in order to incorporate the full range of human potential into spiritual life. Penetrating insight into voidness may be the essential factor in the awakening to meaningful being for oneself, but if it lacks a comparably evolved framework in which to express itself in words and deeds, it falls short of the goal of optimal human being.

Moral discipline is a compound of two principal functions, those of restraint and activity. Restraint involves the maintaining of one’s conduct within certain prescribed boundaries. These boundaries are fixed according to the disposition of the individual.

Patience is the specific antidote to anger and hatred. It is an attitude of accepting both the harm caused by others and the pains and discomforts found in life instead of angrily retaliating against them. Only in the calm afforded by patient acceptance is one able to clearly discern the nature of the situation and proceed to deal with it realistically. Once the mind becomes distorted and disturbed with anger, any possibility of objectivity is lost.

intention and aim of the form-body is to communicate to others through whatever means are available the way to a more meaningful, authentic and joyous existence. Thus the ‘form-body’ does not describe merely the physical aspect of a Buddha, but it refers to his optimum mode of being-in-the-world-with-others.

All the practices of Buddhism are simply ways of actualizing the potentialities of human existence that dwell within us here and now. Buddha is nothing but the optimum mode of being possible for man in his present condition.