Sound, Color, and Self-Organization

Herbert Guenther
Department of Far Eastern Studies (Emeritus)
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Abstract
In Buddhist experience-qua-experienced based and process-oriented thought
(rDzogs-chen) the experiencer is an integral aspect by virtue of his being a
participant, not a detached observer, in the anthropocosmic unfolding of
life's mystery, variously called "reality," "Being," or "wholeness." The un-
folding process passes through three phases, called "in-depth appraisals,"
toward a definite value of phase difference. The whole process is experi-
enced as shifting patterns of energy in constant creative interaction with
their environment through frequencies of light (color) and intensities of
vibrations (sound). These fuse in the sememic-morphemic Hilm, symbol of
the spiritual in man, that underlies all concrete manifestations.
Ich wache ja! 0 lasst sie walten
Die unvergleichlichen Gestalten
Wie sie dorthin mein Auge schickt
(I am awake! Oh let them reign
The incomparable figures
Sent there by my own eye).
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust II, "At the Lower Peneios"
... the observer plays a crucial role in
determining the physical nature of what
is being observed. The idea of an objective
reality, existing independently of an
observer, which was the given in classical
physics and even in relativity theory, is
lost.
- Marcelo Gleiser
The Dancing Universe, p.229
Rather, we are virtual readers, meaning
that by the very act of being there we
engage a possible text, and this text is the
space in which we discover ourselves and
others in a particular way. This discovery
is the natural result of a mode of presence
experienced uniquely in the very moment
of "reading" the text-space. And unlike
most reading experiences the only thing
repeatable about such a text is this fact:
The radical uniqueness of a moment of
engagement in and of which we are, at the
very least, co-creators. We are the possible
artists of our own presence in the space.
- George Quasha & Charles Stein
(in Gary Hill: Hand Heard /
Liminal Objects)
No matter what we are, scholars, poets,
or unbiased observers scrutinizing the
environing world, we are seeking in it
clarity, order, and harmony. The world is
seen as a text. And through texts acces-
sible to our consciousness we interact with
the world.
- v. V. N alimov
(Realms of the Unconscious: The
Enchanted Frontier, p. 26.)
HE WORLD is full of sounds and colors or,
more precisely, of melodies and patterns
only because Man as their creator-
experiencer is there.
1
This apodictic statement
is likely to meet with many objections that, in
the last analysis, however, stem from ill-
founded and deep-rooted assumptions and
prejudices that, without exception, have led and
still lead to dubious conclusions and misunder-
standings, if not to say, misrepresentations of
"facts." Strange as it may sound, any "fact" may
The InternationalJournal of Transpersonal Studies) 1998) Vol. 17, No.1) 67-88 67
1998 by Panigada Press
be said to be already a misunderstanding, a mis-
interpretation, and a misrepresentation, be-
cause the very word "fact" means what(ever)
we have "made" of what we have encountered
(sensed). Subjectiveness is an ineluctable ingre-
dient in any fact and objectiveness is a myth.
In spite of the Biblical taboo against knowl-
edge we as Westerners still ask and love to ask
questions, maybe for no other reason than that
the answers we have come up with are unsat-
isfactory. The burning questions have always
been: Who am I? Why do I exist? What does
world mean? What is my role in the unfolding
of world?
As a rule, we use two kinds of approaches to
come to grips with the problem that we as hu-
mans pose to ourselves and others. The one
which I shall call the speculative approach, not
without a surreptitious glance at Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe's dictum:
2
Ich sag' es dir: ein Kerl, der spekuliert,
1st wie ein Tier auf diirrer Heide
Von einem bosen Geist im Kreis herumgefuhrt,
Dnd ringsherum liegt schone griine Weide
(I tell you: a bloke who speculates
Is like an animal in a barren heath
Chased around in circles by an evil spirit,
While all around lie lush green pastures),
has become the dominant trend in all spheres
of life in the Western cultural framework. It is
reductionist to a degree and starts from the as-
sumption of a strict separation between the
observer and the observed and sets Man against
the World that increasingly becomes a world
minus Man. This trend is believed to have
started with the ancient Greeks, in particular,
with the Presocratic thinkers, a motley crowd
of individuals in whom rational consciousness
dawned and whose successors more or less suc-
cessfully fumbled about elaborating their theme
of rational inquiry.
3
The salient features of this approach are a
preoccupation with a beginning and its corol-
lary of an author of this beginning, called God
who, then, is claimed to have created the world
and Man, usually in this sequence, either out
of something, or out of nothing, or out of some
kind of chaos.
4
Wherever and whenever a be-
ginning and with it its author has been the sub-
ject matter of speculation, emphasis has been
placed on two related notions: matter, derived
from the Latin word materia, that itself is a
translation of the Greek word hyle, meaning
"stuff'; and substance, derived from the Latin
word substantia, corresponding to the Greek
word hypokeimenon, meaning "the underlying,"
"that which persists in contrast to that which
changes."5 In particular, from among the vari-
ous interpretations of this idea the one given
by Descartes has had far-reaching and devas-
tating consequences, because Descartes' concep-
tion of a res cogitans, as some substance radi-
cally different and ontologically separate from
another substance, the res extensa, does not lead
to a profounder grasp of the problem that we
are. It is true, Descartes' speculation has given
rise to the modern conception of consciousness,
but as Jan Patocka (1998) has shown:
The primordial structure of consciousness
is ego-cogito-cogitatum, I experiencing the
experienced. To the question of who the I is
Descartes now replies as if it were a ques-
tion about what the thing that thinks is. It
is res cogitans, substantia cogitans. With
that he injects a metaphysical tradition into
the personalistic structure. There is a soph-
istry here, to be sure, a four-term fallacy:
res cogitans is understood in two senses.
First, it is taken in the sense of ego cogito, a
structural characteristic of experiencing
which is the I, I who experience, the center
unifying all experience. In the second sense,
it is taken as a substance, a constant bearer
of certain attributes, a res - that is, no
longer as a center of experiencing. That is
also the beginning of the objectification of
the entire personal sphere which Descartes
uncovered with his cogito. One entire school
of psychology, the English, builds on that.
We shall see how later all of modern psy-
chology carries out a depersonalization of
the personal sphere. It was with Descartes
that that process began. (pp. 15-16)
Elsewhere, in the same work, Patocka
states:
The recognition that our conscious functions
always have their object does not appear to
be linked to the personal standpoint. Already
in antiquity, the impersonal tradition
(Plato's Charmides, Aristotle's De Anima)
stressed the object-orientation of our vital
functions. There is a differerence between
seeing and the seen, between science (as one
68 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies) 1998) Vol. 17, No. 1
..
of life's functions) and what science knows.
This difference, basic to the intentionality
of consciousness, thus need not be tied to
the personal dimension. Aristotle distin-
guishes between aisthesis, the act of intu-
ition, and aistheton, that which is intuited:
the color red is distinct from the seeing of
red colors. Animals have aisthesis, an abil-
ity, given by the nature of their vital func-
tioning, to orient within their life's context;
they have organs that make it possible. It
is, we could say, the ability to reproduce an
objective quality, an external object. There
is a certain agreement between the object
and the image. Aisthesis is the ability to ac-
cept and contain within oneself a certain
eidos, a semblance devoid of a material sub-
stance. The eye does not take in the thing
physically though it does take in the same
eidos, the same quality, so that there is here
an identity of species but a difference in the
material substrate. Eidos, quality, is the
object of our functioning, it is something
purely objective. It is the determination of
an objective thing, Descartes' problem -
what objective guarantee is there that my
idea captures the thing? - does not arise at
all; Aristotle overlooks it. (p. 21)
In a sense, Descartes' notion is a twisted con-
tinuation of a distinction made, but not under-
stood, by the early and not-quite-so early
Greeks. This distinction is that of the peras
meaning "the limited" and the apeiron mean-
ing "the unlimited," "the limitless," "the spa-
tially unbounded" (in this sense first found with
Anaximander). Plato quite arbitrarily branded
the apeiron as evil and associated it with the
feminine in nature, while he extolled the peras
and associated it with the male logos meaning
"discourse," "thought," and, above all, "reason."
In this contempt of the feminine he was followed
and topped by his student Aristotle whose mi-
sogynist rigmaroles were eagerly lapped up by
the Christian Church Fathers and have con-
tinued having a pernicious influence on West-
ern thinking to this very day.
Certainly, the rational-rationalistic approach
that is the hallmark of all speculation, has
spearheaded what has become known as sci-
ence. However, science has not and does not
produce "objective truths"; at its best it formal-
izes certain aspects of reality (whatever that
may mean) in a communicable way. Having be-
come the more or less undisputed idol of our
times, science has done little, if anything, to
overcome the age-old bifurcation that has af-
flicted mankind on each and every level of its
existence. In a certain sense, this idol of our
times has even aggravated the trend toward
Man's dehumanization. As we now know this
trend started with the Enlightenment move-
ment of the eighteenth century that, unsuccess-
fully, attempted to implement a separation be-
tween science and religion that were rapidly
moving (or had already moved) in the direction
of a growing reductionism. As Jantsch (1980)
has pointed out:
Just as there is a "downward reductionism"
to materialism, there is also an "upward re-
ductionism," corresponding to a purely spiri-
tual life which remains without conse-
quences. (p. 295)
A "downward reductionism" attempts to in-
terpret everything in terms of an individual's
specific point of view that reflects the features
of his rationality and sacrifices many of the
world's integral aspects, impoverishes and nar-
rows down the world as well as himself. An "up-
ward reductionism" is a path trodden by each
and every form of a theistic mysticism. Each
kind of reductionism is a dead end road within
a static cosmos, with garbage strewn all over
the place. If this sounds shocking it is meant to
shock people. Not only is every reductionism
intolerant of anything else but itself, it even
attempts to impose its narrow and thwarted
view on everyone and everything.
6
Nowhere is this imposition of a preconcep-
tion, reductionism's idee fixe, more evident than
in the dimension of Man's cultural sphere, of
which the intellectual-spiritual is one of its mul-
tifaceted aspects in specific contexts that are
different from the Western homemade brew-
ing. To give a few examples: the historical
Buddha's injunction of caratha bhikkhave
sabbabhutanam hitaya sukhaya ca has been
traditionally rendered as "go ye, 0 Brethren,
for the welfare and happiness of all beings" in
an unabashed violation of the meaning of the
verbal root car meaning "going about one's life
and setting an example to others by it." This
traditional (mis)rendering, based on the hid-
den assumption of a missionary travelling from
place to place to sell an overevaluated idea, con-
Sound, Color) and Self-Organization 69
fuses the verbal root car with the verbal root
gam (gacchatha) meaning "going's movement."
Worse than this mistranslation is the tradi-
tional rendering of the terms bodhi and buddha
by "enlightenment" and the "enlightened one,"
respectively. What, then, do these terms actu-
ally mean? Both, the noun bodhi and the past
participle buddha, derive from the root budh
meaning "to wake up." Accordingly, the term
bodhi is a process-product word that sums up
the process of becoming awake and the state of
being awake. Similarly, the term buddha is a
past participle of the root budh and as such can
be used as an adjective (a qualifier, an acciden-
tal in Aristotle's schema) as well as a noun (a
substance, so qualified). This "waking up" or
"being awake" is a far cry from a person's going
on a speculative spree of some self-defeating
rationality. It is true, this awakening carries
with it the feeling of (some) luminosity as its
hermeneutical assessment as tamo vigato aloka
udapadi "darkness gone, light has come forth"
makes abundantly clear. This phrase is a phe-
nomenologically correct description of a deeply
felt experience.
7
Closest to what is meant by
this Buddhist description comes our saying of
someone "being alight," as when we
(reductively) say that this someone's or our eyes
are alight and alive and sparkling with joy. 8 But
the reductionist's disregard of what someone
else has to say is most evident in the self-de-
ceptive and other-misleading rendering of the
Sanskrit termprajfia by "wisdom" (that nowa-
days has become a word that drips like saliva
from the lips of those who have none).9 This
term denotes one of the operators in a set of
five that operate within a person's intellectual
horizon coinciding with the thematic limitations
set by that person's propositional-conceptual-
representational mode of thinking. 10 It is best
rendered as "appreciative discrimination" or,
more to the point, as "analytical-appreciative
awareness." And while the Westerner did not
bother about what the original Buddhist texts
had to say, the Buddhists never forgot the dif-
ference between the tininess of the operator
called prajfia (shes-rab in Tibetan) and the enor-
mousness and profoundness of what was called
jfiana (ye-shes) operating on a level different
from the thematic one.
ll
This tremendous dif-
ference betweenshes-rab andye-shes has been
expressed in the following beautiful images:
12
shes-rab 's leaping flame
Does away with the subject-object
division's storm, however fiercely it may
blow;
shes-rab 's glowing spark
Does away with the representational
thinking's drizzle
13
and
ye-shes' radiant light of the sun
Does away with the darkness of (spiritual)
dullness, however thick it may be.
These are only a few examples, but the list
of reductionism's misconceptions and misrep-
resentations could be continued ad infinitum.
Now, it is my contention that the above im-
ages of a leaping flame, a glowing spark, and
the sun's radiant light are more than merely
figurative expressions of language, ornaments
of rhetoric. They point to and describe a person's
visual and visionary experience at the moment
of experiencing this light before this experience
is turned into a reported experience. There are
thus two meanings to our word experience: ex-
perience-as-lived (Erleben) and experience-as-
reported (Erfahrung).14 Specifically, an experi-
ence-as-lived is dynamic through and through
and, unlike speculation moving within a static,
closed universe, is process-oriented and ultimately
open-ended. And while a speculation-based
world-view is bound to postulate a beginning
and even an author of its first beginning, an
experience-based world-view can do without
these notions: there is no beginning (and con-
sequently also no end, apocalyptic or otherwise)
and no author (be this a god or a demiurge). In
contrast with the speculation-based approach
to Man's problematic and precarious existence
in a world alien and hostile to him, I shall call
this other, experience-based and process-ori-
ented, approach the experiential-existential
approach with Man as its experiencer, rather
than as its detached observer, playing an ac-
tive, that is, participating role in the unfolding
of life's drama.
In this approach three "in-depth appraisals"
(ting-nge-'dzin) playa most significant role. Al-
though we speak of three such "in-depth ap-
praisals," none of them occurs in isolation from
70 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No.1
-
the others, rather, they are interconnected with
each other such as to disclose a fundamental
and dynamic unity-in-difference. The Tibetan
term ting-nge-'dzin is a compound of the ono-
matopoeic noun ting-nge meaning "a tinkling
sound" and the verb 'dzin meaning "to hold," in
the double sense of this tinkling sound holding
the listener spell-bound and of the listener hold-
ing to this sound that, let it be said right at the
beginning, is as much sonic as it is luminous.
In attending to this sound and cultivating its
image, the experiencer attempts not only to
learn more about what this sound has to say,
but also how through it he becomes enworlded
in a world that is already and always his world.
In other words, by attending to and cultivating
these "in-depth appraisals" that implicitly pre-
suppose the working of some conscious-spiri-
tual force,15 the experiencer or, if one prefers,
Man, creates himself and his world. In this cre-
ative act emphasis is on the how rather than
on the what. 16
Any attempted discussion of these "in-depth
appraisals" plunges us into a dimension as yet
uncharted and painstakingly avoided by most
psychologists. The description of the very first
phase in Man's creating himself and his world
is technically referred to as the de-bzhin-nyid-
kyi ting-nge-'dzin, meaning as far as words can
convey man's pre-personal and pre-ontological
attunement to and embeddedness in what is
as yet an unbroken whole, the experiencer's
holding to and being held by (' dzin) the tinkling
sound (ting-nge), that is, if we are allowed to
use this fateful word, a "just-so" (de-bzhin-nyid),
a dynamic dimensionality on the verge of clos-
ing-in onto itself. At the danger of being mis-
understood, Man's creating himself occurs
within a certain mood (not to be confused with
a passing whim) that, paradoxically speaking,
grips him and into which he enters. And what
he has to do is stated in the following distich:
17
First, you have to attend to and cultivate
the dimensionality of (your life's) vibrancy
Under the aspect of its non-objectifiableness.
This innocent-looking admonition is an ex-
tremely "packed" statement in which a num-
ber of, analytically speaking, distinct features
are lumped together. From among these, the
existential-ontological notion of a chos-sku and
the existentially-functional notions of ye-shes,
though not mentioned directly, playa signifi-
cant role because of their bearing on the
experiencer's lived-through experience. So, let
us attempt to unpack this pre-existent complex-
ity as its inner dynamics understood in terms
of mending the divided (bifurcated)
situationality of ours by restoring our lost
wholeness, and of realizing our uniqueness and
primordial singularity,18 In other words, to at-
tend to the "dimensionality of (one's) life's vi-
brancy" (chos-kyi dbyings) is to attempt to com-
prehend ourselves as partes) of a whole that
serves as the ground for the existence of the
partes) that themselves are unable to disclose
or even "prove" the existence of the whole. This
insight gives us the cue to understand two cryp-
tic statements relating to the problem under
consideration. The one is the assertion that the
"location" of the chos-sku is this very dimen-
sionality of life's vibrancy that, because of its
vastness and undividedness and irreducibility
to any content of representational thought, is
likened to the open sky whose presence one
must simply "take in" and "feel." The other is
the insistence on the inseparability of this Ge-
stalt character (sku), experienced as our cor-
poreal schema, from its awareness modes (ye-
shes) which not only determine the character
of the Gestalt, but also re-emphasize the whole's
and its parts' "intelligence" (for want of a bet-
ter term). This triunity is clearly stated in the
following quatrain:
19
When through the originary awareness
mode that is the dimensionality of one's
life's (and/or whole's) vibrancy and
The originary awareness mode that is like
a mirror
The chos-sku has been realized in its reality
[One speaks of it as the whole's] flawless
Gestalt.
The two originary awareness modes, the
whole's dimensionality as awareness and the
mirror-like or, dynamically speaking, mirror-
ing awareness, point to the principle of self-
reflectivity as explicated by Menas Kafatos and
Robert Nadeau (1990):
Since the universe evinces on the most fun-
damentallevel an undivided wholeness, and
since this wholeness in modern physical
Sound, Color, and Self-Organization 71
theory must be associated with a principle
of cosmic order, or there would be no order,
this whole manifests order in a self-reflec-
tive fashion. It must, in other words, be self-
reflectively aware of itself as reality-in-it-
self to manifest the order that is the prior
condition for all manifestations of being.
Since consciousness in its most narrow for-
mulation for human beings can be defined
as self-reflective awareness founded upon a
sense of internal consistency or order, we can
safely argue that the universe is, in this
sense, conscious. (pp. 178-179)
However, while the Buddhist experience-ori-
ented and -based visionary thinkers do in prin-
ciple agree with the above modern statement,
they go one step further in their realization of
the intrinsic nature of this "consciousness" as
a hierarchically ordered three-phase or three-
level process. In the usual terse and yet, by vir-
tue of the rich imagery, highly evocative dic-
tion that no Western language can measure up
to, we are told:
20
[1] The real(ization of) reality-in-itself is
[this reality's] singularity;
[2] The [multivalued aspects of] being alight
and awake
21
[to this singularity] are, in
their totality, gathered in [the feeling of]
ecstasy; and
[3] The elemental intrapsychic forces
22
are
[the expression of] the rapture felt in the
ecstasy of understanding what presences
as an enchanting performance [by the
whole's or reality's reality].
[The above constitutes] the consummate
experience of the [presence of the] three
corporeally felt schemata in those who
have reached the profoundest level [of
their being and their understanding] by
their tuning-in to wholeness.
23
The last line in this quatrain unequivocally
emphasizes the presence of the experiencer in
the evolution of what is to become his triadic
and hierarchically ordered existence that is
both physical and spiritual. It is unfortunate
that our language is or has become unable to
convey this both/and by a single expression and
that it always gets bogged down in a fragmen-
tizing either/or. In the light of this shortcom-
ing of our language, it may be argued that the
above quotation outlines the spiritual (not with-
out a tacitly admitted admixture of the physi-
cal) in terms of a process that in each of its
phases has a Gestalt character or corporeality
(sku), opening up an ontology that is quite dif-
ferent from the standard classical one. The sin-
gularity or reality-in-itselfwith which the above
quatrain started, allows itself to be and actu-
ally has been interpreted as the chos-sku that
by us as embodied beings is then, in view of our
own corporeity, experienced and interpreted,
felt and seen as a pattern (corporeality, sku) that
is meaning (chos) through and through. This
certainly does not mean that it is something
static, even if such a descriptive term as "in-
variant" (,gyur-med) is applied to it. Rather, be-
cause of its inherent dynamics (about which
more will be said later), it branches out into a
pattern of intercommunication having its own
Gestalt character and hence, because of its felt
and visible impact, is termed, a corporeality
(sku) that, fed, as it were, by the meaning that
is the chos-sku, participates in the formation
of a "new" dimensionality in which a world of
possibilities comes to light and is ecstatically
enjoyed (longs). There is now a "plurality of
options" from which to choose. Their
"implemention" sets up a third dimensionality
or pattern (corporeality, sku) of phasmata
(sprul-pa) that are felt and seen to come as in-
spirations and incentives to action. This latest
pattern, corporeally experienced and inter-
preted, is referred to by the technical term
sprul-sku. The evolution and intertwining of
these three patterns is beautifully illustrated
by the unknown commentator of the text from
which the above quotation has been taken, as
follows:
24
In the chos-sku that is like the sky there
arise the longs-sku(s) like clouds and from
it/them the sprul-sku(s) descend like rain.
A seemingly more physical assessment that
by no means lacks spiritual implications, is
given in the following exposition that starts
from the premise of Man being a basically lu-
minous being (Lichtmensch), constituted offive
or three proto-luminous "elements" (dangs-
ma).25 It is in the center of these three lumi-
nous elements that there resides the triad of
corporealities in their capacity of being the pre-
programs of the experiencer-individual's corpo-
reality (sku), voice (gsung), and spirit/spiritu-
72 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies) 1998) Vol. 17, No.1
-
ality (thugs) manifesting in the experiencer-in-
dividual in his capacity of being a sprul-sku. In
order to facilitate an understanding of what is
still to come, this idea of a pervasive uni-trin-
ity with reference to its phonemic and color
values may be diagrammed as in Figure 1:
Figure 1
the the the the
cosmic <-> anthropic phonemic color
level level value value
chos-sku thugs hum blue
longs-sku gsung ilh red
sprul-sku sku om white
(Here <-> means inseparability)
The seemingly more physical assessment is
presented in the following relevant quatrain:
26
Into the center of this [triune proto-light]
there has entered
The thig-le-chen-po byang-chub-sems
[In the manner of an] ornament [inserted
in] melted gold or a precious stone [placed
on a cushion] and
Resides there [like] the sun [in the sky] as
the vitalizing force of the dimensionality
(that is life's vibrancy and meaningful-
ness).
What are we to understand by the crucial
phrase thig-le-chen-po byang-chub-sems that
looks like an appositional compound in which
two contrary notions are welded into a single
dynamic one? One thing is certain from the very
beginning. In either instance we have to deal
with existential-experiential, rather than on-
tological or even ontic, concepts. The very term
thig-le-chen-po, as distinct from the more
commonly used term thig-le, suggests what in
modern anthropocosmic diction we would call
morphogenetic in- formation, by which we mean
how it goes with a live system in its passing
from one dynamic regime into another one, not
a transfer of unrelated matters from one sys-
tem to another. Its thoroughly experiential
character has been well expressed by
Padmasambhava, one of the earliest holistic
and visionary thinkers in the history of man-
kind, in the following words:
27
(This) thig-le-chen-po is immovable (and)
non -originating,
It is not an object for the eight (epistemol-
ogy-oriented) cognitive patterns; it lies
beyond (the limits set by) the intellect,
and it is not something that can be made
[by some maker];
It is all-encompassing, there are no direc-
tions (by which one might orient oneself)
in it, and (its wholeness) is not broken in
any (conceivable) way;
It is (Being's or the whole's pre-conceptual
and pre-ontological) purity and transpar-
ency, insubstantial, a still point, fading
away as soon as you approach it;28
Its (challenge to be) demonstrated never
ceases, but the ground (and reason) for
its demonstrability is not (itself some-
thing demonstrably) objectifiable;
Its lighting-up aspect never ceases, but the
ground (and reason) for its lighting-up is
not (something) found (and given).29
While the thig-le-chen-po stresses sta-
tionariness and invariance and, in the context
of us as embodied beings has strong physical-
physiological implications, the byang-chub-
sems suggests movement in the sense that what
is called sems, the "background" of the
experiencer-individual's psychic life, tends to
move in the direction of its original purity and
clarity (byang) and to realize (chub) it. It thus
has strong, though not exclusively, spiritual
implications. In a certain sense, therefore, the
thig-le-chen-po and the byang-chub-sems are
homologous in "substance" (i.e., deriving from
the same source), but complementary to each
other in their existential function and signifi-
cance.
In summing up the discussion of the nature
and significance of the first "in-depth ap-
praisal," with its insistence on removing what-
ever has disrupted the experiencer-individual's
original (psychic) undivided wholeness and on
realizing what is his existential meaningful-
ness, two points deserve mentioning. The one
is an elaboration of the thig-le-chen-po that in
spite of its characterization as being station-
ary and non-originating is a thoroughly dy-
namic concept, in terms of its similarity to gold
being melted. As usual, this elaboration is
couched in mythopoeic terms and in its "packed"
presentation allows itself to be translated, that
is, paraphrased with the help of the unknown
Sound, Color) and Self-Organization 73
commentator's exegesis. The relevant passage
runs as follows:
30
The thig-le-chen-po, [by virtue of its] simi-
larity to gold being melted and
Its similarity to a jewelled ornament being
placed in it,
[Is symbolized as] the efficacy (thabs) king
Kun-tu-bzang-po, goodness par excellence
[in union with the discrimination-appre-
ciation (shes-rab) queen Kun-tu-bzang-
mo, goodness par excellence, who imaged
as]
A precious stone attached to a clothes rack,31
[Symbolizes] the mirror-like originary
awareness mode that, whilst gazing [at
her partner, the byang-chub-sems], does
not see [him as some thing].
[That is to say that] what is the archetypal
mother is [also] the archetypal father,
[Their] non-difference seen as a sheer light.
The thig-le 's luminous elementary nature
is not something-in-itself, [rather it is so
that when it evolves into]
The observable dimensionality of the sky,
the three world-spheres
Are wholly present (in it) as the chos-sku.
It would lead us too far away from the main
topic of this first "in-depth appraisal" if we were
to go into the details of this "packed" stanza.
Its overall meaning is clear: the thig-le-chen-
po remains the same in the various superposi-
tions that mark a progression from the "imma-
terial" to the "material," the last stage being
the immensity of the sky encompassing man's
universe, a hierarchically ordered "reality" in
such a manner that this universe can be said
to be the excitation of field and, in this sense, is
"meaning" of this field. This spaciousness car-
ries with it a feeling of ecstasy and is experi-
enced as such. At the same time, this spacious-
ness that in its felt ecstasy is beyond space-time,
suggests an even more primordial space-time
or, as Martin Heidegger has called it, a "time-
space" that is neither wholly temporal nor
wholly spatial,32 and that as such is "sonic." This
sound which the experiencer "hears" and which
he also "sees," is the Hum that thus doubles as
a phoneme and a sememic morpheme.
The other point that deserves mentioning is
summed up in a quatrain that touches on the
deepest problem of what we are used to calling
metaphysics that traditionally has been con-
cerned with the question "What is this or that?"
and overlooked its very core, that is the ques-
tion "What is 'is'?" In the long history of West-
ern thinking, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
was the first philosopher to pose this question
in this form ("was ist das 'ist'?") and to answer
it to the effect that "all being is in Being" or,
more to the point, that "being is Being."33
The relevant quatrain that allows itself to
be translated, that is, paraphrased with the
help of its unknown commentator, runs as fol-
lows:
34
The Dasein [by virtue of its being a super-
position on] the "stuff' (of which whole-
ness is made and thus) the ground (of all
being)
[Is and reflects the latter's] superpattern of
meaningfulness (to which such descrip-
tions as) being caught [in samsara] and
being released [in nirvana as forming the
unity of a corporeally felt pattern and
an originary awareness mode] do not
apply.
From time before time it has, in its sponta-
neous evidence,
Been there as [the whole's] uncontrived and
ultimate purity and transparency.
There are two levels to what in modern dic-
tion is termed the singularity or an undivided
wholeness that makes all becoming possible.
The one that affects us immediately is what is
termed gnas-lugs which, following Heidegger,
I render as Dasein (Da-sein), and of which its
outstanding character is its meaningfulness
that we as embodied beings interpret and de-
scribe in terms of our corporeity (chos-sku). But
this Da-sein is already a mode (lugs) of
presencing and thus points to its source, with
which it remains united like the water of a wave
with the water of the ocean.
35
In the prosaic
language of quantum theory our Da-sein is a
"superposition" that describes one of many prob-
abilities on their way to becoming an actuality.
This realm of probabilities is referred to as the
whole's and, by implication, our neither-mate-
rial-nor-mental dimensionality with a
"superpattern of meaningfulness" (lhag-pa'i
chos-sku) as the excitation of this, its field,
whose imagery of a pattern is taken from the
realm of human experience. 36 As the text states,
this "superpattern of meaningfulness" is experi-
enced beyond all ordinary experiences as the
spontaneous evidence of itself, and as such is
74 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No. 1
"uncontrived" in the double sense that, not be-
ing a fiction of the mind, it cannot be improved
("cleaned up") or be vitiated ("obscured"). With
respect to the "super"-pattern of meaningful-
ness (lhag-pa'i chos-sku) and the "ordinary"
pattern of meaningfulness (chos-sku) there ex-
ists, phenomenologically speaking, a "differ-
ence-in-identity" that reflects the basic principle
of complementarity as the most fundamental
dynamics in any living (human) being's spiri-
tual-psychic-mental-conscious life. In the lan-
guage of mathematics, (one of Man's contem-
porary idols of science), the "super"-pattern of
meaningfulness pertaining to the metaphysi-
cal dimension of reality-in-itself (ngo-bo-nyid-
kyi gzhi) and the "ordinary" pattern of mean-
ingfulness pertaining to the metaphysical di-
mension of the Da -sein (gnas-lugs) are isomor-
phic, but their isomorphism extends beyond our
usual reductionist understanding of ourselves
or reality in its undivided wholeness. In the
process of the whole's (ngo-bo-nyid-kyi gzhi)
closing-in on itself and becoming the Da-sein
(gnas-lugs), there comes into existence, as it
were, the sonorous and luminous phoneme
hum, to which the experiencer-listener, as y ~
indistinguishable from the whole, responds. HIS
response quite literally "sets the tone" of what
is to come, for the hum is not only something
sonorous but also something visible that gleams
and radiates, in which capacity it is tied to the
totality of the auditory and visionary
experiencer's originary awareness modes. Ifwe
conceive of the movement from Being to Da-
sein as a first appearance of the complemen-
tary that holds between the not-somethingness
of the "ground" (gzhi) and the somethingness
of the Da -sein (gnas-lugs) we immediately en-
counter another complementarity: the
complementarity between the Da-sein (the
thereness mode) and its lighting-up (snang-
lugs) (the action mode). This lighting-up mode
is described in the following quatrain:
37
The lighting-up mode (snang-lugs) lights up
as the duality of samsara and nirvana:
Its nirvanic (lighting-up aspect) is [the
experiencer's] corporeally felt engage
ment in what has lit up in its totality;38
It wipes clean the blemishes that (still) ex-
ist on the tenth spiritual level on the part
of the spiritually advanced beings.
[This is like] looking at one's face in a mir-
ror.39
In terms of its intimate experiencing this
lighting-up is referred to by its descriptive ap-
pellation of an "all-around lighting-up in-depth
appraisal" (kun-tu-snang-ba'i ting-nge-'dzin)
and "explicated," if this is an appropriate term
for what amounts to a laborious deciphering of
codes, in the following stanza:
40
The archetypal mother's bhaga which is not
something that can be proved [to be this
or that],
Radiates as the dimension of (one's) psyche
which is not something that can be ex-
pressed in words.
[It is to be made to] encompass everything
[By virtue of it being] the originary aware-
ness mode (presenting) the dimensional-
ity of (the whole's) meanings (and mean-
ingfulness).
Out of this realm that defies any searching
for it, is unprovable (as either this or
that), and (yet is there as) a just-so,
There arises the all-around lighting-up,
[comparable to the all-encompassing] sky.
From this nothing-whatsoever as the causal
momentum ...
The opening words in this stanza already
present a "loaded" stumbling block. What are
we to understand by "the archetypal mother's
bhaga?" Let us remind ourselves of the
experiencer's presence in what is described, in
terms of experience, as a transition from the
"just-so in-depth appraisal" to the "all-around
lighting-up in-depth appraisal" and, in terms
of the experiencer becoming en-worlded, as a
finding of oneself in one's mother's womb. So
far, so good; but unfortunately this concretistic
explanation is inapplicable to what is still an
imaginal ("metaphysical") dimension. The
phrase "archetypal mother" is itself already a
mistranslation and misrepresentation of what
is intended. Firstly, in the context in which the
Tibetan wordyum is used, it refers to the femi-
nine principle in or aspect of the whole of which
a human person has the first inkling in his or
her mother.41 Secondly, the adjective "arche-
typal" is an unfortunate choice for rendering
the Ur- in C. G. Jung's originally used German
word Urbild. It reflects the Westerner's obses-
sion with a beginning (arche) and a (preferably
extramundane) agent who does the imprinting
Sound, Color) and Self-Organization 75
(type in ). According to Padmasambhava, whose
profound insight must be credited to be the pri-
mary and principal source, the phrase "the ar-
chetypal mother's bhaga" means "(the whole's
femininity aspect) coiled into a single vortex of
ecstasy."42 Since, furthermore, Western man
has largely lost the capacity of appreciating the
imaginal and is obsessed with the physically
concrete that, in relation to a mother as a physi-
cal entity and sex object, leads him to identify
the bhaga with her vulva. Nothing could be far-
ther from what was understood by this term,
which, by virtue of being a loanword from San-
skrit, already signalled the fact that something
other, if not something more, was intended. It
may, therefore, not be out of place to adduce
the Tibetan hermeneutical exegesis of this
term:
43
Since there is no attachment (one) speaks
ofbha,
Since there is no desire (one) speaks of
ga.
44
The understanding of the real meaning of
discriminative appreciation (is referred
to by) bha,
The understanding of the real meaning of
effectiveness (is referred to by) gao
Since there is no origination (one) speaks of
bha,
Since there is no cessation (one) speaks of
gao
Since there is a generation of multiplicities
(one) speaks of bha,
Since there is a changing into everything
and anything (one) speaks ofga.
Since everything is encompassed by it (one)
speaks of bha,
(And this) grandiose phantasmagoria is spo-
ken of as ga.
This interpretation of the phrase yum-gyi
bhaga as a creative matrix does not contradict
its radiance/radiation throughout the realm of
a human being's psyche that, too, is such that
nothing can be said about it unless one turns
it into a thing-object, thereby playing into the
hands of the reductionist.
45
The "psyche" as the
lighting-up of the yum-gyi bhaga's dimension-
ality is a kind of closure that is still a wide-
open dimensionality of possible meanings in
their process of becoming articulated by this
dimensionality's originary awareness mode as
its function. What has happened is a more lu-
minous manifestation of a complementarity
between the "archetypal mother's bhaga" and
the (experiencer's) "psyche" that is as vast as
its source, hence its description as an "all-
around lighting-up" (kun-tu-snang-ba). The ad-
verb "all-around" (kun-tu) underlines the fact
that this lighting-up is all-encompassing and
not a lighting-up of some aspect of the whole.
This holistic lighting-up is prompted by the
whole's inner dynamics that the experiencer as
an ineluctable part of the whole (de-bzhin) feels
as the whole's and, more specifically, his own
(rang-sems) tenderheartedness (snying-rje) that
reaches out to all that is or is to become.
46
This
interconnectedness of the whole and its partes)
as illustrated by the feeling of tenderhearted-
ness can be incontrovertibly rephrased by say-
ing that a person who has no heart can also not
think.
While the outcome, if I may say so, of the
experiencer's involvement with the "just-so in-
depth appraisal" was the realization of his ex-
istential ("structural"), corporeally felt value
and meaningfulness (chos-sku) and its equally
existential ("functional") originary awareness
mode, that presented and displayed this exis-
tential reality's dimensionality of (possible)
meanings (chos-kyi dbyings-kyi ye-shes), the
outcome of the experiencer's involvement with
the "all-around lighting-up in-depth appraisal"
is his unfolding into an engagement in a world-
horizon that, as it were, has been forecasted by
the preceding static-dynamic, structure-func-
tion pattern. Its "static-structural" aspect is the
experiencer's corporeally felt horizon of mean-
ings with which he becomes engaged by the
"dynamic-functional" aspects that are the mir-
ror-like originary awareness mode (me-long-lta-
bu'i ye-shes) that allows the possible meanings
to be seen as an "as-if," clamoring for a deeper
probing,47 and the originary awareness mode
that reveals the consistency of these meanings
with themselves and the whole (mnyam-pa-
nyid-kyi ye-shes).
These two "in-depth appraisals" are best
described as the experiencer's intrapsychic
phase transitions that occur in the wider di-
mension of a nothingness that is his and the
whole's "ground" and that by its very dynamics
is already and always on its way to manifest
76 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies) 1998) Vol. 17, No. 1
itself. This process of a nothingness that just is
not (med / med-pa),48 n-o-t-h-i-n-g, becoming
manifest, though still on a pre-egologicallevel,
is intimated by the first half in the last line of
the description of the "all-around lighting-up
in-depth appraisal." The continuation of this
half-line, in its usual cryptic style, tells us the
following about the third and last in-depth ap-
praisal, the "sememic-morphemic causal mo-
mentum in-depth appraisal":49
... radiates in conspicuous clarity:
The mind-psyche's own (most unique)
beingness
50
radiates as (a complex of)
originary awareness modes,
(Its) dynamics' own (most unique)
beingness
51
(is such that) from the
sememic-morphemic A
There arises the ye-shes sems-dpa' in (full)
radiance.
The emphasis on this in-depth appraisal's
luminous character should not come as a sur-
prise. Mter all, we still move in a dimensional-
ity of sheer luminosity and luminescence. The
problem, at least for us, lies with the white sin-
gularity of the A and its originary awareness
(modes) that go into the radiance oftheye-shes
sems-dpa' . The color white has been tradition-
ally understood as a more physical (as we would
say) intrusion into the rather dull beingness of
the experiencer, to which he responds at the
very moment of this intrusion with some irri-
tation as the more pronounced feature in the
complexity of his libidinal-affective-emotional
make-up, that itself is already a kind of the
originary awareness modes' misunderstood and
misplaced concreteness. What, then, are we to
understand by the ye-shes sems-dpa' ? Struc-
turally speaking, this phrase refers to the sprul-
sku, the corporeally felt and seen pattern of a
phasmic presence. Functionally speaking, the
sprul-sku 's singularity combines in itself two
originary awareness modes that, more than
anything else, make this singularity a kind of
guiding image. These two originary awareness
modes are the so-sor rtog(s)-pa'i ye-shes and
the bya-ba grub-pa'i ye-shes. The former is a
specificity-initiating and specificity-under-
standing originary awareness mode that, figu-
ratively speaking, pinpoints the task(s) lying
before the experiencer in his enworldedness; the
latter is the task-accomplished originary aware-
ness mode. Speaking of the sprul-sku in terms
of (a) ye-shes sems-dpa' introduces a somewhat
personal element in what still goes on on a pre-
personal and pre-egologicallevel. This personal
element allows us to paraphrase the descrip-
tive phrase of what is still an inner experience
by the anthropomorphic expression of "some-
one who has the courage (dpa') to think (sems)
in terms of the light of his originary awareness
modes (ye-shes)." Lastly, from the perspective
of the totality of the five originary awareness
modes, the "name" of this third and last in-
depth appraisal, "causal momentum in-depth
appraisal" (rgyu'i ting-nge-'dzin) reveals its "se-
cret," if I may say so. The term "causal momen-
tum" (rgyu) refers back to "what went before,"
but, however strange it may sound, is experi-
enced as "causing" something to happen "after"
it has already occurred.
Before proceeding with a discussion of the
implications of the above presentation of an evo-
lutionary process, it may be helpful to chart its
route as in the following Figure 2.
So far we have spoken of and graphically il-
lustrated the principle of complementarity as
it occurs on each level or in each phase of the
whole's evolution into a subject-qua-subject or
Self (bdag-nyid) that itself remains a process
structure. Each level or phase in this process
interacts with and interpenetrates the other so
as to form a unified whole or "singularity" (nyag-
gcig). As a matter of fact, the experience-based
and process-oriented Buddhist texts never tire
of speaking of the inseparability and/or indi-
visibility of these levels or phases.
52
It is the
dynamics in these interactions and interpen-
etrations that makes any assumption of an
agent or agency, presumed or postulated to be
extraneous to it, quite unnecessary. This fun-
damental dynamics that makes the principles
of complementarity instrumental in structur-
ing our experienced reality, is referred to by the
technical term rtsal, of which it is fair to say
that it "acts" autocatalytically in the "intelli-
gence" of the whole, a surpraconscious ecstatic
intensity (rig-pa) of which the diverse originary
awareness modes are its functions. This
supraconscious ecstatic intensity is the whole's
own (rang) or "eigen-" intensity (rang-rig).53
Sound Color) and Self-Organization 77
Figure 2
Being (gzhi)
(an undivided wholeness that has no beginning or end in time and no upper or lower limit in space)
[As such it constitutes itself as the]

Da -sein (gnas-lugs)
(as yet inseparable (almost) indistinguishable from Being)
[Its inner dynamics prompts its]

Lighting-up mode (snang-lugs)
(making its presence felt in three in-depth appraisals (ting-nge-'dzin) that each
exemplify the principle of complementarity in the form of structure and function)
(a) the "just-so" with its chos-sku (structure) and its chos-dbyings ye-shes (function)

(b) the "all-around lighting-up" with its longs-sku (structure) and its me-long-lta-bu'i
and mnyam-nyid ye-shes (dual function)

(c) the "causal momentum" with its sprul-sku (structure) and its so-sor-rtogs-pa'i and
bya-ba grub-pa'i ye-shes (dual function).
Although this intensity is the subject-qua-sub-
ject or Selfwith which we tend to associate what
we call consciousness, there is nothing in it that
might make us jump to the unfounded and fic-
titious conclusion that it operates on the basis
of "design" or "intent." These are aspects per-
taining to a derivative or lower level of the
psyche. This is clearly brought out in the fol-
lowing statement with its poetic imagery:54
Everything is the autocatalytic dynamics of
the supraconscious ecstatic intensity.
To the (self-induced) lighting-up of this
autocatalytic supraconscious ecstatic in-
tensity
The name "mind-psyche" is given.
Giving it the name "mind-psyche" does not
mean that it is a this or that, rather it is
a radiance with nothing to curtail its
range;
[The act of introducing a] conceptual bifur-
cation is [the mind-psyche's] radiance and
the agent [i.e., the mind-psyche] is [the
mind-psyche's] nothingness.
The lighting-up that is the (supraconscious
ecstatic intensity's) autocatalytic dynam-
ics rides on the horse that is the whole's
motility (which means that)
This motility is the autocatalytic dynamics
of the supraconscious ecstatic intensity,
[In the] center of (one's) heart [presenting
a] precious eight-faceted (pattern)55
The stuff (of which its inherent and perva-
sive) all-encompassing originary aware-
ness mode is made
Is present as seeds and sonic-sememic mor-
phemes.
It suffices to know this (to be) the stuff (of
which reality is made).
The recognition of an autocatalytic dynam-
ics (rtsal), whether we attempt to assess it in
terms of a supraconscious ecstatic intensity (rig-
pa) or a multivalued function complex of
originary awareness modes (ye-shes) has impor-
tant consequences. In the present context the
reference to "seeds and sonic-sememic pho-
nemes" (sa-bon yi-ge) is particularly significant.
In order to understand the significance of these
two related phenomena we have to remind our-
selves of the whole's supra- or proto-luminous
character that is nowhere and yet is every-
where. Its dynamics is described in beautifully
evocative images in the following stanza:
56
From out of a five-colored halo (that has
appeared out of)
The primordial beginning's purity and trans-
parency,57 (a) nothingness-radiance,
78 The International Journal of Trans personal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No. 1
There burst forth rays of light of radiant
brilliance and natural beauty:
This, too, is the autocatalytic dynamics in
(the multivalued function complex of)
originary awareness modes.
It is these rays of light that consolidate them-
selves as "seeds" (sa-bon) and "sonic-sememic
morphemes" (yi-ge) in their transition from out
of the whole's non-temporal and non-local di-
mensionality into the spacetime reality of the
subject-qua -subject or Self that yet is never an
object in space and/or time. The difference be-
tween "seeds" and "sonic-sememic morphemes"
is so subtle that, depending on the experiencer's
preferences in reporting on them, the one can
be used for the other. At the danger of
overconcretization and oversimplification we
may say that the "sonic-sememic morphemes"
are vibrancies, while the "seeds" are concre-
tions.
58
The following stanza may help to eluci-
date what has been said so far and pave the
way for an understanding of what is to come:
59
In the crown of the head of the Self [that in
principle is you yourself] image a white
om (and)
In (its) throat a red ilh and in (its) heart a
blue hum.
Image the fire of the originary awareness
modes in these three sonic-sememic pho-
nemes
To be ablaze in the three colors of white, red,
and blue (and by their blaze)
To singe and burn up
[a] The six seeds
60
[from which] the six
classes of living beings [sprout] ,61
[b] The contaminations and obscurations [of
the luminous Self effected by] the triad
of body, speech, and mind,62 (and)
[c] The sedimentations
63
in [your] unexcited
mental-spiritual make-up.64
Without overemphasizing or oversimplifying
the difference between the "sonic-sememic mor-
phemes" and the "seeds" that, after all, are alike
in their color-saturated luminous character,
they are related to each other in such a way as
to evoke the image of a field consisting of a cen-
ter and a periphery. That is to say, the triune
process structure in its "upward" movement
imaged as the om-iih-hilm and in its "downward"
movement imaged as the hum-fih-om, would
present a "center" (globally speaking, the axial
mountain), and the a
J
nr; su, tri, pre, and du
would present the "periphery" (globally speak-
ing, the environing world) of which we as hu-
man beings are an integral aspect or part.65
Why is the om that sums up and emphasizes
the sonic character of the sprul-sku, the (other-
wise) corporeally felt and seen pattern of a
phasmic presence, "located" in the crown of the
head? One reason seems to be that the sprul-
sku as a guiding image that helps us to inter-
pret what is going on in and around us by mak-
ing us listen to what it (he/she) has to say, is so
tangibly near. In the context of the in-depth
appraisals (ting-nge-'dzin) it is their sound that
holds ('dzin) us and to which we hold ('dzin). In
this sense the sprul-sku, "immaterial," if I may
say so, reaches into us as "material" beings by
drawing from the luminous dimension of pos-
sibilities as they come to presence in the "all-
around" -lighting-up sonorousness, that itself
already is a transformation of or disturbance
in the serene "just-so" sonorousness due to its
being dynamic. This dynamics is referred to as
rtsal in the context ofwholeness,66 in the con-
text of and with reference to the human
individual (as an experiencer participating
in the whole's dynamics) as snying-rje
"circumspective heartfelt concern."67 It goes
without saying that the whole's "all-around"
lighting-up and sonorousness imply a multitude
of possibilities and choices.
The emphasis on the sonic character of the
in-depth appraisals reveals the Buddhist exis-
tential-experiential thinker's astonishingly
deep insight. It gives precedence to listening
(not to be confused with hearing that is mostly
concerned with acoustic garbage) over seeing,
even if event ally listening and seeing inter-
twine. This primacy of listening shows that we
as living beings are already attuned to the deep-
est level of our being.
68
Its sonic quality reveals
the creativity of sound. The musicologist George
Leonard's statement:
Before we make music, music makes us ...
Music's deep structure is identical with the
deep structure of all things69
solves the riddle of the sonic-sememic mor-
phemes. Before we utter them, they have al-
ready fashioned us as well as the macroscopic
and microscopic (personal) worlds we live in.70
We have spoken of the primacy of sound, but
Sound, C%r, and Self-Organization 79
this is not to be understood in terms of a linear
sequence from sound to color. While i ~ is per-
missible to speak of audible and inaudible
sound (always implying a "for us"), we may, in
the same breath, speak of visible and invisible
color. The visible or, paradoxically speaking, the
visibly invisible (or, if one prefers, invisibly vis-
ible) quality of sememic morphemes, that by
their pronounced exteriorization and distance-
creation contrast with the interiorization close-
ness-creation of sound, are listed as a nr su tri
pre du. 71 According to the unknown
commentator's exegesis the morpheme ~ per-
tains to the emergent world of the (popular)
gods and is white in color; the morpheme nr
pertains to the emergent world of mankind and
is either blue or green in color;72 the morpheme
su pertains to the emergent world of the demi-
gods and is yellow in color;73 the morpheme tri
pertains to the emergent world of the denizens
of hell and is black in color; the morpheme pre
pertains to the emergent world of the ghosts;74
and the morpheme du pertains to the world of
animals and is dark grey in color.
Space does not allow one to go into the many
other intriguing features of the largely un-
known, if not to say, suppressed and forgotten
Buddhist experience-(Erlebnis) based thinking
that by its very dynamics involves the whole's
(Being's) self-organization into beinglbeings.
Three features in this thinking stand out con-
spicuously: the pervasive principle of
complementarity, an "inner" listening to the
sound of, and an "inner" seeing of the
crystalizations of the ongoing process. But what
do "inner" and, by implication, "outer" mean in
the context of process-oriented thinking? I do
not know of any better summary of this vexing
question than N ovalis' (Freiherr Friedrich von
Hardenberg's) aphorisms:
Das Aussre ist ein in ein Geheimnis
erhobnes Innre (vielleicht auch umgekehrt)
(The external is an internal raised into a
mystery [maybe it's also the other way
round]),
- Fragmente, nr. 1785 (tr. auct.)
and nr. 199 (tr. auct.)
Das Aussre ist gleichsam nur ein verteiltes,
iibersetzte Innre, ein horeres Innre. (Wesen
und Erscheinung)
(The external seems to be only a distributed
translated internal, a higher internal. [Es-
sence and appearance]).
Notes
1. I am using the word Man with a capital letter as
a generic term covering both males (men) and fe-
males (women). The abhorrence of this word by some
feminists leads one to the conclusion that they will
not be included in the human species because of the
obnoxious presence of the word "man" in the noun-
adjective "human."
2. Faust I, "Study," vs. 1830-33 (tr. auct.).
3. A highly readable, witty, and entertaining account
and assessment of their personalities and belief sys-
tems is provided by Stewart (1997).
4. A good survey of this triadic pattern is provided
by Gleiser (1997, pp. 12-18, pp. 303-309).
5. The most important definitions of this key term
in Western philosophy and science are those by Rene
Descartes (1596-1650), Benedict Spinoza (1632-
1677), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
6. A frightening, well-documented account of how
this "tunnel vision," its elegant contemporary name
as contrasted with the vulgar "political correctness,"
works has been presented by Dineen (1996).
7. It is worth noting that the Tibetan language dis-
tinguishes between the person who has become the
Buddha (written in Western works and their East-
ern imitations with a capital letter to make sure
that there is some such thing / person), and the wak-
ing-up process and its structure. The person is re-
ferred to by the term Sakya thub-pa "the capable
one (of) theSakya clan." This appellation is an allu-
sion to the Sakya clan's pride that manifested itself
in their incestuous social order, that is to say, their
members "dared" (thub-pa) to commit incest. The
experience of becoming and henceforth being awake
is termed sangs-rgyas ([darkness] gone, [light]
spread). e s t e r ~ academics read Tibetan texts
through the blindfold of "Sanskrit only," ignore the
meaning of the Tibetan phrase sangs-rgyas, and me-
chanically translate it by the "Buddha(s)."
8. For a deeply probing study of Heidegger's diffi-
cult term erlichtet, see Levin (1988, pp. 448-449).
9. The origin of this mistranslation - there are
many others has been a rather sordid affair of an
ideological, politically tainted, fundamentalism that
has spilled over into academe and made its mem-
bers in the humanities more and more subservient
80 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No.1
to the age-honored taboo against knowledge.
10. For a detailed discussion of this technical term
see Guenther (1989, s.v), and Guenther and
Kawamura (1975, p. 37).
11. As a rule I render ye-shes by "origihary aware-
ness" or "originary awareness mode" - "originary"
being the English form of the French originaire,
used by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I am, of course, fully
aware that my rendering is far from satisfactory.
Never does it attempt to capture the meaning of the
Tibetanye, an ontological term referring to a begin-
ning before a beginning (as commonly understood).
The earliest interpretation of this term is offered by
Vairocana, a contemporary ofSrTsimha, the notable
Chinese Hva-shang Mahayana who was forced to
leave Tibet (allegedly because he failed in the de-
bate that was to establish the Indian form of epis-
temology-oriented Buddhism), in his rDzogs-chen
gsang-baJi sgron-meJi rgyud-Jgrel chen-po (The
rGyud 'Bum ofVairocana, Vol. 7, pp. 111-247), itself
a commentary on SrTsimha's Ye-shes gsang-ba sgron-
me rin-po-che man-ngag-gi rgyud (sDe-dge ed., Vol.
4, fols. 248b-257a). In Vairocana's commentary, p.
191 we read:
rang-la ye-nas gnas-pa'i don shes-pa ni ye-shes-
kyi ngo-bo yin-pas / de gang 'das-pa go-ma-bead
Since knowing the reality that has resided in us
[as its experiencers] since time before time, is
[what is meant by speaking of it as] the substance
of ye-shes, it must never be forsaken.
This concise definition has been given a detailed
exposition in the Yang-gsang bla-na-med-pa
BairotsanaJi [that is, Vairocana] snyan-brgyud bar-
ma (in: rDzogs-pa chen-po dGongs-pa zang-thal, Vol.
2, pp. 485-536, pp. 515-517). This huge collection of
texts is said to have been rediscovered by Rig-'dzin
rGod-kyi ldem-'phru-can (1337-1409). Another, but
substantially the same definition, has been given
by Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa Dri-med 'od-zer (1308-
1364) in his Tshig-don mdzod, p. 246.
12. Za-byed spyang-rgyal nag-mo, 23: 20b:
shes-rab me-lee 'bar-ba-yis
gzung-'dzin rlung-tshub 'tshubs-pa bsad
shes-rab me-stag ehen-po-yis
nam-rtog gru-ehar Jbab-pa bsad
and
ye-shes nyi-ma 'od-gsal-bas
gti-mug mun-pa 'thibs-pa bsad
13. There is a felt gradation of intensity in the im-
ages of a leaping flame that in its literal rendering
means "a fire's tongue," and a glowing spark that in
its literal rendering means "a bit of live-coal in the
ashes."
14. This distinction goes back to the German phi-
losopher-historian Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). I
have added the German words in parenthesis. There
is a third word, Erlebnis, that stands halfway be-
tween Erleben and Erfahrung.
15. By using the compound conscious-spiritual I try
to overcome the current narrowness of an ego-logi-
cal and ego-centric consciousness and to show that
there is more to our psychic reality. This "more" is,
for want of a better term, the spiritual. Speaking of
a conscious universe, Kafatos and Nadeau (1990)
pertinently state:
The scientific description of nature is like a neu-
tral screen on which we can project a seemingly
endless variety of these legitimations. And yet
the projections inevitably seem illusory if we al-
low the totality of scientific facts more authority
than our need to ascribe some human meaning
to them. What we mean by conscious universe is
in accord with the totality of those facts, and is
anthropocentric only to the extent that it does
answer to the very basic human need to feel that
a profound spiritual awareness of the unity with
the whole cannot be deemed illusory from a sci-
entific point of view. (p. 178)
16. This claim is amply supported by language it-
self. There are two terms that, though clearly refer-
ring to different psychological operations, are often
lumped together in the catch-word "meditation." The
one is, in its Sanskrit form, dhyana
J
that in its J apa-
nese pronunciation as Zen has spawned innumer-
able "meditation groups." Its aim is "concentration,"
"focusing" on something, technically (in Sanskrit)
known as ekagrata and (in Tibetan) as rtse-gcig, both
of which terms are mechanistically translated as
"one-pointedness." It moves within the framework
of representational thought (which is not the whole
story of the mind's working) and easily leads to some
pathological fixation. The Tibetan rendering of the
Sanskrit word dhyana by bsam-gtan "a basis for
representational thought processes" has captured
its inherent limitations. The other term is sgom
(bsgom) rendering the Sanskrit word bhavana, a
causative noun derived from the root bhft meaning
"to become" and "to be." It "describes" a process in
which the experiencer participates. In this respect
this term comes close to what Carl Gustav Jung has
termed "active imagination." Here we deal with live
images, not dead abstractions.
In connection with the imprecise use of "medita-
tion" to cover two different and distinct functions
of the mind, another imprecision that can be traced
back to the Age of Enlightenment's failure, is that
of phenomenology and theology. (There is hardly any
work on modern physics, claiming to deal with
Sound, Color, and Self-Organization 81
"facts," that does not indulge in theological specula-
tion despite its disclaimer.) Here Marlin Heidegger's
remarks in his Being and Time are worth noting.
On p. 10 he states:
Theology is seeking a more primordial interpre-
tation of man's Being towards God, prescribed
by the meaning of faith itself and remaining
within it. It is slowly beginning to understand
once more Luther's insight that the "foundation"
on which its system of dogma rests has not arisen
from an inquiry in which faith is primary, and
that conceptually this "foundation" not only is
inadequate for the problematic of theology, but
conceals and distorts it.
And on p. 28 he declares:
Thus the term "phenomenology" expresses a
maxim which can be formulated as "To the things
themselves!" It is opposed to all free-floating con-
structions and accidental findings; it is opposed
to taking over any conceptions which only seem
to have been demonstrated; it is opposed to those
pseudo-questions which parade themselves as
"problems," often for generations at a time.
It is on pp. 34f. that he sharply differentiates be-
tween theology and phenomenology:
Thus the term "phenomenology" is quite differ-
ent in its meaning from expressions such as the-
ology and the like. Those terms designate the
objects of their respective sciences according to
the subject-matter which they comprise at the
time [in ihrer jeweiligen Sachhaltigkeit]. "Phe-
nomenology" neither designates the object of its
researches, nor characterizes the subject-matter
thus comprised. The word merely informs us of
the "how" with which what is to be treated in
this science gets exhibited and handled. To have
a science "of" phenomena means to grasp its ob-
jects in such a way that everything about them
which is up for discussion must be treated by
exhibiting it directly and demonstrating it di-
rectly.
Lastly, concerning the term "phenomenon," the as-
sessment of the physicist John A. Wheeler's use of
it by Bernard d'Espagnat (1991) may be quoted:
Consequently, Wheeler urges us "to abandon for
the foundation of existence a physics hardware
located 'out there' and to put in instead a 'mean-
ing' software located who knows where." (p. 154)
17. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po 19: 99b:
dang-por chos-kyi dbyings-nyid-la
dmigs-pa-med-pa'i don-gyis bsgom
18. Here a word of caution is necessary. "Singular-
ity" must under no circumstances be understood nu-
merically. To do so would, in philosophical and
psychologial terms, lead us into solipsism and
autism.
19. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 13b:
chos-kyi dbyings-kyi ye-shes dang
me-long-lta-bu'i ye-shes-kyis
chos-kyi sku yang 'grub-pa-na
yang-dag chos-sku dri-ma-med
20. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 8ab:
yang-dag-grub-pa gcig-pu-nyid
sangs-rgyas bde-chen kun-'dus-pa
mkha'-'gro sgyu-ma bde-mchog bde
rnal-byor zab-mo'i sku-gsum rdzogs
21. "Being alight and awake" attempts to convey the
meaning of the Tibetan term sangs-rgyas "(dark-
ness gone -light spread far and wide)" while si-
multaneously catering to the meaning of the San-
skrit word bodhi "becoming and being awake."
22. The Tibetan term mkha'-gro is ambivalent. It
is a descriptor that according to our grammatical
categories may be used as either a masculine or femi-
nine noun. If understood as referring to the femi-
nine aspect it is usually given as mkha'-gro-ma. The
latter's corresponding Sanskrit word diikinf (Angli-
cized as dakini) has, with due respect to the taboo
against knowledge, found the most hilarious "trans-
lations" - "sky-walker," "sky-dancer" (based on con-
fusing 'gro "to go," "to walk" with bro "to dance."
Furthermore, the word diikin f is a derivative of the
word diika which is a local (desT) word for jfiiina
meaning "experiential knowledge." So, breaking the
time-honored taboo against knowledge, we may ask
what does the word mkha'-gro-(ma) mean or what
was understood by this descriptor? The answer is
succinctly given in the dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po,
19: 12a:
yul-med chos-nyid nam-mkha'-la
rten-med rig-pa rnam-par 'gro
In (Being's) creativity (that has) nothing to do
with any locale and is (figuratively speaking
as vast as) the sky
There goes (Being's) supraconscious ecstatic in-
tensity into specifics.
According to the unknown commentator the "spe-
cifics" are modes of comportment and concerned ac-
tions pertaining to the four resonance domains that
together with the central resonance domain or evo-
lutionary thrust constitute the individual's pre-per-
sonal complexity.
23. This lengthy paraphrase of the term rnal-'byor
zab-mo is based on the commentator's exegesis dPal
Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 16a:
rnal-'byor-pa'i thugs zab-mo rang-la snang-bas-na
82 The International Journal of Trans personal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No.1
Since the spirit/spirituality of him whose psychic
potential [remains] linked ('byor) with (its source)
the whole's still point (rnal) presences (itself) to
itself in its profoundness, ...
24. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 20a. The Tibetan
version runs as follows:
chos-sku nam-mkha' lta-bu-la longs-sku sprin
'dra-la sprul-sku char-bzhin 'bab
These words are meant to explain in concrete terms
the imaginative-imaginal statement in the basic
text:
mkha'-'gro sprul-pa'i sku yin-pas
'gro-la ji-ltar snang-mdzad-pa
sgyu-ma-mkhan dang 'dra-bar sprul
Since [reality-in-itself manifests as a welter of]
mkha'-'gro [enchantments] in the [guise of
the] sprul-sku
[Its] manifestations of how it [rectifies the errant]
beings
Are [themselves] phasmata similar to a
magician's conjurations.
25. The number five refers to the "elemental forces"
Cbyung-ba) in their aspects of being luminous phe-
nomena displaying different hues. The number three
refers to a "selection" from the five elemental forces
in their more physiological aspects, while yet retain-
ing their luminous character. They are with specific
reference to the live individual this individual's net-
work of veins (rtsa), the blood (khrag) pulsing
through them, and his breath (dbugs).
26. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 21b:
de-yi dkyil-na bzhugs-pa ni
thig-le-chen-po byang-chub-sems
gser-zhun ze-ka ke-ke-ru
nyi-ma chos-dbyings snying-por bzhugs
27. Thig-le ye-shes bcud-spungs sgron-ma 'od-'bar-
ba, 2: 318b:
thig-le-chen-po mi-g.yo mi-'byung
tshogs-brgyad yul min blo-'das byar-med-pa'o
kun-khyab phyogs-med gang-yang rgya-ma-chad
ka-dag dngos-med rnal-ma zang-ka de
mtshon-bya ma-'gags mtshon-gzhi mi-dmigs-so
snang-cha ma-'gags snang-gzhi ma-grub-bo
28. This paraphrase of the technical term zang-ka,
not listed in any of the available dictionaries, though
frequently occurring in Padmasambhava's writings
in the above combination of technical terms, was
suggested to me, when I was still in India, by
elderly and knowledgeable lamas of the rNying-ma
tradition.
29. In view of the thig-le-chen-po' s existential-ex-
periential character this definition of it calls to mind
the explication of the German word Existenz by Karl
Jaspers (1967):
Existenz is the never objectified source of my
thoughts and actions. It is that whereOf I speak
in trains of thought that involve no cognition. It
is what relates to itself, [italics mine], and thus
to its transcendence ... (1, p. 56)
30. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 154a:
thig-le-chen-po gser-zhun 'dra-ba dang
rin-chen ze'u bcug 'dra-ba'i
thabs-kyi rgyal-po kun-tu-bzang
rin-chen ke-ke-ru gdang btags
me-long-ye-shes bltas mthong-med
yum-nyid gang yin yab-nyid-de
tha-dad ma-yin 'od-du mthong
thig-le dangs-ma rang-bzhin-med
nam-mkha'i gzugs-su khams-gsum kun
chos-kyi sku-la rab-tu gnas
31. The parallel version, rendered into English with
the commentator's gloss on p. 18 n. 30, differs
slightly from the version given above. The idea of
the inseparability of the two "items" is the same,
but in this instance the inseparability is that of the
male Kun-tu-bzang-po standing erect with the fe-
male Kun-tu-bzang-mo embracing her male part-
ner tightly.
32. See Abram (1996, p. 205) for the reference to
Heidegger's conception.
33. See the relevant quotations from Heidegger's
writings in George Steiner, Martin Heidegger, p.
25, as quoted in Kafatos and Nadeau (1990, p.122).
Moving away from philosophy into the realm of psy-
chology (whatever this term may nowadays mean
in the welter of erroneous and pathological claims),
we may mention Lancelot Law Whyte who, making
use of the terms "conscious" and "unconscious," in
his The Universe of Experience, p. 106, admits that
they are misleading and then, on the same page,
continues making the following important state-
ment:
Unconscious mental processes do not constitute
one indivisible realm, but form a hierarchy of
processes, successive levels being characterized
by different functions. For example, it is reason-
able to assume a highly general or "deepest" and
usually unconscious level underlying all mental
activities, and a series of more specific levels,
more frequently becoming conscious. If this is so,
the dichotomy conscious/unconscious is mistaken
and must frequently be misleading, because even
the deepest level may on special occasions be-
come conscious - for example, as a sense of per-
vasive unity, bringing transcendent joy - while
Sound, Color, and Self-Organization 83
on the other hand factors that have been nor-
mally conscious may fade and for a time become
unconscious.
Similar ideas run through the writings of the late
Russian mathematician V. V. Nalimov and, specifi-
cally, in the text and Figure 1 of his "Constructivist
Aspects of a Mathematical Model of Consciousness"
(1997).
Against this Western bifurcation Buddhist pro-
cess-oriented thinking has the advantage that it
bases itself on the principle of complementarity in
its assessment of reality.
34. dPal Khrag-Jthung gal-po, 19: 21b:
gnas-lugs ngo-bo-nyid-kyi gzhi
lhag-paJi chos-sku being grol med
ye-nas lhun-gyis-grub-pa-la
ma-bcos ka-dag-chen-por gnas
35. Erich Jantsch (1975) has expressed this dynamic
interconnectedness in almost lyrical terms:
... we are the stream, source and flow, carrier
and carried, the whole stream and yet only part
of it - as a water molecule is the river and yet
only part of it. (p. 99)
36. The Tibetan term lhag-paJi chos-sku is a hapax
legomenon and found only in the quoted passage.
According to the unknown commentator's exegesis
of this passage, this term is synonymous with the
phrase yang-dag-grub-pa gcig-pu-nyid which I para-
phrased earlier by "the real(ization of) reality-in-
itself is [this reality's] singularity." (See p. 72.) The
paraphrase of the term ngo-bo-nyid by "the neither-
material-nor-mental dimensionality" that is the
"stuff' of which the universe with us included is
made, attempts to avoid its mistranslations by ei-
ther "substance" or "matter." So, what then is this
"stuff?" Maybe it is just nothing, but certainly not
some nothing.
37. dPal Khrag-Jthung gal-po, 19: 21b-22a:
snang-lugs Jkhor-Jdas gnyis-su snang
Jdas-pa longs-spyod-rdzogs-paJi sku
sa-paJi byang-sems [221a] sgrib sbyang-mdzad
me-long byad-kyi dkyil-Jkhor-can
38. According to the commentator's gloss this light-
ing-up as samsara relates to those who have no in -
tuitive understanding of Being as such, while the
lighting-up as nirvana relates to those who have the
in -tuitive understanding. The nirvanic lighting-up
aspect relates to both the "spiritually advanced"
beings and the ordinary beings in the six forms of
life. In particular, this corporeally-felt engagement
in what has lit up in its totality pertains to the "spiri-
tually advanced" beings, specifically those on the
so-called tenth level, whose intellectual
obscurations, similar to a thin veil of white silk, it
wipes out. Ordinary beings are guided by the lumi-
nous (phasmic) manifestations (sprul-sku) of this
supraordinate longs-sku. The relationship between
the longs-sku and the sprul-sku again illustrates
the principle of complementarity.
39. The commentator explains this terse statement
to the effect that just as a person looking at his face
in a mirror detects any blemish, so the spiritually
advanced person looking at the Teacher par
excellence recognizes his own shortcomings. This
recognition is his being gathered in the ecstasy of
becoming erlichtet (alight).
40. dPal Khrag-Jthung gal-po, 19: 99b:
bsgrub-med yum-gyi bhaga-la
brjod-med sems-kyi ngang-du gsal
chos-kyi dbyings-kyi ye-shes-kyis
thams-cad-du yang khyab-par bya
btsal-med ma-bsgrubs ji-bzhin-las
kun-snang nam-mkhaJi mtshan-nyid Jbyung
med-paJi rgyu-las ...
41. In this context see the significant statement in
the Srid-paJi mtsho-bzhiJi rgyud, 23: 86a:
bdag-gi gab-paJi thig-le-las
. bla-na-med-paJi yab-yum gnyis
pha-ma med-paJi sngon-du byung
From my mysterious zero-point energy of the
creative vacuum
There has originated the incomparable father-
mother pair
Before there was any ("real") father-mother pair.
42. sPros-bral don-gsal, 1: 38a:
yum-gyi bhaga bde-klong gcig-tu Jkhyil
43. Thugs-kyi yang-snying ma-mo Jbum-tig, 23: 130a:
chags-pa med-pas bha zhes-bya
Jdod-pa med-pas ga zhes-bya
shes-rab don rtogs bha zhes-bya
thabs-kyi don rtogs ga zhes-bya
skye-ba med-pas bha zhes-bya
Jgag_pa med-pas ga zhes-bya
sna-tshogs Jbyung-bas bha zhes-bya
cir yang Jgyur-bas ga zhes-bya
kun-la khyab-pas bha zhes-bya
rdzu- phrul chen-po ga zhes-bya
44. From the viewpoint of the Sanskrit language
these two lines are an inversion of the word raga
that in its Tibetan rendering as Jdod-chags is a psy-
chologically correct understanding of what we mean
by "love" or "passion." We first desire someone or
something and then cling to himlher or it.
84 The International Journal of Trans personal Studies
J
1998
J
Vol. 17, No.1
45. The phrase sems-kyi ngang, rendered in Eng-
lish as "the dimension of (one's) psyche," contains
one of the most difficult terms, namely, sems , that
is used synonymously with sems-nyid, rang-sems,
rang-gi sems, rang-gi sems-nyid, and only the con-
text in which it is used, decides which of its nuances
is intended. Our "one's" to render rang-(gi) is prone
to create a misconception. It is not so that "one's"
~ m p l i s someone and sems some other entity; rang
IS a reflexive term and "qualifies" sems in and as its
self-being, in which case it is synonymous with
rgyud. On the meaning of this term see above note
29. It goes without saying that sems / sems-nyid is
wider in connotation than what we usually under-
stand by "mind" or "thinking."
46. The Tibetan term is usually rendered by "com-
passion" or "sympathy." A closer look at what the
Tibetan term professes shows that its traditional
English rendering is incompatible with its actual
meaning. The Tibetan term is made up of two nouns
"heart" and "master" (rje) , which means that the
heart is the master in all dealings with the world in
a most positive manner. By contrast, our "compas-
sion" and "sympathy" stress the negativity of joint
(com-, sym-) suffering (passion, pathos).
47. The lta-bu "like" in the compound me-long-lta-
bu is significant. In Eastern thinking the mirror is
not so much a passive reflector as a dynamic
revealer. If for simplicity's sake we conceive of the
chos-kyi dbyings-kyi ye-shes as the Self ("subject
self') and the me-long-lta-bu'i ye-shes as the self ("ob-
ject self'), the remarks by Kafatos and Nadeau
(1990, p. 131) gain added significance:
Bohr then suggests that the "subject self' is
analogous to a multivalued function of a complex
variable, and the "object self' is analogous to the
process of mapping the function onto a single
plane of objectivity. When we attempt to describe
the subject self, we are, in effect, "mapping" that
meaning onto the "plane" of objectivity in a man-
ner analogous to mapping the complex point onto
a plane of objectivity in order to determine the
value of the complex function. In both examples,
we are trying to translate the subject into the
object ... We perpetually construct out of the in-
finity of values resident in the subject self the
objectified, or defined object self. Although this
object selfis a function of and expresses the sub-
ject self, our maps, or descriptions, of the subject
self do not and cannot contain or completely de-
fine that self.
48. This is one of the key notions in
Padmasambhava's thinking and writings (see
Guenther, 1996, p. 73). The radicalism of
Padmasambhava's med / med-pa is reminiscent of
the radicalism of the foremost Gnostic thinker
Basilides, on whom see Lacarriere (1989/1991, pp.
60-61). The Buddhist use of this med / med-pa makes
it abundantly clear that it has nothing to do with
the Christian notion of a creatio ex nihilo.
49. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 100a:
.. . mngon gsal-ba
sems-kyi rang-bzhin ye-shes gsal
dam-pa'i rang-bzhin A-las ni
ye-shes-sems-dpa' gsal-bar shar
50. The phrase sems-kyi rang-bzhin is made up of
two equally difficult terms: sems about whose mul-
tiple "meanings" see above note 45, and rang-bzhin
made up of the reflexive pronoun rang ("self," "own,"
German eigen) and the continuative particle bzhin.
Paraphrased in phenomenological-hermeneutic dic-
tion this compound describes "the "intelligent" (for
want of a better term) whole's (gzhi, ngo-bo-nyid-
kyi gzhi) having come into its own as mind -psyche
(sems) and continues in this eigenstate."
51. In this compound, made up of the terms dam-pa
and rang-bzhin, the term dam-pa is used here in a
sense for which our language has no word coming
close to its intention. My rendering of this term by
"dynamics" attempts to convey the transition from
a potentiality into an actuality. It is this both/and
that crystallizes itself into the sememic-morphemeA.
52. Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal 'bar-ma nyi-ma'i
gsang-rgyud, 24: 345a:
stong dang gsal-ba khyab-pa gsum
dbyer-med nyag-gcig rang-byung-ngo
The three (adverbs-adjectives) voiding [i.e., not
allowing any structure to persist], radiating,
and encompassing [act]
Inseparably (from one another and constitute) a
self-originated singularity,
and fol. 364b:
stong dang gsal dang khyab-pa gsum
dbyer-med nyag-gcig ngang-du rdzogs
The three (adverbs-adjectives) voiding, radiating,
and encompassing are
Inseparable and completely [describe] the
singularity's dimensionality.
It cannot be emphasized too often that the Tibetan
word stong-(pa) is a verb and not an adjective, as is
this term's Sanskrit equivalent silnya and hence
has nothing to do with the Sanskrit-only
reductionist's "empty container" ideology.
53. It is not so that the "whole" is one thing and the
"intensity" another thing; rather the whole is the
intensity and the intensity is the whole.
54. Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal 'bar-ma nyi-ma'i
Sound, C%r, and Se/fOrganization 85
gsang-rgyud, 24: 352b:
thams-cad rig-pa'i rang-rtsal yin
rang-rig rtsal-snang shar-ba-la
sems zhes ming-du btags-pa'o
sems zhes ming-du btags-pas ni
'di yin med-pas gsal-stong ste
rtog-byed gsal yang mkhan-po stong
rtsal-snang rlung-gi rta-la zhon
rlung yang rig-pa'i rang-rtsal yin
rin-chen zur-brgyad snying-gi dkyil
kun-khyab ye-shes ngo-bo ni
sa-bon yi-ge'i tshul-du gnas
de nyid ngo-bo shes-pas chog
55. Also imaged as an eight-petalled lotus flower,
this pattern relates to the eight perceptual patterns
as developed by the Indian Yogacara philosophers.
56. Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal 'bar-ma nyi-ma
gsang-rgyud, 24: 352b:
thog-ma'i ka-dag stong-gsal-las
'od-khyim kha-mdog-lnga-ldan-las
gsal-'tsher lhun-sdug 'od-zer 'phro
de yang ye-shes rtsal-nyid-do
57. In this phrase the term thog-ma, rendered as
"primordial beginning" intimates a "before" there
was any beginning; and the term ka-dag, here freely
rendered as "purity and transparency" implies
Ernst Cassirer's idea of "symbolic pregnance." For
a detailed exegesis of the Tibetan term see
Guenther, 1996, p. 15 and note 39. The qualifica-
tion of this pre-beginning dynamics as nothingness-
radiance (stong-gsal) aptly describes the
experiencer's feeling of there being nothing and yet
a (luminous) presence.
58. One other point to note is that although the Ti-
betan term sa-bon corresponds to the Sanskrit word
b Yja, its use has nothing in common with the latter's
use in the Hinduist theistic literary works where
its standard expression is bYja-mantra (see Johari,
1986, pp. 43-44). And while much has been written
about the Hinduist context (see e.g., the in-depth
study by Beck, 1993), nothing has so far been writ-
ten about the Buddhist context for obvious reasons.
A static theistic world view is incompatible with a
process-oriented non-theistic world view.
59. Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal 'bar-ma nyi-ma'i
gsang-rgyud, 24: 354b-355a:
bdag-nyid spyi-gtsug om dkar bsgom [355a]
mgrin-par tlh dmar snying-gar hum mthing
bsgom
yi-ge gsum-la ye-shes me
dkar dmar mthing-ga gsum 'bar-bas
rigs drug sa-bon drug-po dang
lus ngag yid gsum sdig-sgrib dang
ma-rig-pa-yi bag-chags-rnams
gzhob-tu thul-du bsreg-par bsgom
60. According to the Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal
'bar-ma nyi-ma'i gsang-rgyud, 24: 354b and the dPal
Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 20b these are the a, nr, su,
tri,pre, and duo
61. These are the three positive forms of existence:
gods, demigods, men, and the three negative forms
of existence: animals, ghosts, denizens of hell.
62. This triad of lus, ngag, and yid constitutes the
fictions of our ego-centric and ego-logical re-presen-
tational mode of thinking that contaminates, ob-
scures, and falsifies the deeper realities experienced
as sku, gsung, and thugs.
63. They describe a process of increasing material-
ity. In his sPros-bral don-gsal, 1: 86a,
Padmasambhava describes this process as (1) snow
falling on a glacier, (2) ice forming on a lake, and (3)
a piece of cloth being soiled by dirt.
64. The technical term ma-rig-pa, corresponding to
Sanskrit avidyti, is usually rendered by "ignorance."
Though not exactly wrong, this rendering fails to
bring out the intrinsic meaning of this term. Unlike
the a in ahimsti "non-violence," emphasizing the non-
existence (med-a) of violence, as clearly stated in its
Tibetan corresponding term 'tshe-ba med-pa, the a
in avidyti does not signify the negation or non-ex-
istence ofvidyti, rather, as its Tibetan rendering by
ma-rig-pa makes abundantly clear, it signifies that
what is under consideration is not quite what it
might or could be. Mter all, even the stupidest per-
son has still some intelligence, even if it does not
amount to much.
65. See the unknown commentator's compact gloss
to dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 154a.
66. Since the whole is "conscious" in the sense of a
"supraconscious ecstatic intensity" (rig-pa), such
combinations as rig-pa'i rtsal and rtsal-gyi rig-pa
(meaning that the one is the other and vice versa,
not that the one is one thing and the other an other
thing held together by the so-called genetive par-
ticle) are not uncommon. However, since our words
like "consciousness," "awareness," "intelligence" are
problem words (see Stewart & Cohen, 1997, p. 202),
it might be best to render rtsal by "functionality."
Now, "to function" means "never to be at rest." The
implication of this "never to be at rest" has been
succinctly stated by Haberlin (1952, p. 48):
Die Funktionalitat des Subjects offenbart, daB
das Objekt vielheitlich ist
(The subject-qua-subject's functionality reveals
[the fact] that object-Qua-object is manifold).
86 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No.1
The author goes on to say:
Geordnete Vielheit. Jedes einzelne Seidende is
qualitativ "bestimmt," jedes steht in eindeutigem
Verhaltnis zu jedem andern. Vielheit des
Seienden stort nicht die Ordnung; sie bedeutet
aber, daB diese Ordnung "komplex" ist. In der so
geordneten Welt hat jedes Seiende seinen
qualitativ bestimmten "Ort." Es ist darin nicht
vertauschbar gegen ein anderes. Dies ist der
Begriff des Individuums. Individuum ist
Seiendes von eindeutiger Qualitas (identisch mit
seiner "Position"), unverruckbar und
unersetzbar. Als qualitativ eindeutig hat es in
sich keine Verschiedenheit, ist daher weder
geteilt noch teilbar. Ordered plurality. Every
single being is qualitatively "determined," every
single being is unambiguously related to every
other single being. The plurality of that-which-
is does not upset order; it means that order is
"complex." In a world so ordered, every single
being has its qualitatively determined "position."
In this its position it is not exchangeable with
any other single being. This is what is meant by
individuum. Individuum is a being ofunambigu-
ous quality (identical with its "position"), unal-
terable and irreplaceable. In its being qualita-
tively unambiguous there is no difference, hence
it is neither divided nor divisible. (tr. auct.)
67. There are two related terms in the Tibetan lan-
guage, not found in Sanskrit, for which reas?n West-
ern academics are blissfully ignorant ofthmr subtle
differences. The one is thugs-rje and used in dPal
Khrag-'thung-gal-po, 19: 17b with reference to the
Self's cosmic dimension:
mi-rtog dbyings-las thugs-rjes chags
cis 'dul der snang yid-bzhin sku
Following the unknown commentator's exegesis this
stanza means:
Having come-to-presence from out of (Being's)
non-conceptualizable dimensionality [as its
causal momentum] by way of (its)
suprasensual concern (thugs-rje) [for the sen-
tient beings, and set Himselfup as the Heruka
(the whole's ecstatic exuberance)]
[He] shows [himself] in any [form] suited to guide
[them and therefore is] the corporeally felt and
seen presence [associated with the] Wishful-
filling Gem
The other term is snying-rje and used in the quoted
text on fo!' 71a, with reference to the "in-depth ap-
praisals":
de-bzhin-nyid stong-pa dang / kun-snang snying-
rje sgom-pa / rgyu'i ting-nges hum mthing-nag
'bar-ba gcig bsgom
You should by way of the "just-so" appraisal at-
tend to (Being's) nothingness and by way of the
"all-around" lighting-up appraisal to (Being's)
circumspective heartfelt concern, and by way of
the "causal momentum tinkling" appraisal to
(Being's) sonic sememic-morpheme hum, all
ablaze in a dark blue color.
68. Heidegger uses the German word Zugehorigkeit
which has the double meaning of "belonging to" and
"listening to."
69. Quoted in Berendt (1988, p. 101).
70. Sonic-sememic morphemes play an important
role in the construction of our lived-in world. The
details of this construction lie outside the scope of
the present essay. In the Western context, Gaston
Bachelard's (1964) The Poetics of Space deserves
special attention.
71. dPal Khrag-'thung gal-po, 19: 20b; 79b. In the
list given in the Kun-tu-bzang-mo klong-gsal
ma nyi-ma'i gsang-rgyud, 24: 354b, the order IS a
tri nr su pre du, which may be the block-carver's
error.
72. This ambiguity reflects the awareness that a hu-
man being may be more "spiritual" for which the
color symbolism is a deep blue, or be more "active"
for which the color symbolism is a green color. How-
ever, if a human being is seen as a network of struc-
tural development lines (rtsa), he is made up of all
colors and constitues a prime example of complex-
ity.
73. There is a curious inversion involved. The mor-
phemes so far discussed have their origin in the
Sanskrit language. In view of this fact one would
assume that su would point to the word sura mean-
ing any "god" and that a would point to word
asura meaning a "demigod" (or, as the IndIan ety-
mology wants to have it, a "non-god"). Furthermore,
yellow, by its association with gold, is the color
wealth. Now, in Indian mythology the gods and demI-
gods were fighting with each other, because the
demigods were the "haves" - (in their territory there
grew the Wish-fulfilling tree) - and the gods were
the "have-nots." Their "whiteness" may well refer
to their poverty, morally camouflaged by "purity."
The Indian myth is honest in exposing greed as the
driving force behind war; in this respect the Indian
myth refreshingly differs from the dishonesty broad-
casted by Western vainglorious politicians.
74. This morpheme derives from the Sanskrit word
preta. These beings are plagued by hunger and
thirst. In modern terms they are those who suffer
from bulimia and alcoholism.
Sound, Color, and Self-Organization 87
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88 The International Journal ofTranspersonal Studies, 1998, Vol. 17, No.1