The Numinous Way and Buddhism
While there are some similarities between The Numinous Way, and what has come to be called Buddhism, there are also a number of fundamental differences, which differences make the two Ways quite different, and distinct, from each other.
In The Numinous Way there is only living numinously by, for example, valuing empathy, compassion, and honour, and cultivating, in a gentle manner, empathy and compassion, and having that inner balance, that harmony, that personal honour brings. Thus, there are no scriptures, no written or aural Canon, from some Buddha – from some human being who, having arrived, and been enlightened, has departed, leaving works to be reverentially recited and considered as the way to such enlightenment. In addition, there are no prescribed or recommended techniques – such as meditation – whereby it is said that personal understanding, development, or even such enlightenment can or could be obtained.
In The Numinous Way, while there is an appreciation and understanding of compassion, of the need to cease to cause and to alleviate suffering, there is also – unlike in Buddhism – and appreciation and understanding of the need for personal honour; for a Code of Honour, which sets numinous limits for our own personal behaviour and which also allows for and encourages self-defence, including, if necessary, the use of lethal force in such self-defence. Thus, in many ways, The Numinous Way is perhaps more human, more in harmony with our natural, human, character: that innate instinct for nobility, for fairness, that has evolved to become part of many (but, it seems, not all) human beings.
In addition, while honour limits our behaviour in certain ways, there is no asceticism, no rejection of the pleasures of life, of personal love; only an understanding of the need to not be excessive in such things; to not go beyond the bounds set by honour and evident in empathy, and thus not to cause suffering to others by, for example, excessive, uncontrolled, personal desire. For, in The Numinous Way, it is not human desire per se which is regarded as incorrect – as giving rise to samsara – but rather uncontrolled and dishonourable desire and personal behaviour, and a lack of empathy, which are incorrect, which are un-numinous, and thus which are de-evolutionary, and which contribute to or which cause or which can cause, suffering.
In The Numinous Way, while there is an appreciation and understanding of our own individuality, our self, as an illusion – a causal abstraction – this understanding and appreciation, unlike that of Buddhism, derives from a knowledge of our true nature as living beings, which is of us, as individuals (as a distinct living individual entity) being a nexion; a connexion, by and because of the acausal, to all other living beings not only on our planet, Earth, but also in the Cosmos. That is, our usual perception of ourselves as independent beings, possessed of what we term a self, is just a limited, causal, perception, and does not therefore describe our true nature, which is as part of the acausal and causal matrix of Life, of change, of evolution, which is the living Cosmos, and of a living Nature as part of that Cosmos: as the Cosmos presenced on this planet, Earth.
Expressed simply, the illusion of self, for The Numinous Way, is the practical manifestation of a lack of, or the loss of, empathy; the inability (or rather the loss of the ability) to translocate ourselves, our cosnciousness, into another living-being: an inability to become, if only for an instant, that other living-being. We lack this ability – or have lost this ability – because we have become trapped by or immersed in or allowed ourselves to be controlled by causal Time, by the seperation of otherness.
The Numinous Way thus understands our real life as numinous; or rather, as possessing the nature, the character, of the numinous, of The Numen, with our causal, manufactured, abstractions – based on the linearity of causal Time, on a simple cause-and-effect – as obscuring, covering-up, severing, our connexion to the numinous and thus depriving us from being, or becoming, or presencing, the numinous in and through our own lives.
Living numinously is thus a re-discovery of our true nature, as living-beings existing in the Cosmos; a dis-covering; a removal of the causal abstractions, the illusions, that prevent us from knowing and appreciating our true nature, that prevent us or hinder us from knowing and appreciating, and ceasing to harm, all Life (often including ourselves, and other human beings); that prevent us or hinder us from knowing and appreciating, and ceasing to harm, Nature and the Cosmos itself. Living numinously is thus a re-discovery of how and why we are but part of Life itself; a removal of the causal illusion of us-and-them.
Living numinously is thus to discover, to achieve – to-be – the true purpose of our very existence, which is simply to participate, in a numinous manner, in our own change, our own evolution, and thus in the change, the evolution, of all Life, of Nature, and of the Cosmos itself. We thus become balanced, in harmony, with ourselves, with Life, with Nature and the Cosmos, and reconnect ourselves to the matrix, the acausal, The Unity, beyond and within us.
There is thus no Buddhist-type cycle of rebirth, in the realms of the causal, for those human beings who, in their causal lifetime, fail to understand causal abstractions for the Cosmic illusions that they are, and who thus fail to control their own desires, their own behaviour, in such a way that they no longer cause or contribute to the suffering of Life. There is only, for them, a failure to use their one mortal, causal, living to evolve to become part of the change, the evolution, of Life and of the Cosmos itself.
For, by living numinously, by becoming again and then expanding the nexion we are to all Life, to Nature, and to the Cosmos, what we are – our acausal essence presenced in and through our one causal existence – lives-on beyond our mortal, causal, death; not as some illusive, divisive, causal “individual”, but rather as the genesis of the evolution of Life; as the burgeoning, changing, awareness – the consciousness – of Life manifest in the numinous Cosmos itself. And a genesis, a burgeoning, a changing, an awareness, that – being acausal – cannot be adequately described by our limited causal words, our limited language, and our limited, causal, terminology. This living-on is not a pure cessation, not an extinguishing – not nirvana – but rather a simple, a numinous, change of “us”; an evolution to another state-of-noncausal-being, where a causal individuality has no meaning.
Living The Numinous Way
Living The Numinous Way is quite simple, for there are no prescribed practices – such as mediation, or prayer – and no prescribed rituals of any kind.
As mentioned in the essay Presencing The Numen In The Moment,
For The Numinous Way there cannot be any conventional prayer, since there is no supra-personal deity or God to make supplications to or seek to become part of, no redeemer to save us, and no Master or Buddha to guide us or to follow. Furthermore, the techniques of other Ways, such as the meditations of Buddhism, are not appropriate, since, for The Numinous Way, there is an engagement with life in a gentle way, not a withdrawal from it, and certainly not the ascetic, self-denial required to sit for hours in silent stillness according to some particular technique or other – for such a concentration on technique, such precise causal detailing, cannot, according to The Numinous Way, capture or express or presence the Numen, as The Numinous Way desires to capture and express the Numen, through a natural empathy.
There are no such prescribed things because, for The Numinous Way, there is nothing – no such thing or place called Nirvana, or Jannah, or Heaven – to personally strive to obtain, and/or which could be obtained by such means or techniques as meditation, or prayer; and no Deity, no Supreme Creator Being, no Buddha, no Master or other being, to ask for guidance, or to make supplications to, or to pray to. There are also no scriptures, no revelation from some Prophet or Prophets.
Instead, living The Numinous Way is just living numinously, and this basically involves two simple things. First, living with an empathic awareness of other Life (including other human beings), and, second, living according to a Code of Numinous Honour.
Empathic awareness of other Life – the basis for compassion – is just being sympathetically aware of, and sensitive to, other Life, and letting such Life be. This letting-be – this wu-wei – is not interfering in that Life by un-naturally imposing ourselves and/or some manufactured causal abstraction upon that Life, but rather allowing ourselves to be in harmony, in natural balance, with Life because such balance allows us to be aware of, to become, the nexion we are to all Life, to Nature, to the Cosmos itself, and thus reveals the Unity, the matrix, of all living beings, which Unity the illusion of our self, and all abstractions, conceal, or disrupt or destroy.
Such empathy makes us aware of how other Life, other living-beings, can suffer, and how some-things, some actions, do or can cause suffering or have caused suffering. Thus, there is compassion for other Life, for by causing suffering to other living-beings, we are not only disrupting the balance of the Cosmos – blocking or disrupting the flow of The Numen, preventing the presencing of The Numinous – but we are also hurting ourselves, for, beyond the causal, beyond the illusion, the appearance of causality that we often mostly or only apprehend life by, we are, acausally and in essence, these other living-beings, as they are of us. For they, and we, are part of the very life, the very living, the very natural evolving, of Nature, and of the Cosmos beyond.
Honour is a practical manifestation – a presencing – of the numinous, and a Code of Numinous Honour is one of the most practical ways we can express our empathy with other human beings, and so live in a numinous way with and among other human beings. For honour enjoins us to be polite, to have or to cultivate manners; to be restrained, in public and in private. That is, honour enjoins us to treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated, and is a most practical means of us controlling our emotions, our desires. Honour provides us with guidelines regarding our behaviour, setting the limits of numinous behaviour, beyond which limits we can cause or contribute to suffering. In addition, honour specifies how and under what conditions we may protect and defend ourselves if, for instance, some un-empathic, dishonourable, human seeks to harm us.
To live numinously is to presence the numen in a moment; to live moment to moment in a non-interfering, empathic, compassionate, and honourable way. To live numinously is thus to value empathy, compassion, and honour – to cultivate, in a gentle manner, empathy and compassion, and to have that inner balance, that harmony, that honour brings. To so live numinously is to change ourselves, to evolve ourselves, in a natural, balanced way: in harmony with all Life, in harmony with ourselves and other human beings; in harmony with Nature and the Cosmos, beyond. To so live numinously is to know, to-be, to become part of, genuine freedom and genuine peace; understanding thus, feeling thus, all causal abstractions for the disruptive impersonal tyranny that they are.
The Cultivation of Empathy
Empathy may be said to be the quintessence of The Numinous Way. From and because of empathy, there is and there arises compassion, and thus the noble and gentle desire to cease to cause suffering. A numinous, living, honour – manifest is a code of personal honour – is a practical manifestation of empathy: of how we, as individual human beings, can behave in an empathic way toward other human beings.
Empathy makes us aware of the suffering of other human beings: aware of their pain, their anguish, their sorrow, as it can provide us with some numinous intimation of the tragedy or those tragedies that have caused them or brought them personal grief. In addition, empathy makes us aware – or can make us aware – of the joy, the delight, the happiness, that other human beings feel; and it is through, by and because of empathy and honour that we, as individual human beings, can share in the very humanity of human beings. Thus, empathy may also be said to be the essence of our humanity – of that which makes us human, that which can reveal to us our humanity, and that by means of which we can develope our own humanity, and thus change, evolve, ourselves. Empathy, and honour, therefore enable us to changer ourselves, for the better – as they reveal to us how we can act in a human, a noble, manner.
Empathy itself is simple: it is only a translocation of ourselves; only a letting-go of the illusion of our self and thus a knowing-of another living-being as that living-being is, as that living-being (human or otherwise) is presenced, manifest, in the causal world of causal perception. In the simple sense, empathy is a numinous sympathy with another living-being; that is, a becoming – for a causal moment or moments – of that other-being, so that we know, can feel, can understand, the suffering or the joy of that living-being. In such moments, there is no distinction made between them and us – there is only the flow of life; only the presencing and the ultimate unity of Life itself. Thus do we or can feel in such moments – because of and through empathy – the Unity itself, and thus may we feel or know or have some apprehension of, how the Cosmos itself, how Nature, is living, changing, and can evolve by what we do or suffer because of what we do not do.
Empathy, like honour, is thus a practical manifestation of the numinous: a presencing of what we have termed the acausal energy that animates causal matter, making that matter alive, a living-being. Hence, when we are empathic, when we cultivate empathy, when we act in an empathic, compassionate, honourable, way we are presencing the numinous; we are increasing – or at least not impeding – the flux, the flow of acausal energy: the life that is such energy, and that exists, lives, changes and grows, and can evolve, because of, through, such energy.
How then may we cultivate empathy? Simply by letting-go of the immorality of causal abstractions, many or most of which abstractions serve only to try and distinguish us from them, from other living-beings, human or otherwise. We can cultivate empathy by presencing the numen in a moment – by appreciating or feeling or coming to discover the numinous in, for example, sublime music, in Art, in literature, and perhaps above all in our own personal relationships based on an honourable love. We can cultivate empathy by changing our perspective from our causal self to the perspective of millennia – understanding and feeling the suffering that we human beings have caused, century upon century upon century. We can cultivate empathy by placing our own individual, mortal, lives – on this planet we call Earth – in the perspective of the Cosmos, understanding thus, feeling thus, our own microcosmic smallness; one finite fragile life on one planet orbiting one star among billions of stars in one Galaxy among billions of Galaxies in the Cosmos. We can cultivate empathy by understanding, knowing, by feeling, that our finite fragile mortal life, in the causal, is an opportunity for us apprehend, to presence, the numinous and so change, so evolve, ourselves, and thus aid all life, sentient and otherwise, and thus participate in the change, the evolution, the very presencing, of future life in the Cosmos.
To be empathic – to live an an empathic way – is use honour as our guide to our own personal behaviour. It is understand, to know, to feel, the causes of suffering – such as abstractions, and the illusion of our self – and to gently strive not to cause suffering to any living-being, sentient or otherwise. To be empathic – to live in an empathic and thus numinous way – is to cultivate wu-wei; to cease to interfere on the basis of some abstraction or other; to cease to strive for some illusive, causal, so-called progress, which so-called progress is hubris, a disruption of the natural balance, because it is only and ever a move toward more abstractions, more illusive ideals, and almost always causes or contributes to suffering through both the imposition of presumptions (including some “method”) on human beings and other life, and through a supra-personal “planning”.
Above all, to be empathic is to cease to presume, but instead to cultivate the numinous knowing that arises in the immediacy of the moment and from a direct, personal, gentle interaction with human beings and with other life.
DW Myatt
2455240.531
The Code of Honour of The Numinous Way
The word of a man or woman of honour is their bond – for when a man or woman of honour gives their word (“On my word of honour…”) they mean it, since to break one’s word is a dishonourable act. An oath of loyalty or allegiance to someone, once sworn by a man or woman of honour (“I swear by my honour that I shall…”) can only be ended either: (i) by the man or woman of honour formally asking the person to whom the oath was sworn to release them from that oath, and that person agreeing so to release them; or (ii) by the death of the person to whom the oath was sworn. Anything else is dishonourable.
A man or woman of honour is prepared to do their honourable duty by challenging to a duel anyone who impugns their honour or who makes dishonourable accusations against them. Anyone so challenged to a duel who, refusing to publicly and unreservedly apologize, refuses also to accept such a challenge to a duel for whatever reason, is acting dishonourably, and it is right to call such a person a coward and to dismiss as untruthful any accusations such a coward has made. Honour is only satisfied – for the person so accused – if they challenge their accuser to a duel and fight it; the honour of the person who so makes such accusations or who so impugns another person’s honour, is only satisfied if they either unreservedly apologize or accept such a challenge and fights such a duel according to the etiquette of duelling. A man or woman of honour may also challenge to a duel and fight in such a duel, a person who has acted dishonourably toward someone whom the man or woman of honour has sworn loyalty or allegiance to or whom they honourably champion.
A man or woman of honour always does the duty they have sworn to do, however inconvenient it may be and however dangerous, because it is honourable to do one’s duty and dishonourable not to do one’s duty. A man or woman of honour is prepared to die – if necessary by their own hand – rather than suffer the indignity of having to do anything dishonourable. A man or woman of honour can only surrender to or admit to defeat by someone who is as dignified and as honourable as they themselves are – that is, they can only entrust themselves under such circumstances to another man or woman of honour who swears to treat their defeated enemy with dignity and honour. A man or woman of honour would prefer to die fighting, or die by their own hand, rather than subject themselves to the indignity of being defeated by someone who is not a man or woman of honour.
A man or woman of honour treats others courteously, regardless of their culture, religion, status, and race, and is only disdainful and contemptuous of those who, by their attitude, actions and behaviour, treat they themselves with disrespect or try to personally harm them, or who treat with disrespect or try to harm those whom the individual man or woman of honour have personally sworn loyalty to or whom they champion.
A man or woman of honour, when called upon to act, or when honour bids them act, acts without hesitation provided always that honour is satisfied.
A man or woman of honour, in public, is somewhat reserved and controlled and not given to displays of emotion, nor to boasting, preferring as they do deeds to words.
A man or woman of honour does not lie, once having sworn on oath (“I swear on my honour that I shall speak the truth…”) as they do not steal from others or cheat others for such conduct is dishonourable. A man or woman of honour may use guile or cunning to deceive sworn enemies, and sworn enemies only, provided always that they do not personally benefit from such guile or cunning and provided always that honour is satisfied.
