f est: A PhilosoEhical Appraisal Michael E. Zimmerman March, 1982 est: A Assessreent Introduction. The purpose of this report is to provide a philosophical assessment of est training. I first took the training in New Orleans in January, 1981, and reviewed it as an observer in Sacramento in February, 1982. My analysi& of the training is guided by my understanding of philo-sophy of Heidegger, existential psychotherapy, and Eastern religions. The following arises not only fron my training as a philosopher, however, but also from my own personal experience. This report is by no means eXhaustive; much more could have been said about the topics covered below. Moreover, many more issues could have been dealt with. Because of my own philosophical expertise and personal interest, however, I chose to focus my attention on those aspects of the training that bear on the topic of authenticity. I hope that this report will prove to be of some help in resolving whatever problems remain in what is already an excellent training. I would like to thank fernando flares for having given me the opportunity to prepare this report. The experience has been important for me. My analysis of the training addresses itself, in part, to four questions posed by Jack Mantas: 1) Can the l' authentici ty" of the training be establishec) more directly and explicitly at the start of the training? 2) How can one speak more effectively of the Self as emptiness or nothingness? 3) How is one to understand the notion of i.e., the notion that the authentic Self takes a stand on itself as the context of contexts? 4) Is there too much SUbjectivism in the idea that we "create" our own experience? Answers to these questions will be found in the body of the text, a summary of which follows. 2 Summary of Findings: 1) The "authenticity" of the training may be more firT!lly established initially if the trainer explicitly asserts that the trainer and support team are prepared to enter into agreement with the trainees. The agreement would be that everyone give 100% of himself or herself to the training. 2) There is a tendency to speak as if the training will provide more "satisfaction"!n life, but if satisfaction is made the goal by trainees, they will never find it. Satisfaction ensues; it cannot be pursued. At times, the training the impression that the reason for keeping one's agreements is to gain satisfaction. Such a utilitarian view of behavior is inimicable to the fundamentally sound view, expressed elsewhere in the training, that the key is to act impeccably: from this, everything else--including satisfaction as well as unhappiness--follows. 3) More explicit treatment of death, and the attendant of anxiety and guilt, are needed to provide a more complete account of human existence. Anxiety is constriction of the self that occurs in the face of the disclosure of mortality, but only such disclosure enables us to make the leap from mechanicalness or inauthenticity to aliveness or authenticity. Guilt is the ontological self-corrective that reminds a person that he or she is failing to repay the loan of life by experiencing everything there is to experience. Guilt and anxiety call the individual to the resolution or decision to live. 4) Resoluteness refers to the decision of the individual to experience whatever there is to experience. Resoluteness (Entschlossen-heit) is authentic openness or disclosedness The decision in favor of being openness is a free choice to be the freedom that we already are. freedom is not a human possession, but instead the openness or into which we are thrown. existence or Dasein constitutes the clearing or openness in which the Being of beings manifests itself. 5) While the training currently makes some reference to time and temporality, a more thorough discussion is probably in order. Such a discussion would show that the leap from inauthenticity to authenticity involves a in temporality: from linear tiMe to the circling temporality called eternity or "Now.1f Linear time arises froJ!l the constriction of human openness to that of the ego/mind, w::lich reveals things merely as objects to be exp16ited for human ends. Circular or eternal time arises when human existence opens up and lets beings be just what they are. G) The training needs to define more .carefully what it means by the notion that I am responsible for all my' experience.' that :r am God in my universe. Apparently derived in part of Atman or the Transcendental Self, this conception of responsibility is too easily confused with more ordinary notions. The notion that I somehow create ?y experience is metaphysi speculation that cannot be verified. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to redefine creating. Inste of speakip.g of creating as a kind of producing Or making, we could say that creatinf. is a letting-be. T!1e former notion of creat is masculine and typically Western, while the latter is fenin and more in line with Eastern views of reality. We could then say that I am responsible for all of my experience in the sense that I aD called on to experience whatever it is that manifests itself within the openness that I call lime." The true "I," of course, is not ego/mine but the temporal-historical clearing called Dasein. 7) While the training speaks of everything/nothing, Heidegger speaks of Being/nothingness. Although what both parties mean by nothingness or noth g is similar, they differ considerably on what they mean Being and everything. For Heidegger, Being does not mean the totality of but the presencing or self-manifesting of beings. To identify Bei with every thing to make a category-mistcke. B) Al thoubh the training currently emphasizes the importa.nce of participating and sharing with other beings, the implicit idea of the training is that we humans should share ourselves with all beings. Hence, the Hunger Project should naturally lead into the Planet Project designed to save the earth from environmental destruction. 4. 9) Heidegger claimed that everything great happens from within a heritage or tradition. Perhaps it is time for est to acknowledge that it is part of the great traditions of East and West. One goal of est would then be to people to revitalize their own trad.i tions. 10) Miscellaneous Observations. 11) Conclusion. 12) Appendices. A) Michael E. Zimmerman, "Heideg-ger's 'Existentialism' Revisited. It B) Michael E. Zim1'1erman, "Towards a Heideggerean Ethos for Radical Environmentalism." 1. Establishing the of the Training. Currently, the authenticity and integrity of the training are guaranteed from the start by the of the trainer and his or her support team. The trainees, however, are not explicitly informed of this commitment, although they themselves are asked to make a cOr:1"llitment.of their own. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for the trainer to enter into the following agreement with the trainees: that both parties give 100% of themselves to the training. This sort of thing is said later on during the training, but might be introduced much earlier. Apparently, one of the the trainer and support team seem so authoritarian anc aloof at the start of the training- is' to discourage trainees from I'running their acts" and to encourage them to turn to themselves for support. Such authoritarianism also has the advantage of eliciting anger and resentment from those trainees who have problems with authority figures. Nevertheless, it might be truer to the intention of the training if this authoritarianism were tempered by the explicit willingness of the trainer and support team to enter into partnership with the trainees. Such an agreement could be made without giving into people's acts. An "authentic" relationship involves reciprocity and respect. The current way of engaging the trainees initially has sone advantages for sone but is counter-productive for others. 6 2. On Aiming for "Satisfaction" in Life. Recently, I read a chapter on est training in a book called Gettin Saved frOD Sixties.l According to the author of this work, est can be understood as a kind of utilitarianism based on taking care of one's own needs: successful selfishness. The reason for keeping one's agreements, for example, is that this produces greater s sfaction in life. If one does not keep his or her agreements, he or she gets caught in life's machinery. satisfaction is evidently understood as an agreeable condition that results from behaving in a certain way. The training sonetiDes supports this point of view by asking trainees if they want more satisfaction in life. Normally, we think of satis ion as a kind of gratification, but the radical insight of est is that !!getting it" means being just where one is--whether satisfied or dissatisfied, happy or sad, getting it or losing it. Yet there are people who come away from the training thinking that "satisfaction" results if I take care of my emotions and problems: I'm respon hIe for me over here, not for you over there. Clearly, this approach is guided by the dualism between self and Other, a dualism that est intends to In Sacramento, Jerry Joiner pointed out that "getting it" is not a matter of improvement or getting better, but instead involves a radical shift that transcends the distinction between better and worse. !'Getting it" means reali ng that I and the Other are one, not separate. An enlightened being does h'hat the situation calls for1 not in order to get 11 satis faction," but simply because the deed is My personal experience - ling good or bad, fulfilled or unfulfilled-is not the criterion by which to judge the appropriateness of my actions. Consider Kantts notion of morality. According to Kant, hunan beings are moral agents because they are rational: they can understand that a moral obligation is universally applicable to any rational being in the same tuation. Crucial for Kant's notion of morality is the idea of self-respect. Self-respect does not result from my obeying the law, e.g., keeping agreements. Instead, I choose to follow the moral law only insofar as I respect myself as a ratiorial being. Soneone lacking in self-respect acts inappropriately; he or she goes nst the essential nature of est makes much the same point when it says that 7 disloyalty to the self kills aliveness, or turns us into machin-es. A machine acts automatically, while a human being chooses freely. Disloyalty to the self means turning away from the possibility of being responsively open to whatever we are called on to experience. Someone disloyal to this intrinsic human openness is lacking in self-respect. Kant emphasizes that self-respect and integrity lead one to do one's duty, no matter how difficult or distasteful it may be. Put in a way more in accord with est's insight: acting appropriately out of integrity means choosing to experience whatever there is to experience. For Kant, duty is primarily to. the noral law; for est, duty is defined more extensively as openness for whatever there is to experience. According to est, an f'enlightened" being chooses to let everything that is be what it is. Such letting-be, however, can only occur if the person transcends the ego/mind that is dead-set.against against letting beings be. For ego/mind, the task is to manipUlate reality in a way that guarantees survival. Letting beings be is always risky. By transcending ego/mind, a person recognizes that he or she is not separate from the other or from anything else. Hence, just as a person naturallY takes care of himself or herself if sick, wounded, or suffering, so an enlightened person naturally takes care of sick or Others. This is the "compassion doctrineH of Buddhism and of other great religions. One acts compassionately and appropriately not for the sake of consequences, e.g., so that one might feel more "satisfaction" from life by doing good deeds. One acts appropriately siMply because it is appropriate. Buddhism speaks of the need for skillful means in approaching the unenlightened. est, too, no doubt practices such skillful means in first addressing trainees who are accustor:1ed to the "successful self-ishness!! school of morality. est appeals to their self-interest by asking them if they want to get more "satisfactiontl from life. The trainees naturally respond by saying yes, though they usually think satisfaction must mean "happiness" as opposed to Hsadness.f! Gradually, however, the trainees are taught that the pursuit of happiness and the 8 flight from sadness are the source of their suffering. Since ego/mind initiates and sustains the chase-and-flight, only "blowing the mind" enables one to end the quest for happiness. Victor Frankl has observed that "Happiness ensues; it cannot be pursued.tt2 Thus any attempt to achieve happiness is doomed to failure. Releasement from suffering comes only if ego/nind's craving for security transcended. Hhen ego/mind surrenders, the separation between self and Other is overcome. "Blowing the mindt! is the beginning of conpassion. The quest for personal salvation is contradictory, for one is not separate from the Others. This is the crucial insight of Mahayana Buddhism, is reflected in est training, which stresses the of partici and sharing. Yet it is necessary to remind the trainees more explicitly that while they started out thinking that satisfaction meant personal satisfaction and security, the fact is that satisfaction comes only when one ceases to pursue personal happiness. Kore conceptual recapitulation is needed to rernind the trainees where they started from and where they are at the end of the training. Above all, they must be reminded that ttgetting it" does not mean successful selfishness. 9 3. Death, and Guilt. In my the training should say more about death and the role it plays ih human existence. According to Heidegger, authenticity or aliveness occurs only if one accepts one's own mortality and finitude. Authenticity (Eigentlichkeit, "owned-ness'f) means owning up to who one already is;,responsive and responsible openness for what is. Authentic openness is only possible if inauthentic openness is transformed, i.e., if passes through nothingness. Passing through nothingness means letting oneself undergo the anxiety (Angs!) that comes up whenever one starts opening up or to life. What.is anxiety all about? Anxiety is anxiousness about one's own Being-inpthe-wor1d, the .finite openness, context, or clearing in which beings can manifest or present themselves. Being-in-the-world refers not to a thing, but to the no-thingness in which things can "befl. ing anxious about one's Being-in-the-world, then, means being anxious about one's own nothingness. There is no object for anxiety. During the training, the trainer points out that people are always angry or sad or happy about some particular thing or event. Such is not the case with anxiety. Any to assign an object to anxiety turns anxiety into fear. Fear is always fear of some thing or other. But while we can try to do something about the thing we fear, there is nothing to be done about nothingness. The reason that we resist the disclosure about our utter nothingness is that ego/mind'S only motive is survival; hence, any acknowledgement of ego/mind's insubstantiality and mortality sends it, into a self-protective frenzy. Ego/mind orders the body to contracted and rigid iD a de nsive posture. To avoid any awareness of mortality whatsoever, ego/mind CUltivates a zombie-like existence. Authenticity or aliveness require that we be willing to pass through this anxiety TO the other side. Anxiety has the positive function of calling us back to aliveness and openness. When in the grips of anxiety, a person is throttled, choked, shut down. The word anxiety stems from the Latin anguista, which itself comes from the Greek ancho meaning narrowness and strangling.3 To overcome this self-constriction, a person must let go of all attempts to save himself or herself. All world religions testify to the extreme difficulty that such letting-go involves. 10 Ken Wilber claims that anxiety arises as a result of our blocking the expression of our "cosmic energy," our primordial responsiveness and aliveness. Often we block our energy by projecting it outward onto others: Under these conditions, excitement is experienced as anxiety, and conversely, whenever we feel anxiety we are simply refusing to let ourselves. be excited, vibrant, alive. The only way out of this type of situation is to get back in touch with our interest and excitement--to let our body get excited, to breathe and even gasp deeply, instead of tightening our chest and restricting our breathing; to shake and vibrate with energy, instead of "playing cool" and trying to hold back our excitement by stiffening and becoming "uptight"; to let our Energy mobilize and flow of damning it up .. Get in touch with this Energy that wants to be born, and feel it 9ut completely, . for anxiety is birth denied to excitement. Give that Energy re-birth, re-own it, let it flow, and anxiety will yield to vibrant excitement, to energy freely mobilizing and directed outward, instead of blocked and projected, boomeranging back on us as anxiety.4 Heidegger's talk about the liberating power of passing through anxiety to authenticity or aliveness is more obscure than Wilber's, but certainly understandable: When, by anticipation[of one's mortality] , one becomes free for one's own death, one is liberated from one's lostness in those possi-bilities that may accidentally thrust themselves upon one; and one is liberated in such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand and choose among the factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility [death) which is not to be outstripped. Antici-pation discloses to existence that its uttermost possibility lies in giving itself up, and thus it shatters all one's tenaciousness to whatever existence one has reached.S ... anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the they-self and to face with the possibflity of beIng itself, __________ :...t. ________ ._ -..... ---____ __ Eimarily unsupported by cor.cernful sollcltude, but of belng itself, rather, in an impassfOned FREEDOM-TOWARDS which has been released troIT. the il:l\iSTonsof-tne "theilT 6 In authenticity there lies "an unshakeable joy," the joy of accepting one's own possibilities.7 But for Heidegger, the moment-of-truth (Augenblick) or the moment when we pass through to the other side of anxiety, is not merely a personal or psychological event, but an ontological event. Authentic existence is not for I'my" sake, but for the sake of the Being of beings. As authentic, I let beings be what they are. Although I did not create the openness into which I have been 11 thrown, I have the cosmic-ontological obligation of owning up'to that openness. For Heidegger, freedom means taking responsibility for who I already am. One Heidegger scholar has remarked that Working from Kant's insistence that freedom is funcamental, Heidegger has identified it with transcendence [openness; no-thingness] itself. freedoLl is the "ground of grounds I'. It opens up the "outlying scope of possibilities" before us. Its responsible exercise is "a transcendental obligation for the person in whose freedom it is rooted". Is this not to say that the obligation to use freedom responsibility is rooted in the nature of freedom itself, in the heart of man's nature?8 freedom means taking responsibility being responsively open to all the possibilities of my experience. Medard the Swiss psychiatrist with whom Heidegger worked closely for many years, tells us that we Llust never forget that hunan existence or Dasein is in the service of Being. "Da-sein" means to be the "here" (clearing, openness, !lDa-") in which beings can be present or manifest (Il- sein!!). Hence, man's existence is claimed to serve as the luminated realm into which all that is to be may actually shine forth, emerge, and appear as a phenomenon, i.e., as that which shows itself. These are the conditions for the possibility that man can permit (to the best of his ability) everything that clains him (by being encountered) to unfold in the light of his existence. To understand man in this fashion (namely, as servant and guardian of the truth inherent in things as they are permitted to come into being) is to free him fron the egocentric self-glorification, the autonomy and autarchy of subjectivistic world views ... On the basis of this fundamental feature of man's existence, all so-called ethical values become self-evident.9 Following Heidegger's lead, Boss claims that human Dasein is always fundamentally guilty (schuldig) or indebted. Such ontological guilt is to be distinguished from neurotic guilt that arises from failure to do what one's parents or other authority figures demanc. But neurotic guilt is only possible on the basis of our fundamental-ontological indebtedness. are guilty ontologically because we 6re always indebted for the of life. To repay the gift of life means to life fully and completely, with nothing held back. Boss asserts that 12 man's basic nature reveals itself to our iwmediate perception as that being that our world needs as the realm of lucidity - nece'ssary for the coming the being-able-to-appear-and-to-be of its . phenomena. However, it is just the allowing-oneself thus to-be-claimed and needed, and nothing else, which in his innermost recesses is what man owes to that Hhich is and has to be. Thus all human feelings of guilt in general are rooted in this state of owing.lO We feel guilty so often because we know we are not living up to our obligation of letting beings be, or experiencing everything we are called on to experience. As already noted, such betrayal of or disloyalty to our calling stems largely froT:'l ego/mind's desire to avoid annihilation. And to be fully open for what is requires that ego/mind be suspended, . put out of action. Hence, anxiety and guilt usually go hand in hand. But both anxiety and guilt have the ontological function of calling us back to our aliveness or authenticity. Many psychologists, theologians, and philosophers have noted that anxiety about mortality turns us away from choosing to be fully alive. and thus elicits the sense of guilt for failing to live up to our ontological Obligation to let beings be. Irvin D. Yalom summarizes this viewpoint when he says Many existential theorists have commented upon the high price exacted in the struggle to cope with death anxiety, Kierkegaard knew that man limited and diminished himself in order to avoid perception of the perdition and annihilation that dwell next door to any man." Otto Rank described the neurotic as one "who refused the loan (life) in order to avoid the paYr.lent of the debt (death)." Paul Tillich stated that "neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being." Ernest Becker r.lade a similar point when he wrote: liThe irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxietv of death and annihilation: but it is life it-self Hhich awakens it and-so we must shrink fror.l being fully alive. ,. Robert Jay Lifton used the term "psychic numbing" to describe how the neurotic incividual shields himself from death anxiety.ll Medard Boss insists that human existence "consists solely in its possibilities for relationships.nl2 As long as we resist our obligation to be open for such relations, we experience life as burdensome, boring, and threatening. Ego/mind resists taking on its obligations, for this decision requires acceptance of ego/mind's mortality. For ego/mind, 13 freedom means license to pursue happiness and to avoid sadness., Such a conception of life and freedom presupposes that they are our possessions, when in fact just the opposite is true. We are in the service of life and freedom. According to Heidegger, freedom means the free- realm of openness or nothingness in which beings can be manifest. This gift can be repaid only by letting ourselves be this openness as fully as possible. Authenticity means resolving to be the openness into which we have already been thrown. Before turning to a discussion of resoluteness, I would like to note that the training would do well to itself to the phenomena of death, anxiety, and guilt more explicitly than is done. Trainees could be reminded that the reason they feel anxious and guilty is that they are not living fully. Hence, they should be made aware that anxiety and guilt should be welcomed; these painful experiences summon us back to aliveness. The mood of anxiety cannot be lIerasedtl by getting in touch with some incident from the past or by doing anything at all; anxiety disappears only when we let go of egol mind and pass through nothingness. To elicit the mood of anxiety, it may be advisable to let the trainees spend more time "just sitting," in silenCe, without being addressed by the trainer or anyone else. Since the "Truth 11 cannot be spoken, but only experienced in silence, it is perhaps fitting that the training make a place for periods of silence. 14 4. Resoluteness and Freedom. According to Heidegger, resoluteness has a two-fold meaning. On the one hand, resoluteness (Entschlossenheit refers to the decision or cho necessary to be opened up for what The verb means to un-lock or un-fasten, so that ness means an un-locking of the shut-down self. On the other hand, resoluteness also means disclosedness (Erschlossenheit. Note that the English word "resolution" means Dot only decision or choice, but the clarity of an optical Resoluteness resolving to be open for and responsive t9 one's own finite, specific possibilities. Because ego/mind identifies.limitation-and fini tude tv! th death) it flees from the disclosure of one's own finite possibilities and loses itself in distractions, delusions, and fantasies. This is called a "full life'!! Genuine resoluteness means entering responsibly into relationships; letting those around us be who they are. Resoluteness becomes fully itself when it anticipates mortality and nothingness. We are familiar with the Zen tale of the hanging from a root over a 1000 foot chasm, while a hungry tiger snaps at him from the Ie above. As the root begins to pull away, the frantic man suddenly notices a strawberry growing on a plant that clings to the rocky cliff. How sweet it tastes to him! Boss reminds us that when we choose to be just precisely who we already are, existence loses its bUrdensome character: , The burden and oppression are overcome in the joyous readiness to place hinself without reservation at the disposal of all phenomena as the lir:;ht and clearing into which they can appear and unfold and as their custodian.13 Freedom, then, is not to get out of things or to avoid responsibility, but the to get into life. Gettine into life means experiencing completely everything that presents itself to us -whether it be painful or joyous, boring or indifferent. We becone tired, resentful, and disillusioned because we know that we are not being responsively open to what offers itself to us. We are fully open, alive, and ourselves when we participate in life. Such 15 participation requires that we remain loyal to what calls upon us. Freedom means choosing or affirming necessity: letting be what already is. What ego/mind seeks above all is some ground on which to stand, some source ,of security and certainty that will guarantee its survival. The quest for certainty, however, ends in the mechanical existence that usually passes for lilife." Being free and resolved, then, means taking the leap into the no-thingness or clearing that constitutes existence. And this leap, curiously enough, brings one right back to the place from which one started: one's own life-situation. But now one has different eyes with which to see. The Testament Claims that only God's saving grace forgives and frees us from the burden of sin; yet we must make the decision to accept this grace. We hesitate to let go because ego/mind resists annihilation. Rudolf Bultmann, the great Protestant theologian who was associated closely with Heidegger during the 1920s, remarks that to cboose God means to let the world go and to let one's security go wlth It. There is nothing enticing about that! On the Jcontrary, that demands a "hard saying,1I a Ustumbling block" which terrifies because it is the end of man . But just that end is life: to win back one's self as a once again to be in the potentiality of being and to have a future. 14 According to Bultmann, Heidegger, and many others, authentic existence involves a radical transformation of our experience of time. Let us consider this transformation in the next section. 16 5. Authenticity and Temporalitv. According to Heidegger, human existence or Dasein constitutes the temporal-historical clearing in which beings can be manifest or revealec. To be human means to be temporal--opened up through past, present, and future. When we are inauthentic or mechanical, we experience time as a linear series of events stretching behind and ahead of us. The "now" is reduced to a split-second that is of no importance. For the inauthentic self, the past is either the burden of guilt or the store-house for the memories that give "meaning" to an unhappy life. In either cise, past produces death in the present. Ego/mind or IIpersonality" is always of the past and therefore always already. dead. I f one is not burdened by the dead past, one is often . 'anxiety-ridden about the security-threatening future. Such inauthentic temporality arises from the fact that ego/mind constricts the openness of humar. existence so much that all that can appear to it are menories or delusions, the stuff of guilt and anxiety. As inauthentic, we do not dwell at all in the present; we never really are. We are spread out into the now-dead past and the not-yet future. To be authentic requires that we open up to what really is, and doing so requires a radical of our temporality. Heidegger tells us that such a transformation is called kairos, the New Testament term for the "time of fulfillment. illS In kairos or the (Augenblick), one no longer experiences as the burdensome past or threatening future, but as the ever-present moment of eternity, in which all that one has been and all that one will ever be are always already right here and now. Future reveals itself as the unfolding of my ever-present possibility for world-openness, while past reveals itself as the fate that is setting up my future possibilities. Opened up in this way, I no longer experience people or other beings merely as objects to be manipulated by and for the ego/mind or subject. Instead, beings shine forth as they are in themselves. As authentic temporality, L let beings be. Hence, the significance of the title of Heidegger's most important work: Being and Time (Sein und Zeit). HTime" refers to the nothingness or absence or context in which presencing or "manifesting (Being) can occur. 17 In the training, some mention is made of t i m e ~ but more discussion of this crucial phenomenon is in order. The ordinary experience of time as a line can be contrasted with the authentic-ecstatic experience of time as the self-circling spiral of eternity. Linear time belongs to ego/mind; spiralling time belongs to authentic existence. When I exist as spiralling time, I am truly creative. Let us now turn to an examination of the way in which est training uses the concept of creation. 18 6. On Creating and Being ResEonsible. One of the more controversial aspects of the training is its claim that HI am responsible for all of my experience." Usually, we say t h ~ t III am responsible for all my decisions and actions," but est makes a far more sweeping claim. Indeed, est training suggests that I am responsible for all my expreience in the sense that I create or produce it. Clearly, the 111" referred to in this context cannot be the ego/mind, but instead something like God or Atman or the Transcendental Self. Unfortunately, the pistinction between I as ego/mind and I as Atman is not always made clear in the training. Hence, trainees can become confused as to what they are capable of doing. Clearly, they have no experience of producing the sights, sounds, and feelings that they experience. So in what sense are they responsible for their experience? Only in the sense of being responsible for experiencing whatever it is that they are called on to experience--whether it be painful or joyful. The individual does not produce his or her experience, but is called on to receive it. Whether what is is produced by Atman or God or whatever is a matter of metaphysical speculation. From such speCUlation comes the peculiar claim that I am responsible for everything that has ever happened. The only HI" that can be responsible for creating the totality of events is not the I of everyday life, but Atman or God or the Transcendental Self. est training must be very careful about how it uses the terms "In and t'responsibili ty. " There is another problem with the notion that "I am responsible for all of my 'experience." At times, it is suggested that as creator of my experience, I am God in my universe, that I am alone in the world. Once again, if !'I" is understood as God or Atman, this claim can be understood as saying that each individual is a manifestation of the One. God (I) am alone in the world because all is One. Unfortunately, however, this idea is not always made clear. Some est trainees must come away with the confusing and frightening notion that they are alone in the world in the solipsistic way of the psychopath for whom there are no others but himself. For ego/mind, If I am alone in the world!! 19 means that ego/mind's desires and plans are the only ones that count. Coming from this point of certain est graduates might conclude that whatever they want is fine because there is no one else out there to object. There is danger in leaving people with this perception. There are at least two ways to clear up the situation. One way is to make sure that trainees understand the difference between the empirical ego and the transcendental ego, between ego/mind and self and God. Trainees would need reminding that I am alone in the world in the sense that everyone out there is also me, insofar as we are all manifestations of God. God views Itself through millions of people. Instead of leaving trainees with the viewpoint of success ful selfishness, a more precise discussion of self and God would lead them in the direction of for others, since other people are I and I am they- for all are God. Another way to handle the situation be to craw back from the metaphysical speculation arising from Indian philoso?hy and to replace it with something along the lines of what Heidegger says. Heidegger stresses the finitude of human existence and leaves it to metaphysicians to speculate our relationship to Atman or God. According to Heidegger, all we know is that we are the openness in which the Being of beings can manifest itself. The authentic individual is responsively open for what is. We do not produce our experience, but we do allow what is to manifest itself as what it is. Such letting be does not involve a passive sitting around, but can involve intense activity. Letting be is a calling forth. This is what Michelangelo had in mind when he said that his sculpting was an attempt to liberate the form already hidden within the marble. Heidegger that the poet, artist, and thinker give rise to language and art-works that enable us to experience things in new, more profound ways. The artist and poet are vessels or servants for the truth that works through them. Because language beings and lets them be revealed to and through us, we are obligated to be reverential in our use of-language. Indeed, we need to see that we do not use language, but instead that language uses us in order to disclose the Being of beings. 20 To say that I am responsible for my experience, then, might be re-interpreted to mean that I--as authentic temporality--am responsible for letting-be or accepting everything that presents itself to and through me. I am authentically creative when I let things come forth as what they are. Western people generally overemphasize the productive or masculine aspect of creativity; hence, our conception of God is of a great builder or maker. When we say that man is made in God's image, we conceive of man as another kind of builder or constructor. The fact is, however, that we have conceived God in terms of our own self-image. Ego/mind always sets out to rearrange and reconstruct the world in accordance with ego/mind's real or imagined needs. God is a masculine, judgmental, productive deity. H e ~ g e , the Western The Eastern conception of God as sunyata or Void provides an alternative conception of the creative aspect of the cosmos. For Eastern peoples, God is so devoid of ego/mind that It is able to let the whole universe c o ~ e into Being. God refers to the cosmic absence that enables all that is to corr.e into presence. Humans are like God when we are empty of ego/mind and open for what is. Both God and humans create by letting beings corr.e forth as they are. Humans, however, immediately impose categories and con-cepts on t."hat is, thereby erecting a "veil of Maya" or concealing the true character of reality. We then conceive of God as a separate entity that we must placate by prayer. For Eastern peoples, ho'.."ever, God is always already within us, since each of us is an instance of the Great Void. Hence, enlightenment means becoming dis-burdened or lightened-up, freed of ego/mind so that we become clear and open and receptive for what is. In certain respects, Heidegger's own philosophical development traces the shift from the active to the more receptive conception of creativity and authenticity, In his early writings, including Being and Time, he sometimes talked as if hunan Dasein could will to produce a new understanding of Being; he also spoke as if the individual could almost will himself or herself into authenticity, In his later writings, how-ever, he spoke much less of resoluteness (Entschlossenheit and mUCh more of Gelassenheit or releasement from ego/mind and self-will. 21 Authenticity came to be depicted as an event that comes over but cannot be demanded or produced by me. Hence, Heidegger returned to certain themes important in his early religious training, including the doctrine of grace. He abandoned the urgent quest for authenticity and creatiyity; he learned to cooperate with the Tao or Logos in order to let things emerge when the time was ripe. My experience with est indicates that it remains under the sway of the resoluteness that calls for decisive action to bring about changes; est does not yet exhibit much releasement from the volun-taristic approach that is characteristic of American consciousness. There is a great intention to results, whether it be trans-formation of people in the training or sufficient enrollments to let the training go on. As I indicated earlier, activity is in no way incompatible with letting beings be, but activity is most effective when it comes from a profound inner peace that is detached fron all "results." This is the nost important of all of the insights of Zen as well as of Heidegger. The intrusiveness and authoritarianism that some people find in est stems in part an overeagerness to produce or create results, an overeagerness that suggests that many people involved in est have not yet been granted releasement from the desire to "savell. If this report helps promote reflection on how to transform the masculine creativity of est with the infusion of feminine creativity, on how to temper the will to production with the calling forth of what is, I will consider what I have done to be very important. Of est already shares this feminine conception of creation as letting-be.. est claims that true communication occurs when Creating creates another Creator that re-creates the original Creator. Put in Heidegger's language, in letting another Dasein be open, in calling forth the Other to be who he or she already is, I am at the very moment letting myself be who I am: receptive openness for the Being 6f beings. Arid at the same moment that I cut off another person, I shut myself down as well. In terms of Christian theology, the mystery of the Holy Trinity expresses the est conception of communication; the 22 Father (Creator) creates a Son (Logos) who re-creates the Father. The re-creating that flows between the two is the Holy Spirit: Love. So the divine is always present when t ~ o or more human beings are in the process of letting the!llsel ves receive or ffgettl each other. ~ v h e n this occurs, the individuals realize that they are not separate but are embodiments. of the sa.'Tle Void or no-thingness. Perhaps est could benefit by placing more emphasis on this feminine-receptive dimension of IT creation. II 23 7. On Everything/Nothing vs. Being/Nothingness. Sometimes est claims that human existence is everything/nothing. Apparently, this means that human existence is the Void in which all things are. Now while Heidegger agrees that human existence constitutes the void or absence, he does not say that "Being" means "everything." Instead, refers to the meaningful presencing or self-manifesting of being that occurs in and through human existence. To identify Being with the totality of things in the universe in Heidegger's view, to Being like a thing--a super-thing, like a piece of chalk that expands infinitely. This is the mistake made by theology when it identifies Being with God, whon it conceives to be a person. For Heidegger, Being cannot be spoken of in our language, which is designed to speak of things. I can no more point to or describe Beinc, than I can Indeed, Being refers to the flip-side of nothingness. The advantage of Heidegger's notion. of Being as the finite-historical presencing of beings is he does not have to speak of the whole universe when discussing the relation between hunan existence and Being. He only has to refer to what manifests itself within our finite openness. Heicegger's thought has more in with the simplicity of Zen Buddhism than with Eindu speculation about the metaphysical structure of reality. 8. On Moving Beyond Anthropocentrism. One of the basic doctrines of Buddhism is that all beings share in Buddha-nature. Hence, the task of Mahayana Buddhism is to save all beings--rocks, trees, humans, and everything that is. To save a being means to let it be what it is. It seems to me that est, especially in light of its debt to Zen, points in the same direction, although the training is currently heavily weighted toward the salvation (letting-he) of human beings. This is understandable, since most people have a hard enough time imagining helping other out, much less helping out rocks, plants, and animals! The anthropocentric focus of est, however, is not consistent with its more notion of letting beings be. Participation and sharing mean not only sharing our lives and material goods with other humans, but also sharing the planet with the other forms of life that are here with us. The natural step beyond the Hunger Project, then, would be the Planet Project aiming at saving the planet from environmental destruction, either from industrial-ization or from nuclear warfare. vlliat est is involved with is promoting the paradign shift that is required to bring about the radical trans-formation of life on the planet. It is perhaps appropriate at this tine to begin indicating explicitly just how radical this transformation will have to be. 2S 9. On Heritage and Tradition. In 1966, Heidegger remarked: According- to our human experience and history, at least as far as I see it, I know that everything essential and everything great originaterl from the fact that man had a home and was rooted in a 'tradition. Now that 'est has becone firmly established as an important factor in transforming consciousness in the world, it is probably time for it to acknowledge its indebtedness to the great wisdom traditions of West and East. Many people are suspicious about the intentions of est because they are told that it is something radically new and different, while in fact est is an American version of the perennial wisdom. The real inten-tion of in my view, is not to uproot people or to strip them of their heritage. but instead to empO'll'ler them to revitalize their own traditions. Someone who has taken est training is in a position to be more open for the truth of scripture--Vedantic or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Muslim--in a way that he or she may not have been before. est could be said to be in the service of philosophy and religion; its aim is to remind people of their obligation to be alive and to render service to the beings of the world. In thus repaying the gift of life, people give thanks in the most profound possible way. This is the essence of all great religions. A brief glance at Heidegger's thought can provide us with further guidance on how to perceive est's contribution to the revitalization of heritage and tradition. According to Heidegger, all human existence is essentially historical. Our understanding and behavior is always already guided in advance by language, customs, and the material conditions of our historical situation. "'e are "thrownU into existence. We can never overcome cut facticity, but are called on to live appropriately within it. Living appropriately does not mean passive submission, but instead an appropriate responsiveness to destiny. The factical situation of humanity in the late twentieth century is one of terrible crisis: T:lass starvation, and the threat of nuclear war. 26 Heidegger suggests that we have arrived at this situation because the Being of beings has been reduced to "objectivity". For a thing to be .now means for it to be an object, or raw material, for the human subject. We have murdered God and set ourselves up as the sole measure for truth and reality; what is good is what some human being or group of human beings says. is good. A genuine re-appropriation of our wisdom traditions would require a new revelation of humanity's place in the cosmos. Unless we learn to dwell harmoniously with other humans and with all beings on the planet, we are doomed. If we continue the way we are going at present, we will destroy ourselves in spirit even if we somehow manage to survive as a species. Modern humanity finds itself in the same situatio as the sorcerer's apprentice: we now have access to the sorcerer's book of magic (science and technology) but we lack the mature wisdom to know how to use these magical powers appropriately. Just as the mechanical or inauthentic individual does not let his or her experience be what it is, so Western humanity does not let beings be what they are, but subjugates them as commodities to enhance his domination of the earth. The individual and collective hubris involved here invites nemesis. est finds itself in a unique position to help create the context in which modern humanity can begin making the critical paracigm shift necessary for survival of humanity and the planet earth. 17 27 10. Miscellaneous Observations. A. It would be interesting and helpful if the trainers would more often point out that they are making wonderful puns when they say things like "Nothing is without agreement" and "Transformation occurs by passing through nothingness." Ordinarily, we understand the first phrase to mean that all things require agreement in order to be. From Heidegger's however, we would say that no-thingness or the Void '!is" '(or "nothings" ) without agreemen:t. That is. prior to our establishing agreements about what things are, no-thingness holds open the hroizon or context in which beings can be manifest: When the trainer says that transformation occurs by passing through nothingness, the point seems to be that only by passing through the experience of nothingness (anxiety) can one be transformed, i.e., become the nothing-ness that one already is. B. Is it necessary to rank the "levels of experience"? Can we really say that catatonia, criminality, and so on are "higher" or "less negative" than "reasonableness"? This is far-fetched, even though the claim is evidently made for emphasis. C. What is the purpose behind saying in the Phrases that I can project myself into the mineral, anc animal realms? This seems so bizarre that it tends to get in the way of the rest of the content of the Phrases. I assune that the-idea of projecting ourselves to all parts of the universe stems from some notion that we are the All-in-AII, Atman or Transcendental Self, that constitutes the whole of reality so that, in fact, we are always already everywhere. While interesting, this doctrine is never adequately discussed in the training and cannot be verified (except by direct experience of the observer). so it would seem to be useless metaphysical speculation. Surely Heidegger or a Zen master would never speak like this. D. Trainers seem to make free and easy use of phrases like "coming from the ground of Being of ," If such terminology is to be used at all, it should be defined carefully and in terms that are consistent with the rest of the est program. In there is a tendency to be somewhat incomplete about philosophical ideas presented the training. Often an idea 15 introduced, but is not discussed again even though it would be helpful to show how idea either changes during the training, or how it helps ground the training. Granted that the training emphasizes experiential rather than cognitive insight, I still believe that complete communication of crucial philosophical ideas would be beneficial to the training. E. Certain claims made about the "anatomy of the mind/' need to be re-eval-uated, including the idea that t!1e mind contains "total" records of everything. Here is another instance of metaphysical specu-lation based on the notion that individual mind is aspect of Atman or Cosmic Mind. Even if this idea is "true," is it necessary for "getting" the. point of the training? F. Continuing efforts should be made to discourage the formation of a cultish consciousness about being an est graduate. Certain graduates show that they failed to understand the training when they conclude that they are somehow "better" than non-graduates. The arrival of hundreds of friends and relatives at graduation has positive aspects, but also contributes to the sense that one has now joined a "select!! group. There is also a strong tendency to interpret "sharing" the training to mean inviting other people to take it. This interpretation of sharing is fine as far as it goes, but clearly it is linked to the organization's need to market the training. Equal time needs to be given to the more fundamental idea of sharing from out of which all genuine inviting comes: sharing the training means loving oneself just as one is, and loving others just as they are--whether or not they ever take the training. This point was made very clearly during the Communications Workshop I had the privilege of taking in January in Concord. It is para-doxical, I think, but true that assuring people that they don't have to ., do" anything to share the training gives them more room to do somethine. like inviting friends and relatives to take the training. No doubt trainers are already aware of this fact, but it should be emphasized. 29 Conclusion. I believe that est training could benefit it it were to adopt some of the suggestions that I have outlined above, although est would continue to be successful and important even if it chose to ignore these suggestions. In my estimation, the most important areas to be considered are: making clear that II getting it" does not mean successful selfishness or the pursuit of satisfaction; emphasizing the role of death y anxiety, and guilt in human life; clarifying what is mean by saying that "I am for all my experience!!; giving more emphasis to the feminine form of creativity or letting-be; and locating est within the context of the perennial wisdom that calls on humanity to find its appropriate dwelling-place within the cosmos. It has been both instructive and informative for me to have had the occasion to prepare this report. It was also of great value for me to have had the opportunity to observe the training. As a result of that experience, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of service, participation, and sharing. Life finds its fullest expression within a healthy community. 31 17For a consideration of how Heideggerts thought points the way to the radical paradigm-shift that we now require, cf. my essay-"Toward a Heideggerean Ethos for Radical Environmentalism," included here as an Appendix. For a more detailed treatment of Heidegger struggle to move from resoluteness to releasement, cf. my "Heidegger's 'Existentialism' Revisited," also included here as an Appendix. Notes lSteven M. Tipton, Getting Saved from the (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 2Quoted by Irvin D. Yalom in Existential Psychothera.2Y (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1980), p. 444. In this excellent book, Yalom offers a somewhat misguided criticism of est. 3Cf . Medard Boss, "Anxiety, Guilt and Psychotherapeutic Liberation)" Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, 2 (1962), p. 185. 4Ken 'Ililber, The Spectrum of Consciousness n']heaton, Ill.: The Theophilosophical Publishing House, 1977), pp. 204-205. 5Martin Heidegger, :.eing and trans. by John :Hacquarrieand Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 309. p. 31L 7Ibid., p. 358. BCharles H. Sherover, "Founding an Existential Ethics," Human Studies, 4 (1981), pp. 229-230. 9Medard Boss, and Daseinanalysis, trans. by Ludwig B. Lefebre (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1963), p. 70. lOBoss, I!Anxiety, Guilt and Psychotherapeutic Liberation,1I p. 188. 11Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy, p. Ill. l2Medard Existential Foundations of and Psycho1oy, trans. by Stephen Conway and Anne Cleaves (New York: Jason Aronson, 1979), p. 112. 13Boss, "Anxiety, Guilt and Psychotherapeutic Liberation," p. 189. 14Rudolf Bultmann, Faith and trans. by Louise Pettibone Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 170. lSFor a fuller treatment of the idea of kairos and other topics relating to Heidegger, cf. my EcliEse of the Self: The of Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981). 16nOnly a God Can Save Us: Der Spiegel's interview with Martin Heidegger," trans. by Maria P. Alter and John D. Caputo, Philosophy Today, XX (Winter, 1976), p. 277. 30