Cutting through false dualisms:Transformative social change

as a moral framework for psychological research

Robert Beshara

Absolute truth (the ontology of transformation)

Relative truth (the epistemology of social change)

The two truths doctrine is nondual, nonreductionist, and transmodern

Hume Dilthey Husserl Brentano

Science, what is it all about? Techmology, what is that all about?

Wisdom

Psyche and Eros

The holographic

Mind

Self as homunculus

Self as body

Primordial awareness

The Unconscious

Meditation

Scientific modernity in the Age of Enlightenment

Psyche as mind…

as a function

of brain

Deism: “Forget God, let’s focus on Nature”

Exploitation

Ecological crises

Charles W. Tolman’s moral philosophy

• Values: Highly subjective, individualized, and particular.

• Ethics: Standards of conduct, usually in restricted spheres; prudential.

• Morality: Objective, social, and universal.

The moral law of karma

The mind-body problem

Cartesian Dualism

Monisms: physicalism, reflexive monism, dialectical

monism, double-aspect theory, etc.

Empirical Pluralism

The subject-object problem

The noumenon (the thing-in-itself)

and the phenomenon

Other (false) dualismsconsciousness the unconscious

The West (us)

The East (them)

Judeo-Christianity IslamSelf Other

Rationalism (deduction)

Empiricism (induction)

Modernity PostmodernityQuantitative Qualitative

Science (knowledge)

Philosophy (wisdom)

Critical TranspersonalNoumenon PhenomenonSamsara Nirvana

The two truths doctrine• Absolute truth: the ontology of

transformation• Relative truth: the epistemology of

social change• Absolute truth + relative truth = the

axiology of transformative social change

The ontology of transformation

The 5 skandhas/aggregates

1. Form (body)2. Feelings (sensations)3. Perceptions 4. Mental/karmic formations (51 of

them)5. Consciousness (8 of them)

The 8 layers of consciousness

1. Body + touching = tactile consciousness2. Eyes + seeing = visual consciousness3. Ears + hearing = auditory consciousness4. Nose + smelling = olfactory consciousness5. Tongue + tasting = gustatory consciousness6. Mind + thinking = mental consciousness

7. Manas-vijñāna (dualistic consciousness)8. Alaya-vijñāna (aka storehouse/substrate

consciousness), where our karmic seeds are stored. “[T]he psyche is conditioned by the body and its physical interaction with the environment , but it emerges from the substrate consciousness" (Wallace, 2007, pp. 15-16).

The 18 dhātus:

6 sense organs + 6 sense

objects = 6 consciousness

es

Primordial awareness"In contrast to the substrate consciousness, which can be

viewed as the relative ground state of mind, according to the Great Perfection, primordial consciousness (jñāna) is characterized as the absolute state of consciousness. This state of perfect symmetry--internally undifferentiated in terms of any concepts or qualities--entails the lowest possible state of mental activity, with the highest possible potential and degree of freedom. While the substrate consciousness is aware of the substrate--the relative inner space of the mind--the primordial consciousness is indivisibly aware of the absolute space of phenomena (dharmadhātu), which transcends the duality of external and internal space" (Wallace, 2007, pp. 19-20).

Buddha-nature: the embodiment of primordial awareness

"the buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) [which is our true nature] is 'brightly shining and pure, and originally pure, but it appears impure as it is defiled by adventitious stains and is enveloped by the skandhas, dhātus, and soiled with the dirt of attachment, hatred, delusion, and compulsive ideation'" (cited by Wallace, 2007, p. 98).

I think, therefore…

To be or not to be… That is not the question!

I am not!

The epistemology of social change

On the dualistic nature of grammar: "A quantum of force is just such a quantum of drive, will, action, in fact it is nothing but this driving, willing and acting, and only the seduction of language (and the fundamental errors of reason petrified within it), which construes and misconstrues all actions as conditional upon an agency, a 'subject', can make it appear otherwise. [...] the common people separates lighting from its flash and takes the latter to be a deed, something performed by a subject, which is called lightning [...]. But there is no such substratum; there is no 'being' behind the deed, its effect and what becomes of it; 'the doer' is invented as an afterthought, --the doing is everything" (Nietzsche, Ansell-Pearson, & Diethe, 2007, p. 26).

Social constructionism

Richard Rorty

Paul Feyerabend

Jacques Derrida

Critical discursive psychology

Embodiment/affect

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The axiology of transformative social change

Critical discursive psychology

Social constructionism

Relational Buddhism

The bodhisattva ideal: The researcher as scholar-practitioner-activist

Critical media psychology

Liberating discourses and practices