28 | Consciousness and Empathy in the Gita and Lao Tzu

Welcome to the Cow Behind the Barn: A podcast exploring humanity, the world, and the divine, as experienced and interpreted by an artist. I’m Kevin Caldwell, a co-finder of the Table Collective.

What is “really real,” and what is it like? What is the world made of, and what are we made of?

As I watch my grandchildren get older, I realize my questions are not that different from theirs. 

They are figuring out things like Santa Claus, and that begs questions about what is real and what isn’t. Santa is a great example because there is a bit of myth, a lot of legend, and some history all wrapped up in how Santa became such a big deal.

They are asking “ontological questions”!

The other day one of my grandsons said, “I’m sorry you’re getting old, and you have an owie.” And then came the big one, “when are you going to die?”

He was four when he asked that.

So, they are asking existential questions.

 

And the Point Is…?

What does this have to do with the podcast? 

Well, first, I started this Episode like this because I worry that my recaps must get monotonous for any of you who listen every week. I don’t want to not do a recap, because there are also new people almost every week. So, I wanted to mix things up a bit. Ergo, grandkids and ontology and existential stuff.

At the same time, asking about what is really real is just another way to express the questions that have driven the journey that this podcast has become for me as I explore how to answer, “where and when did I begin?”

What does where, and when, and I even mean? That is, what is real, really, and what is Real really like?

Almost 30 Episodes being on the trail of “where and when did I begin” has brought me to the place of describing reality in terms of quantum entanglement as a primary element in the nature of the cosmos (where), memory as our primary way of experiencing time (when), and empathy as the fundamental ingredient in the nature of both small c and Big C consciousness (the “I”).

Which means I am asking whether empathy is at the core of how I understand the nature of the divine.

In this Episode, I plan to include insights about all this from the Gita and from Lao Tzu. That seems fitting since in the previous Episode I was in the world of Buddhism and turning now to these fellow eastern heritages seems a natural step. 

While looking at how the Buddha might see this, I explored the Four Brahmaviharas. These four qualities paint a picture of reality as Compassion, Empathy, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity. I made the observation that these four seem to represent what is truly real for the Buddha, though whether he would have understood reality in the sense of a divine being is a whole other question.

According to mainstream Buddhism, he did not see things that way, which is one reason why I began with the Buddha. I wanted to begin from a non-theistic or even atheistic approach to the nature of reality and the question of whether empathy factored into that understanding or not.

Atheism of course is the view that there is no supreme divine being. On the other end of the spectrum, pantheism is the view that the divine being is all there is. I think it would be interesting to go from the nontheist world of the Buddha to the Gita, which in popular and overly simplistic terms represents a pantheistic worldview.  

So, what does the Gita have to say about my theory that empathy might be at the heart of what is really real?

Let me allow the Gita to speak for itself first.

 

What the Gita Says:

The Bhagavad Gita emphasizes empathy and compassion in several places.  

In 12.13-14, Krishna says, “those devotees are very dear to me who are free from malice toward all living beings, who are friendly, and compassionate. They are free from attachment to possessions and the self, equally composed when experiencing happiness or distress, and always forgiving.”

There are echoes of this in the 4 Brahaviharas.

Chapter 16.1-3 records Krishna’s description of “saintly” virtues, which paint a picture, he says, of the divine nature. “Fearlessness, purity of mind, steadfastness in spiritual knowledge, charity, control of the senses, sacrifice, study of the sacred books, austerity, and straightforwardness; non-violence, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, peacefulness, restraint from fault-finding, compassion toward all living beings, absence of covetousness, gentleness, modesty, and lack of fickleness; vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, bearing enmity toward none, and absence of vanity.”

These are important passages in describing the kind of moral and spiritual character the Gita holds up as the ideal for human beings to pursue and cultivate. However, empathy is not fully transparent in the description.

Then in 6:32 Krishna tells Arjuna that the character to emulate is the person who “puts themselves in the place of others at all times and seeing their own identity with the other, is able to experience their pain and pleasure." 

In addition to specific moral principles about non-violence and detachment, humility, etc., the Gita promotes compassion as a crucial aspect of spiritual growth, a path to spiritual enlightenment and connection with the divine Self. And now in emphasizing the importance of putting ourselves in the place of others, the Gita puts empathy at the center of its vision for spiritual transformation.

There is an ethical element here, and an emotional one: we are encouraged to act and to feel as if we are in the place of another person. That is what I am referring to as an existential element.

 

Empathy and the Gita

However, empathy in the Gita is rooted in far more than an ethical or emotional or psychological reality.

The Upanishads are a collection of philosophical texts that date back to around 800-500 BCE. The Bhagavad Gita, which is believed to have been written perhaps a hundred years after the Upanishads, shares much of its worldview, including the understanding that everything is interconnected and shares the same essence. 

That means that when Krishna teaches Arjuna to “see all beings as himself” there is both an ontological and existential element to the teaching, and the two are connected. Let me explain that in more detail.

 

Essence and Empathy

Two important words, advaita and atmaupamyata describe what I am calling the ontological and existential dimensions of empathy as the Gita presents them.

 

Advaita:

The term advaita is a very important philosophical and spiritual term in the traditions of the entire sub-continent, what Europeans began to call India long before the formation of the India we know today. Advaita is a Sanskrit word meaning “not two” or “no second.” Thus, the term conveys the idea that the inner self, small a atman, is the same as the big S self, big A Atman. 

The Bhagavad Gita, while not explicitly using the term advaita, contains teachings that align with the concept. The Gita emphasizes the unity of the Self/Atman and ultimate reality and teaches that the individual self is ultimately identical with the universal Self. 

In other words, whether we feel empathy or not, whether we allow ourselves to feel the feelings of another “as if” they were our feelings, or as if we were that person, we actually have a far deeper “empathetic” connection with everyone and with everything. For at the end of the day, we are the same. We are not just “as if” another, we are each other.

Empathy is ontological.

That doesn’t mean there is no experiential aspect.

Atmaupamyata:

One of the most important Sanskrit words which can be rendered empathy is atmaupamyata. The word is literally “putting oneself in the place of another.”  It is the word used in Gita 6, which I cited above, where we saw that the character to emulate is the person who “puts themselves in the place of others at all times,  seeing their own identity with the other, is able to experience their pain and pleasure."

It seems that feeling the pain of others as our own is akin to the compassion Brahmavara, and the sympathetic joy Brahmavihara is akin to feeling the pleasure of others as our own.

In sense they are two different out working’s of the empathy Brahmavihara.

Back to the Gita.

I call this the existential dimension in the sense that there is an encouragement here in the Gita to “activate” the ontological quality. To cultivate it, to live in day-to-day life and experience as if it is true that we “are in the place of each other.” In other words, in keeping with the longer tradition of the Upanishads and the more general worldview of the sub-continent, the Gita teaches both the ontological and the existential reality of empathy. 

The ontological reality is that we are all the same, we share the same essential “beingness.” 

The existential reality means to live in conformity with that ontological reality, to live in accord with what we are. And so, to treat others in accord with what we are. 

Is there a way to try to imagine and experience this? An artistic way?

I am nervous about the song I am about to share. On the one hand, I like where I think the song is headed, what it will turn out to be, but it is not there yet! This is a very unfinished and unpolished work.I feel a bit raw sharing it in this state!

I called it “Memories of Trees” and though written a number of weeks before I came to some of the ideas I am exploring now, it is an attempt to capture themes I am working with related to entanglement, and memory, and empathy.

If consciousness, and Consciousness, is entangled with everything, and if the essence of this entanglement is empathy, and if our primary way of experiencing our entanglement is through memory, then what might be the collective memories stored in the interconnected consciousness that we share with trees, and they with us?

The Memories of Trees…

 

Memories of Trees                                        

The memories of trees are stored in ancient circles that are curling

Wheels upon wheels of stories unseen growth rings are unfurling

Trees measure out their lives, concentric passing years and days

A pattern of circles that shrinks, and swells, seasons of dry and rain

The memories of trees record the echoed laughter of the voices

Of the ones who made their plans in leaf shade dancing on their faces

 

Leaves carry our dreams in the silent trees

They may fall or they may burn 

                  Then turn back to the dust, 

Dreams and leaves still breathing, waiting to return

                  In the memories of trees

 

Memories of trees lean down to catch every eager whispered word

Turn them into the flowing sap with all the voices they have heard

Trees are waiting to tell the world all those things they’ve stored away

They embrace our songs within their rings, holding all we used to say

The memories of trees are swelling, shrinking, wide and narrow

Distilled into their amber sap to record a new tomorrow

 

Leaves carry our dreams in the silent trees

They may fall or they may burn 

                  Then turn back together to the dust, 

Dreams and leaves still breathing, waiting to return

                  In the memories of trees

In the memories of trees

                  In the memories of trees

 

Perhaps one way to seek to experience this, today, would be to place ourselves near a tree and imagine that it contains in its rings the collective memories of others, other things and animals and birds and people, and now yours, and you in turn, receiving and giving. 

In fact, that is where I am going now…outside to find a tree. Well, at least, “right now” in the sense of while crafting these notes! 

Imagine I am sitting back down now after a pause.

To put the Gita’s worldview in my own turn of phrase, in the Gita I am not just me, and you are not just you, we are each other. If we allow ourselves to not only think this way but also feel this way, then empathy is inescapable.

Lao Tzu and Taoism?

The Tao Te Ching doesn't explicitly use the word empathy. Several passages touch upon the theme of compassion.

In fact, compassion is one of the three great treasures Lao Tzu identifies. Sometimes rendered “pity, frugality, humility”, in Derek Lin’s translation they are compassion, conservation, and “not daring to be ahead.”

Here is the passage;

 

“I have three treasures

I hold on to them and protect them

The first is called compassion

The second is called conservation

The third is called not daring to be ahead in the world.

 

Compassionate, thus able to have courage

Conserving, thus able to reach widely

Not daring to be ahead in the world

Thus, able to assume leadership…

 

If one fights with compassion, then victory…

Heaven shall save them…

And will guard them with compassion.”

 

As I have shared already, the way I am exploring the concept of empathy leads me to see it differently than compassion. Compassion is a sense of care, concern, and mercy and tenderness towards another, or “with” another, alongside them.  

I am looking at empathy in the sense of feeling what another feels “as if” I am that other person or being.

The fact that Lao Tzu does not use the word empathy does not mean the Tao Te Ching has nothing to say on the question.

One of the main themes of Lao Tzu’s poem is that everything is interconnected with and by the Tao, everything flows from, and flows in and with the Tao, the Way. That is ontological.

According to Lao Tzu we can elect to live in disharmony, we can go against the Tao, which means that we can choose to go against nature, by living and thinking and acting in ways that are out of sync with the natural essence of all things, including being out of sync with our own essence as human beings. Which implies we can do the reverse as well. That is existential. 

The mysterious way that the Tao is the source and inner reality, and flow of all things is captured in the opening stanza of the poem:

 

“The Way that can be walked is not the eternal Way.

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth.

The named is the mother of all distinct, separate things.

 

Therefore:

Free from desire you see the mystery.

Full of desire you see the manifestations.

These two have the same origin but differ in name.

That is the secret,

The secret of secrets,

The gate to all mysteries.”

 

This way of seeing interconnectedness is closely related to how I am speaking of empathy as a key element or ingredient in ultimate reality, or Source, or the divine. It is also similar to what we outlined previously about the Gita’s way of seeing all things, and what I referred to as the ontological aspect of empathy. According to the Gita you and I are each other, we are each other’s selves, since in the Gita every self is ultimately not merely connected with large S Self but is one with that Self. 

For the Tao Te Ching the interconnection and the inner nature of what we are and what it is within us that is connected with each other and with all things is mysterious and undefinable, yet true.  As we saw in stanza 1, and noted in prior Episodes, if we can name something it is not the thing we are naming. The Tao is beyond definition, but the Tao is real, it is what truly “is.” Ontological. 

In addition to the way that the Tao Te Ching present an ontological basis for interconnection, and thus “ontological empathy,” Lao Tzu’s poem also points to an existential dimension. Namely that by intentionally cultivating alignment and harmony with the Tao, we can cultivate interconnection. 

Other Taoist principles like wu wei (effortless action) and ziran (naturalness) come into play here for these encourage us to align with the Tao by fostering a state of awareness and action that can lead to greater compassion. Indeed, one of the most frequently mentioned ways to cultivate existential alignment in the Tao Te Ching is to cultivate compassion for all beings. That existential compassion is rooted in our interconnection with the Tao, In other words with our ontological empathy.

 

A Pause

This seems like a good place to pause and to allow ourselves to allow empathy and compassion to be more than ideas. 

Imagine if we saw the entire cosmos rooted in empathy in its very being?

Imagine if you and I lived in keeping with that essential element of the cosmos?

I am going to share a poem here that I have not shared in a while. I wrote it during what is called “Ghost Month” while my wife and I were living in Malaysia. Among other things, Ghost Month is the season in which the dead revisit the world and there are all sorts of traditions and taboos to be attentive to for the living. For me, the idea of the season and the inner life of the poem both allow for an expression and experience of memory (here, memory of lost loved ones and family members), entanglement (our interconnected ways of sharing the universe, including beyond death), and empathy and compassion (towards the dead, and perhaps on their part towards us). To me it is a chance for healing. Healing rooted in empathy.

Here is Ghost Month…

 

Ghost Month

It's Ghost Month again.

When the lanterns float to the sky and light the path for souls who seem to have lost their way.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When the tables are spread, and feasts and empty places wait for the almost forgotten to return.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When no one sits on the last bus of the day, and we point our shoes away from our beds.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When the setting sun sees footsteps plodding home to rest each room uncertain which is host or guest or ghost.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When the dead walk from the edges of dreams and memories of grief into the deepness of the dawn.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When women sweep paper ashes from the night back into the shadows of bin and garbage bag.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When faces peer furtive then stop to turn and open their bolted doors.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When living and dead both look each over and wonder just briefly if they’ve met.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

When for one cycle of the moon we see things as they are and all the ghosts, 

Both the living and the dead,

Share houses streets and sun and moon and at night lay and dream together 

In the same beds.

 

It's Ghost Month again.

 

As I sit with that poem, I am trying to imagine which “ghost”, as it were, I might need to visit with, set a place for, and talk with. Talk about what? That is where the healing can come, perhaps.

Well, as we have seen, both the Gita and the Tao Te Ching include ontological and existential ways of describing empathy. And in the last Episode I described how I see Buddhist thought, from a very different starting place in terms of world view, leads to a similar result.

Buddhism is generally far less confident in making any assertions about ontology, about the “is-ness” of reality than the Gita. And despite Lao Tzu’s insistence on the mysterious undefinable nature of the Tao, he still insists that the Tao is.

However, my journey through those three religious heritages is bringing me to a similar set of conclusions relative to the question I posed as I began to move from exploring human consciousness to the question divine, or big C Consciousness, or at least, “more than individual human consciousness.”

So, as I begin to conclude this Episode, I am circling back to the “where and when did I begin” question.

What does where, and when, and I even mean? That is, what is real, really, and what is Real really like?

I posed something like a thesis as I turned from small c consciousness to big C Consciousness. I posed a description of reality in terms of quantum entanglement as a primary element in the nature of the cosmos (where), memory as our primary way of experiencing time (when), and empathy as the fundamental ingredient in the nature of both small c and Big C consciousness (, the “I”). 

I am not surprised of course to have discovered that the three religious heritages, and the heritage of physics, and the philosophical heritages I have consulted all speak about reality in different languages. I use “language” here both in the linguistic sense and in the sense of employing very different vocabularies and concepts. 

But I do see a consistent framework so far that provides (for me) support at a deep level for my suggestion that empathy might be at the core of how I understand the nature of reality, and for me that means the nature of the divine.

Physics speaks of the entanglement and the way particles interact.

The Buddha and the Gita and the Tao Te Ching refer to the divine abiding’s (Buddha), and the Self (Gita), and the Way (Lao Tzu).

I am seeing these as different ways of describing the same thing: the profound ontological interconnection we share with each other and with all things, and the profound potential then for existential expression of that ontological reality in the course of interactions with each other and with all things, that is, through empathy.

Empathy is ontological, rooted in “isness.” And this empathy can be “existential”, experienced and cultivated.

I will repeat some questions I shared before:

Imagine if we saw the entire cosmos rooted in empathy in its very being?

Imagine if you and I lived in keeping with that essential element of the cosmos?

Personally I want to spend time with that in quiet. I hope you do as well.

Well, after I do that, there are still a few other stops to make, namely the so-called western religious world, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritages. I need to get to work on that!

So, until next time….