Comparative & Continental Philosophy Circle 2015

Prospects for a Tantric Practice of Platonic Loveby Noelle Lopez & Paul GerstmayrI. Platonic Love: A Lost PathIn Platos Symposium, Socrates recounts a conversation he once had with a wise mystic woman named Diotima. Diotima, he says, taught him about something very valuable: the art of love, a practice by which any person may come to lead the life most worth living for a human being. In a nutshell, this practice consists in a three-pronged evolution: first, in the way a person literally visually sees beauty; second, in the way they cognitively understand what is beautiful, and third, in the way they desire to possess beauty for themselves. A person undergoes this evolution by repeatedly exercising certain techniques: they cognitively reflect on their desires and beliefs, they create outputs that manifest and propagate their conception of beauty, and they act virtuously in order to become as divine as humanly possible. The practice culminates in wisdom. The Platonic lover becomes able to distinguish particular beauties in the world from true Beauty itself, with the result that theyre also able to create truthful art and to act truly virtuously, unconstrained by conventional aesthetic or ethical norms. Because wisdom is the aim, this art of love is properly characterized as philosophical. In this paper, we refer to this philosophical art as the practice of Platonic love.Plato depicts the philosopher Socrates as the paradigmatic practitioner of love. Socrates is different from the other symposiasts in both speech and deed. For one, he suggests that the other symposiasts speeches were pretty-sounding but untrue: they praised mere conventions and images of love, beauty, and the good, rather than the truth about these things. Later, Socrates is crowned as the wisest poet at the symposiumeven over Aristophanes and Agathon, who were both established Athenian poets of the time. Socrates also demonstrates bizarre and amazing displays of virtue: standing for hours in contemplation, living happily without material comforts, and courageously serving Athens in battle. At the end of his speech, Socrates calls the other symposiasts to join him: I myself honor the art of love and practice it especially, and I exhort others to do the same, he says (Symposium 212b5-7). Its a call for the symposiasts to step beyond the speech-giving thats characterized their time togetherbeyond mere conventional discourse to a transformational, philosophical way of life. In this paper we ask: what happened to this philosophical way of life, this practice of Platonic love? And: is there any hope of reviving it? After considering the practice of Platonic loves fate in light of early Christian spirituality, we compare it with the path of Tantra in Asia to help us answer the second question.II. How We Lost the PathThe practice of Platonic love wasnt lost immediately. Or, more specifically, fundamentally philosophical practices like that of Platonic love werent lost immediately. This is evident in the Hellenistic school of Stoicism, for instance. The Stoic way of life aimed at achieving passionless, enlightened sagehood akin to the wise Platonic lovers life most worth living. The Stoics employed familiar techniques: rational reflection on ones desires and beliefs, Socratic dialogue with oneself and others, repeated virtuous action. Later, Plotinus the Neo-Platonist also urged a Platonic love-like philosophical practice: If you do not yet see your own beauty, do as the sculptor does with a statue which must become beautiful: he removes one part, scrapes another, makes one area smooth, and cleans the other In the same way, you too must remove everything that is superfluous, straighten that which is crooked, and purify all that is dark until you make it brilliant Never stop sculpting your own statue, until the divine splendor of virtue shines in you (Ennead 1, 6, 9, 8-26)Pierre Hadot has suggested that, although we find philosophical practice akin to the practice of Platonic love as described above, this spiritual-practical activity was eventually absorbed into early Christian spirituality. In fact, influential early Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen not only located philosophical practice within Christianity; they identified Christianity as the true philosophy. As a result, non-Christian philosophia such as that manifested in the practice of Platonic love lost its identity as a practice concerned with holistic spiritual transformation. Philosophia literally, the love of wisdom became an abstract-theoretical activity relegated to universities increasingly focused on specialization and professionalization. We are still experiencing the implications of this shift. Today academia is ostensibly the path for one inspired to take up a philosophical practice like Platonic love. Yet, while academic philosophy has similarities with the practice we find described in Platos textsit involves cognitive reflection on ones beliefs, dialogue with self and othersit is dissimilar in significant ways. How often does academic philosophy demand that its practitioners be present in the world, encountering its beauties and uglinesses, calling them to use that material for contemplation? How often does academic philosophy use the study of texts as, in the words of the classically-inspired French philosopher Simone Weil, a way to develop the faculty of attention and wait upon truth? (Weil 1957) How often does academic philosophy ask us to go beyond discourse to the point of transforming our very way of living? Unfortunately, the predominantly abstract-theoretical nature of contemporary academic philosophy is incongruent with a genuine, full practice of Platonic love. Its in confronting this situation that we turn to Tantra as a path for comparison a path that may help us discern prospects for reviving a holistic practice of Platonic love.III. Tantra: A Path for ComparisonOn the other side of the globe, in India, the term aivism implies a number of distinct, but historically related systems comprising theology, ritual, observance, and yoga, which have been propagated as the teachings of the Hindu deity iva (Sanderson 1988). A aiva is a practitioner of aivism. This is not necessarily the same as a worshipper of iva. Some forms of aivism elevate the Goddess (Dev) from her usual role as ivas consort or inherent power (akti) to a position of transcendence and superiority.Tantras are the scriptural revelations of the aiva mainstream, and those following their ordinances are consequently termed tntrikas. The basic meaning of Tantra is system of ritual or essential instruction. In this special context however, it indicates a distinction between Tantra on the one hand and scriptural authority derived from the Vedas (ruti) and secondary textual traditions with Vedic claims (smti) on the other. ruti and smti together prescribe the rites, duties, and beliefs that constitute the basic order and soteriology of Hindu society. From the tntrikas point of view, Tantra promised a more powerful soteriology: Tantric initiation (dk) was held to destroy the rebirth-generating power of the individuals past actions (karma), and the ritual, as a transformative act, supposedly consubstantiated the initiand with the deity.aivas were not the only tntrikas, and the production of Tantric revelation was not a preserve of the Vedic sphere. Tantric practice flourished - in different degrees - among Jains, Vaiavas, Sun worshippers, and Mahyna Buddhists. By the second half of the first millenium CE, vast bodies of Tantric literature were coming to the fore. All Tntrikas maintained a similar relationship to their religious substrate and orthopraxy. Despised by traditionalists for overstepping the boundaries of the common systems, the Tantric practitioners themselves integrated the established practices as the outer level of a concentric hierarchy of ritual and discipline, with the potential for inner, more esoteric, transgressive Tantric practices. Some of those rites involved the consumption of meat, alcohol, and other impure substances, even sexual intercourse and mixing of caste classes.Nevertheless, adherents of Tantra should not be misunderstood as revolutionaries rejecting the hypertrophy of mainstream ritualism for a liberated cult of ecstasy. Such a view however popular would overlook the hyper-, if not super-ritualism of Tantric practice. An initiate was prepared to augment ritual duties, without abandoning, at least outwardly, preceding commitments. Hence, overall, Tantra in a broader sense came to pervade all areas of Indian religion, whilst Tantra proper or more narrowly understood was a more exclusive phenomenon.Possibly the most sophisticated Tantric system developed in India was the brilliant synthesis by Abhinavagupta, the 10th/11th century aiva-kta polymath from Kashmir. Just as in the case of Platonic love, Abhinavaguptas practice based on a theory of dynamic non-duality failed to catch on more broadly in following generations; in fact, as an elite model it probably never attracted substantial following among Tantric practitioners on the ground. Already in the 13th century, the scriptural base and knowledge of his commentators who followed a different practice had contracted. Under Muslim rule (after 1320), with changes in royal patronage, a decline in Brahmanical learning and population, conversion, and outbreaks of persecution, the very foundations of the socio-religious system for preserving complex Tantric practice had been hit, leading to a gradual extinction of its practical and ritualistic aspects. What survived was small-scale engagement with more gnostic concepts, meditative practices, or mainstream ideas. The last forms of any kind of initiatory aivism and corresponding aiva ritual probably died out in the early 20th century; the last living traditional exponent and lineage-holder of this intellectual milieau passed away in 1991. Nevertheless, domesticated, transformed, or more popular types of worship and regular practice can still be found in contemporary South Asia, and Tantric Buddhism (the Vajrayna or Mantranaya), having been exported to Tibet, Central, and East Asia in the Middle Ages; they continue to be practiced, now also in the West, with somewhat intact lineages and frameworks.IV. Tantric Platonic Love: Prospects for a New PathSo how might Tantra understood broadly as an existing set of techniques and methods not limited to any particular tradition how might this Tantra help us to revive a holistic practice of Platonic love? At this point wed like to articulate prospects for a Tantric practice of Platonic love. This practice would involve several key components common to both Tantra and Platonic love: experience of the truth of impermanence and change, desire for liberation understood as clear perception and freedom from misunderstanding, and contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one aims to know and unite with through ones practice.But what techniques and methods does this Tantric practice of Platonic love employ in light of these components? Indeed, this was one of the shortcomings of the art of love articulated in Platos Symposium: it was an excellent theory of practice, yet it lacked clearly articulated techniques by which to proceed. For inspiration here we turn to Ngndro, the foundational techniques practiced in Tantric (Vajrayna) Buddhism. On a basic model, Ngndro consists in four outer and four inner practices. The outer practices are constituted by four thoughts that turn the mind away from samsara, that is, away from the ever-repeating cycle of life, death, and rebirth. These thoughts are: preciousness (i.e. that of mortal life and existence), impermanence and change, karma, and the suffering inherent to samsara. The inner practices are each to be practiced at least 100,000 times. They are: prostrations to take refuge in the Three Jewels (Buddha, dharma, sangha), alongside the generation of altruistic motivation (bodhicitta); repetition of the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva; mandala offerings; and guru yoga practices. Several of these practices serve particularly well as techniques for cultivating the abovementioned components common to both Tantra and Platonic love. Specifically, the outer practice of thinking on impermanence and change quite clearly serves to cultivate experience of the truth of impermanence and change; the inner practices of prostrating while visualizing refuge in the Three Jewels and reciting the Vajrasattva mantra while visualizing the deity these serve to cultivate liberation understood as clear perception and freedom from misunderstanding; and finally, the inner practice of guru yoga serves to cultivate contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one aims to know and unite with through ones practice. To better understand how these Tantric practices may be integrated with Platonic love, for which the emphasis is more on a wisdom-seekers relationship to beauty, well now try out a fusion technique not in line with either tradition specifically, but intended to serve as an example of how Tantric Platonic Love may be practiced today.* TANTRIC/PLATONIC LOVE FUSION TECHNIQUES *1. To cultivate experience of the truth of impermanence and change: Think of a beautiful moment or an example of beauty from your life. Reflect on the ways in which that beauty is fragile, and has changed/will change with time. (other possibilities: how its dependent, complicit, subject to certain laws, what it would mean and look like to give it away) 2. To cultivate liberation understood as clear perception and freedom from misunderstanding: Some kind of visualization (this one more difficult to map exactly, so perhaps skip)3. To cultivate contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one aims to know and unite with through ones practice: Bring to mind a moment of clearly perceiving and experiencing beauty. Now think of the event or being that inspired this perception, this experience. Imagine yourself approaching it, approaching ituntil you are one. Rest in that oneness.6