A Note on Openness

　　by

　　Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　© 1998

　　The sudden entry into general circulation of a familiar term with a new ambience of meaning often has a significance that goes beyond mere philological curiosity. Since language is molded by thought at a level prior to and more basic than that of deliberate design, such changes in linguistic currency may well signal deeper changes taking place in the mental make-up of those who use the term. They can be seen as barometric indicators of transformations in the sphere of consciousness — in our patterns of thinking, in our attitudes, in our goals.

　　If there is one term that might be chosen to characterize the intellectual and moral climate of the present day, it would be the word "openness." This seemingly colorless word has come to mark the fulfillment of the centuries-long struggle against the oppressive weight of established tradition in so many perse departments of human concern. Its three syllables are a hymn of victory for the triumph of the empirical method over formulated dogma as the key to knowledge, for the primacy of inpidual conscience over prescribed morality in the domain of ethics, and in our private lives, for the replacement of the reign of the superego by a new-found liberty to explore the subterranean channels of impulse and desire in whatever direction they might lead.

　　Perhaps most importantly, the notion of openness also points to a particular attitude toward experience, an attitude which has quietly permeated our culture so thoroughly that it now seems almost an innate human disposition. Briefly, this attitude might be described as a soft and affable affirmation of experience in its totality, coupled with a pliant receptivity to its full range of forms. This attitude, it must be stressed, only rarely solidifies into a consciously held conviction; more typically it lingers in the background of the mind as an unverbalized intuition, a fluid and shifting orientation toward the world. Historically rooted in the widespread decline of belief structures centered upon a transcendent goal of human life and an objectively grounded scale of values, the philosophy of openness takes all truth to be relative, all values personal and subjective. Thus it holds that our task in life is to open ourselves as fully as we can to the unfolding miracle of existence and to celebrate its infinite possibilities.

　　The spread of this attitude through the general culture has left its stamp on current interpretations of Buddhism as well. We thus find that for many of today”s Buddhist teachers the Dhamma is essentially a method for arriving at the consummation of all that the notion of openness implies. From this perspective Buddhism is not a doctrine with its own distinct body of tenets, not a discipline guiding us to a supramundane goal, but a tool for opening to the here and now. The most basic flaw at the bottom of human suffering, it is held, is our tendency to close ourselves off from experience, to lock ourselves with our concepts and judgments into a limited compartment of reality. By developing through meditation a non-discriminating "choiceless" awareness which allows whatever arises to hold its ground, we are enabled to break through our constraints and merge with the stream of events, to dance with the "ten thousand things" — accepting them all yet without clinging to them.

　　While the advocates of openness are usually adroit in assimilating their principles to the classical Dhamma, a careful examination would reveal gaping differences between the two. Here I want to focus only on some crucial differences in their respective orientations toward experience. It should be noted at once that whereas the school of openness bids us to drop our discriminations, judgments and restraints in…

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