CHOICE, SELF-TRANSCENDENCE, AND BUDDHISM

In animal or lower evolution, new ways of being arise through a number of mechanisms, as we shall see in the next three chapters. With human beings, a quite different method of self-transcendence becomes possible: conscious choice. Every human life has its habitual routines which express the status quo, and every human personality provides standard responses to

familiar experiences. So my friend believed that if he did not fight, he would have to run away. Yet, as he did then, one often faces opportunities for rising above the routine.

The chance to open a quite new direction for one's character, such as responding to provocation with equanimity, may come infrequently. But tiny opportunities for conscious self-transcendence arise all the time, hard though it is to recognise them. In such moments, a new, creative response is accessible. If one only has the confidence, one is presented with a genuine choice.

I think that this power of conscious choice is a vital human endowment. It allows meaning to enter one's life, since one can decide on the course one's life should best take. It ensures one is not impelled down instinctual roads of action, but can search out and adopt a new solution to any dilemma. It permits artistic creativity and the opening up of new styles of life, and it even permits progress to human enlightenment in the Buddhist sense, by means which we shall explore later.

A significant image of self-transcendence in the Buddhist tradition is the `going forth', in which an individual is seen leaving behind all that is familiar and secure to strike out into the unknown in search of freedom. The classic picture is of the founder of  Buddhism galloping away from his sleeping wife and child, letting go of wealth and power, to don the rags of a hunter and live as a wandering ascetic. For an aspiring Buddhist, the going forth might be a process of disentangling himself or herself from inner emotional attachments, but it also usually involves a radical change of life- style, with a drastic reduction in worldly responsibilities.

However, the heart of the Buddhist system is an unending `inner' self-transcendence. Human life is not satisfactory; the human world is obsolete in some respects and needs making anew. As well as having the means to make the same old mistakes in updated ways, people have a potential for creativity. With sufficient awareness, the existing state of affairs can always be the basis for a better one: a wiser man, say, or a more compassionate government. According to Buddhism, one can learn self-transcendence. In particular, the Buddhist teachings show how awareness can be enhanced progressively by conscious choices, so that one's actions become more effective and more realistic. Each type of consciousness is transcended, yielding a higher type which encompasses more of reality.

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