Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence

The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming manuscript, Process Buddhism & Ecofeminism: Freedom from the Master Mode.

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The most generic features of Process Buddhism are the two ultimate principles of Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence.

The principle of Open/Emptiness is the basic principle that nothing can exist that does not depend on prior (causal) and extant (mereological and imputational) conditions outside of itself, which is synonymous with the fact that nothing can be said to exist independently with a being of their own; all things are pregnant with possibilities beyond themselves, neither reducible to, nor other than, how they appear. When subject to analysis, any given occasion or nexus of occasions cannot be found to arise from itself, from another, from both itself and another, or from neither itself nor another; hence that occasion or nexus is realized to be open/empty. This exemplifies the conclusion stated at the outset of Nāgārjuna’s karika: “Not from itself, not from another, not from both, nor without cause: never in any way is there any existing thing that has arisen.” (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1.)

The principle of Inclusive-Transcendence is the governing principle that the manifold diversity of experiences which constitute an extensive, communal reality come into communion and coalescence into a novel occasion of experience that integrates the preceding occasions as part and parcel of its own internal constitution. Brought about by a decisive act of creative synthesis, the conclusion of this concrescent process of becoming results in the satisfaction of being, a being which realizes itself, not as a final, independent achievement but as an addition to the community that gave birth to it and continues to nurture it; hence that being includes its creative others yet transcends them as a novel creation in its own right. This exemplifies Whitehead’s succinct formulation of the Philosophy of Organism: “The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively ‘many’ in the process of passage into conjunctive unity.” (Process and Reality, 21.)

Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence themselves are not beings, entities, substances, properties or even essences. They are principles because they are the most generic characteristics applicable to and exemplified by all realities, realities which are neither entirely abstract/universal nor entirely concrete/particular but both at once. The principles are not entirely abstract or universal, because they refer to actual aspects of the world. The principles are not entirely concrete or particular, because they are virtual qualities without discernible boundaries. They are both abstract/universal and concrete/particular because they are generic qualities that are always instantiated by any actual occasion of experience. They are not entirely immanent because they are not of the world, but they are not entirely transcendent either because they are in the world. Therefore they are both immanent transcendentals: conditions for the possibility of experience that cannot be found outside of experience.

Open/Emptiness cannot be an object of direct empirical perception nor does it refer to the subject of such experience, but rather is the very fact that subjects and objects are mutually implicating and conditioned entities that dependently originate from one another and lack intrinsic nature, free from the extremes of existence, non-existence, both and neither. Inclusive-Transcendence cannot be rationally comprehended in its totality but rather is the living aesthesis of the cumulative creative advance into novelty whereby the many become one and are increased by one. Therefore neither principle makes it possible to possess a final, fixed, stable, enduring, perfect, and complete apprehension of reality. But it can be possible to embody a final, fixed, stable, enduring, perfect and complete synchronization of these two ultimate immanent transcendentals, which is synonymous with recognizing, in experiential praxis, their inseparable unity. They are inseparably united because they are conditions for each other: without the creativity of inclusive-transcendence, there could be nothing to realize as being open/empty since open/emptiness is a dependent concept imputed onto actual things, and without the possibility of open/emptiness there could be no novelty since novelty necessitates that things are not reducible to the way in which they appear to exist. In this way, we can understand that these two ultimates themselves are open/empty parts of an inclusively-transcendent process: since each is the necessary condition for the possibility of the other, neither one can be said to have an intrinsic nature of its own, therefore, they are two complementary aspects of a reality that exceeds reduction to either. All things are open/empty realities that are the achievements of a process of inclusive-transcendence, realities which themselves form the constituent parts of a reality qua process that includes and transcends them all and is bound to be realized as open/empty.

The embodied, experiential knowledge or gnosis that all things are the indivisible unity of the principles of Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence is the basis for overcoming the radical exclusion of humanity and nature and for obstructing incorporation of one into the other. It overcomes radical exclusion because the creative process of inclusive-transcendence implies that things are interdependently connected components of a communalizing process, each experientially participating and engaging with the community on the basis of their own unique contributions and motivations. It obstructs incorporation because open/emptiness experientially discloses the fact that nothing can be said to exist intrinsically and independently, therefore there is no possibility of a subsumption of the diversity of all realities into one final eminent reality because such a subsumption presupposes intrinsically different things being brought into an intrinsic identity. This living gnosis of the indivisible unity of the two ultimate immanent transcendentals is free from the extremes of radical exclusion and incorporation that is to be avoided by those who go forth on the revolutionary path of ecofeminism and this living gnosis is the praxis of Process Buddhism.

The synthesis of Process and Buddhism, while being coherent and consistent, is necessarily incomplete (because it is an actual part of the very process of creative advance it engages with) and indefinite or open-ended (because it is not an exception to its own rule/law/dharma that all things are open/empty), therefore it could never stand in for reality itself, but merely functions as a means of facilitating optimal, authentic, direct engagement with it. With these principles, a coherent and consistent Process Buddhist synthesis can not only function as an ally to, but be an agent of, ecofeminist revolution in order to aid in the realization of our planetary homecoming as an Earth Community — a community, or Great Communion, which is that much closer to realizing Plumwood’s assurance of the Promised Land, Whitehead’s ideal of civilization, and the Bodhisattva’s aspiration to liberate all sentient beings.