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Tibetan Buddhism / Neither-Neither

Boy in a Suitcase

20:12 / 18.02.04

A quick question you lovely lot might be able to help me with--the Austin Spare Neither-Neither technique (ie mutual annihilation of concepts by fusion with opposites) is more or less a direct lift from Buddhism, yes? Anybody know the Buddhist name of the technique and how they differ?

20:35 / 18.02.04

Duality I think. In buddhism everything is non-dual. Nivana and samsara you cant have one without the other. If there was no samsara there would be no nirvana, and vise-versa. Therefor it is non-dual. Something like that.

21:52 / 18.02.04

I think that Spare's Neither-Neither is more influenced by Taoism, but even saying this, Lao Tzu, Buddha and A.O.S. are pretty much the same when talking about The Tao (Yin-Yang), Nirvana-Samsara and the Neither-Neither. I've just read the book of pleasure the other day and this part is more or less the Tao Te Ching :

"I call it Kia i dare not claim it as myself. The Kia which can be expressed by conceivable ideas, is not the eternal Kia,"

And here's the Tao Te Ching :

"When its work is accomplished, it does not claim the name of having done it."

and :

"The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao."

In this case the Tao is replaced with the Kia.

Hope this helps.

trouser the trouserian

04:19 / 19.02.04

Boy

Gavin Semple, in ZOS-KIA: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare (Fulgur, 1995) highlights the similarity between Spare's "Neither-Neither" and Buddhist ideas:

"Spare suggests that vacuity be "obtained by exhausting the mind and body by some means or another. A personal or traditional means serves equally well", and lists mantras and postures (asana), women and wine, tennis, playing Patience and walking while concentrating on a sigil as being advantageous methods. However, he goes on to note that "None is necessary to him who has even symbolically [i.e. via a sigil] for a moment by the 'Neither-Neither' conquered the dual principle (Conception), his Ego is free from Gravity." This chimes in with the statement in the Mahayana tantra known as The Epitome of the Great Symbol that "Once the mind attaineth the tranquil state, for even the briefest moment, it understandeth the arising and cessation of thought. That which is apart from and capable of immediately arresting this birth of thoughts is the Reality."

[p23]

In a footnote to this discussion Semple notes that the Mahayana tantra belongs to the wider Sunyatavada Doctrine. He hypothesises that Spare might have come across these ideas via the works of Blavatsky.

Is that any help?

06:27 / 19.02.04

Woah! More synchronicity! I was just thinking about Helena Blavatsky about an hour or so ago, and how the book Isis Unveiled really opened up my perception. (i remembered reading it after seeing someone mention it in the book thread.)

I guess that A.O.S. was heavily influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. It's not hard to work out why given the results you can get from practising/learning from either of those two.

07:35 / 19.02.04

I don't know if Spare was directly influenced by Buddhism. When he was writing (BoP pub. 1913 when he was twenty fuckin' seven) there wasn't the glut of Buddhist translations and so forth that there is now, and he makes no mention of being influeneced in this way elsewhere in his writing. Blatvatsky and so on might have been the only stuff around. He wa defintely influenced by Taoism though (James Legge might have been the only translation available then?), as Eon notes above. He said to Kenneth Grant (somewhere I can't remember) "I knew it all in my teens" implying he had an intuive understanding of all this stuff from early on in life, so maybe he just touched on the same ideas? One Buddhist idea the neither/neither reminds me of is meditating on an enemy, a friend and a stranger and trying to understand how your predjudice/favouritism is a your own product and creation, delusion from a Buddhist point of view, not an objective fact... helpfully, I can't remember the name of this (i'll look it up when i get home). Point of difference being this is about emotions generated by people in your life, rather a moe abstract conception of dulatiy. Hope this helps. Why do you wnat to know anyway?

08:33 / 19.02.04

well he met that old lady when he was pretty young no? twas her who gave with the old oral transmission of these ideas? and just because he was able to write about them ain't mean he was able to understand them. reading his prose one could be forgiven for thinking quite the opposite.

08:42 / 19.02.04

He said as much actually. To Keneth Grant again - I think it was in that big bumper Spare bonzana "Zos Speaks" - he says something about understanding, but not being able to express his ideas clearly. With regards to the old lady (Mrs. Patterson, there's an interesting article in Kaos about how Grant mythologised her. I think she becomes something not dissimilar to an inbred denzin of the Arkham swamps in his work.

trouser the trouserian

09:01 / 19.02.04

There are a number of interesting articles about Spare's work at the Fulgur website.

And The Book of Pleasure is available as a text-only pdf

Although, Illmatic, you're quite correct in asserting that "there wasn't the glut of Buddhist translations and so forth that there is now", it's quite possible that Spare may have come across Mahayana Buddhist ideas through Max Meuller's Sacred Books of the East series which was available at the time. The Theosophical movement also did a lot to popularise pan-Indian ideas (albeit giving them a rather skewed 'spin') as did Spiritualism - something we do know that Spare was heavily influenced by. Let's not forget that the turn-of-the-century era in which Spare grew up was marked by a renaissance of occult ideas arguably comparable to the 1960s. Spare also seems to have been familiar with the works of Cornelius Agrippa, and the suggestion has been made (by Jaq.D Hawkins) that Spare may have based his modus of sigilisation on Agrippa's Of Occult Philosophy or Magic - in particular, Book 1 Part IV available online here

Spare biographer Bill Wallace has also suggested that Spare may also have been influenced by the Enochian work of Dr. John Dee.

Linking Spare's ideas to Agrippa (and the Neoplatonic movement in general) is quite interesting. Although much is made of his radical departure from the teachings of Crowley and the Golden Dawn, it may be useful to consider that his ideas grew out from the general Western occult traditions, albeit from a different 'angle' than Crowley, Mathers, et al. Given this, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate Chaos Magic as a 'subaltern' outgrowth of Neoplatonic philosophy?

10:05 / 19.02.04

Fascinating - Whereabouts does Hawkings say that?

Had a look at Wallace's book in the shop - looks interesting, but a bit speculative. Looked to me like he was just spotting similarites between the shapes of Spare's sigils and Enochian letters from what IRC. Didn't buy it as it was £75 f***ing quid!!!!

trouser the trouserian

10:24 / 19.02.04

She talks about it here

Boy in a Suitcase

12:13 / 19.02.04

Oh, you, Gravitas... "Say Boy, how's about a shine-up? There's a shiny new copper in it for yehs."

This is all helpful and fascinating thanks. What I'm looking for is there is a specific technique somewhere in Buddhism, (will take answers from Taoism or otherwise) I'm sure of it, that is a clear analogue to Spare's Neither-Neither and Crowley's ARARITA, for overcoming duality in which something is meditated on, then its opposite, then the fusion of the two, then neither, then the fusion of that with all that it is not, and so on... I just need the name as I have forgotten it...

(Insert Jeopardy theme here)

trouser the trouserian

15:34 / 19.02.04

Why don't you just slap a Buddhisty-sounding term together or make an obscure reference to something like nirodhasamaapatti and see if anyone notices ... then of course, you can say "Well spotted, you win this weeks' gold star". Let's face it, it's worked for Mister Grant for decades.

trouser the trouserian

03:52 / 20.02.04

At the risk of threadrot ... though it is AOS-related, I thought I'd just mention that one of Spare's old mates, Dennis Bardens, has just kicked the bucket. Obituary here

06:34 / 20.02.04

Hey Boy, looked up that technique last night. I found it refered to as "devloping equanamity"(sp?). Hope that helps.

Boy in a Suitcase

12:57 / 20.02.04

Ah excellent! Thanks Ill.
Abscencepoofygreyafroavedarahna it is then.

trouser the trouserian

13:27 / 20.02.04

poofy? Someone's looking for a kick in the Khandas!

14:41 / 20.02.04

Good and evil, light and dark, heat and cold-these are all dualities. Traditional Chinese philosophy embraced these as yin and yang, each of which contain the seed of the other. Zen spurns them because they create artificial distinctions in people's minds. Of course on a day-to-day basis these things exist, but for the student of Zen the task is to transcend them. -Robert Allen, Zen Questions

Relitive terms. I think its called Mahamati.

Boy in a Suitcase

16:53 / 20.02.04

Ah heh heh heh. Actually poofy just means "fluffy" in American. Ya foop.

trouser the trouserian

07:18 / 21.02.04

Allright then, on account of your rare and stunning beauty, you're forgiven, boy.

Boy in a Suitcase

15:23 / 21.02.04

Oh you

16:26 / 21.06.05

"Neither-Neither" sounds much more like the Vedantist motto "Neti, neti" ("Not this, not this."):

""Not this, not this" is a process of discrimination (Viveka) which helps one to know the difference between the Sat (truth, eternal, real or permanent) and the Asat (false, ephemeral or unreal). In other words, Viveka is reasoning by which one knows that the Pure Being alone is Real (Sat) and all else is unreal (Asat or temporary). "
http://www.gurbani.org/webart95.htm

This would differentiate it from the buddhadharma which does not believe in any transcendent truth or reality.