Our situation propounds itself as a story we discover as we tell it or as it is told, already duplicitous, redundant, the first time 'round. We have the impression that the tale of what we really are, what we do and suffer, is such as can be told; but also that no specific telling tells it all or tells it right. There would always be other reckonings -- analogical or parallel tales, to complete the real. But does this incompleteness at the source of apparency deride the thought of a dynamism and vitality, a treasure trove and vigor at the heart of Being? It surely does unmask a dark propensity, for thus are we sold on analogy. We assume an identity when we grasp the analog of our situation, heard of another in the tale: we "identify" with the persons of the story. This analogical identification is, of course, prior to analysis. We give ourselves over to identity without ascertaining whether the analogy on which it is based is an apt one; we do not take note of the limits of its aptness; we do not inquire into its procedure; and we surely do not raise the suspicion that what we truly are may not be capable of analogical characterization at all. To recover from our analogical identifications requires some careful teasing apart of our self-presence from the "form" under which it is grasped. But the problem is that, when we are somehow stirred to undergo this self-inflicted surgery, we tend to perform it by replacing one analogical form with another. Critiquing the aptness of some analogy, we search for a better one. Cognizant of excess or exaggeration, we put up a limit. But if what we truly are on our most intimate terrain is without form, no story, no image, no limit imposed upon analogy, will peg us down. Thus to arrive at the formless center of our reality, however, is not yet to raise the question of how it is that, in general, we commit ourselves to analogy. In the Dzogchen teachings of the Tibetans, an essential formulation has it that though our "essence" is formless or empty, another complexion of our being, translated usually as our "nature," perpetually generates apparent form. Though all appearances belie what we really are, what we really do is take on appearances. Formlessness of essence -- what does this mean? An essence is the character of an entity by means of which we distinguish it from another. It is a mark that is proper to the thing. It is the manner in which a being reveals that which it intimately, inwardly, and truly is. To speak of an essence is to provoke a noetic movement beyond the appearance to the thing as it is in itself, but in such a manner that the thing as it is in itself discloses its self through its appearance. A being's essence is its private, inner reality, but such as can be linked to its public display. Its essence is just that display which does not betray the intimate character of a thing. Essence therefore, in this sense, involves apparent form. To say that an essence is "empty" or without form is paradoxical. It is to say that its appearance is to have no appearance, that its proper distinction from other things is to fail of such distinction. A formless distinction is no distinction at all. A formless essence is an essence without an essence, or it is an essence that remains tucked up in itself with such thoroughness that no determination of it can appear without betraying it. Now to be without an essence and yet somehow still to be -- is to court analogy. Without determinate character on my own terrain, I spontaneously grasp myself on the basis of my similitudes. The origin of my spontaneous commitment to analogical identity seems to lie precisely in my essenceless essence, my lack of distinctness from that which I am not. It is not just that I have no essence. I am the project of a belief that it is possible to discover or attain one after all. Since an essence is both a principle of distinctness and the inward core of the distinguished thing, the essenceless essence of this inner core does not amount to the possession of determinate form or the grasping of a distinction between one's own characteristics and those of another. Rather, it determines one's concrete existence as paradoxically anterior to all determination: though lacking in form, we are not for all that lacking in a certain concreteness, self- presence, or existence as such. My spontaneous impulse to seize upon identity through analogy does not arise simply out of my lack of determinate character, but from the contradictory fact that though indeterminate, yet I am. The indeterminate yet immediate character of my own being projects me into a quest for identity and ever-renews that quest through the dialectic of analogy -- the spontaneous exercise of an analogical will, succeeded by the pain of contradiction and the loss of sense of identity. The disclosure of the inadequacy of the analogical, spontaneously reanimates it. The dialectic of identity is an impossible project. It cannot culminate in the attainment of determinate identity at last, and its self-corrections and reanimations cannot lead to an as-yet-unattained but in principle attainable core. Rather, it labors in the production of new analogies, new contradictions, new connections. And if it gain some respite, some apparent stability in its self- identification, it does so at the cost of its own awareness of how that stability is sustained by social supports, themselves as dubious and ephemeral as its own elusive character. The dialectic of identity may be terminated, however, if the spontaneous will to analogy seizes upon the formless as its only analogical truth. Now the question is: if my analogical will is the failure to appropriate the formlessness of my essence, why, when this failure is overcome, does my own apparent form not cease to appear? Perhaps an indirect answer might be this: that the manifestation of outer appearance is not explained by the analogical will and its dialectic; rather, the fact of appearance itself is among the conditions for the dialectic's possibility. I seek true form because, though inwardly formless, outwardly I do take shape. The intimacy of formless essence with external appearance may not proceed from errancy but be among its causes. It might just be of the essence of essenceless essence to generate apparent form. Our appearances are not errant accidents, inessential to our true but formless being. To be both formless and yet not being-less is to generate apparency. The necessary generation of apparent form from formless essence is our nature. And it is this nature that gives the possibility of our errancy, the possibility of the wanderings of an analogical will. For if we did not take form, we would not seek a true form, and if we were possessed of a true form, the quest for the apprehension of it would culminate in a vision of our determinate being. But neither of these is the case. The generation of apparent form from formless essence is productive not only of errancy, but of the positive display of apparent being itself. Essence and nature are neither dissociated nor in any way apart from each other, but nondualistically co-implicate. If apparency occurs and is not true, its essence is essenceless. The nondual identity of essenceless essence and empty appearance is the depth of the display of Being -- the energetic manifestation of the concreteness of existence. *from . . . by Gerrit Lansing This essay has beep published by ... and ...
