RESEARCH BRIEFS

MEET THE RESEARCHER:

Elı´as Capriles1 Me´rida, Venezuela

Elı´as Capriles is a self-developed scholar who, from 1992 to 2003, sat as the Chair of Eastern Studies in the Department of Philosophy, University of The Andes, in Me´rida, Venezuela. He is also a certified instructor in the Santi Maha Sangha training method devised by Master Namhai Norbu.

In 1973, after carrying out studies in different disciplines, he moved to the Indian Subcontinent where he ran Spiritual Emergency Refuges and later on received teachings on Dzogchen and related empowerments from Dudjom , Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Thinle Norbu Rinpoche, Rinpoche, and other Masters. From the end of 1977 to December 1982, he spent most of his time in retreat in cabins and caves on the higher Himalayas practicing the Dzogchen Upadesha. After returning to Venezuela in 1983, he invited Cho¨gya¨l Namkhai Norbu to teach, who visited in 1986 and established the Dzogchen Community there.

Capriles has been an extremely productive scholar and writer. His published works encompass areas including Tibetan , ontology, aesthetics, philosophy of history, psychology, sociology, political philosophy, axiology, and several other disciplines. He has published eight books in Venezuela, Spain and Nepal, 18 academic articles in Venezuela, USA, and Spain, and 7 book chapters in Venezuela, Italy, and Russia. In addition, he has edited and published two books by several authors in Venezuela. His work has been reviewed in books on Ibero-American Philosophy published in France and Spain. He is Associate Editor of the Journal Utopı´a y Praxis Latinoamericana and sits on the Board of Editors of three other Journals, including the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies. He considers Capriles (1989, 1994, 2000a, 2000b) to be his most important books published so far.

In the first chapter of his 1994 book Individual, Society, Ecosystem: Essays on Philosophy, Politics and Mysticism, Capriles establishes his ontological and epistemological position in the context of a discussion of the definition of ‘‘philosophy.’’ In the second chapter, he develops a degenerative philosophy of history that totally inverts that of Hegel: as stated by several Eastern traditions, including Buddhism, and Western traditions that include the Stoics, social and spiritual evolution is a process of progressive degeneration. In fact, according to Capriles, rather than being a development of truth and completeness, it is a development of delusion and fragmentation, which increase partly as a result of the

1 E-mail: [email protected]

The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2002, Vol. 34, No. 2 129 relations between the two hemispheres of the human brain described by Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979), in a way that he explains in terms of the ‘‘spiral of pretences’’ conceived by R. D. Laing (1961) and of the concept of phenomenological negation as implicit in the theory of Bad Faith developed in Sartre (1943/1980). This increase leads them to give rise to the present ecological crisis, with which they achieve their reductio ad absurdum, so that either the primordial order is re-established and a new golden age, era of truth, or age of perfection begins, or else humankind destroys itself. Capriles also inverts Marx and Engels’ theory of social evolution, noting that the said evolution neither involves progress nor does it result from the struggle against destitution: existentially, primitive humans were absolutely rich, and poverty is the result of degenerative evolution. Then he shows how Niklas Luhmann’s systemic sociology (based on Varela and Maturana’s concept of autopoiesis) uses a New Paradigm systems theory to produce an instrumentally biased theory that seeks to maintain social order at the cost of human freedom and subjectivity, and also shows how Habermas’ critique of Luhmann wrongly dismisses all systems theories as necessarily producing the undesirable effects implicit in Luhmann’s theory (Luhmann and Habermas, 1971). Capriles notes that a change of paradigms is meaningless unless a revolution in the psyche puts an end to delusion and the instrumental relations resulting from the evolution of delusion. Drawing on nonviolent anarchism (e.g., Kropotkin), libertarian Marxism (e.g., Castoriadis), green politics, and the Buddhist understanding of the human psyche, Capriles radically criticizes the Marxist theory of revolution, and then establishes some general guidelines of what an Enlightened society would be like. Finally, in the last chapter he develops a theory of values that makes a direct connection between Value, Truth, Good, Beauty and Wealth, and explains the arising of ethical value, aesthetic value, economic value, and so on as a consequence of the concealment of Truth-Value-Good-Beauty-Wealth that, rather than restoring Value, Truth, Good, Beauty and Wealth, sets us further apart from them, furthering the process of social and spiritual degeneration.

Currently, he is working on three books in English which he plans to complete simultaneously and then offer to US publishers. The remainder of this brief provides the reader with a brief overview of each.

Beyond Mind, Beyond Being: Dzogchen, Western Philosophy and Transpersonal Psychology. In the first chapters of this book, Capriles shows that Dzogchen concepts would be distorted if rendered with the terminology of Heidegger and other Western authors. The former express a view of reality resulting from Awakening, whereas the latter reflect the structures of samsaric experience (Heidegger, in particular, makes a phenomenological description of the ontological structures of samsara that are the pivot of delusion, without recognizing them to be delusive). Capriles contrasts what Heidegger called Being (das Sein) with what the Dzogchen teachings call the Base (gzhi), showing that the former is the most general of concepts, the delusory valuation-absolutization of which gives rise to samsara (in Heidegger, 1987, the author notes that when we hear or read the word ‘‘being,’’ immediately we conceive something, for the term has its ‘‘force of naming’’), whereas the latter is the utterly nonconceptual nature of both samsara and nirvana, which in samsara is hidden by the delusory valuation-absolutization of concepts, and

130 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2002, Vol. 34, No. 2 which in nirvana unveils as concepts self-liberate. Then Capriles notes that many transpersonal psychologists take transpersonal realms to be an aim in themselves, identifying transpersonal experience with sanity, and posits a metatranspersonal system that distinguishes between samsaric transpersonal experiences (such as those that in Buddhism pertain to the arupadhatu, making up the four arupa loka), transpersonal experiences pertaining neither to samsara nor to nirvana (the kun-gzhi khams of the Dzogchen teachings), and nirvana, in which the conceptually-tainted experiences of all realms (including transpersonal ones) self-liberate like drawings on water. All hierarchies and holoarchies of psychological states and levels of Being produced so far by transpersonal and/or integral psychologists, list states and levels located within samsara (though some of them may also include the state where neither samsara nor nirvana are functioning). Nirvana is not a state or level in a hierarchy or holoarchy; its essence is not expressed by any of the states or levels listed in existing hierarchies or holoarchies, and it is not achieved by climbing through the latter. What is called Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPMs) are stages, not only of the process of birth, but principally of a far more encompassing ‘‘human constant’’ that manifests in the different instances of the bardo between death and , among which the following are worth mentioning: the stage between clinical death and the birth of a new human being; the stage between psychological death and rebirth into a more balanced ego (discussed in Bateson, 1961; Laing, 1967 and Bateson, 1972, among other texts); and the unfolding of practices such as those of thod-rgal and the yang-thig of the Dzogchen Upadesha, which result in ontological death (not involving physiological death) and an ensuing uninterrupted condition of total plenitude and perfection (rDzogs-chen). Therefore, confinement within any BPM is pathological or, at least, not truly liberating. Going through the whole process involving the series of BPMs while the body is clinically alive may result in a more balanced ego. However, it is going through the process in the framework of a traditional wisdom tradition (for example, in the practices of Tho¨gel and the Yangthik) that may burn out the seeds of samsara, so that the individual may become established in inherently self-liberating nirvana.

Buddhism and Dzogchen: The Doctrine of the Buddha and the Supreme Vehicle of (enlarged, revised and corrected version of Capriles, 2000a; translated by the author in collaboration with Judy Daugherty). In part one, he expounds the general doctrines of Buddhism (making a lengthy, experiential exposition of the Four Noble Truths), and briefly compares the schools existing in our time: the , the Chinese Schools that later on spread throughout the Far East, and the Tibetan Schools that later on spread to Bhutan and Mongolia. Then he describes the nine vehicles of the rNying-ma-pa School of Tibetan Buddhism (which he compares with the seven vehicles of the Sarmapa), classifying them into three Paths in terms of an ancient tradition expounded by gNubs Nam-mkha’i sNying-po (one of the main direct disciples of ) in his bKa’thang sDe-lnga (revealed as a gter-ma in the sixteenth century by O-rgyan gLing-pa) and then further expounded by gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas Ye-shes in his bSam-gtan Mig-sgron (found in Tun Huang at the turning of the twentieth century after being entombed for almost a millennium). This tradition, which later on was effaced from Tibetan Buddhism by the generalization and increasing influence of the teachings of the

Meet the Researcher 131 gSar-ma-pa and the politics of Tibet, and which in the twentieth century was brought to light by Cho¨gya¨l Namkhai Norbu, divides the nine vehicles into: Way of Renunciation (containing the Shravakayana, the Pratyekabuddhayana and the Bodhisattvayana); Way of Transformation (containing the outer Tantric Vehicles of Purification and the Inner Tantric Vehicles of Transformation); and Way of Self- Liberation (the Atiyana-Dzogchen with its three series of teachings).

In part two, he explains the Dzogchen conception of the Base, Path, and Fruit and the subdivisions of these three, examines the basic teachings and practices of the three series of Dzogchen teachings (the sems-sde, the klong-sde and the man-ngag- sde or Upadesha), and goes into a lengthy discussion of the two levels of practice of the man-ngag-sde or Upadesha, explaining the functional principles behind each of these levels but not providing instructions for their practice (as these are not to be broadcasted in public books: in Capriles, 1989, which is a restricted access book in English, he gives instructions for the practice of the man-ngag-sde or Upadesha, with the emphasis on the practice of khregs-chod), and discussing their respective Fruits.

Finally, in part three he discusses the dynamics of the mandala, yantra yoga, the consumption of meat and alcohol, the guardians and related practices, the practice of gcod and the ‘‘cycle of day and night.’’ In particular, the discussion of gcod emphasizes the way in which all Buddhist vehicles converge in this practice, and how it is a means to catalyze the self-liberation that is the trademark of Dzogchen.

The Four Philosophical Schools of the Sutrayana Traditionally Taught in Tibet (With Reference to the Dzogchen Teachings). In this book, Capriles discusses the four philosophical schools of the Sutrayana (Hinayana and ) traditionally included in Tibetan curricula, placing the emphasis on the reasons why the views of these schools are taught in a progressive, hierarchical way, and comparing the views of the main schools of the Mahayana with those of the and the Atiyana- Dzogchen. In particular, the view of the Mahamadhyamaka school of Madhyamaka philosophy that the Nyingmapa consider to be the supreme theoretical view of the Mahayana, is compared to the views of both the Yogacharya and the other Madhyamaka schools, and then is contrasted with the Dzogchen teachings.

Elia´s can be contacted by mail at PO Box 483, Me´rida 5101, Venezuela or by email at [email protected]

REFERENCES

BATESON, G., ED. AND INTRODUCTION. (1961). Perceval’s narrative: A patient’s account of his psychosis, 1830-1832 (by John Perceval). Stanford: Stanford University Press. BATESON, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books. BATESON, G. (1979). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. New York: Dutton. CAPRILES, E. (1989). The source of danger is fear: Paradoxes of the realm of delusion and instructions for the practice of the rDzogs-chen Upadesha. Me´rida, Venezuela: Editorial Reflejos.

132 The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2002, Vol. 34, No. 2 CAPRILES, E. (1994). Individuo, sociedad, ecosistema: Ensayos sobre filosofia, polı´tica y mı´stica (Individual, Society, Ecosystem: Essays on Philosophy, Politics and Mysticism). Me´rida (Venezuela): Consejo de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Los Andes. CAPRILES, E. (2000a). Budismo y dzogche´n. La doctrina del Buda y el vehı´culo supremo del budismo tibetano (Buddhism and Dzogchen: The doctrine of the Buddha and the supreme vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism). Vitoria (Spain): Ediciones La Llave. CAPRILES, E. (2000b). Este´tica primordial y arte visionario: Un enfoque cı´clico-evolutivo comparado (Primordial aesthetics and visionary art: A comparative cyclic- evolutionary approach). Me´rida, Venezuela: Publicaciones del Grupo de Investigacio´n en Estudios de Asia y A´ frica (GIEAA)/CDCHT-ULA. HEIDEGGER, M. (1987). Introduction to metaphysics (R. Manheim, Trans.). New Haven & London: Yale University Press. LAING, R. D. (1961). The Self and the others. London: Tavistock. LAING, R. D. (1967). The politics of experience and the bird of paradise. London: Tavistock. LUHMANN,N.&HABERMAS, J. (1971). Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie—was leistet die Systemforschung? (Theory or society or social technology—what is achieved by systems research?). Frankfurt: Suhkramp Verlag. SARTRE, J.-P. [1943/1980], L’eˆtre et le ne´ant. Essai d’ontologie phe´nome´nologique (Being and nothingness. An essay on phenomenological ontology). Paris, NRF Librairie Gallimard.

Meet the Researcher 133