Nicolas Bommarito's "Seeing Clearly"

Nicolas Bommarito is an Assistant Professor of philosophy at University at Buffalo. Before that, he was a Bersoff Fellow in the philosophy department at NYU. He has also studied at Brown University, Tibet University, and University of Michigan. His research focuses on questions in virtue ethics, moral psychology, and Buddhist philosophy.

Bommarito applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Seeing Clearly: A Buddhist Guide to Life, and reported the following:

The Page 99 Test is a wonderful illustration of an important Buddhist idea. Page 99 of my book Seeing Clearly is about the Buddhist idea of the Two Truths. The basic idea is that some things are true within a system of conventions or assumptions, while others are true full stop. So it’s true within our conventional mythology that Santa wears a red suit since we've all agreed that is how the story goes. But it’s not ultimately true since there is no Santa (sorry, Virginia!) and so no suit at all.

Page 99 talks about a particular view of the Two Truths that sees them as identical, different aspects of the same reality. They are different aspects of the same thing the way a lemon is both yellow and sour. It then talks about the practical importance of thinking about the conventions and assumptions in place when we listen to what others say. This means reflecting on whether it would be wise in that situation to work within those conventions or break out of them. Do you insist that Santa does not have a red suit or sit back and have fun participating in the Christmas dinner conversation?

Buddhists who talk about the Two Truths often do so because they say that everything is empty. By that they mean empty of an independent essence. This means that everything depends on everything else to be what it is. The Page 99 Test itself is actually a wonderful illustration of this. To really explain what is happening on page 99, you have to explain what happened before and what happens after in the book. Understanding the significance of the page means understanding its place in the rest of the book.

Think about a melody you like. If you just take a single note from the middle of that melody on its own and ask, “Is this a good note?” it’s hard to say. This is because the note’s significance depends on the notes that come before and after and the timing of those notes. The same is true of page 99 or any other page of a book – trying to figure out what it says and how good it is means reflecting on what came before and what follows.

Reflecting on the relational nature of things is a central part of what the Page 99 Test forces you to do and it’s also of central importance in the Buddhist idea of emptiness. It might seem like you can pick out a single musical note or a page of a book and evaluate it as an isolated, stand-alone thing, but you can’t. In the same way, it can be tempting to think of events, people, and even ourselves in ways that abstract away from all of the relations and conditions that make these things what they are. For many Buddhists this view of things as independent and isolated things is the fundamental mistake that causes misery in life. The rest of my book is about how Buddhists take on the task of fixing that mistake, particular ideas and techniques they use to see clearly how the world really is and so become more compassionate and understanding.

Visit Nic Bommarito's website.

--Marshal Zeringue