Real introspection goes beyond

In Buddhism, meditation or zazen (i.e., sitting meditation) is introspection which if perfected can lead to enlightenment.  We can know the true nature of reality and thus deliverance.  For the West, however, introspection is believed to be limited.  According to the philosopher David Hume, introspection cannot give us direct acquaintance with the thinker or I might add, the substance of thought (i.e., the “thing in itself” of Kant).  We can only be aware of our individual thoughts—not their substance which is the thinker.  

Now, if by some stroke of luck we were able to become suddenly acquainted with this substance (i.e., the thinker or our Buddha-nature)—if only for a split second—the Western belief that introspection is limited to observing individual thoughts would come tumbling down.  Not only that, we would recall that the method of introspection we applied before, didn’t go far enough.  We limited it to an awareness of something determinate; a mental artifact.  From this we might conclude that we were looking for this substance or thinker as if it were an external sensory ‘thing’ as in, “I just found my glasses—there were on the kitchen table.”

Continuing with this line of thought, with the discovery of this substance is also the realization of authentic introspection; the kind the Buddha taught—not the limited Western kind.  Going back to David Hume, yes, of course he couldn’t find the thinker—the thinker is not a particular mental image.  Hume, in other words, never once engaged in real introspection.  Had he, he might have been Britain's first yogi! 

Westerners, if we use Hume as a gauge, are too eager to close down any discussion about how far and how deep introspection can actually go.  They seem to want to limit introspection to watching thoughts pass in front of the mind’s eye.  This is somewhat reminiscent of the prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the cave where men dwelling in a cave since infancy are bound in such a way they cannot turn their heads to look upon the true world who, instead, are forced to look upon a false world—a puppet show.

I pass over the more subtle aspects of the cave allegory wishing only to say that the world of thoughts passing in front of our mind’s eye is not outside of Socrates’ description of the cave and its prisoners, which best describes a limited kind of introspection, one incapable of taking us to the other shore.  Indeed, true introspection must unbind us from false introspection, freeing us in such a way so that we might see the sun of true reality and not the puppet show of phenomena to which the West seems unusually attached. 

Comments

[minx]

These ad hominem attacks towards the author are just plain childish. If you like to build a real case against his insights in Zen Buddhism (as originally inteded by its founders) then at least keep your comments to the subject at hand, with critique based on the subject and not your own deranged interpretations of what is considered "superior" spirituality. Anything else just reveals the sad level of your own spiritual immaturity which is far worse than mental inadequacy. Remember that there is an audience out there, non-american, non-redneck or yankee, eager to read well chosen thoughts by what seems to be one of the last remaining "deep thinking" americans with a style reminding me much of Gore Vidal and Michael Parenti. Let this man speak his peace before this overbloated "Titanic" known as the USA he reports from, sinks to the bottom of the great sea of greed, fear and corruption, never to be seen or heard from again. Much like the Aztecs or Mayans...

[Lama Guru Shining Path Holy Light]

I love your self-confessed socialist remarks on the huffington-communist-post.

see the communist pro-socialist comments from the webmaster of zennist typepad:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/Erdgeist

Ive seen communism, old man, it doesnt work.

[coochy-coo]

You have two fundamental errors here you might correct, save that is, one cares for accuracy.

#1 "and not the puppet show of phenomena to which the West seems unusually attached"

Be it creationism or elsewise, the West is infinately more spiritual than the east. Most of China and Japan contain self-confessed metaphysical atheists. The east is becoming MORE mateiralistic now and the inverse is true for the West.

#2 the kind the Buddha taught—not the limited Western kind

Greece and Nordic Europe taught the unlimted "kind" you refer to, long before Gotama came into the scene. You are referring to contemorary western existentialism, not period-western Monism of the noble type.