We are often convinced of nihilism’s seeming truth that the human endeavor of knowing truth or ultimate reality only leads to untruth and more dissatisfaction. Not surprisingly, many Buddhists are convinced that the Buddha’s real message, in a nutshell, is there is no truth—although they won’t admit it. In other words, they’re saying search all you want, there is only impermanence, suffering and no self, or the same, no absolute.
In Zen, in particular, this carries over into a kind of groundless meditational practice as if Zen is telling us, “Just sit in the nothingness that you are. This is all there is, there is nothing beyond this.” On the same thread, all the koans, in fact, are just demonstrations of meaninglessness. And the Zen master is one who accepts, wholeheartedly, life’s utter meaninglessness. More than anyone, he has searched for truth and did not find it. Now he just smiles—this is blithe nihilism.
Those who suffer from nihilism, especially the agnostics and the skeptics, for example, seem to fear the great adventure of truth—of making a long voyage across a perilous, vast, dark ocean of materialism to reach another shore which is completely immaterial. If they were soldiers, they would be those who run from the battle when the first hostile bullet whizzed past their ear.
Nihilists are the ultimate wimps or more politely, they suffer from akrasia, a weakness of willpower. They opt, instead, for a safe bourgeois way of life rather than believe that the transcendent is alive and well; all they have to do is look within—really look. There they will find it, that is, the very medium of existence or Suchness, from which every thought is composed and every dream and world is fashioned. But are they willing to renounce their old ways of looking at things and themselves? The answer is no.
The highest perfection of nihilism is the safe bourgeois way of life. But it only succeeds by ignoring the truth as much as possible. In this it is completely nihilistic. If, however, the Buddha’s deathless drum sound becomes too loud, truth can always be trivialized so as to make its accomplishment seem ho-hum as compared with a bourgeois awakening. Such a bourgeois awakening is found in Stanley Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut. In the last part of the film the main characters believe they are awake then go and fuck. But this is like being in a dream firmly convinced you’re awake when in fact you’re sound asleep in your warm comfy bed.
One final thought. If Buddhism and Zen are sold to those who either consciously or unconsciously embrace nihilism who, at the same time, believe in the safe bourgeois way of life, both Buddhism and Zen suffer by becoming nihilistic. This is true because the modern Buddhist narrative, if we really scrutinize it, is absent of the absolute. This narrative points to the insubstantiality of truth—not phenomena. For example, what does it mean for the modern Buddhist to read that all living beings possess the essence of the Tathagata? Absolutely nothing insofar as the demand that we see this essence, in the way of gnosis, is covertly twisted into something banal and mundane such as learning to live in the here and now or just being aware.