The Zennist

Wow wow vs. woo woo

In a previous blog I wrote, "The "woo" or "woo woo" factor generally refers to any belief in the supernatural which "big science" has not proven."  For this blog I would like to refer to big science as "wow wow" with such things as the big bang model, black hole model, and neural science models some of which, incidentally, seem confident that conscious or mind is a product of the brain.  

Not all models are the same and not all models are perfect.  There are many different kinds of models from scale models, mathematical models, economic models, weather models, etc.  They are, all of them, limited by what they assume, e.g. a mechanistic world, the theory that the brain produces consciousness. They can and often do serve a useful need when they work, for example, the billiard ball model of gas.  They can offer a certain explanatory power you could say.  Nevertheless, models and the theories which create them are always part of “as if” thinking (Hans Vaihinger) which expresses "the method of fiction" which is found in all the sciences.  

At the heart of big science is "wow wow" triumphalism, that is, the tendency to become overawed by one's fictions (this includes models and theories which help to build these various models).  One imagines to have the final word but fails to see what is really going on, namely, the imposition of one system upon another apparently not caring about the unintended consequences.

With "woo woo" there is more of the tendency to look within; to value the first-person; to explore the human potential; discovering more of what man can do.  It is not limiting man to death, for example, when we die that's it.  "Woo woo" opens the door to rebirth saying that man as a conscious agent is not limited by his anatomy—fundamentally he has always transcended it.  As to be expected there is a war going on between "wow wow" and "woo woo" which although seemingly bloodless is not without casualties in the example of Nikola Tesla and many others.

 

Awakening to the animative principle

The Buddha's awakening just doesn't mean the Bodhisattva suddenly awoke as if from a deep sleep and became aware.  Rather it means the Bodhisattva awakened to something or saw something he had not previously seen whereby his former ignorance was removed.  This is a very important point that is often overlooked in Buddhist circles.  I maintain that what he awakened to was the animative principle or, the same, the life force.  I need to add that it was not an intellectual understanding, something that could be disputed in academic circles or on an on-line chat room—your typical male ego piss match which, let's face it, is rubbish.

Awakening to something profound which transcends our species specific human condition; which has gone unnoticed until the moment of seeing it, directly, is not something for the racquetball court of the human intellect with its language tools and language games (including scientific models).  Our understanding is about on the level of a seven year-old child that when asked, "What moves your arm up and down?" responds with, "My bones."  Human beings are so deeply fixated on their biological bodies that they can't envisage a life force or an animative principle that governs the body but is not the body.  It is like the difference between the radio signal and the radio with its batteries, speaker, antenna, and other parts which act to amplify the radio signal.

Inasmuch as a human beings remains deeply fixated on their corporeal bodies they can be said to be asleep to their true nature which animates them.  The depth of this slumber of ignorance can become so great that humans will believe that life is a product of the corporeal body just like hearing music on a radio is believed to be caused by the radio when the radio is really only amplifying an invisible signal.

To be sure, each one of us has over-identified with our psychophysical body to such an extent that we believe it is who we are (asmi).  We bought into the protein package from birth.  We identified with its physical form, its feelings, its mental images, volitions and consciousness.  Never once did we learn that we were asleep; being unawakened to the truth that it is not who we are.  In this sense, true awakening is realizing who we really are, rejecting the illusion; no longer clinging to it in the way we did before. 

Technological illusions

People are very much deceived if they believe that advances in technology offer mankind a greater insight into his own being, inching him closer to ultimate truth.  Even if we have the capability to travel to distant galaxies and meet with other kinds of human like creatures, our ability to travel faster than light does not add up to insight into our own nature.  From the standpoint of the Buddha's awakening, we still remain clueless as to the substance of our self and the cosmos; we are still chasing after illusions—technological illusions.  

The tendency of Western Buddhists to become too awed by technology is for me evinced by the on-line magazine Buddhist Geeks.  If we think of communication technology as a swift and efficient messenger, what our messenger presents to us can still be labeled as pop Buddhism whose presumptions about Buddhism need a great amount of correcting.  We need to bear in mind that communication technology can still sell crap; it can still offer the means to deceive people and make it incredibly difficult to correct false views.

We have to admit that advanced communication technology cannot transmit the Buddha-nature.  Only we can actualize it.  All the words in the world will not get us any closer to this profound realization.  In the meantime, we can thoroughly deceive ourselves.  Modern technology is no closer to enabling us to see true reality than it was five hundred or a thousand years ago.  

The Buddhist journey is not on the outside.  It involves our ability to plumb the depth of our own being where even space and time are transcended.  In this perspective, the world of technology is a world that allows us mainly to extend our ignorance.  How can my iMac computer or my iPhone enlighten?  I can only speak of enlightenment if I have already beheld the light of Mahayana.  Only then is technology useful.  But then who cares about awakening to their true nature?  Will technology help to overcome people's deeply held prejudices?  I don't think so.

The reflection of consciousness

True of a lot of things people believe in, we often can't figure out the specific reason as to why they hold on to their beliefs.  We are not infrequently left in the dark.  I have often wondered why researchers in neuroscience are so attached to the assumption that consciousness is, somehow, produced by the brain.  Not a few researchers hold this assumption.  Despite many years of work by many researchers there is still no scientific theory of how the brain creates conscious experience.  What seems apparent is that these same researchers expect to find a solution which answers the question, "How does the biological brain make us experience consciousness?"  This expectation, it seems clear to me, admits a strong bias: I believe that the brain makes consciousness as against, consciousness can interact with a brain but is, intrinsically, brain independent.

I imagine the reasoning of the researchers goes something like this.  As a conscious being, I see physical correlates in the brain by means of an fMRI, which appear to have a mutual relationship with my conscious experiences.  Therefore, I conclude that consciousness is brain generated.  

But the only thing our researchers can truly say, if they were honest, is that the activity of consciousness is reflected in the mirror of the brain which the fMRI shows.  In this respect, the researchers are somewhat like Narcissus in Ovid's Metamorphosis who has fallen in love with a reflected image of himself in a pool of shining water.  In the same way, the researcher believes that the biological brain is vital (the image of Narcissus in the pool) and consciousness is dead or at best an illusion (the real, vital Narcissus).

In reference to the Metamorphosis, our researcher has found a substance in what is only shadow.  He looks in wonder upon the fMRI.  He is charmed by it, spell-bound by it. But this image, including the anatomical brain which is set in his skull, is no more self-animating than a marble statue.  Ovid says, "The vision is only shadow, only reflection, lacking any substance. . . .He watches, all unsatisfied, that image vain and illusive, and he almost drowns in his own watching eyes."

Also, it should not surprise us that during an NDE the brain stem activity is flatlined.  Of course there are various explanatory models warring with each other trying to explain this puzzling phenomenon from brain-centric explanations to transcendental explanations.  Science comes to its limits with any and all models which are useful fictions; which give a certain explanatory power.  So, it boils down to politics, that is, various persuasion strategies designed to influence the masses.  But there is no Buddhism here.  The Buddhist notion of mind (citta) and consciousness (vijñāna) are alien to the world of neuroscience.  Here is what I mean.

"What we commonly call the mind is a set of operations carried out by the brain. Brain processes underlie not only simple motor behaviors such as walking and eating but also all the complex cognitive acts and behavior that we regard as quintessentially human—thinking, speaking, and creating works of art. As a corollary, all the behavioral disorders that characterize psychiatric illness—disorders of affect (feeling) and cognition (thought)—result from disturbances of brain function" (E.R. Kandel, J.H. Schwartz, T.M. Jessell, S.A. Siegelbaum, & A.J. Hudspeth (Eds.), Principles of Neural Science, 5th ed., p. 5).

For traditional Buddhism, such a definition of mind falls under the rubric of materialism. Buddhism, as I have said before, is a first-person science (science according to the OED is the state or act of knowing) which is the investigation of ātman, per se, or the same, my self intrinsically.  The world from this position outward is immaterial or, ultimately, Mind-only.  Let's call it spiritual, or a least psychological.  On the other hand, the world viewed from the outside (material things) to beings is material.  There is no mind of consciousness to be seen.  This is the image of Narcissus who is be-spelled by the shadows—the nothingness of the reflected image.

Interview with the gateless gate

Student: What is Zen?

Gate: Enter through me and find out.

Student: I would like to know before I enter.

Gate: In that case find a Zen teacher.

Student: But what can he or she do?

Gate: They can either show you where the gate is that you must enter through or make you believe you've entered.

Student: The last part doesn't sound all that encouraging. Since you are here, I would prefer to enter right now.

Gate: Step through.

Student: Try as I might I can't. This is so weird. Why can't I step through.

Gate: The mind of birth and death is preventing you.

Student: What if I just say MU, how's that?

Gate: It's still connected with the mind of birth and death.

Student: How do I abandon this mind of birth and death so I can enter?

Gate: It's not that easy to abandon. Those who have entered through me were able to abandon their mind of birth and death in the blink of an eye. Pretty impressive I'd say.

Student: But why can't I?

Gate: Maybe you think it is a matter of abandoning a little at a time. Maybe an amount that you feel comfortable with instead of abandoning the mind of birth and death all at once.

Student: Okay, maybe I should do zazen then. What do you think about that? It couldn't hurt.

Gate: Sitting is still part of the mind of birth and death. You get to watch it more closely. You get to examine your prison cell.

Student: You're making Zen difficult. Isn't it basically about being aware?

Gate: Maybe you should search for a great Zen teacher, one that can help you to believe that.

Student: They should know, right?

Gate: All who awaken must enter through me.  Believe me, I know who has entered and who can't.

Student: Haven't all Zen teachers passed through you?

Gate: Only a small handful have entered. Zen is a victim of its own mythology. It's a great story. But when it comes to entering through me, they all back away. It's too difficult for them to abandon their mind of birth and death, realizing the one true substance. Those who wish for eternal life must give up the mind that craves birth and death.

Failing to understand the koan

Almost all people who take up koans from the serious student to the curious wrestle with the words of a koan to find a particular meaning where the light bulb goes on in their head, so to speak.  But meaning such as this is not what drives the koan.  The koan is not leading us to an intellectual/conceptual denouement.  The koan's very construction militates against an intellectual unravelling or some kind of folksy life lesson.  Where the koan comes from is ultimate truth which goes beyond the intellect, and any sort of rational analysis.  The koan will not give up its treasure to the greedy hands of thought. 

You could say that it was Ta-hui (1089–1163) who perfected the use of the koan, taking it away from the clutches of the literati who made koans popular among their class.  This is also to say, Ta-hui took the intellect out of the koan.  The true meaning of the koan could only come to the adept by way of satori, or the same, gnosis of the true ground of reality.  This is where the hua-t'ou enters the koan.  

Ta-hui wanted his students to turn their mind, not to their deluded, day to day mental images and thoughts but, instead, to the hua-t'ou which could be represented by the single word such as Chao-chou's wu (J., mu).  Each koan offered a key phrase allowing the hua-t'ou to be applied.  The hua-t'ou was antecedent to the key word or phrase, hence, 話頭 meaning, exactly, ante-word, or before-thought.  This antecedent state was pure Mind before it is stirred becoming, as a result, another deluded thought or dead word.  The hua-t'ou of Chao-chou's wu was not another thought or idea, or the subvocal sound wu, far from it.  The hua-t'ou was, as the Blue Cliff Records (transl. Shaw) describe it, "the real substance of the universe, the first principle."

Modern efforts to understand the koan have largely failed given the exclusion of the hua-t'ou from practice, for a lack of understanding its true meaning.  What is going on in our head, has far as the koan is concerned, has no clue as to the real state of pure Mind.  Whenever we say or think wu (or even mu) we are putting a barrier in front of the Dharma gate.  The vibration/waves of Mind are obstructing the unstirred, pure Mind.  Wu, in this context, is like smoke pointing to the real caloric fire.  What was Ta-hui's first koan?  It was, “The eastern mountain sails up the river” (some translate, "The east mountain walks on the water").  He made forty-nine tries at it before he broke through on May 13, 1125.  He realized the hua-t'ou.

Where is this awareness taking us?

Modern Buddhism, including Zen, assures us that there is a payoff to being aware of the moment, which I need add, is only the truth of sense certainty.  That's not much.  What it does not say, there is no certainty as to where all this awareness is taking us.  In the context of traditional Buddhism, there is very little said, if at all, about being aware of the moment.  Nevertheless, awareness of the moment has become what can only be described as pseudo-enlightenment.  This is all the typical Westerner, it seems, can relate to.  Nirvana is out of the picture.  For the average person it sounds like mumbo-jumbo that comes with such baggage as nirvana is deathless and eternal; nirvana is realized in the very self and so on. 

Back to the question. Where are we going with being aware of the here and the now—this very moment?  For example, what is the payoff to practicing awareness at my crappy job, being aware of every crappy moment of looking at a computer monitor doing shit I hate just to pay for a roof over my family's head, not to mention paying the doctor's bill for my kid's recent ear infection? 

Awareness of the moment can help to mollify the inner tension and frustration we often feel at the end of the day—that's about all.  We live in a culture with a Darwinian mind-set where the fittest human animals are trained to prey on the weaker so that life, essentially, is hell despite the fact that animals and humans can be caring, giving and loving were they not always put between a rock and a hard place by the ideologists and their followers who believe in the model of natural selection and survival of the fittest. 

I went through the 1960s optimistic that awakening was achievable.  As I can remember, there wasn't any of this awareness of the moment practice yet as if this was enlightenment.  If there was, it was in the beginning stages.  Aiming for nirvana or kensho (both are the same) is the better course.  Being aware and vigilant; paying attention to details and taking care of the little stuff so you don't have to worry about the big stuff are all important.  Still, nirvana has to be the goal.  It has the real payoff.  Sincere interest in achieving nirvana—not just lip service—helps to ennoble us since it makes us open up more and dig deeper into our being.  Nor are we wont to buy into our crap predatory culture. This is the start of renunciation.

The hot pepper like experience of awakening

Two people eat hot peppers together.  Their immediate reactions and subsequent descriptions have reference to the two hot peppers they just ate.  At this time, what is meant by hot peppers, the object, is a particular subjective experience such as a burning sensation.  The subjective experience that each person had is not meaningless.  The personal experience of both has, direct, reference to the hot peppers.  If they communicate about the peppers they just ate their words have reference to the hot peppers and the subjective experiences of eating them.

Zen is not like this although we could imagine that it is.  A Zen master might be good at pretending to be awakened (fake being Buddha-like for a few hours).  He could share with his best student the secret that he is not awakened but since they are good friends, the student is fit to play the part of a Zen teacher.  In this situation, awakening or kensho, is absent.  In other words, there is no hot pepper experience between the two. For both teacher and student awakening, while it is a definable term, is personally meaningless. 

Going for the hot pepper like experience of awakening to our true nature is difficult, in its own right.  More of a problem, if one does awaken, how does he present his hot pepper awakening to one who may not have had it?  The Buddha is very clear about this.  Those who are not stream entered, namely, an-aryan, cannot recognize an aryan.  In the world of Zen, this presents a huge problem.  The teacher and student relationship is no guarantee of awakening.  No experience may come of it; no seeing into the awakened Mind which goes back to the Buddha, himself.  

While it is true that the luminous Mind, which comes as a result of awakening, is perceived between those who are awakened (the aryans) it is not perceived by those who are not.  Thankfully, this was not the situation between the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng and the Fifth Patriarch Hung-jen.  Hung-jen recognized that Hui-neng, while he was still just a firewood peddler, had awakened (Hui-neng upon hearing some words from a customer reading the Diamond Sutra became immediately awakened).  The minute Hung-jen saw Hui-neng he sensed his luminosity.  From the encounter, it is obvious that Hung-jen didn't enlighten Hui-neng.  Hui-neng had awakened himself.  Hung-jen only sensed the luminosity of Hui-neng.  The Mind to Mind transmission only means that we can awaken to Mind.  Hung-jen said, "Let people achieve awakening through their own effort."  The implication of Hung-jen's words have been lost it seems.  Running to a Zen teacher is more of a sign of weakness than strength.  One is still not ready to awaken through their own effort—to eat the hot pepper.

Mundane and noble right view

The Buddha teaches that right view is noble (arya), immaculate, and supermundane.  This is the view of those who have entered the stream to nirvana.  This view is not by any stretch of the imagination, mundane.  To reach this view, which leads the rest of the components of the way, goes against the mundane.  It goes against our mundane habits and desires even our ideas of right and wrong that we take for granted.

Since we don't have this noble right view, we cling, instead, to our mundane right views by which we are constantly deceived.  This means that what we believe to be true is actually false, and what we believe to be completely false turns out to be actually true!  We put our faith in posers who pretend to be wise, rather than the wise.  As a matter of fact, we believe that most of the people we follow to be wise.  

On a psychological level, we allow our moods and negative feelings to be our counselors who lie to us constantly.  Our depression, anger, including our vanity are our counselors.  Also a strong desire for sensual delight is our counselor, perhaps our most evil counselor.  As long as we listen to their advice we never get anywhere.  But we have no intention of firing them!  Such is mundane right view.

Not even our past experiences seem to help us see the need to aim for and to realize noble right view.  In the words of George Bernard Shaw, "We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience."  Still, there is something innate within us that knows we are wrong despite all the excuses that we can muster.   We never listen to it much anymore.  When we were children it seems that we did.  But we outgrew this because the adult mundane world seems to demand of us less than noble behavior and principles.  Truth has no value, learning how to survive in a dog eat dog world does.  This is the animal kingdom of Darwinian fitness which we have elected to follow.

Noble or aryan right view is beyond mankind's world, that is, his psychophysical body and what it perceives.  Why would such a perfect view be found in man or his mundane world?  What's the payoff?  It is only when we surpass ourselves, and looking back, can we see what is proper to do.  One is able to see the forest for the trees, in other words, who also knows what a box is and how to get outside of it.  In this sense the physician has cured himself.

Some passing thoughts

I live a comfortable life in my old age (I have no need for extra money).  I feel no personal compulsion or obligation to teach people other than by means of this blog.  I welcome friends (the black dragons) who have stood by me for many years; who have drunk from the same Dharma wine bottle as I.  They know the difficulty of presenting pure Mind, which is empty like space, to minds which, since birth, have been constantly stirred and fluctuating; minds which the Buddha says are maculate—not luminous.

I am not trying to mislead anyone.  What is the payoff for me in such a deception?  I spend a lot of time trying to publish this blog out of sheer compassion.  One day my corporeal body will be dead (don't worry I will still be around).  These words of mine will be all that remain.  An aside, most of the friends I have don't know I am a Buddhist or I have The Zennist blog.   People are free to conjure up whatever they want about this blog and its contents.  But for the most part, it is right if you follow traditional Zen literature, the Pali Nikayas and Mahayana literature.

The joy of doing this blog is that I can go back in time as a struggling student (yes, I remember those days) and help today's struggling students with such sound advice as, your teacher is not going to get a brace and bit, drill a hole in your head, and fuck Dharma into your brains.  It ain't gonna happen!  In other words, don't place too much value in teachers; they can only do so much.  They are not your savior.  If the teacher is awakened—sure, you will pick up his or her radiance and become blissed out.  That's good.  This means your karma is good.  But if this is as far as you go, like it says in the Dhammapada: you'll be like a cowherd counting the cows of others having no share in the sagely life.  You have to have some stock in the sagely life.  In the meantime, you're wasting time if you are running to Japan or China, or Nepal looking for Mr. Buddha.  It is much better to go into retreat away from the madding crowd, on your own, with your self.

But none of this is simple.  We have commitments to our job (future retirement) family and our partners.  Okay, I can buy that.  But a retreat can be for a few days, a week, several weeks or months.  The main idea is for you to be alone with your self.  Find some place in the woods.  Fire up the little rocket stove and cook your meals.  Walk and meditate.  Read out loud from a sutra or read the Awakening of Faith.  Do prostrations.  All the time you are doing these things you should be looking for pure Mind.  Just remember it is pure, like empty space, seemingly invisible.  You are half of it already, lady Prajña is the other half that you are looking for, this immaculate pure Mind.  You have to have faith in yourself only because, as I just mentioned, you are half of this Mind already—you just forgot what it looks like as an unconditioned object.