"Incestuous amplification" is a very interesting military term which if overlooked can lead to a huge disaster. Incestuous amplification occurs when a group is committed to a particular strategy or solution which, at the same time, excludes contrary views, even going so far as to punish those who might have a better idea. In what is known today as the Battle of the Bulge, in a very short period of time 19,000 American soldiers were killed. However, the German offensive was no surprise to American G-2 intelligence officer of the First Army, Colonel Monk Dickson. His report no. 37 predicted almost to the day the German offensive. In a state of incestuous amplification the group led by Major General William B. Kean didn't want to hear what Colonel Monk Dickson had to say. In other words, at the time nobody wanted to hear the Germans were coming back on December 1944 and the Allies would have their backs against the wall. The rest is history which few will learn from.
Which now brings us to Buddhism. In Buddhism, it is believed that the individual or satkaya is made up of the conditioned five skandhas or aggregates, beyond which there is no ātman. Simple enough—end of discussion. Nobody wants to hear, in particular, that the Buddha did not deny ātman; in fact, made no unambiguous denial of ātman in his many discourses. His main focus was teaching his followers not to identify with what is not ātman, namely, the five grasping aggregates or skandhas which constituted the individual/person or satkaya.
Incestuous amplification extends to karma and rebirth believing that these were not authentic doctrines of the Buddha but mere concessions on his part to the Zeitgeist. This same blinkered attitude extends to consciousness (vijñāna). Many Buddhists fail to acknowledge that consciousness—not ātman—is the rebirth transmigrant which resonates with the nāmarūpa (embryo), which grows into a conditioned individual being that is subject to pain and death.
Zen suffers also from incestuous amplification. Many Zennists believe that seated meditation (J., zazen) is the sure road to awakening. Some even want to believe there is no awakening—no kensho. Everything is already Buddha-nature (this is a utopian mindset). Hey, we're all Buddhas even the mountains, rivers and shrubbery! So in this regard, just accept this. Do it by "just sitting" (只管打坐) which before Dogen's borrowing of the idea, meant in Chinese Buddhist monasteries just attend to meditation insofar as a number of monks held no administrative positions—they had to do something, in other words. One could think of these monks as newly arrived beginners. But proto-Zen and early-Zen contains no such teachings. Only around the time of Song-Zen does a strong emphasis on zazen begin and then only in the school of Caodong (J., Soto) which was experiencing a revival.
The great casualty here is sentient beings who prolong their time in samsara being reborn again and again owing to the depth of their avidya. But who thinks of casualties like this? Most people are too deluded to think about such things, after all they believe this is the only life they will ever experience after they die—or is it? Nor do their teachers care. They are just happy to get a modest income. But this is a perfect example of the blind leading the blind. Still, it is dangerous.
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