The Zennist

A kind of aesthetic hedonism

Many people (generally young), at first, enjoy the practice of Zen Buddhism or just plain Buddhism.  But over time, they eventually shift to a kind of aesthetic hedonism in which the need for pleasure turns the intellect towards seeking the experience of contentment, enjoyment, gladness, gratification, love and even euphoria.

The thought that this is finite and always changing and will eventually turn to suffering, is not alarming to those in this kind of hedonism as long as there is no real pain or one is not trapped in the world of responsibility. 

What is perhaps less understood is the need to transcend even aesthetic hedonism, seeing face-to-face the invariant absolute which is unconditioned and, at the same time, more beautiful and blissful than one’s limited imagination can imagine!  But that proves difficult since we live in an age of spiritual laziness and philautia which is a kind of unhealthy narcissism. 

Yes, this is a time of little faith in the transcendent.  Compare these times, as far as man’s interest in religion goes, with the beginnings of Orthodox Christianity and its long continuation even to the present.  It is very similar to Buddhism (I have been amazed at the similarity for many years).  We certainly don’t care about theology in this day and age which, according to my dictionary, is the analysis, application, and presentation of the traditional doctrines of a religion which might be, for example, the religion of Buddhism.

Forget that!  We will only go as far as aesthetic hedonism, eventually, even losing our ability to distinguish immorality from morality otherwise called “moral subjectivism” even going to “might makes right.”

The penetrating mind

If courage is the penetration of mind through the fear which seems to overwhelm us then we can think of calmness as the penetration of mind through the anxieties which confront us, even including anger.

Especially, with anger which seems to be a daily event, since many of us are easily triggered, our mind must penetrate or make its way through it so that it doesn’t grow to become violent and intractable.  Importantly, we have to be in the habit of penetrating our mind through simple anxieties and worries rather than allowing them to grow and affect us.

Our mind need not be always passive; always like a sponge.  The mind can be straight forward or ṛju-citta which makes its way through something, hence, penetrating.  It is more like an invisible light that we can direct to anxiety, for example.  Let’s imagine for a moment we have an upset stomach.  We should extend our mind to the upsetness, straight-forwardly, keeping the mind on it for a while.  We should practice this way especially when we are anxious or beginning to become angry. 

If we don’t often use our mind this way we gain no strength with it—we get flabby.  We can develop it in zazen which is why zazen helps, but maybe more, we can develop it in our daily life from splitting firewood to dealing with our crying kids or changing a flat tire.

On an esoteric note, this mind comes from our spiritual body (manomayakaya) which is interfacing with our temporal body.

Our personal search for ultimate truth and meaning

Not all religious experiences or religions are the same, although perennial philosophy tells us otherwise.  The theology of the Catholic Church is different than the theology of the Christian Orthodox.  The same goes for the Protestant churches.  Taoism is different than Buddhism.  Many religions are not at all on the same page and perhaps will never be. 

Buddhists can battle over whether or not the Buddha rejected the ātman.  The debates can become acrimonious and often are.  Some have read through the Pali canon where they discover there is no explicit rejection of the attā (S., ātman). On the contrary, what they find is that the Buddha rejected the five psycho-physical constituents/khandhas which he says are not our self or, anattā (S., anātman).

Zen Buddhists, certainly battle over whether sitting in zazen is enlightenment or seeing one’s true nature.  The awakening that Dogen had is not the same as the awakening Hakuin had.  Both are quite different.  One rejects kenshō and relies on sitting, the other attains kenshō and rejects sitting as enlightenment.

It is not all that unusual in Zen to find someone who believes they are enlightened; who after a few years might start their own school or give up Zen.

Our personal search for ultimate truth and meaning may never perfectly fit within the four corners of a particular religious doctrine.  We may only want to go so far in our quest for ultimate truth because we have other responsibilities.  Many of us, in fact, are not ready for the big dive into the deep waters of ultimate reality.  We still have a lot of growing up to do.

What I tend to be uncomfortable with is a religion that wants everyone to be on the same page—a kind of conformist attitude—where everyone walks in lockstep.  This is okay for the military or if you are playing in an orchestra.

But the religious life is a life of looking within; penetrating the depths of our mental life to find the very substance and source of our thoughts and concepts which transcends them.  To get to this level is like finding the right antidote, one specific for the individual illness.  As we take our antidote we begin to feel a lot better, but this doesn’t mean we have won Buddhahood.  Also, our antidote may not work for another so there is no use in trying be a salesman.

Where are they coming from?

It is hard to put this idea into words, but I shall try!  Over the years on various Buddhist forums I have noticed that everyone has their own idea what the Buddha taught, but they never lay it out in a coherent systematic way.  If I want to find out where they are coming from, that is, what they believe Buddhism or Zen to be, they have to be engaged in a debate and even with a long debate, where these people are really coming from is never clear.

In the big picture, coming from my perspective, Gautama’s awakening consisted of personally realizing the unconditioned, i.e., nirvana.  The difficulty he faced of realizing this was that he was relying and depending upon the conditioned to realize the unconditioned.  So, what is conditioned? It is the psychophysical body (pañca-skandha 五陰) and the world (loka).  Given this, then teaching such an awakening will prove very difficult if not in most cases, impossible.  Not everyone has the karma to realize the unconditioned.

Have I ever met anyone who agrees with this?  Maybe on this blog but outside of it, not that I can remember.  Now if I could piece together where I believe people are coming from let me first say that most people who take up Buddhism and Zen tend to be more or less irreligious and agnostic; nor do they care about theology which is the analysis, application, and presentation of the traditional doctrines of a religion or religious group, in this case Buddhism.

With this in mind, they believe the Buddha taught emptiness as a kind of negative simplicity and the denial of a soul or ātman.  They also believe that he taught all things are interconnected.  Here we see no mention of the unconditioned which is nirvana, which is unlike the conditioned which is never other than in samsara.  These same people do not believe in an afterlife and rebirth.  They are fundamentally immoral and most always depressed in one degree or another.  This, in a nutshell, is their idea of Buddhism and Zen.  It is nihilistic and a corruption of Buddhism and Zen.

Dumbed down Zen

A typical lazy practitioner doesn’t want to study Zen Buddhism or learn about what Buddhism is really about. They like their Zen dumbed down to “just sit” or really dumbed down to something like this:

Being a Buddha is just our everyday mind which is always pure. This is all that people have to realize to be a Buddha.

The “everyday mind” of which this guy speaks is often translated as “ordinary mind” (平常心) which should really be translated as “natural mind” or “original mind” but certainly not “everyday mind”!  We can get a general idea of what this mind is from the Pali Nikayas.

“For the bhavaṅga-citta is a simple mind [pakatimano] that is uncorrupted but, just as clear water tainted by impinging blue colour, etc. is thus categorized as blue water, etc., and not new water, nor the former same clear water, even so is that mind corrupted by impinging faults beginning with covetousness, and not a new mind, nor indeed the former same bhavaṅga-citta. Thus the Blessed One said, "radiant, monks, is this mind; yet it is defiled by impinging defilements” (A. i. 49).

According to Rupert Gethin the,

“bhavaṅga is the state in which the mind is said to rest when no active consciousness process is occurring: thus bhavaṅga is one’s state of mind when nothing appears to be going on, such as when one is in a state of deep dreamless sleep, and also momentarily between each active consciousness process.”

This is also the mind that is revealed when the incessant stream of our thoughts is suddenly stopped.  What is revealed is the pure Mind which is also the bhavaṅga-citta that is uncorrupted,” which is also luminous.

Will the transhumanist project turn into a dystopian world?

Transhumanism, a term coined by Aldous Huxley's brother, expresses mankind’s urge to go beyond his present limiting conditions by means of his sciences and technology which hopefully will give him an ageless body, transcendent experiences, and a super mind.

However, in the final analysis, transhumanism adds up to a kind of utopianism. It may well turn out that the outcome of the transhumanist project will turn into a dystopian world where everything is as bad as it can get—the best-laid plans of mice and men go awry, in other words.

Behind this is a dark alchemy.  It is, let us mess with nature, rather than be her student and listen to her most subtle whispers living far from the madding crowd.  She still has much to teach us and we have much to learn from her.  Also behind transhumanism is a deep fear of death in addition to our difficulty with facing the vicissitudes of human living.

Neither did I want to put all my faith into transhumanism nor run from death.  This takes me back to the time, when still a teenager, I did a lot of existential questioning which, by the way, I contend is a normal part of growing up. 

This questioning led me to the temple of Zen Buddhism—a most wondrous moment in my life; where a small light came into by room of darkness.  I soon gained a new faith that within me was some profound truth I was missing; that in order to commune with it I had to settle this young, restless body down.  It had to be disciplined for the difficult work ahead.

But now looking at the present I see that mankind still seems as blind as ever using his science and technology to expand his arrogance, blindness and cruelty in the name of a new utopia which is transhumanism.  At the same there is a small light at the end of this dark tunnel.  It is coming from NDEs (Near Death Experiences) which confirm rebirth, among other things, and that life is much bigger and more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.

The evil path which goes contrary to consciousness and mind

We take pride in our technological advancements while at the same time holding on to a course of spiritual degeneration, that is, a growing disbelief in the immaterial, including mind or spirit.  This is evident from the almost settled theory in neuroscience that mind or consciousness is a product of the brain.

"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).

All of this is more of a reflection of the powers that be, who believe that mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain all of whom are materialists.  Where this puts Buddhism is into a realm of psychology where its meditation is useful, but nothing earth shaking where it flips the world over, so that we find our sensory world of things to be really made of mind or consciousness.  This is, in fact, what Dr. Donald Hoffman is proposing with his theory of “conscious realism”:

“Conscious realism is a proposed answer to the question of what the universe is made of. Conscious realism asserts that the objective world, i.e., the world whose existence does not depend on the perceptions of a particular observer, consists entirely of conscious agents.”

This ties in with Buddhism insofar as the transmigrant from one rebirth to another is always consciousness (vijñāna).  But this also helps to explain the mysterious storehouse of consciousness addressed in the Lankavatara Sutra, called the ālaya-vijñāna.  Perhaps we can think of it as the storehouse of conscious rebirth agents.  Hoffman says about these agents:

“First, a conscious agent is not necessarily a person. All persons are conscious agents, or heterarchies of conscious agents, but not all conscious agents are persons. Second, the experiences of a given conscious agent might be utterly alien to us; they may constitute a modality of experience no human has imagined, much less experienced. Third, the dynamics of conscious agents does not, in general, take place in ordinary four-dimensional space-time. It takes place in state spaces of conscious observers, and for these state spaces the notion of dimension might not even be well-defined.”

Under this light, Buddhism in the Lankavatara Sutra is really aiming past ālaya-vijñāna to the very substance which is Mind. Conscious agents are really a bifurcation (S., vi) of the Mind into countless subject and object heterarchies all of which are in subject object dependence or reflection-correspondence.

This takes us to the warning that the expansion of our conscious life is very important.  At least we must not be like insects or animals but rather become like gods holding many lesser conscious agents within us.  Our subject and object sides, which make up our consciousness must, eventually, become one, which is Buddhahood.  This path is not material but immaterial and spiritual.  There is no place in this life for materialism.  The materialist is on an evil path which goes contrary to consciousness and Mind.

An asura run world doesn't end with awakened people

Most serious students of Zen have had some kind of crisis moment in their lives when they are moved to practice the Way.  They have realized that over time things will only get worse.  Supposedly, this happened to Prince Siddhartha when he left his sheltered palace life and was first shocked by the sight of a decrepit old man with the weight of his upper body supported by his stick. 

Then as Siddhartha’s charioteer continued they came upon a man suffering from disease who was suffering greatly as he lay in his own urine and feces. 

Eventually, the charioteer drove by a dead man who had reached his end. Siddhartha saw the corpse lying on a stretcher, covered by a cotton cloth. It was surrounded by a group of relatives who wailed, cried, and lamented.

Finally, Siddhartha and his charioteer came upon a wandering ascetic.  He learned that these are people who sought release from suffering. With these sights he felt a deep urgency to become, also, a wandering ascetic so as to avoid such suffering.

What a beautiful story, but we live not in a world like Siddhartha's.  Our world is one dominated by attachment to the flesh, sexual excesses such as pedophilia, conflict, violence, self-assertion, and self-aggrandizement (i.e., pathological narcissism). We use drugs and other intoxicants more than often to excess.  This indicates only one thing, that we have been taken over by the Asura force.  The bulk of mankind are not budding Siddharthas or Bodhisattvas they are in one degree or another, Asuras.

Hindu lore tells us that the Asuras have been present for thousands of years when the greater materialistic era began.  According to Chan master Hsüan Hua, Asuras are human beings who like strife and war.  Modern culture is heavily influenced by the Asura force.  Everyone from the average person trying to make a living, to media personalities, athletes, actors, politicians—even religious leaders can become possessed by the Asura force and often are. 

Blessed are those, I dare say, who are moved like Siddhartha was moved; who then decide to leave the madding crowd to practice the Dharma.  But what has happened, instead, is the Asura force trying to do good creates deranged minds, disunity and revolutions.  Let's not forget that Stalin was a bank robber not a wandering ascetic.  Che Guevara was a cold blooded murderer not a Bodhisattva.  The Communist revolution of 1917 ended up murdering millions of innocent Russian people.  Communism still continues to this day only this time in the guise of Globalism and social justice.  It is totally destructive.

Meeting the dark forces antagonistic to enlightenment

Buddhists, if at all, seldom look into the dark world of psychopathy; much less a pathocracy, a system of government created by a small pathological minority.  Most of us are like some frogs put into a pot of cold water who become used to the temperature of the water as it is raised until it is too late.  If you could imagine a conversation among the frogs its basis would rest upon the past when things were much cooler.  Finally, the frogs believe such cooler times will no doubt come again.

A former Californian from an old California family, I left the golden state many years ago.  As part of my spiritual practice—let me put it this way—the Buddhas told me I would be leaving in ten years.  It happened. Looking back, I dare say, California has become a pathocracy run by a few psychopaths.  As we might expect, the head frogs see nothing wrong with all the problems.  But talk to the people who have left (the smart frogs) and California is slouching towards the third world.

A pathocracy is also a nice way of saying an “evil world.” This is the world of Māra the Evil One who was the adversary that Prince Siddhartha had to defeat in order to become Buddha, awakened to ultimate reality.  In this regard, Māra’s world  is also the psychophysical body which in Buddhism is the five skandhas consisting of physical shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness. 

Māra, however, does not include our true self meaning the ātman inasmuch as the self is what realizes nirvana.  Māra is always what is not the self or anātman.  This is very important to comprehend for it is Māra that we must identify in our thoughts and subdue like Prince Siddhartha.  As one Buddhist monk put it so well, Māra is the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment.  These forces would include all that is conditioned insofar as the goal of enlightenment is to realize the unconditioned, i.e., nirvana. 

Much of our initial Buddhist training, starting from taking the five precepts, concerns contending with dark forces deep within us that are antagonistic to awakening (kenshō).  These forces can include mental habits that block intuition which is necessary in Zen insofar as Zen  is really about intuition, the sudden seeing of our true nature (kenshō).

But if we happen to live in a pathocracy, what then?  Isn’t it going to be much more difficult to overcome the many forces that are antagonistic to our awakening?  By the same token, won’t it be far easier to be a religious hypocrite or a pious fraud and do a lot of virtue signaling?  Won’t it also be easy just to give lip service to the Dharma as in no deeds are required?  Let’s be honest even most serious Buddhist practitioners never get beyond being little more than minions of Māra.

One final note, as regards the pathocracy, the writing was already on the wall with the rise of the 1960s counterculture.  The die was cast.  We were past the point of return.  This was not a revolution but part of a well designed plan the goal of which was to corrupt the human spirit by putting it on a path of self-destruction.  The beginning was 1913.  The name of the institution was the Tavistock Institute.  Coleman’s book is in pdf form.  Don’t spend two grand! 

 

The path of Zen for some is closed off

There is only one important teaching we must have full faith in: Zen is the direct experience of seeing pure Mind. This experience is a profound gnosis which is not the same as an intellectual understanding. If you think to have achieved this gnosis, chances are you haven't. You are just deluding yourself.

At some point in your youth you have to un-delude yourself.  That means cutting off outside influences.  The best way to do this is to become a hermit. Stay physically away from others as much as possible.  Learn to enjoy solitude especially in nature. This way you will eventually find out that you have not awakened to pure Mind.  It is vital that you know that you don’t know!

Once you fully realize that you are not awakened to pure Mind, it should shock you and send you into a crisis like no other. Without being in such a crisis, no awakening. The crisis comes as a warning to you that you have to give up everything and most of all the cunning intellect that has misled you into believing that you are even partially awakened.

This crisis is not in anyway connected with depression.  It is the result of a long search when our intellect finally admits to itself that it can go no further.  But for the intellect to admit this means that thinking about pure Mind is no longer a road that leads anywhere except in a circle—and this circle has repeated itself a number of times.

Because awakening to pure Mind is so extraordinary and unexpected there is no other way to get there except by the total failure of our contrived methodology.  If there is a path of Zen it certainly isn’t like a cow trail or does it have markers.  It would be more like a path that is vertical at right angles to the horizontal plane of birth and death.  For those who are creatures of habit, the path of Zen is all but closed off to them.  This means that habits can be habits of blindness.