The usurpers of traditional Zen

Just recently I have been reading Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world.  It is a captivating book for the reason that it hints at what could possibly be the problem with our inability to understand where the Zen koan and much of Zen is coming from.  I include kenshō which is certainly a mystical realization closer to the notion of intuition.  As for the author’s thesis, who is a psychiatrist, he writes:

“My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognisably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain.  It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture” (p. 3).

For many years (too many to remember!) I have suspected that both Buddhism and, in particular, Zen have been hijacked by people who lack the spiritual intelligence necessary to understand Buddhism and  Zen. 

By reading McGilchrist’s book my suspicions had at last found some scientific basis.  While it is true that we are bihemispheric it is not true that both the left and right hemisphere are in constant harmony.  If anything, Western culture favors the left hemisphere of the brain rather than the right.  This lateralizing to the left hemisphere is not without its problems for both Buddhism and Zen.  In fact, I would argue that having a strong bias for the left hemisphere makes it next to impossible to understand where Buddhism and Zen are coming from.  This bias towards the left also invites countless heated arguments (and much hatred, hatred being an emotion of the left hemisphere). 

The title of the book really boils down to a special kind of coup.  The master who represents the right hemisphere is going to be eventually betrayed by the emissary who represents the left hemisphere.  McGilchrist observes:

“He saw his master’s temperance and forbearance as weakness, not wisdom, and on his missions on his master’s behalf, adopted his mantle as his own — the emissary became contemptuous of his master. And so it came about that the master was usurped, the people were duped, the domain became a tyranny; and eventually it collapsed in ruins” (p. 14).

This book proves to be a treasure trove for me as I examine the left and the right hemispheres.  The left has little or no regard for the right hemisphere which is certainly mystical and intuitive; who also has the vision and leads the way.  The left hemisphere sees,

“the workings of the right hemisphere as purely incompatible, antagonistic, as a threat to its dominion — the emissary perceiving the Master to be a tyrant. This is an inevitable consequence of the fact that the left hemisphere can support only a mechanistic view of the world. . .” (p. 206).

The left hemisphere is tied to and limited by language.  It can’t see the big picture.  While it has focused attention, it prefers to examine bits and pieces so that it has a problem with context.  The right hemisphere, on the other hand, sees the forest for the trees including context whereas the left deconstructs.  The left hemisphere breaks the context down into parts then it reconstructs the parts into something different from the original.

“It is the right hemisphere which processes the non-literal aspects of language, of which more later. This is why the left hemisphere is not good at understanding the higher level meaning of utterances such as ‘it’s a bit hot in here today’ (while the right hemisphere understands ‘please open the window’,  the left hemisphere assumes that is just helpful supply of meteorological data)” (p. 49).

In both Buddhism and Zen those who lean to the left hemisphere have little or no idea of the real context, much less how to realize their Buddha-nature.  They are constantly trying to dislodge the teaching from its original context and re-present it in a way they want it to be; that fits with the modern left hemisphere education.

Comments

[david brainerd]

I have to disagree. I don't think there really is a leaning to the logical in the West but to the emotional. Their logic is emotive not logical. "If there is a soul, and any kind of afterlufe, I'm in trouble because I'm a whore or manwhore; ergo, there is no soul nor afterlife." Its no more complex than that. Its all about their emotional attachment to sexual promiscuity.

[TheZennist]

Krystyn: I could have added much more. For those who believe that both Zen and Buddhism are mystical traditions, the book is worth the purchase (I have it on Google Bks.). McGilchrist loves the mystical traditions like Sufi and Zen so right there we Zennists have an ally. I find that it gives me new hope and ammunition to rescue Zen from those who would hand it over to left hemisphere types who don't understand the context of Zen.

[Krystyn]

Thank you for keeping up your writing. It makes me feel not so alone.

I see the left brain as "seeing mountains as mountains", the right brain as "seeing mountains are not mountains". When we finally get them working in harmony..."mountains are mountains again".

[Vyartha]

The meditation textbook "Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa also stresses the two modes of cognition, parsing them as attention and awareness. Attention being exclusive, narrow, conceptual, egoic while awareness more inclusive, holistic, intuitive. He defines right mindfulness as the optimal relationship between the two.