The Zennist

The main problem with westernized Buddhism and Zen

I was wondering a few years ago why westernized Buddhism and especially Zen did not comport well with the words of the Buddha and the Zen masters.  And then I came across Iain McGilchrist's works which explore the asymmetry of the left and right hemisphere of the brain.  His exploration also opens up a can of worms when the left hemisphere tries to undermine rather than cooperate and harmonize with the right hemisphere.

When our thinking is dominated by the left hemisphere of the brain it is like we're trying to understand Buddhism and Zen through certain pre-positioned algorithms.  Or simply fixed biases such as political correctness.  This of course shuts the door on an open mind which one needs to access the right hemisphere.

Accessing the right hemisphere of the brain is really about having access to direct intuition which is probably the best translation of what Buddhism and Zen mean, as regards “dhyāna.”  This is evinced clearly in Soothill and Hodous' Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms.  Buddhism and Zen are intuitional systems.

Understandably, intuition is not mediated by reasoning or the sensory organs.  Yet, it doesn’t reject them.  They are useful, but intuition goes much further.  It transcends them.  The real danger that Buddhism and Zen face is when there is mistrust in the intuitional, and this is what is happening both in Buddhism and Zen.

It is as if our culture is teaching people the truth is always propositional and found explicit somewhere within the pages of human literature.  In other words, there is a proposition that we can test out to see if it accords with the left hemisphere.  We might agree with it and we might not.

For Buddhism, the right hemisphere has to first intuit the whole, that is, nirvana before any proposition can come out of it like, for example, nirvana is the end of all suffering.  The Buddha it could be said teaches from his awakening, not from human values or various cultural values.  Mankind's ultimate goal then is to awaken to the true nature of the universe upon which all things depend.

No escape from the virtual reality game?

Life is more like a journey into a vast virtual reality world.  Our body is the VR simulator (avatar) and we are mysteriously unified with it.  We can't distinguish the simulator character from our real self.  In this modern day and age most everyone assumes that the simulator is their self and when the simulator gets old and breaks down and eventually doesn't work they will also cease but this is not what happens.  Not according to Buddhism and of course Zen.

For me in a strange and beautiful way T.S. Eliot explains the path of Buddhism in these lines from his poem, Little Gidding.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The Buddha knows that our exploring is taking place in an illusory world, a world today many would call a virtual reality game.  This virtual reality game is completely heuristic.  It serves only as an aid to discovering who we really are.  In other words, we are not who we imagine we are.  Our simulator character that passed through our mother’s birth canal is not who we are.

All that we know has become the game.  We can't see any escape from it.  By clever cultural diversions we are forbidden to speculate that there is a possible escape from this game.  But Buddhism doesn't agree with this.  In fact, we could even say it is the means by which to escape this virtual reality game, taking it to its limit then leaping beyond.

In the example of Hakuin 慧鶴, we suddenly converge with the absolute from where we originally started exploring the illusion long ago.  Yes, we intuit it.   

It is still ineffable and unknowable in the usual sense, but we have finally arrived.  We have reached a mysterious place where both perceiver and the perceived have been transcended suddenly, and all at once.

With the years we have left we come to understand how we became entrapped in something like a virtual reality game where the simulator was the human body of birth and death.  We also became aware of how we wrongly identified our true self with the simulator.

In addition, we also learned how desire for the simulator eventually lead to pain and suffering.  It is like we became intoxicated.  We couldn't get enough of the game.  Then the simulator began to break down.  We didn't know what we would do without it.  We just assumed that when it's ceased operating so would we.

Our passcode into this illusory world has always been consciousness which in Sanskrit is VIJÑĀNA.  It literally means in two parts knowing.  It is a kind of doubling of the one/eka like two mirrors facing each other.  What appears is always doubled (the product of the perceiver and the perceived).  It is not real (even the doubling is not real).  It is only an illusion that appears, not veridical reality.

Having entered the illusion with our passcode, becoming game players, our imagination is free to roam and choose any path it wishes.  At this point we are bound to the illusion:  we can see nothing else except appearances through a perceiver and the perceived combination which in our ignorance we are unable to transcend.

There is an underlying duality in our brain

There is an underlying duality in our brain between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.  While they tend to cooperate they can also not cooperate so that there exists an inharmonious tension between the two.  Needless to say, they both have their place:  one side leans towards the individual while the other side is towards the big picture that the individual dwells in. 

When the squirrel eats the acorn on my front lawn the squirrel also has to be aware of the hawk that could be circling overhead looking for a meal.  In other words, man's day-to-day life needs to be also aware of the big picture. 

Some big picture questions are:  Where is this life of mine going?  How do I know if I am on the right path?  Am I is really as smart as I think I am? 

There are many more such questions that arise from the big picture which relies on the right hemisphere of the brain.  We could even say for the religiously minded that the left hemisphere is oriented to the fleshy individual, whereas the right hemisphere is oriented to spirit or the divine.  It truly is Lord (S., Bhagavān) not the left hemisphere.

Leading a balanced life really means living a life where the left hemisphere has to be subordinate to the right hemisphere just like a ship must be subordinate to the direction of travel otherwise it will not get to its destination. 

Keeping with this, Buddhists have always subordinated the individual or left hemisphere of the brain to the Lord hemisphere or the right hemisphere.  The lodestar of the Buddhist is nirvana that is direct intuition of the unconditioned.  In so doing the Buddhist must also realize the perishable nature of the flesh; that it is suffering and there is no spirit to be found in it.

As history shows us, mankind is not all that interested in taking the right hemisphere seriously.  The pleasures of the flesh grab mankind's attention more.  In fact, mankind it seems is always trying to usurp the natural leadership of the right hemisphere, the Lord, that leads us to the other shore.

Welcome to the virtual reality simulation game called life

We might simplify the world down to raw information, just zeros (0) and ones (1).  This is duality (dvaya).  Still, it can offer us no clue as to its actual source.  Non-duality doesn’t mean very much in this situation either.  It can still be broken down to a string of binary numbers (01101110 01101111 01101110 00101101 01100100 01110101 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110100 01111001).

For the intuitionist this matter is not settled. The intuitionist knows there is something unspeakable which is the source of this binary code.  It transcends zeros and ones.  Let us not forget that Zen is the intuitional school of Buddhism.

The authentic Zennist also knows what transcends the binary nature of consciousness or in Sanskrit, vijñāna (lit. In two parts knowing).  No word or sentence is adequate to the source itself.  Yet, the source can be directly accessed by transcending the binary world reaching veridical reality itself.

If we imagine that our world is based on binary code we can also imagine that we can live in a virtual reality simulation (VRS) game from our birth to our death repeated countless times.  But we could also say that we are trapped in a VRS game called life.

From this we might understand that true religion only begins outside of the VRS game.  It transcends the zeros and ones.  It does not even begin in sacred books.  These books might be the result of intuition of what is actually outside of the VRS game which includes all the senses necessary to play it.  It is also outside of the player whose consciousness has found its way into the VRS game.  We are facing mystery that won't let us go until we have solved it.

In the big VR game of human existence we are all gamers

In Buddhism it would be consciousness (vijñāna) that connects the player with the virtual reality game in which the player is embodied in its avatar.  In the Mahānidāna Sutta (DN 15) the Buddha is telling Ananda that it is consciousness that connects us to the simulation (nāmarūpa) that begins in the mother's womb.

Not only does consciousness survive death but it is integral to the VR game we call human existence. The most dangerous part of this VR game of human existence is that true reality is hidden by the game and the players. It is very much like Case V in the collection of Mumon's koans (無門関):

“It's like a man up the tree, hanging from a branch by his mouth; his hands cannot grasp a branch, his feet won't reach a bough. Suppose there is another man under the tree who asks him, 'What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the west?' If he does not respond, he goes against the wish of the questioner. If he answers, he will lose his life. At such a time, how should he respond?”

We know nothing about the person before it took up the game of human life and became a player who, subsequently, became entangled and enamored with the alluring richness of the game.  Now the player is thrown into this crazy game from which there is seemingly no escape.  Even death will not liberate the player who will take up another avatar only to continue with the game.

Without a doubt, each of us is immersed in our human VR game.  But now we have VR games being created on a regular basis whereby we are playing VR games in an overarching human virtual reality game.  It’s a game that seems so real yet when we look at it, honestly, without a biased mind, it is not unlike our VR games of today.  But there is one problem, we cannot escape the overarching human VR game.  Keep in mind that death is no escape.  But the game is escapable if we follow the Buddhist teachings, but even this is difficult.

The simulation game of birth and death

A neglected question in Buddhism, can death go beyond the reach of consciousness (vijñāna)?  The simple answer to this question is no.  Only the attainment of nirvana goes beyond consciousness so that the world of birth and death becomes an illusion for the enlightened ones.  It is similar to a person seeing waves and knowing that the waves are also water.

What overcomes the seeming ironclad reality of the world of birth and death is the very source of the intrinsic duality of consciousness which is non-dual (advaya).  In other words the basis of every duality is singular that is non-dual. 

We might say that we live in a binary, informational world of 0s & 1s, the source of which is unknown to us.  We might further speculate and say that it is unreal.  Nevertheless, we are still limited by consciousness which is the barrier we cannot pass through.  Death does not grant us freedom, only the continuation of the dual nature of consciousness (vijñāna) by which simulation appears.

Whatever reason there is for maintaining that death is final and there is nothing beyond it stems from a misunderstanding of what consciousness really is.  Without it no simulation is even possible. 

It is something like video simulation games in which real players engage with avatars who exist and operate in a simulation world.  Consciousness connects the players to their avatars in the game so that the player is inserted into the game through the avatar.  Overtime the player becomes more bonded and identified with their avatar.  

In the human simulation world, as strange as it seems, there are no players.  None to be found!  And if you've been so engaged with the day-to-day simulation you may not even recognize that you are a player deeply embodied in an avatar and even deny it.  Or you might think the avatar and the player are the same.

Back to consciousness, this is why the Buddha says of consciousness that it is like a magician’s illusion.

Taking a deep dive into "who am I?"

Self-awareness is not the same as direct reception of the absolute through intuition/gnosis which is the aim of Buddhism.  Self-awareness means being involved with one's daily mental life, most notably, their thoughts, feelings, and their imagination. 

Also it is a limited awareness.  It only concerns the individual:  the being that passed through its mother’s birth canal, to the being that will one day die.

Another way to look at self-awareness, it means understanding myself in such away that I am reasonably certain that I know who I am without being involved in a, strictly, first person perspective.  Such a perspective is very much like the mystics of old who immersed themselves in the seeking of transcendent knowledge; who were also hermits.

To seek enlightenment involves first person immersion.  First person immersion is not accomplished by being just self-aware, as strange as this may sound to the modern ear.  It is like a deep dive into "who am I" in which one even surpasses self-awareness. 

Ultimately it is accomplished by giving up even the first person perspective in a moment of absolute helplessness in which there seems to be no more path, while at the same time, absolute openness prevails.  This leads to the moment of satori when, unexpectedly, Mumon's barrier 関 is transcended.  Zen's mystery is solved.

Buddhism has its share of boneheads

Buddhism, I am sorry to say, has its share of boneheads like any other religion.  You can find the boneheads in scholarly works and in common conversations among Buddhists on the Internet or in person.

Whatever our expectations about Buddhism happen to be we have to do enough reading, research, and thinking about the subject to see if our beliefs about Buddhism hold water or not.  Most of them don’t.  And when Buddhism doesn't match our expectations we dump it and find another religion that meets with our beliefs.

Much of the problem stems from the fact that our beliefs are difficult to give up.  For some people they are not going to give up their beliefs no matter what — and there lies the problem.

Buddhism's problem in the West is that many Westerners who are curious about Buddhism think that it is a form of religious nihilism in which some guy in India discovered that there is no soul, and nothing divine.  Life is all about suffering and learning to cope with it.  And when you die you're dead!

Buddhism for the serious and the mature is a different subject.  It is not about some guy in India who denied the Atman; who also denied the unending cycle of birth and death.  Far from it. 

Upon his awakening Siddhartha realized that the true self or atman is beyond the six senses and beyond all conditioned things.  Key to enlightenment is overcoming the dualizing consciousness or vijñāna.  Experiencer and experience are transcended.  Observer and observed are transcended.  Subject and object are transcended.

A prisoner in Plato's cave

So now you're a prisoner in Plato's cave.  You have no idea what's going on.  The reality before you is all you can perceive.  You don't know true reality.  You have no idea that escape from this world is even possible.  For all you know this is the true world, there is no other. 

Then you manage to read about some fellow named Siddhartha who escaped from this cave.  He claimed to have beheld the true world of divine light—not a false or reflected light but the light of lights.  But this is hard to accept much less believe in fully.

Your skepticism returns you to the shadows cast on the wall by a fire.

From a Buddhist perspective we are born and die within this cave countless times until we attain nirvana.  Putting this into another perspective we are born into an imaginary world and die in an imaginary world, being reborn in it countless times.  In the Assu Sutta the Buddha said:

“From an unfathomable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released.”

Death is certainly no release.  One is simply reborn into a womb or abides for a certain length of time in a more vivid imaginary world than the present one, call it a heavenly world.  Release can only be attained by intuiting what is unconstructed and unconditioned.  Nor can release be attained by the use of the imaginary mind which is a constructor of illusion.

The wave is not the water?

Unexpectedly you wake up in the morning before the alarm goes off.  You stare at the ceiling and realize that you will one day die.  So what do you do?  Go back to sleep or lie awake worrying about it?  Unfortunately, neither dreamland nor worry can̍t solve the problem, it goes much deeper. 

That evening after work you manage to find some degree of solace by going on the Internet.  You take comfort in the fact that many like you share the same problem.

Eventually your life of small, accumulated pleasures and sensual excitement begins to turn into anger and becomes more frustrating.  One day you happen to be in Moe’s Bookstore and have to go to the restroom.  While sitting there you read on the wall, the wave is not the water.  It doesn't make any sense to you but still you can't get it out of your mind.

Much of the greater story of Buddhism has to do with overcoming the allure of an imaginal world observing it with a mind under the domination of imagination.  Buddhism really consists of intuiting reality the way it really is before it becomes imagined.  No imaginary construct will suffice from the simplest thought to an elaborate and vivid world of great beauty.

How does this connect with the wave is not the water?  It is the same as, the ring or bracelet is not gold and the brick is not clay.  On the same score, your thoughts are in no way the pure Mind or absolute spirit which Siddhartha awaken to.  Still having a problem?

So what is the problem?  Buddhism says it's consciousness or in Sanskrit vijñāna, literally, in two parts knowing.  This is more at the division of the one (spirit) or the splitting of the one in which appearance is born which, nevertheless, remains intrinsically empty (śūnyatā).

Abiding in the world of appearance or the same, conditionality, we cannot reify any of this.  It always remains empty.  To do so is a fool’s errand.  The intention of Buddhism is to break us of this habit.  Nevertheless, Buddhism has its fools who then want to say that emptiness itself is the absolute just as Judaism and Christianity have their fools who try to imagine the divine through the flesh.