The Zennist

Neither Buddhism nor Zen are a Tony Robbins event on the cheap

Where, exactly, is the end of suffering in Buddhism to be found?  First of all, it’s not about ending human suffering in the example of winning the lottery, overcoming depression, finding new meaning in an otherwise boring and irresponsible life, finding a new boyfriend or girlfriend, or getting a good paying job.  This is still suffering although on the surface it seems otherwise. 

Here the Buddha tells us where the end of suffering is to be found which is certainly not something appealing to the worldly human.

“There is that sphere (āyatanaṃ), monks, where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, no this world, no world beyond, neither Moon nor Sun. There, monks, I say there is surely no coming, no going, no persisting, no passing away, no rebirth It is quite without support, unmoving, without an object,—just this is the end of suffering” (Udāna 80).

This ‘sphere’ can also mean an 'origin' or 'source'.  It could even refer to the absolute.  This is also what Zen seeks and finds in kenshō which is seeing our true nature which is also the end of suffering as far as the next life is concerned.  There will be no more samsara, in other words.

The Buddha’s idea of suffering and its end is not like that of the worldling.  It is the same with compassion.  This is why it is so odd to see Dharma centers or Zen centers becoming magnets for people with a variety of mental issues who are seeking some relief from their suffering. 

It’s kind of like, Have a problem?  Check out your local Zen center and learn zazen.  Problem solved.  But that is neither what Buddhism nor Zen are about.

Expecting Buddhism or Zen to be like a Tony Robbins event on the cheap where we learn to live a healthier and more purposeful life; where there will be a one-on-one coaching program, training systems and group workshops, etc., is not going to be found.  If anything, the thrust of Buddhism is to get the worldling to first accept that life, no matter how healthy or wealthy a person becomes is not going to end their suffering.  After the complete acceptance of this fact, the next step is to realize that sphere (āyatanaṃ) which can be a long process.

Identity politics and Zen Buddhism are incompatible

Sorry folks, but we don’t live in a time when people are free from being crazy and even batshit crazy.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which was created in 1952, has certainly grown in size over the years.  A fifth edition was released in 2014.  (Maybe there is another one on the way, even larger.)

I think it is safe to say that the human race has a lot of crazies mixed in with the not-so-crazy people.  Worth mentioning also, entire nations have gone batshit crazy.  I have been glancing through Charles Mackay’s classic work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). He writes,

“We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple, and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and showed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity.”

As for “rivers of blood” let us not forget the words of batshit crazy Trotsky:

“The only difference is that this tyranny will not come from the right, but from the left, and will not be white, but red, in the literal sense of that word, for we shall shed such streams of blood that all the losses of human lives in Capitalist wars will shrink and pale before them.”

To avoid going, personally, batshit crazy we study the words of the Buddha — that is the normal approach.  But that is not what is going on today.  It’s called identity politics which in a nutshell is about marginalized groups trying to gain a political voice in society which is really a desire or need to overpower.  They have pretty much taken over the universities and have their eye on corporations.  Take away the abstract arguments, this is about crazy groups vs the not-so-crazy and who is going to win, politically, and dominate.  The crazies seem to be saying, “Respect me for the reason that I am crazy and a victim.  I have special needs that you (probably my oppressor) must meet or suffer the consequences of my wrath.”

If we go back to 2018 when Edward Brown, a Soto Zen priest, was kicked out of the San Francisco Zen Center for allegedly saying something he did not say (even the tape recording said he did not say what was alleged), and despite Edward’s daughter trying to save the reputation of her father, he was nevertheless given the boot by the Zen social justice warriors for offending “a queer woman and survivor of sexual violence” whose memory did not match with the tape recording (False Memory Syndrome is a major problem these days which became more public in 1994, following the submission of an amicus brief by a committee of concerned scientists to the Supreme Court of New Jersey).  By the time the Edward Brown incident happened Buddhist and Zen centers were already dealing more and more with the consequences of identity politics.  

Here was the confluence of identity politics and Zen.  This California Zen center, over the many years, had grown into something with the culture of a 60s California commune, the influences of a  Japanese Zen monastery, and an out patient clinic for the mentally afflicted.

Will Zen survive in liberal California?  Not very well.  It will still have the name Zen but that is as far as it goes.  Zen is about to be thrown into the dustbin of history — especially Dōgen’s oddball version of it that managed to establish itself in California, an incompetently run state with 144 billionaires and the highest poverty rate in the United States.

Despite the bad news, there is another Zen with kenshō (intuiting one’s true nature) as its end — not just sitting.  But it is not for the batshit crazy or the moderately crazy.  It requires intuition, faith in the teachings and courage to go through with the whole process.  Those whose problems are listed in the DSM 5 need not apply.

Modern Buddhism wading into the swamp of postmodernism

The 1960s began to open my eyes to Zen Buddhism—for me always a mystical path.  But I also lived in a time just after the emergence of postmodernism which began gaining traction in the 1950s. It was, in a nutshell, the breakdown of everything which could be either sudden or gradual. 

I began to think of my era as somewhat like Plato’s cave in The Republic where people live in an underground cave.  They are positioned in such a way to see nothing but shadows cast on a wall by the light from a fire producing a kind of puppet show.  Those like the Buddha were able to escape and see the true world.  Most could not. 

I would just add to the aforementioned, the puppet masters were all the time devising clever, new puppet shows (postmodernism) for the fettered masses in the cave lest anyone decide to escape like another Siddhartha.

Looking back to that strange time, the genesis of postmodernism began in modern culture due to the fact that modernism had already within it too much skepticism: call it the faith to doubt which turned, over time, into extreme nihilism even nothingness with regard to the self.

The problem that comes with such nihilism is “What do you do with the self?”  This question, I believe, grew into postmodernism which, subsequently, found its way into popular culture.  What do you do with the self was, essentially, a denial of meaning in human life which is where postmodernism stands today.

As for popular Zen Buddhism and even Pali Buddhism both of which had, unconsciously, waded into the swamp of postmodernism, they seemed to represent a new postmodern religion.   

It is believed that Zen and Buddhism didn’t fully deny the self or the ego so much as practice was meant to transform the self or ego into an ethical agent, for example, the idea of the Bodhisattva. 

What they appeared to deny was the self which attains nirvana, namely, the very self (P., paccatta) which was outside of any kind of sociological construct (interactions between people).  (Soteriology in Buddhism, including Zen, is strictly first-person and transcendent.  In other words, one is one’s own savior/nātha.) 

In authentic Buddhism the self is awakened to itself by abandoning what is not the self, viz., the conditioned (saṃskṛta).  The Buddha, in fact, tells Radha, “you should abandon desire for whatever is not the self” (SN IV. 49) which, in other words is all things, that is, the illusory.  The Buddha says in fact: All things are not the self (sabbe dhammā anattā).

Modern Zen and Buddhism amount to nothing more than a carefully crafted narrative which is meant to fit within postmodern culture — not Buddhism.  The transformed ethical agent is also the social justice warrior seeking revenge where the growing hatred of the victims is politically transformed which then becomes focused upon the oppressors by trying to undermine their culture.

 

Recently banned for one day

The reddit moderators sent me this DM:

This is a temporary ban as a warning. Please do not promote "oneness" or a "higher self on this subreddit", whether or not you think it is implied by the sutras.

It's quite astonishing for people who are familiar with the Pali Nikayas and Mahayana Sutras like the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, for example, which is all about the self or atman. Here is a passage from this Sūtra:  

"The Buddha said: "O good man! "Self" means "Tathagatagarbha" [Buddha-Womb, Buddha-Embryo, Buddha-Nature]. Every being has Buddha-Nature. This is the Self."

There is nothing to be found in the Pali Nikaya where the Buddha categorically claims that there is no self which in Pali is natthattā which I hasten to add, also happens to be the doctrine of annihilationism which the Buddha rejects!  He says to Ananda,

“Had I answered, ‘There is no self (natthattā),’ this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists” (SN 44.10). 

A contemporary of the Buddha, Ajita Kesakambali, who was one of the great annihilationists basically taught that there is no self for the reason that the person is composed of material elements and that with death all this is annihilated.  Thus, the idea of a transmigrant was out of the question whereas for the Buddha, consciousness (vijñāna) was the transmigrant that survived death.

Then the question comes up, "Who or what realizes nirvana if there is no self?"  The answer is not all that difficult.  It is the very self or in Pali paccatta what attains nirvana.

"He [thus] dwelling contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating renunciation, does not grasp at anything in the world, and not grasping he is not perturbed, not being perturbed he attains utter nibbana in his very self.  He knows ‘Destroyed is birth, lived is the holy life, done is what was to be done, there will be no more of thus-conditioned existence" (MN I.255-256).

So I am been banned for a day by the great moderators (gatekeepers) of reddit who felt I was a threat to the docile sheep who come to reddit Buddhism to post pictures of their Buddhist shrines, tell us about their depression and PTSD, and wonder if Buddhism can help them which would be much cheaper than going to a psychologist. These people are not from my generation. I am 74. I took Buddhism as my path in 1965 and have had one heck of a great adventure.  Those who visit this blog I consider part of my Buddhist family and mavericks like me.

Practicing non-hatred

When I studied Zen with a Soto abbot, in the beginning, it seemed to me that he did everything he could to anger me.  I made too much noise with my flip-flops.  I didn’t make his coffee right.  I was too loud when I washed the dishes.  The list goes on.  Yep, I learned non-hatred which in Pali is averena which can also mean non-enmity, non-revenge, and non-hostility.  This term is used, for example in the Dhammapada (5).

Hatred (verena) is indeed never appeased by hatred here.
It is appeased by non-hatred (averena) — this law is eternal (sanantano).

With averena I didn't have to love those who were angry at me or who didn’t like me.  As a consequence of practicing averena I gave up trying to please anyone or suck-up to them.  I just didn't have to hate them.

Hatred is bad stuff.  It affects us emotionally then, eventually, physically in a fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system reaction.

Having compassion/karuna for others is completely different.  Pop Buddhists and Zennists overuse the term.  Compassion is more related in meaning to the Greek word philanthropia, a term from antiquity, which is a benevolent attitude of giving support for those in need which is exactly what the Buddha did after his enlightenment. He gave them the teaching of liberation from samsara.

The Buddha’s compassion was not something like handing out ham sandwiches to the homeless in San Francisco in an effort to virtue signal as in “look at me, I am so compassionate.” 

The Buddha did not waste his time on the incorrigibles.  His time was spent teaching those with good hearts who were open minded; who understood the peril of samsara.  On the same score, he did not harbor any verena to the incorrigibles.  He did not love them either, love or agápē in the Greek sense meaning a preference for something.

The vanity of some Western Buddhists requires of them to always act compassionately while it seems, at the same time, they are harboring a lot of verena.  Put them under a little pressure and they collapse like a cheap card table.  For one thing, they are easily triggered becoming hostile.  They would never survive with the abbot I stayed with.  They would have left the next day when he scolded them for making too much noise setting down their tea cup!

Nihilism, spreading everywhere like a plague

We can see from our recent history, that what is having a ruinous effect on both individuals and society, is nihilism which has been normalized under the banner of postmodernism; which seems to be spreading everywhere like a plague. 

In nihilism, one must learn to live in the limitless fog of un-awakened-ness or avidyā.  The fog serves as an impediment to the direct cognition of true reality which Buddhism demands.  It hides the higher world and the higher self.  As we might also expect, religiousness disappears.

Nihilism lacks depth.  Look all you wish for the rabbit hole, there is nothing to be found in nihilism that can help one to differentiate between true reality and appearance.  How could it?  It is total ontological disbelief.  The self in nihilism dissolves everything into nothingness so that what is, paradoxically, left over is the self that dissolves itself always re-emerging in this process. 

This self to protect itself from this dissolving nihilism becomes the narcissist which includes everything found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the traits of which might include even a modern day Satan, or persons self-absorbed who feel entitled and even hatred toward those who challenge them but are not always exploitative or without some measure of empathy.  The list goes on to include those who have good leadership skills, who exhibit empathy and caring and would dare not exploit others; who are also conscientious who know how to turn their defeats into victories.   

Yet, even Buddhism cannot save the nihilist from their nihilism.  One should not even try.  Nor should one ever feel sorry for the narcissist.  Even now they have infiltrated into the sanctum sanctorum of Buddhism rewriting Buddhism to serve their special needs.  It is a new Buddhism which calls for a new faith to even doubt Buddhism.  There is no self, no nirvana, no karma or rebirth.  The release from all suffering is the Void.

Is enlightenment (like gender) socially constructed?

Socially constructed enlightenment, like socially constructed genders, has it purveyors who haven’t proven what they wish to prove although they believe otherwise (this is taken up by Robert K. C. Forman in his book, The Innate Capacity: Mysticism, Psychology, and Philosophy). 

The idea of something ‘socially constructed’ can only begin as a social phenomenon, that is, it stems from an interaction between at least two communicating people which could be thought of as a kind of primitive, limited sharing (but not everything is sharable [asocial] even between two like minded people). 

This is also meant to suggest that our cultural training which includes education, social status, economic circumstances, serve to shape our personal experiences, feelings, choices and, ultimately, who we really believe we are.

Contrary to this, in the example of biological gender, it is not socially constructed, it is set during conception.  The difference between biological sexes includes different chromosomes, for example, female XX, male XY, different reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), etc.  A human being is born as an organic whole which then develops to its potential which could be argued is part of Darwinian fitness.    

Turning to Buddhism, all sentient beings have the enlightened or Buddha nature, potentially.  This means that this nature is inherent in all living creatures but is ever hidden by the biological entity, itself, the life of which revolves around material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations (choices) and consciousness which are the five grasping aggregates.  One could even argue that it is further hidden by any and all social constructions which are the result of social interactions.

All this falls under the category of ‘constructivism’.  Whether we are arguing about gender being socially constructed or Siddhartha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, such experiences according to the constructivists are in large part built up through language, concepts, beliefs, and expectations (all acquired by social interactions).

But when a student  leaves their religious culture which could be a Zen monastery or a university class on Buddhism and elects to go into a self-imposed retreat looking for their true nature, the  social world is left behind.  There is no interaction with another in the example of even the teacher-student dyad. 

Over time, solitude washes away and lessens the impact of past social interactions which are outside the subject who is in retreat.  If anything, there is a shift from social interaction to personal intra-action.  In the latter, the gap between observer-observed or subject-object duality which makes up consciousness (vijñāna) is closed through meditation (dhyāna) until the original one is reached or in Sanskrit, ekatva, this being enlightenment which transcends even the biological domain.

The real goal of Buddhism

The goal of Buddhism is the attainment of nirvana which is unconditioned. The world of suffering is never other than this conditioned world which our present rebirth has brought us to.  Let's not forget that the first noble truth is about the suffering of the five grasping aggregates (pañcupādānakkhandhā) which make up our human existence.

"And what, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering? It should be said: the five aggregates subject to clinging [pañcupādānakkhandhā]" (SN V.425).

Despite the overwhelming proof that attaining nirvana is the real goal of Buddhism there are those today who are interested in Buddhism but not interested in the attainment of nirvana.  These people expect Buddhism to help them deal with depression or other issues such as anger or drug addiction. They are looking for some kind of panacea other than attaining nirvana.  Will it work? No, is the short answer.  And why won't it work?

These people who come to Buddhism looking for help are lying to themselves.  They come to Buddhism not for nirvana but, instead, to learn how to get rid of their problems because they sense, and rightly so, that they have almost become social outcastes.  In other words, they are not liked by their peer group.  They expect Buddhism to clean them up just enough so they can pass as being normal human beings and hopefully be liked by other people.

Wrong headed Buddhist teachers like to cater to such people as if to say, we have a panacea for you.  It is called zazen.  Just sit and all your problems will eventually go away as you become more Buddha-like!  Did the Buddha actually teach that 'just sitting' will get rid of most problems?  No he did not.

Unlearning what we have learned

Buddhism for the beginner is more of a process of unlearning certain learned patterns many of which are maladaptive patterns from Buddhism’s lofty perspective. 

Not surprising, many of these patterns are part of a normal, accepted culture.  Still they are neither conducive to understanding the context of Buddhism nor meeting its real goal which is the attainment of nirvana. 

This unlearning also includes unlearning various beliefs and prejudices especially, for example, materialism’s belief in no atman or soul (P., natthattā), or the belief that there is no life after death, or consciousness is brain generated.  People who hold tightly to such views do not wish to unlearn their views.  

Unlearning what we have learned; trying to understand the general framework of Buddhism, more than often, proves to be too difficult for the bulk of beginners who tend to be dabblers. 

Beginners who take up the study and practice of Buddhism have no idea how much they have to unlearn in order to reach the point where they understand the general context of Buddhism.  For example, even the most rudimentary form of meditation which consists of sitting on a cushion with the back ramrod straight involves unlearning certain acquired physical habits that cannot sustain sitting for any length of time beyond ten or twenty minutes.

Turning to Zen, one has to unlearn the belief that thought can apprehend pure Mind which is completely beyond thought since thought stems from it.  One also has to unlearn and correct the bad habit of falling into the five hindrances (pañca nivāraṇa) which call for 1) abandoning of desire for the world, 2) abandoning ill will and hatred, 3) abandoning sloth and torpor, 4) abandoning restlessness and remorse, and 5) abandoning doubt.  Unless thoroughly abandoned these five will always remain a hindrance to realizing pure Mind which is the very source and substance from which thought is formed.

Real Buddhism has very little in common with modern culture since its aims are beyond the sphere of the six senses upon which modern culture rests especially the last sense which is mind (S., manas), which includes the intellect as well as the imagination.

Also, much of Buddhism’s practice has to be done in nature’s solitude away from external distractions which includes the unwashed masses.  One must also unlearn the modern life of comfort and leisure in order to get used to a difficult inward struggle going through layer upon layer of self-created deceptions.

 

 

Why do humans fall prey to evil?

At least in Buddhism; often implied, we humans are evil since in our life we bear the five aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, volitional formations/choices and consciousness or subject-object knowing (vijñāna).  More to the point, this is who we believe we are thus falling  prey to our belief and with it evil or excess.  But the Buddha said that, fundamentally, we are not these aggregates which belong to Māra the Buddhist devil.  Our true self is not an aggregate.

In our present form, we are conscious agents who have willfully incarnated into flesh/aggregates which will, eventually, prove fatal for us, in more ways than one, as we cling to these aggregates more and more.  What animates us, which is spirit or the same, our Buddha-nature, becomes totally enshrouded by our five aggregate life which, to repeat myself, belongs to Māra, the Buddhist devil. 

Any action on our part to do good, eventually, meets with corruption and failure insofar as we have not yet transcended the aggregates which includes our six senses.  This is not far off from what J.R.R. Tolkien said in a letter:

“But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however 'good'; and the Writer of the Story [the Buddha-nature or spirit] is not one of us.” (Brackets are mine.)

Elsewhere Tolkien writes, “It is possible for the good, even the saintly to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome — in themselves.” 

While it is true that evil always destroys itself we humans will always destroy ourselves since few have managed to transcend the burden of the aggregates.  History tells us that Siddhartha has managed this transcendence, including others after him, even some Christians after the spread of Buddhism in the Middle-East which began around 200 B.C.

One need only look to Communism to see absolute evil take possession of the human mind and unleash a horror upon the Russian people like no other — and then collapse.  Even now evil is upon us, again, with the hostility of materialism and anti-religious postmodernism believed to be progressive when its real goal is to undermine the spiritual nature of mankind.  Those who fall prey to this Siren song are even now destroying themselves and the innocent.