The Zennist

Western meditation vs Buddhist meditation

If by meditation we mean close or continued thought in the sense of sustained reflection, then Buddhist meditation (jhāna/dhyāna) does not match the western idea of meditation. 

Buddhist meditation is more about the stilling of thoughts before a sudden shift into direct intuition of the absolute, i.e., transcendental knowledge (prajñā) occurs.  In Buddhism, such knowledge can never be the result of analytical reasoning but can only reveal itself, spontaneously, by a special kind of meditation.

The process of stilling is not, as we might think, done by willing.  It is about awareness or mindfulness that gets behind our inner world of thoughts.  But it doesn’t will.  Our thoughts become still as we decondition our normal habit or impulse to engage with various kinds of thoughts and emotionally tinged thoughts.  Even though one believes they are mindful of their thoughts as they arise and change, nevertheless, they are engaged with various thoughts, still under their spell.  The practitioner cannot do Buddhist meditation while they are still under the domination of the five hindrances, namely, sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, doubt.

Years ago, when I meditated in an adit that went back into a hill some 43 feet, it was much easier to meditate.  It was so quiet you could almost hear ashes drop from the burning incense.  The atmosphere of the adit helped me to be mindful of my thoughts to a great extent.  But I had also overcome the five hindrances by living in solitude which made this meditation doable for me. 

I should mention that in Buddhism overcoming the five hindrances  is a prerequisite for proper meditation.  This is where modern Zen and its practitioners delude themselves.  They are not doing real meditation because they are still under the influence of the five hindrances.  This, by the way, is one of the reasons one elects to become a monk or a nun and live away from the madding crowd.

 

Buddhism and the problem of narcissism

Most of us are familiar with the story of "Echo and Narcissus" in Ovid's Metamorphoses.  For this blog's purpose it is about a beautiful youth in Greek mythology who pines away for love of his own reflection; who is then turned, eventually, into the narcissus flower.  

You might say that Narcissus suffered from exaggerated self-love which is what the Hollywood stars do on a regular basis whose narcissism encompasses their entire physical bodies.  To a certain extent this is normal in the growth and development of the child—but not in adults.  In the child and even the adolescent, this is called primary narcissism.  The Buddhist dictum: this is mine, I am this, this is my self, would easily apply to the growing child and the adolescent who are narcissistic.

Beyond this, when one becomes an adult, Buddhism argues that such an identification is not logical since it can be observed that physical bodies grow old and eventually perish from various causes.  Overly investing in one’s psychophysical life and existence as if it were the actual self is a foolish gamble.  We see proof of this in the Mahāpuṇṇama Sutta (MN 109)

What do you think, mendicants? Is form permanent or impermanent?”

“Impermanent, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?”

“Suffering, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self’?”

“No, sir.”

“What do you think, mendicants? Is feeling … perception … choices … consciousness permanent or impermanent?”

“Impermanent, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?”

“Suffering, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self’?”

“No, sir.”

“So you should truly see any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; far or near: *all* form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’

You should truly see any kind of feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; far or near, *all* consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’

Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness.

Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed.

They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.’”

That is what the Buddha said. Satisfied, the mendicants were happy with what the Buddha said. And while this discourse was being spoken, the minds of sixty mendicants were freed from defilements by not grasping.

This particular discourse, if we think about it, represents a break with primary narcissism in the same way we eventually give up our toys.  At some point in our youth it should begin to dawn on us that our embodied condition is limited—we can die.

Where excessive attachment to primary narcissism is still going on during the early part of adult life, this continuation then becomes dysfunctional.  It is what is called a “narcissistic personality disorder.”

The Buddhist notion of “no self” (anātman) addresses this kind of narcissism—but it is not a form of nihilism as if to suggest there is no such thing other than the body and the temporal life which ends in ashes.  Far from it.  Traditional Buddhism is about withdrawing identification of our self from that which is not our self where the right dictum should be: this is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.

Narcissus only found substance, like today’s narcissists, in what was only shadow—a mere illusion.  The narcissist wants himself.  So the self becomes the five aggregates, namely, form … feeling … perception … choices … consciousness.  But what the narcissist seeks is nowhere to be found.  It’s all empty. 

If Narcissus could manage to turn away from gazing at the reflection of himself in the pool of shining water he would then, instantly, regain his true self!  But this illusion is too strong to turn away from.  It is conditioned; it appears at times beautiful.  The more he gazes at this reflection the more he desires it, holding on to it at any cost.  And the more we gaze at the five aggregates, called Mara's bait, unable to turn away from the aggregates and thus regain our true self, the more we become like Narcissus.  

The primary basis, itself, which always remains unarisen

There is an implicit distinction to be made between what arises from the unconditioned, primary basis, and the unconditioned, primary basis, itself, which always remains unarisen (an ungraspable background so to speak).

During meditation, the advanced student often discovers this distinction.  Ordinary thoughts, i.e., the arisen, just don’t arise from themselves.  That’s absurd.  In fact, what we call our ‘mind’ (manas) is all our mental powers such as intellect, understanding, perception, sense, conscience, will, etc., which are constantly arising and changing.  Nothing here is the unarisen which is the unconditioned, primary basis. 

We can name the unarisen basis, the true self, and what arises to be what makes up the false self or anātman.

So the question is, would it be tenable to claim that forms or sights (rūpā) that have arisen are the true self?  No it would not according to the Buddha in the Chachakka Sutta.  We could further say that what has arisen is the false self.  This is true with the other senses as well, including the body (kāya) and the mind or manas.

In order to break our identity with the sensory world such as sight, sounds, smells, taste, the body and the mind or manas, the noble disciple has to become disenchanted (nibbindati) with all this, even craving.  This is like Zen master Dahui’s ‘great doubt’ 大疑.  It is only in a state of utter disenchantment that one eventually goes beyond, hence, merging with the unconditioned

California and the daimonic

I was born and raised in California.  My dad was born in Georgetown California in 1896 (yes, you heard it right).  My upbringing was more about meeting unusual and exciting people, some of whom were born in the 19th century like my wonderful aunts.  My aunt Hazel and her husband, Charlie, were in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.  They had a little coffee shop at the time.   

As an adult, and just before that kairotic moment in my life when I was introduced to Zen in my philosophy class, who could not like California?  It was the 'golden state' or so it seemed at the time.  But all this has changed.  Something has happened to the golden state and it isn't good.

Everything that happened to me as far as Zen Buddhism was concerned was to my benefit.  It was more like a perfect alignment of what I believed, at the time, were mere coincidences including even a 43 foot tunnel, sometimes called an 'adit', in which to meditate.  But with my new Buddhist vision of reality that I gained at the end of the 60s, the 70s were morphing into something bizarre.

According to Rollo May, who was an American existential psychologist, the daimonic is found within every being as a natural urge to affirm itself.  The daimonic can be either creative and positive or quite the opposite, even demonic.  May contends that mythological figures like Satan, Lucifer, and many others had to be created in order to make human action and freedom possible.  Rollo May writes in a Foreword to Stephen A. Diamond’s book, Anger, Madness and the Daimonic:

“A special characteristic of the daimonic model is that it considers both creativity on the one side, and anger and rage on the other side, as coming from the same source.  That is, constructiveness and destructiveness have the same source in human personality.  The source is simple human potential” (emphasis is mine).

This human potential we can even find in the Biblical God who says in Isaiah (45:7-9 [KJV]), I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

It seems evident now that California is being controlled by negative forces. And it made its choice, as I see it, during the 60s and 70s which, over time, has throughly ruined the transplant called Zen Buddhism that began in California with such people as Hodo Tobase and Shunryū Suzuki of Sokoji Soto Mission in San Francisco and Alan Watts including many others.

Much wiser in my old age and looking back, the demonic has clearly gained a foothold in California.  The creative force that was once California's is no longer present as it was in the past.  Many of those who are in power have succumbed to very negative forces and likely will not be able to overcome the evil they have allowed to grow.

 

How to identify demons (asura)

Most people today who tend to be arrogant intellectuals would easily fall into the category of an asura, ‘sura’ meaning ‘divine’ or ‘grace’, asura meaning an evil spirit, demon, or an opponent of the gods (deva) who is filled with hated and jealousy. 

In Mahayana Buddhism, what causes one to be reborn with an asura disposition are, namely, their former deeds (karma) of hatred or enmity (dveṣa), self-conceit or arrogance (māna) and doubt or uncertainty (vicikitsā).  I would add to this a few words from the Iśa Upaniṣad substituting a Mahayana term Buddha-nature.

Asuras are slayers of Buddha-nature (ātman). They are enveloped in blind darkness and in death return to darkness.

We need to keep in mind that Buddha-nature is also the ātman in Mahayana Buddhism.

"All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the ātman is. This ātman, from the start, is always covered by innumerable passions (klesha): this is why beings are unable to see it" (Mahaparinirvana-sutra [Etienne Lamotte, The Teaching of Vimalakirti, Eng. trans. by Sara Boin, London: The Pali Text Society, 1976, Introduction, p. lxxvii.]).

A kind of madness takes possession of the person who is of an asura disposition and, understandably, they don’t like anything that smacks of rebirth, otherworldliness, transcendence, a higher nature, and may even consider themselves to have always been enlightened. 

In his book (a great book for the home library), Vedic Yoga, The Path of the Rishi, Frawley sees the asura as a force that resists evolution.  Asuras are the powers of darkness and falsehood.  They also represent worldly ambitions.  They reflect the quality of aggression.  They don’t care about transcending samsara but want to conquer and enslave the world, instead.  They only know the carnal person which is bodily identity.  This is the self or ātman for the asura. 

From an archetypal perspective there is a constant power struggle going on, according to Frawley, between the devas (the higher planes of existence) and the asuras, the lower darker planes of existence.  Mankind’s fate is tied to this ongoing power struggle.  The force of the devas is not strong enough to win the battle since the main force rests upon too few rishis (P., Isi).  The Buddhas and the arhats were called rishi which in Pali is isi.  The term means one who goes beyond the mundane world by means of higher knowledge.

Vicarious Zen

I have been around a few Buddhist chat rooms since the advent of Netscape (boy, that was a few years ago!).  It took me a long time to connect all the stars and see the constellation of what was happening.  Let’s call it the constellation Vicarious.  Vicariously, one may experience in their imagination, all the richness of ancient Chinese Zen just by reading books. 

Whether we are in a Zen chat room on the Internet or participate in a number of Reddit Zen subs, basically, a vicarious Zen life is being experienced. 

When a participant in a chat room posts a paragraph from Blofeld’s translation of Huang Po (Huangbo) this participant is essentially saying this paragraph speaks for me and all that it implies.  But this is a fallacy insofar as it misleads others into unconsciously associating the poster with the wise words of Huang Po—a poster who never once went through the Buddhist training  that Huang Po went through.

When someone comes home from a hard day’s work and decides to read Huang Po just before going to bed, they are deceiving themselves to a certain degree.  The kinship they feel with the words in the book does not mean they are getting enlightened.  It is only a sympathetic participation realized through their imagination.  It is the same as if someone were to read Einstein or a book on mountaineering.  Does reading Einstein make this person a mathematician or does reading a book on mountaineering make one a mountain climber?  Hardly.

Going to a Zen chat room or reading my favorite Zen master still falls under the definition of vicarious.  I would be inclined to argue that joining a Zen community and sitting in zazen with fellow members is still very much of a vicarious endeavor as if to say, “I hope to be like a Zen master someday,” without going through the actual difficult struggle of being challenged, then having to meet Zen master Dahui's 'great doubt' 大疑 face to face being totally empty and forlorn.

Our senses cannot lead us to the unconditioned

It is the sense sphere or āyatana, consisting of eyes and visible objects, ear and sound, nose and odor, tongue and taste, body and tangibility, mental activity and mental objects, that binds us to the conditioned world—this shore.  This is the all that is aflame which the Buddha speaks about in the Āditta Sutta ( The Inflaming Discourse 35:28). 

But perhaps more important than the other five is the sixth sense which is mental activity or mano with its thought-forms (dharmā) which are inflamed such as thought (the activity of thinking), for example, angry thoughts or desirous thoughts.  But the mano can yield and often does, delusions, since the intellect comes from the mano which perceives thought-forms.

All this is, of course, conditioned and not otherwise.  Our mental activity or mano cannot, so to speak, lead us to the unconditioned promised land.  To a certain extent the sense sphere can be cleaned up by being aware of these senses not allowing ourselves to become inflamed and deceived by them.

All this is, however, not fundamental enough for Zen or for us.  We must go farther and deeper to no-mentation 無念 reaching what in the Lankavatara Sutra is called parinishpanna  (the highest of the three self-natures or trisvabhāva) this being perfect knowledge.  Parinishpanna also includes Suchness or tathatā being the universal substance of reality or the same, the One Mind.  It also needs to be underscored that this is not a fabrication of one's own imagination which can and does reify its contents so they appear as if real and convincing.

It seems that Zen is always fighting an uphill battle where part of Zen, in the example of the Sōtō school (曹洞宗), is trying to defend the mano including the rest of the sense sphere as if there is nothing higher.  This is the belief that the conditioned world is the Buddha-nature which is simply not true.  In the Sōtō school, the individual only needs to sit (zazen) trusting that they are already a Buddha.  In this regard, sitting helps the individual to see their Buddhaness and reinforce their certitude.  But this is staying in the illusion.

A Buddhist look at victimhood

The first noble truth of Buddhism is suffering or as some translate, unsatisfactoriness.  There are other renderings in English we could come up with for the Sanskrit word duhkha such as uneasy, uncomfortable, unpleasant, difficult or unhappy; even disharmony. 

Also, it is important to add that the first noble truth are also the five aggregates or skandhas that make up our life, namely, corporeality, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness which are duhkha. When these aggregates are afflicted or get out of kilter, owing to our degree of attachment to the aggregates, subjectively, we experience pain or unhappiness finding life difficult almost unbearable.

Looking at what makes a person a victim from a Buddhist perspective; who is in a noticeable degree of duhkha, is not an easy subject to smooth out and make it easy to understand or find clear and commonsense solutions. 

The complexity of what a victim is has been greatly expanded over the years to include all types of civil and criminal wrongs from birth to death that can give a person the mark of being a victim.  In deed, there has been a proliferation of victimhood status in recent years — all experiencing various degrees of duhkha.

Assessing the potential boundaries of what makes someone a victim and another person not a victim turns out to be a proverbial can of worms.  If someone decides to use the ATM in New Orleans at 2 a.m. in the morning and ends up beaten and robbed, shouldn’t this person have known better than to venture into a crime area at this time?  To what extent is the victim’s behavior responsible to some degree for the duhkha?  And what about general social harm against the citizens of a community when corrupt officials won’t enforce the laws on the books to insure public safety by getting rid of the so-called junkies who rob and attack people, in the example of San Francisco?  Aren’t they victims rather than the junkies?  And what about coming to a determination that no victimization had occurred, in the example of flipping someone off in traffic or calling someone at a political rally a fascist or a traitor?  But isn’t stalking someone such as a political leader or an actor or an actress an example of victimization?

All of us are potential victims and are more so when we put ourselves into situations in which victimization can likely occur.  It is also true that we can unconsciously victimize ourselves; walking into situations where we will become a victim.  And what about turning children into almost lifelong victims as a result of abusive parenting?

With cultural degeneration in which our cities are becoming increasingly unsafe there is a noticeable rise in victimhood and duhkha, not to mention victimizers who are predatory looking for victims.

The answer to victimization is not one single sure-fire answer but requires that we first accept the first noble truth of our human existence which is duhkha just as the truth of our birth is always death.  We even have to face the sad fact that we often turn ourselves into victims by our uncritical and uninformed views about our personal health, our general lifestyle, and our politics or the lack thereof.  We have a responsibility not to become victims which sounds obvious but we also have a responsibility not to exploit victimization turning it into a badge of status or a political opportunity.

At some point in our lives we will become victims  and maybe even a victimizer.  It all comes under the heading of the first noble truth but also the second which is our incessant clinging to the five aggregates or skandhas which make up our human life, namely, corporeality, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness which are duhkha.  It is only Buddhism that can teach us to see beyond the five aggregates and escape becoming future victims.

Change, real change, first comes from within

Buddhism is mainly concerned with the world inside of us and the mental activity going on.  This is where our problems have their beginning according to Buddhism.  The pains and joys we feel over time we have become deeply attached to.  When we feel pain we want a quick fix.  It could be with drugs or alcohol.  Or maybe we want to change what we imagine is bringing us this inner pain and grief.  Perhaps we imagine a political solution to our angst. 

We also want lasting joy and happiness, too; a chance to fulfill our dreams and sexual desires and to have a family.  We even try to imagine a happy life for ourself in the future; a world we are working for where there will be no pollution and everyone will be listening to the same music walking in lock step.

The bad news—this kind of attitude and perspective is not going to free us in the long run.  To be blunt, it is naive and immature. Things are only going to get worse, much worse, if we continue to think this way.  We are setting ourself up to crash and burn.  We have become closed minded and self-deceived among other things.  Our educational system can't help us either.  

There are many kinds of thoughts we harbor and feed upon which in the long run work against the Mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta).  For example, there is the thought of attachment which has recourse to accepting a variety of desires.  Then there is the thought of non-attachment which has recourse to avoiding desire, strictly.  There is the thought of hatred which depends on aversion and the thought of practicing friendliness and avoiding unfriendliness.  There is the thought of stupidity which depends upon a lack of self- reflection and the thought of intelligence which depends upon great understanding.  There are many more kinds of thought.  But all such thoughts (some sixty) have to be transcended to reach the Mind of enlightenment.

Let’s be honest, most of us are incompetent and irresponsible when it comes to taking care of the world within us which is why we decided to become Buddhists joining a Zen Buddhist community or a Tibetan Buddhist community.  But even when we joined, most of us had our minds already made up about what we wanted and expected from Buddhism before we read a single page of a Buddhist discourse.  The majority of Buddhist practitioners don’t really want to adapt too much to Buddhism; not if it means change at a fundamental level.

If Buddhism has taught me anything over these many years that is applicable to today’s pseudo-crises it is this:  our first duty is to change ourself rather than trying to change what is outside of ourself.  I had to give up a lot to see what Siddhartha saw.  How else would I see it?  I wasn't looking for a situation where I wanted Buddhism to adapt to me.  That's going against the Way, the Way being a religious course which first acknowledges ultimate reality, then sets out to realize it. 

Artificial Intelligence's big problem

Artificial Intelligence (hereafter AI) cannot solve many problems or answer the question, “What is ultimate reality?”  Nor can AI mend a broken love affair or solve a Zen koan.  AI is not empathic nor can it see the big picture.  In fact, it is delusional to maintain that there is no adversity over which, eventually, AI cannot triumph which the AI fundamentalists believe. 

AI is a kind of updated medieval alchemy in which machines, it is hoped, will possess AI; which will be superior to the human mind, but more importantly, be capable of running our world, unerringly.  Mankind for the first time will create a paradise on earth—mythology will become our reality.  But this is really little more than science fiction. It will be Allen Newell's "land of Faerie” who is one of the pioneers of AI.

The greatest adversity we face, of which AI is of no real help, lies within us which includes among other things our closed-mindedness.  But more, we do not really know that much about the brain or how our reality is created and perceived by us although we would like to believe otherwise still adhering to variations of naive realism. 

I would argue that research into AI is only an attempt to duplicate the left hemisphere of the brain which is really its major problem.  All the blind optimism of the researchers left hemispheres will not save the AI project.  They haven't posed, seriously, if at all, the research question as to why there are two hemispheres of the brain which are almost separate and independent halves. 

Only recently have we found out what the right hemisphere of the brain does.  According to Iain McGilchrist from his book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World: 

“The right hemisphere’s particular strength is in understanding meaning as a whole and in context. It is with the right hemisphere that we understand the moral of the story, as well as the point of the  joke. It is able to construe intelligently what other’s mean. . . .”

To speak about these two hemispheres of the brain in a Christian way, the left hemisphere is about the world of the flesh and all the flesh entails, while the right hemisphere is about the spirit.  From a Zen perspective, it is the right hemisphere that answers the koan, not the left.  It is the right hemisphere that connects with the Buddha Mind.  As far as the left is concerned, it can only attempt to describe, through language, the epiphany of Paul or the enlightenment of Siddhartha.  Still, the left hemisphere is incapable of realizing the transcendent.  McGilchrist puts it beautifully:

“The left hemisphere, isolating itself from the ways of the right hemisphere, has lost access to the world beyond words, the world ‘beyond’ our selves.”

It is the right hemisphere which has access to the transcendent and the divine—not the left.  Here it seems that the Buddha is speaking for the right hemisphere when he says:

“And because there is indeed a world beyond, the view of anyone that there is not a world beyond, it is a false conception of his” (M. i. 402).

The Buddha further says that those who convince others that there is no world beyond, that convincing of his goes against the true dharma.  Only those attached to the left hemisphere would believe that there is no world beyond, going against true dharma.

I would further argue that Chinese civilization, in its own unique way, had harmonized both hemispheres although they knew nothing about them.  We know, historically, Chinese civilization was not antagonistic towards the esoteric nor the transcendent the way modern culture is today in which the left hemisphere dominates trying to suppress, if not eliminate the right.  If it continues, all the pitfalls of the left hemisphere will become apparent such as a lack of empathy which is necessary for morality, and a marked inability to see the whole being fixated, instead, on the parts.  But also a power struggle will emerge in which the right hemisphere will try and instantiate harmony, eventually, taking the throne, since it is the natural and perfect leader.