There were 325 comments on my previous post the last time I checked. I haven’t read all of them. But a number of them appear to be discussing the matter of Enlightenment. Someone said that Zen is definitely a religion because it promises Enlightenment, which is the freedom from suffering.
I never really understood that. My teachers never said anything remotely like, “This practice will bring you to Enlightenment, which is freedom from suffering.” The only places I ever saw or heard statements like that were in books and magazine articles that I did not trust, or from people who clearly had no idea what they were talking about. Those people and, of course, Yoda from Star Wars.
I can’t tell you whether the practice of Zen will lead you to Enlightenment and relieve you from suffering. I’ve done this stuff for over thirty years now, though, so I may be able to say a little about what it seems to have done for me.
To me, meditation – zazen specifically – is a way to decrease some of the distractions of the mind. We don’t realize, generally, how incredibly distracted we are by the processes going on in our own brains. But if you work on dealing with some of your distractions you discover that there was a whole world out there you had not noticed before because you were too distracted to perceive it. Do this for long enough and a shift in perception/understanding occurs. At least that’s how it was for me.
I don’t like words like “Enlightenment” or “kensho” or “satori” or “awakening” or any of the other terms commonly used to refer to what happens after you do this process for a long time. They’re inaccurate and misleading. However, after years of doing this process I had a number of interesting shifts in my understanding of things. There was one major shift and countless clusters of others that accompanied it and that keep on occurring even now.
People tend to picture these experiences as a change from confusion to certainty. In a sense that’s kind of the way it is. But the certainty is more about what’s not true than about what is true.
For example, before this stuff started happening to me, I would have pictured Enlightenment as giving me, among other things, certainty about whether there is or is not a God and whether there is or is not life after death. I thought the answer would be either yes or no. How could there be any other answer to questions like that?
Now I comprehend that there is another answer and that is; “framing such questions in the form that requires a yes or a no as an answer is absurd.”
The problem is that EVERYONE HATES THAT ANSWER. You hate it. I hate it. The Pope hates it. Pat Robertson hates it. Richard Dawkins hates and despises it so much he hacks up a giant phlegm ball and spits on it. Deepak Chopra hates it more than Oprah does. You will never make big money with that kind of answer.
I understand now that the very way I was trained to think and to communicate my thoughts to others does not allow for me to answer these questions any better than that. There is no linguistic solution to this particular problem. When I say that there is certainty, that’s what I’m referring to. This aspect of the problem is certain.
Language communicates common experience. If you have seen a plate of shrimp and I have seen a plate of shrimp, then when I say “plate of shrimp” to you, you have some idea what I’m talking about. But if you said “plate of shrimp” to an inhabitant of the planet Mephiras in the Andromeda Galaxy, zhe would have no idea what you were talking about.
Sometimes, if I’m talking to someone else who has sat with their own minds for a few decades, I can discuss matters like this and can communicate about them. But I can’t put straightforward answers to these kinds of questions into a blog or a book. I’ve tried. Dogen tried. Lots of people have tried. It doesn’t work. The questions themselves make it impossible. Although if you sit for a long time observing your own mind, you can sometimes read things like the stuff Dogen wrote (to take one specific example) and they’ll make sense to you.
So that’s Enlightenment in 200 words or less. What about suffering? Does this practice lead you to freedom from suffering?
Well… my friend Logan died last year and that made me very sad. It still does. A couple months ago I caught a cold and I felt like shit for a few days. Next time I catch a cold, the same thing will happen. I sometimes wish I had things I don’t have. I sometimes wish I did not have things I do have. I dislike doing certain things that I nevertheless must do, like my taxes. And so on and on.
Any excuse to run this pic again is good enough for me. Look! It’s in color now!
What would relief from suffering look like? Would it look like Father Yod in his swimming pool full of naked girls? Would it look like Neem Karoli Baba sitting under a blanket with a bunch of people asking him questions and feeding him oranges? Would it look like Tom Cruise in a mansion in Beverley Hills with enough money and fame to buy him anything on eBay or Craig’s List? Would it look like Krishna, perpetually beautiful and immortal?
What are you asking for when you ask for an end to suffering? Do you even know? Maybe you do, but I don’t.
Are you asking for a way in which you can do your taxes and enjoy it? Are you asking for a way in which you can have cancer and yet not feel shitty? Do you think that exists? Do you wish it existed? Will wishing it existed make it so?
Don’t fill my comments section up with answers. Thanks.
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ONGOING EVENTS
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Once I get relaxed on the merry-go-round, it seems that the entire world becomes the merry-go-round, meaning I am on the merry-go-round for good.
Thanks for the book review, anon 108. I am a fan of Gombrich’s; I have one of his books, probably “Thervada Buddhism”.
Interesting that, according to the reviewer, Gombrich is characterizing friendship (metta?), compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity as a complete path to enlightenment. That would seem to ignore a sermon that I reference at the bottom of “Fuxi’s Poem”:
“Gautama described the first of the further meditative states as “the excellence” of the heart’s release through compassion, the second as “the excellence” of the heart’s release through sympathetic joy, and the third as “the excellence” of the heart’s release through equanimity (the “excellence” of the heart’s release through friendliness he described as “the beautiful”) (SN V 115-120, Pali Text Society SN volume V pg 99-102).”
Point being that the third arupa jhana is transcended in the attainment of the state of “neither-perception-and-sensation-nor-yet-not-perception-and-sensation”, the fourth arupa jhana, and the fourth arupa jhana is transcended in the cessation of perception and sensation. That last cessation, Gautama identified as the source of his enlightenment. In my feeble brain, his enlightenment was exactly the four truths. Also sounds like Gombrich is viewing the four truths as a parody of Brahmanic tradition, which seems a diminuition.
I should read the book, and not rely on the review.
I obtained the first four Nikayas from the Pali Test Society back in the ’80’s, and read through them. My concern was always the explanation, to my own satisfaction, of the phenomena of ishinashini, of zazen that “gets up and walks around”. I wrote three or four long papers, filled with quotes, as I wrestled with the teaching in the Pali Nikayas; that’s how I can find material now, for the most part. Then I came across John Upledger, and his teachings on cranial-sacral therapy, and I started writing about “the mudra of zen” without really knowing what I would say. Eventually something emerged for me, and my practice hasn’t been the same since, which is why I put it up online.
I am still writing to explain, to my own satisfaction, the role of “zazen sits zazen” in my daily life; seems I cannot dispense with science, neither can I make zazen happen. I do know the feeling of ishinashini, which I discovered through attending to my breath relentlessly at age 25, and while this is related to pre-conceptual intuition or Sasaki’s “future” it’s all about the bass. I mean action.
Nonthinking action. Except that it turns out belief also moves the hand, and to the extent that thought and belief are closely related, sometimes thought becomes action. Useful to me is science, and Blanke and Mohr keeps me sober, along with Bartilink and Gracovetsky, Farfan, and Lamay.
Where’s the brass ring; oh, here it is!
I agree with anon 108, easier to find replies if they are entered, not as replies on someone else’s comment, but as additions to the conversation at the end of the thread (perhaps with a name where appropriate).
Conrad, I do hear this:
“It’s also true that the Buddha didn’t just teach that we develop an intention to cease craving. We actually have to cease craving in all the very tangible ways, and also the very intangible ways. That’s what I mean by paying the price. One’s intention can be measured by the price one pays, not by some imagined inner will. Even though one needs an inner will, it better not be imaginary.”
There we return to necessity, and belief formed by necessity and non-material happiness. Without the non-material happiness, the will becomes destructive, as Gautama discovered when he was in the midst of drowning.
You are dancing around the relationship between conscious intent, willful intent, and belief that becomes our thought and action out of necessity (but which we often mistake for our willful intent, since “our” thoughts may have contributed to “our” belief). I think I’m driving at the same point you’re driving at. Nevertheless, I haven’t had any success orienting myself around the cessation of craving, but only around non-material happiness. Call me a child of the second half of the twentieth century in the first world– seeing the cessation of suffering as deliverance from thought without grasping! 🙂
argh
Mark, let’s cut to the chase then. Dukkha isn’t a concept, it’s something we feel as a consequence of this endless cycle of craving. Craving isn’t a concept, it’s also something we feel intensely. It’s inseparable from the feeling of dukkha. You know that tension in the gut or the mind, that insatiable desiring that drives us nuts day and night? That’s not a concept, that’s a consequence. Buddhism begins when we notice this, and notice the relationship between our cravings and these endless feelings of dissatisfaction that feed back again and again upon themselves. Having wisdom means taking this cycle seriously, and bringing it to an end, because that’s the only thing that actually matters. It doesn’t happen magically, and it doesn’t happen by itself. We have to use our intelligence and intend the whole string of actions and practices that diminish and eventually bring our cravings to an end. It’s not so hard if we stay grounded in the feeling of dukkha, rather than dissociating into concepts and ideas about Buddhism. Attend to the business for which we have come.
Not sure what you mean by non-material happiness, but if by that you mean a dissociated state, I wouldn’t call that a good thing. More a distraction from the business at hand. But maybe you’re referring to something else. An uncaused happiness perhaps? A happiness that is not the result of craving and desire? That would be the right track.
I couldn’t resist coming back to respond to one of Conrad’s posts, because it includes so many of the kinds of logical holes and problematic thinking that afflicts human beings (particularly religious ones).
I’m going to insert my comments amidst Conrad’s various points:
Conrad says: I’d agree that no one has proven or established any of these things as consensus facts. They are propositions that can only be demonstrated by doing them yourself.
Gniz responds: Unfortunately, simply having an experience myself is not a true validation of any theory. Just as it’s possible to go to church and believe I’ve experienced “God’s love” or “a vision of Christ on the cross,” I am sure it’s also possible to experience things like kensho and samadhi and even enlightenment. The human mind is powerful and can create all sorts of fun and strange experiences without there being truth to the suppositions the experience might lead one to believe.
Conrad: But just as you can go to China, you can also “go” to enlightenment. You can experience satori. You can investigate yourself, as the Buddha did. It depends on how much you want to experience these things.
GNIZ: No, going to China is not at all the same as going to enlightenment, and I think you know that. Or you should. Enlightenment is not a place in the world that can be verified objectively, whereas China is. China exists on a map, it has culture, it has evidence that is relatively undisputed of its existence. There are not competing theories as to what China is or who else occupies the space but Chinese people. So your claim does not stand up. That’s called sloppy thinking, and if the rest of your theories are indicative of this kind of analysis, than I don’t see why I should be respectful of your claims.
Conrad: Most people simply don’t want them. Brad doesn’t want them. Even most of the people who say they want them, don’t want them. It’s a costly trip. Who wants to pay the price?
GNIZ: So now you have to “want it” badly enough. Do you understand that the “wanting” of this experience is very likely to lead you to have it, or some version of it, whether the experience is really enlightenment or not? Just as a Scientologist can experience “getting clear” or reaching “Thetan Level 7” or whatever junk they call these states. If you want something so badly, your mind will find a way for you to have it, come hell or high-water. Things like the placebo effect as well as expectation bias and other influences are well proven, Conrad.
Conrad: Many of the wild claims of religion can indeed be experienced.
GNIZ: Yes, and most of those wild claims have been discredited by science and objective observation. People have experienced talking to the dead, automatic writing, predicting the future, seeing ghosts, speaking to Allah, becoming Napoleon–and all sorts of phenomenon. Most of those wild claims have been thoroughly debunked, Conrad. Does the experiencing of a thing make anything true? If you think it does, than we are living in two very different worlds, and I would argue that yours is full of fantasy and fault belief systems.
CONRAD: But my saying that doesn’t make it so to anyone. True, I’ve experienced these things myself, to varying degrees. But unless you go there yourself, it won’t much matter except as one person’s possibly delusional and self-aggrandizing personal myth. I can say these things are true, that enlightenment and satori and the rest are real, but how would you know? To me, they are more real than the basic facts of ordinary life.
GNIZ: A baptist preacher could have said any of this. Just substitute Jesus for enlightenment and being saved with satori. Where you claim to have gone means nothing to me, and it should mean only SLIGHTLY MORE to you. First of all, I’ve had experiences. Lots of them. But as I continue to state and restate, having an experience and KNOWING what that experience actually is, are very different things. Unfortunately, because of the fallibility of perception and the issues of belief and the powers our mind has to trick us–its not always the case that what we experience is objectively and factually accurate. That you dispute this, shows that the painful facts of life are still being dodged, rather than met head on.
CONRAD: But who the fuck am I? I’m certainly not important to you. That’s why the Buddha said you have to be a refuge unto yourself. But if you never take that refuge, you’ll never find out. And it comes at a price. Do you want to pay it?
GNIZ: Who the fuck are you? You’re a guy making grandiose and completely unsubstantiated claims on the internet, refusing to use sound logic or anything resembling coherent beliefs, to make a case for profoundly strange beliefs. All anyone needs to do is substitute kensho or satori for “feeling God’s grace” or “being saved by Jesus” to see that these claims don’t hold any water.
No, it isn’t enough for me to “go there” and experience it for myself. You have no way of knowing what experiences I have or have not had, but it’s important for you to assume I haven’t had these experiences. Because if I had them, and yet I still remain unconvinced of what you point to–then it throws doubt onto your claims.
I can’t know what you’ve experienced either, and I’m not trying to say that I do.
What I do know is that having an experience is very different from the assumptions and rationalizations and stories we attach to that experience.
My theory is that Eastern religious folk add the same silly stories onto human experience as Christians and Islamists and Hindus and Pagans and so on and on. They call the stories by different names, and they do a different dance, but the dance always depends on ridiculous leaps of logic and twists of truth into fiction to make any of it make sense.
Gniz responds: Unfortunately, simply having an experience myself is not a true validation of any theory.
Who says the point here is to validate (or invalidate) a theory? The point is this fucking dukkha we suffer, understanding it and being released from it. Since dukkha is something we feel and suffer, it certainly does demonstrate that we can be released from dukkha if we actually experience that release. What possible philosophical argument could be convincing either way, without actually experiencing this release from dukkha, and the happiness of not craving?
Most of those wild claims have been thoroughly debunked, Conrad.
I’m not aware of any of those claims being debunked. If I say I talk to the dead, how are you going to debunk that? If Michael Newton says he gets thousands of his patients to recount memories of between-life worlds, who’d going to debunk that, and how? If Mohammed says he’s simply writing down the words of an archangel, who can debunk that?
And if the Buddha says that he conquered his passions and cravings, and realized infinite and unblemished enlightenment, how are you going to prove otherwise?
The best you can do is try to duplicate what he did, and then tell people about it. And then they best they can do is duplicate that. And so on. It’s only in our experiencing that these things begin to seem plausible. Otherwise, you’re just going on someone else’s account, and how much authority you want to invest in them, and how much what they say might agree with your own experience. If you don’t have much experience, it’s not going to make much sense.
The same is true of science, btw. If you don’t have much experience doing quantum mechanics, the equations aren’t going to make much sense to you. But if you can use a computer, you still might not understand QM, but the proof is in the experience, not the theory. Likewise, if you can for even a moment relax your cravings, you can experience some uncaused happiness. That’s not imaginary. It doesn’t prove the whole thing such that you understand it all the way up and down, but it does demonstrate proof of the principle in action.
Btw, I’m not at all opposed to people talking about Jesus’ saving influence or God’s grace. Because I’ve experienced both very directly. They may have a different approach to such things, but I don’t doubt their basic experiential reality. If you haven’t experienced such things, however, I completely understand your apoplectic frustration.
You also confuse my intentions. I could care less about getting you to accept any of my experiences as genuine. But you seem very interested in getting me to accept your logic as genuine. Why is that? Are you unable to simply rest in the truth you’ve come to know? Of is it that you haven’t come to rest at all? Isn’t that proof of what I’m talking about: the never-ending cycle of dukkha and tanha.
Now its true that people make stories out of everything. But that includes you too. You’re spinning a story right now, about me and Buddha and a whole lot of other people you don’t know. Why? What’s the motive behind your story? Have you even bothered to look?
Hi Conrad,
Let’s continue the conversation, and through it, I’ll perhaps answer some of your questions that you posed to me.
CONRAD:Who says the point here is to validate (or invalidate) a theory? The point is this fucking dukkha we suffer, understanding it and being released from it.
GNIZ: The ironic thing is after you ask what the point is of validating or invalidating a theory, you went and stated your theory. You have a theory about “dukkha” and our ability to be released from it.
If someone states a theory, I think it’s important that theory can be verified in some way.
My further response would be that unless there is some rationale behind your claim to be able to stop suffering, to stop craving and thus alleviate dukkha–then what you’re telling me is effectively useless.
That is why validating it becomes important, Conrad. Because when people make claims, they have the habit of convincing themselves (and others) of things that aren’t even remotely true.
For instance, if you tell me you can levitate and are then unable to prove it to anyone but yourself, I think I can assume you are either lying or delusional in some way.
CONRAD: Since dukkha is something we feel and suffer, it certainly does demonstrate that we can be released from dukkha if we actually experience that release. What possible philosophical argument could be convincing either way, without actually experiencing this release from dukkha, and the happiness of not craving?
GNIZ: First of all, what you call dukkha is actually a very complicated set of processes that occurs in the human body and brain. We crave things because we need certain things to survive. Of course it goes way beyond that, but the necessity of how and why we “desire” and “crave” goes for past simple delusion, I would argue. We are a finely tuned instrument created by millions of years of evolution, and the way our minds and bodies work is partly there for our own protection. So what you call dukkha, I might call the will to survive, to procreate, to have security, to love, to create art and understand the properties of the world we live in. Can this go too far and create suffering that is unneeded? Perhaps. But your view, in my opinion, is far too simplistic to be of realistic help for the issue at hand.
CONRAD: I’m not aware of any of those claims being debunked. If I say I talk to the dead, how are you going to debunk that? If Michael Newton says he gets thousands of his patients to recount memories of between-life worlds, who’d going to debunk that, and how? If Mohammed says he’s simply writing down the words of an archangel, who can debunk that?
GNIZ: Well now I officially think you’ve “jumped the shark,” so to speak. You’re basically saying everything’s true and nothing can be proven or disproven. I think you’re being very disingenuous there, because the notion that none of these claims can be disproven is ridiculous. Plenty of scam artists’ tricks have been exposed, from people who say they talk to the dead but were magicians doing cold readings, and on and on. Some are liars, some are simply delusional. But many of those claims have been disproven and nobody has yet been able to prove that they have such supernatural powers. It should be fairly easy to do, if such things were possible…
CONRAD: And if the Buddha says that he conquered his passions and cravings, and realized infinite and unblemished enlightenment, how are you going to prove otherwise?
GNIZ: It’s not up to me to prove Buddha or you wrong. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If I tell you I can use my mind to create hundred dollar bills out of thin air, using only my mental powers– you wouldn’t believe me unless I showed you I could do it. If you tell me you WOULD believe me, or it’s somehow up to me to prove that I can’t–then I think you’re just completely yanking my chain. Or your own. 🙂
CONRAD: The best you can do is try to duplicate what he did, and then tell people about it. And then they best they can do is duplicate that. And so on. It’s only in our experiencing that these things begin to seem plausible. Otherwise, you’re just going on someone else’s account, and how much authority you want to invest in them, and how much what they say might agree with your own experience. If you don’t have much experience, it’s not going to make much sense.
GNIZ: No. And no again. The best we can do is try to look closely at what is occurring in a very objective fashion and resist the urge to jump to conclusions and create stories and fictions. Just because meditation and contemplation has an effect, just because it creates certain “states of mind”, does not mean it is doing the things you and others claim. That has yet to be determined.
CONRAD: The same is true of science, btw. If you don’t have much experience doing quantum mechanics, the equations aren’t going to make much sense to you. But if you can use a computer, you still might not understand QM, but the proof is in the experience, not the theory.
GNIZ: The same is absolutely opposite in science. Science creates testable theories than can be replicated and viewed and observed regardless of belief systems. It is exactly because science does these things that you can use a computer. Anyone can use a computer, and not understanding how it works, make up a bunch of silly stories as to how it was created and the laws and properties of the thing. That’s what you, Conrad, are doing with your stories about enlightenment. Even if you are experiencing it, I would argue that you don’t have the faintest idea of what it is you’re actually experiencing. At least, not if the logic you’re using is any indication…
CONRAD: Likewise, if you can for even a moment relax your cravings, you can experience some uncaused happiness. That’s not imaginary. It doesn’t prove the whole thing such that you understand it all the way up and down, but it does demonstrate proof of the principle in action.
GNIZ: All of these terms are very slippery. “Happiness” can mean many different things. So can contentment. So can joy, or love. All of these states are simply labels on emotional content or feelings we experience. So whether or not any release of “craving” can create uncaused happiness is up for debate. And I would question how healthy such a state actually is, because I think our suffering and cravings and desires are not necessarily unhealthy. I feel much more discernment is needed than the kind of simplistic, facile thinking that you’re showing in this dialog.
CONRAD: Btw, I’m not at all opposed to people talking about Jesus’ saving influence or God’s grace. Because I’ve experienced both very directly.
GNIZ: Okay, so now you expect me to believe that not only have you experienced the cessation of cravings, enlightenment and satori–but also that you’ve experienced Jesus saving you, and God’s grace. If that’s not grandiose, I don’t know what is. Have you also traveled back in time, spoken with dinosaurs and ridden a unicorn? Did you meet Thor or Zeus? Any other things you’ve knocked off the list while we’re at it?
CONRAD: They may have a different approach to such things, but I don’t doubt their basic experiential reality. If you haven’t experienced such things, however, I completely understand your apoplectic frustration.
GNIZ: My frustration is that your claims, as is typical of the overly religious, do not make sense or add up. And when I try and engage on the points at hand, you shift and get slippery. But that’s fine. I do the same thing myself, so I don’t consider myself an innocent party here.
CONRAD: You also confuse my intentions. I could care less about getting you to accept any of my experiences as genuine. But you seem very interested in getting me to accept your logic as genuine. Why is that? Are you unable to simply rest in the truth you’ve come to know? Of is it that you haven’t come to rest at all? Isn’t that proof of what I’m talking about: the never-ending cycle of dukkha and tanha.
GNIZ: I’m not resting in my truth, because I don’t think I have a line on the truth the way you do. That’s a big difference between you and I. You also misread my intentions. I know I won’t be convincing you of a single thing. I’m here because I also share some of these misguided beliefs you espouse, and having an affinity for delusional thinking, it’s good to come over and play devil’s advocate now and again. But that would likely be difficult for you to accept, because it’s easier to think I’m closed minded and have no experience than to imagine that I am pressure testing my ideas and experiences in a way that helps me to continue to grow.
CONRAD: Now its true that people make stories out of everything. But that includes you too. You’re spinning a story right now, about me and Buddha and a whole lot of other people you don’t know. Why? What’s the motive behind your story? Have you even bothered to look?
GNIZ: Yes, we all spin stories. But some stories we know are stories, some are provisional fictions to pass the time or because it’s the best we have.
Other fictions are simply too ridiculous to take seriously. For instance, I have a much easier time believing that a serious Christian has experienced Christ’s love than you. Because I think they are actually practicing and adhering to that system of belief, whereas you practice some other system, and yet you lay claim to multiple experiences of religious ecstasy–even when those beliefs clash. I don’t find that credible at all, and I suspect you don’t really either.
I have my own fictions. That’s part of why I’m here. I want pushback, I want my dialog and my beliefs to be scrutinized, for the holes to be exposed so I can see more clearly and perhaps gain a better understanding of myself and the world around me.
But it will take more than just regurgitation of new age dogma for me to really take you seriously, Conrad.
“You have a theory about “dukkha” and our ability to be released from it.”
True, but it’s based in experience, and that’s my focus. As in science, the empirical method is to observe experience, come up with ideas about it, test them, observe the test, rinse and repeat. That’s what Buddha’s noble truths, and basically his whole approach is about. Do the tests, see what is true, what’s not true, based on experience.
There’s other religious or spiritual approaches which are based on revelation, in which you don’t test the revelations, you accept them, submit to them, and enjoy salvation through that approach. Or, you come up with a theory, cherish it, and defend it in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Neither of those is my approach.
In fact, theory comes very low on my list of important things. Dukkha is an observational fact to me. So is tanha. So is the general round of dependent origination. I try to keep myself grounded in these observable experiential facts. Feeling them in other words, rather than theorizing about them. If I have to talk about it with you, of course I have to use words and concepts. But that’s not the basis of it.
Words are slippery because the experience they refer to can vary from person to person. We have to empathize with one another to a pretty high degree to actually feel one another’s feelings. It can be done, but it’s not so easy. I’ve been married for over thirty years, so I can do that pretty well with my wife. But with a stranger on the Internet? Not so easy.
“Okay, so now you expect me to believe that not only have you experienced the cessation of cravings, enlightenment and satori—but also that you’ve experienced Jesus saving you, and God’s grace.”
You don’t have to believe me, but that’s not going to stop me from saying what I know to be true. Do you want to hear my Jesus experience? Or do you just want to dismiss it out of hand regardless? Kind of sounds like the second. Am I wrong?
I know these things must sound odd to you, since clearly you haven’t had those experiences, but what’s that to me? Why should I care if you are skeptical?
“My frustration is that your claims, as is typical of the overly religious, do not make sense or add up.”
It’s not my job in life to satisfy your frustrations. How could I? When you say my story doesn’t add up, I have to ask why? What kind of calculations are you making? If you don’t show your work, but just expect me to accept your logic, who’s the one here who’s religiously delusional?
“I have a much easier time believing that a serious Christian has experienced Christ’s love than you. ”
Do you really think that Jesus was or is a Christian? Do you really think he restricts the experience of his love to people who self-identify as Christians, or who believe in Christian dogma? Wasn’t his teaching precisely the opposite, that his love was unconditional and for all, and that God’s grace falls on sinner and innocent alike? That even the thief who was crucified next to him would go to heaven with him before any of his believing followers?
This is what I mean about the difference between experience and theory. Jesus didn’t teach a theory of God. He lived God and gave that experience of unconditional love to those who were available to it, regardless of their background. So your “logic” seems pretty illogical to me. Even un-Christian, if you know what I mean.
Conrad,
I understand you don’t care if I believe you or not. But unless I gather that someone is being truthful with me, or is at least trying to use some semblance of logic to back up their assertions, there’s not much I can take away from the discussion.
I’m actually interested in meditation and what it can do. Very interested, and I practice and study and engage on these things.
But I need to use my discernment in terms of whether someone is trying to impart useful, practical information or just blowing smoke.
I don’t think you’ve left me much choice about what you’re doing here.
I have no problem with that. If you want to play around with meditation, go ahead. It just won’t do you any good if you remain fixated in theories and ideas in your mind. Meditation is an experiential endeavor. Throw your heart into it. Maybe Jesus will even help you out if you’re desperate enough.
And honestly, why would I be lying to you? I could be deluded, and misinterpreting my experience, but do you really think I’m just making things up to frustrate you?
“Not sure what you mean by non-material happiness, but if by that you mean a dissociated state, I wouldn’t call that a good thing. More a distraction from the business at hand. But maybe you’re referring to something else. An uncaused happiness perhaps? A happiness that is not the result of craving and desire? That would be the right track.”
The joy that flows from no-self upon the absolute, from seeing through the fiction of self.
Dukkha is a fiction as well. By clinging to an expectation of static form, unhappiness arises.
Dukkha creates a fictional world for itself, and fictional explanations for its arising, but the dukkha itself is not a fiction. It’s a consequence of craving – even the craving the cessation of dukkha.
well alrighty then
Having Brad comment in a negative way about all the comments on his blog made me google a few more of Brad’s posts and I found a number of comments he has made against the commenters on his blog.
I would be thrilled to have people engage on my blog if I had one.
It’s sort of taken the fun out of posting here. Maybe Brad doesn’t like comments on his blog unless they are of a certain type? That’s not how humans or the internet function.
I don’t know, but this isn’t as fun anymore feeling that Brad isn’t into it, since it’s his space. Sheesh!
Hey Justlui,
There’s a saying that every society gets the criminals it deserves…
Perhaps everyone also gets the blog comments they deserve?
gniz wrote: “There’s a saying that every society gets the criminals it deserves…”
Damn, that’s a good quote. I’m going to have to track down the source of that one. Cheers.
Well Lui, it is a blog about Hardcore Zen, not hardcore anything goes or Buddhism is fucked. So what do you expect?
He shut down the old one when it got out of hand and people made hurtful comments.
If I went to a Tibetan Buddhist blog and told them they were full of shit, I would expect to get the boot.
Fred said: “If I went to a Tibetan Buddhist blog and told them they were full of shit, I would expect to get the boot.”
I think there’s quite a difference between vigorous debate and simply telling someone “you’re full of shit.”
So you think it’s preferable when Brad makes a post and instead of engaging on the topic, posters simply link to YouTube music videos and the like?
At least we’re discussing Buddhism, enlightenment, and someone on topic, even if in disagreement about what it all means.
True, I disagree completely with Brad and your take on what these experiences are that can be had through meditation and contemplation.
But that doesn’t mean I’m here to simply take a shit on you, Brad or anyone else. I’m discussing and debating the ideas, the facts, and the philosophy of Buddhism. If Brad and Brad’s religion can’t handle that kind of scrutiny and debate, than I reckon that’s some pretty flimsy and wimpy “truth” he and others are holding onto.
ç«œé 蛇尾,å¼—é›·å¾·,ä½ å¬ä¸æ‡‚禪
“Long head and tail, Fred, you do not understand Zen.”
lol! Obviously I have nothing better to do than run comments through a translator 😀
I swan in the ocean with a long head and tail, before he was born.
Long? Lol sort of, in a funny pinyinny way 😉
Thanks, Leah.
å¼—é›·å¾·
Dragon head, snake tail, Fred. You hear it, but that’s it.
And yeah, you for sure were swimming before I was born! Now that’s a good one. Cheers.
the dragon howls in a withered tree
Martha Stewart sometimes skips lunch
“I would be thrilled to have people engage on my blog if I had one.”
It’s very easy to set up your own blog on the internet. Takes about five minutes. (I even had one myself once, ages ago. Mainly used it as an excuse to bitch about my job). And if you do, I guarantee the comments will come. Maybe not as many or as colorful as you see hearabouts, but sooner or later someone’s gonna want to say something. Whether or not it’s something anyone wants to hear is another matter.
Should Brad be thrilled for people to be engaging with with his work if that engagement is viscous or inane or insane? It’s like if you were an artist and someone walked into the gallery where your paintings were displayed and stuck ten thousand little index cards on the wall saying “your paintings suck” over and over and over and over… or alternately ten thousand printer scans of their own paintings, with captions explaining why their work is vastly superior to anything you have ever produced. That’s the kind of engagement I think most artists can do without (ditto for those who come to view their art because, you know, they maybe sort of like it). Anyway, I can certainly understand how a person in that situation would at least be compelled to say, Hey, knock it off.
“…But I, by this severe austerity, do not reach sates of further-men, the excellent knowledge and vision befitting the ariyans. Could there be another way to awakening?
This, Aggivessana, occurred to me: ‘I know that while my father, the Sakyan, was ploughing and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, entering on the first meditation, which is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness, and is rapturous and joyful, and while abiding therein, I thought: “Now could this be a way to awakening?”‘ Then, following on my mindfulness, Aggivessana, there was the consciousness: This is itself the Way to awakening. This occurred to me, Aggivessana: ‘Now, am I afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from the sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind?’ This occurred to me, Aggivessana: ‘I am not afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind.'”
(MN I 246-247, Pali Text Society MN I pg 301).
‘”…What do you think about this, reverend Jain: Is King Seniya Bimbisara of Magadha, without moving his body, without uttering a word, able to stay experiencing nothing but happiness for seven nights and days?”
“No, your reverence.”
“What do you think about this, reverend Jain: Is King Seniya Bimbisara of Magadha, without moving his body, without uttering a word, able to stay experiencing nothing but happiness for six nights and days, for five, for four, for three, for two nights and days, for one night and day?”
“No, your reverence.”
“But I, reverend Jain, am able, without moving my body, without uttering a word, to stay experiencing nothing but happiness for one night and day. I, reverend Jain, am able, without moving my body, without uttering a word, to stay experiencing nothing but happiness for two nights and days,, for three, four, five, six, for seven nights and days.”‘
(MN I 94, Pali Text Society MN I pg 123-124)
That would be: “But I, by this severe austerity, do not reach states of further-men”.
Justlui, Brad did actually engage on this thread (I was shocked).
He has stated that most of the time, the comment thread is like a conversation that doesn’t particularly involve him, and he doesn’t feel that it would be appropriate for him to respond. That, even when people sometimes ask him questions or specifically ask for his comment, but I agree with him. Look at Kobun, who let an earnest seeker into his house one night, then excused himself to go to the bathroom and climbed out the bathroom window.
I’m as guilty as the next person, as far as believing I’m talking to anyone other than myself here.
Ajahn Sumedho apparently once warned his guys that they shouldn’t think of themselves as monks, that to do so risked adding a layer on top of reality that would trip them up, even if they were ordained. Brad is letting all of us crazies talk it out, here on the comment thread.
What’s really demanding is to hold ourselves to say something to ourselves we never heard before, here on the comment thread or elsewhere. Or say it in a way we haven’t quite said it before, and that returns to us in a positive way. Folks do that here.
Folks are here because, I assume, they feel drawn to Gautama’s teaching and especially the Chan/Zen heritage of that teaching, and there are quite a few who have a love/hate thing going on with it. They have my sympathy. They make my sentences all wacky sometimes, I’m going with it!
Of course, most of us are here because we have interest in meditation, the Buddha and Zen. I’ve read almost all of Brad’s books and paid for and watched his documentary.
I’ve had a fifteen year meditation practice (not zen) and have a real interest in these kinds of philosophies.
Do we only have to believe in Brad or Soto Zen or Buddhism exclusively to engage here? I don’t disagree with every word Brad or anyone here says, but the points I engage on are the points I find to be in contention.
It’s so silly that this is viewed as a bad thing. This is how we pressure test ideas, come to new understandings and continue to grow.
Fear of new information and analysis is only showing doubt in the truthful properties of the philosophy espoused. If I discuss gravity and its properties, and people come on my blog and debate the truth of this theory, and analyze and scrutinize it–there’s no reason I should be bothered in the least.
Unless I think my theory or system is riddled with holes, logical fallacies and inaccuracies.
Zafu said: Imagine you saw someone walking down the street wearing a red hat. Admiring the hat, you commented as they walked past, “Wowsers! That’s a fine red hat you got there, Sir!” The redhatter replies, “what are you talking about, I’m not wearing a hat.” Perplexed, you try to think of a way to show the redhatter that he is in fact a redhatter. Perhaps if I can show that the hat has influence on the hatter, you think, that will convince him. You say to the redhatter, “wait here a sec, I’ll be right back.” The redhatter replies, “okay, but don’t take long, I’ve got a hat appointment.” So you run home and fetch some string with a hook on it. Returning to the redhatter, you hook him by the hat and pull. As expected, the redhatter faceplants the sidewalk. “Oh, sorry.” you say. “Sorry for what?,” asks the redhatter, as he gets up and begins tending to his bloody nose. “I’m sorry you suffer the hat,” you reply.
———————————————————————————————–
Z-Dog, that doesn’t really help to explain the fascination. The metaphor itself is as unlikely as anything you might read in any religious text, but essentially it’s the story of someone who’s willing to knock someone’s face to the ground in order to enforce his version of reality on said person (a trait, I might add, that could be said to belong to a number of religious institutions throughout history), and who, after doing so, blames the violence on an inanimate object. It doesn’t begin to explain the star of the story’s need to harrass strangers about their clothing, or his need to convince passersby that they are wearing hats.
Allow me to tell the story from my perspective. Imagine you belong to a community of people with a common interest, for the most part, in cooking. One day, someone shows up insisting that he’s a big boy who eats with his own spoon while everyone else around him gets fed from a baby bottle. He’s actually got a few lines of dialogue, but they all revolve, almost entirely, around him being being enough of a big boy to feed himself while everyone else is just a baby. No one’s ever even had dinner with the guy, none of the people involved are toddlers, and the guy himself looks to be in his early twenties at least (I’m guessing), so naturally no one understands what the fuck he’s talking about. No matter what anyone says to him, or how hard they try to steer the conversation back toward cooking, he repeats the same thing, so people slowly begin to realize they’ve got a crazy person on their hands.
To make matters worse, the guy starts following people around harrassing them about being babies. It gets to the point where when anyone in the community even steps outside their houses, their liable to have Big Boy Spoon Guy show up immediately to unload his shpiel upon them. Even when people are sitting around the dinner table conversing about the food, how it compares to other food they’ve eaten, what they might make next time, methods of making food more tasty, etc., it becomes a common occurence to have Big Boy Spoon show up outside the window to yell “I’M A BIG BOY! YOU’RE ALL LITTLE BOYS! WAAAAHH!!! BABIES! BABIES!” while people are eating. Sometimes someone will get pissed off and tell him to shut the fuck up and go away, and, though it makes no sense, Big Boy Spoon takes this as further evidence that said person is a baby, while he, of course, is a big boy who feeds himself.
The head of the neighborhood association doesn’t seem to believe in kicking people out of the area, and none of the community members would ever think of living in a gated community, but most of them, on some level, are starting to think seriously about where the line between disagreeable visitor and creepy, mentally ill stalker lies.
I’m not so sure. Something Brad Warner wrote once really impressed me. It was along the lines of “the purpose of life is to fart about”.
I think Zafu is just farting about, and having some fun. That’s mostly what I do here. What’s the big deal?
This is Brad’s party. He’s perfectly entitled to close the comments section, limit the number of comments – or even just post a message saying what the preferred etiquette is, or why he has a comment section at all.
Failing that, I don’t see how anything other than the usual stupid crap that happens on every open forum on the web is to be expected.
Also, Brad’s writing and public persona suggest he has a sense of humour, and doesn’t mind rude or iconoclastic statements too much. That’s why all the cheek weirdos hang here, and not on other more self-righteous zen sites.
Brad, if there’s something specifically bugging you about the way the comments are being used, please say.
“I’m as guilty as the next person, as far as believing I’m talking to anyone other than myself here. ”
The wooden man starts to sing; the stone woman gets up dancing
Ah, I think you nailed it. I swear a lot more on here than on other blogs, and I dis Fred and have a good bit more fun here than I would on the Treeleaf forum. I have said this here before, but Brad’s claim to Punk Rock automatically makes any attempt at avoiding chaos a challenge.
I figured Punk and zen? Now here’s a mother fucker that can handle some internet gnarling and good fun. Brad don’t be too sensitive! You can’t claim punk anything and then get butthurt when people go FULL WALRUS!
I had more fun at Treeleaf, those morons are hilarious.
Oh god I could see you just driving those people mad! Same name? If so I have to check it. ha.
They deleted the posts, if you can believe it.
In a word, it looks like wisdom, and I offered an example of wisdom relevant to the current situation. At least most Buddhists would believe that wisdom is characteristic of the cessation of suffering, being that they believe ignorance where the wheels start a roll’n. Religious folk can and do say all sorts of things about the cessation of surfing in Buddhism. None of it needs to be true, as I’ve mentioned, it only needs to be meaningful.
But that’s Buddhism, in the religion of Hardcore Zen, what does “profound insight into the nature of reality” look like?
WHOA nobody is stopping any surfing, bro. Once you catch a wave, it also catches you.
Indeed.
“But that’s Buddhism, in the religion of Hardcore Zen, what does “profound insight into the nature of reality” look like?”
It doesn’t look like anything that you have ever seen.
You’re no fun.
Almost right Zafster. Suffering ceases wherever surfing begins.
Oh yeah, shows what those dumb-dumbs know, I was a premier sadistic Machiavellian serial killer long before I started commenting on blogs.
FWIW:
http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/spirituality/The-Science-of-Yoga-and-the-Art-of-Zen/2015/03/21/article2721658.ece
I doubt Brad’s having a nervous breakdown about all the trash that gathers around his doorstep from time to time. But even a hardcore punk is apt to try and kick the nastier bits to the curb if they start to pile up too high (to say nothing of Zen. From what I can gather, Zen is all about the housekeeping). Or actually more like nudge the nastier bits… it’s not like anyone’s been 86ed, right? Personally I think he’s been pretty forebearing. He’s dishing out a lot less than he’s taking.
An3drew:
“you don’t know what infinity is so you will always be wanking on the net, just go away and do some real contemplative/solitary work !
as per board policy you are not banned, but please waste some-one elses time, i am busy !”
Hahaha
Even the trollwankers get trolled.
“Personally I think he’s been pretty forebearing. He’s dishing out a lot less than he’s taking.”
Eh, how much has Brad personally been taking here recently? A few zings aimed his way every so often. Much more of the nastiness molotov cocktails are aimed at fellow blog commenters than Brad specifically.
Back in the day, pre-moderation, there would be sometimes dozens of nasty, really insulting comments thrown Brad’s way. This place is like Mother Goose’s garden compared to the old, unmoderated space.
These last couple of days, most of us are talking with one another, to the point that when Brad came on and engaged, most ignored him completely.
So I’ll say again. If this rankles Brad or any Zen Buddhist practitioners, than I really question his/their resolve and confidence that this path is real. I don’t see how any challenges to the validity or truth of Zen has any impact on whether it is real.
If anything, Zen (or any truth) should hold up wonderfully under intense scrutiny and attempts to poke holes.
But it seems more like people want to belong to a club, like everyone’s into collecting magic the gathering cards and doesn’t want outsiders coming in and making fun. Is that what this is–an exclusive little club where you can come and make posts and have obscure discussions about sanskrit and prefixes and reference old Godzilla and ultra-man movies?
Or is it a place where people can put the evidence on the table for what this practice claims, and actually have a real, vigorous examination of the truth of the matter?
gniz wrote: Is that what this is—an exclusive little club where you can come and make posts and have obscure discussions about sanskrit and prefixes and reference old Godzilla and ultra-man movies?
Or is it a place where people can put the evidence on the table for what this practice claims, and actually have a real, vigorous examination of the truth of the matter?
Sanskrit prefixes? That’s me!
gniz, mate – This is not either “an exlusive club” or “a place where…” It never has been. It’s Brad Warner’s blog, the comment section of which has always been open to anyone with something to say who wanted to say it here. I thought that was one of things you liked about it – the thing that drew you back from time to time.
“Eh, how much has Brad personally been taking here recently? A few zings aimed his way every so often. Much more of the nastiness molotov cocktails are aimed at fellow blog commenters than Brad specifically.”
Well, yeah, you may be right about that. And really, I’ve got no place speaking for Brad or even defending him. He’s a grown man and besides, I don’t even know the cat.
But I have to say, I don’t really see how personal attacks, viscous insults, and endless non sequitors fall under the category of “intense scrutiny”. And even that much I’d be happy to hold my peace about if it weren’t so goddamn relentless of late. True, it the situation could be a lot worse, but it could be better too. And to be clear, I’m not trying to run anyone out of the neighborhood myself, even if I could. I’m just thinking – maybe certain less constructive tendencies could be reigned in bit? (Or not. I’ve bitched about this before and nothing came of it).
As far as “exclusive clubs” go… well, personally I’m not a practitioner of Zen or Buddhism of any variety, as I’ve stated many times. I’ve also expressed some major problems I have with Buddhist doctrine, including Warner’s own particular interpretation of Zen doctrine. I’ve even confessed to being far more inclined to Christianity at this point than I am to Zen, though I try not to overplay that card. And I’ve never once quoted Sanskrit (cause I don’t know any). And no one has tried to run me out of the neighborhood, or even implied I was hanging out on the wrong side of the street. Not yet anyway.
“But I have to say, I don’t really see how personal attacks, viscous insults, and endless non sequitors fall under the category of “intense scrutiny””
I’ll tell you how I think they fall under the category of intense scrutiny, then. Buddhism is a religion/philosophy that makes claims about decreasing suffering and increasing the ability to see reality more clearly.
This BLOG is reality. The criticisms of Brad and Brad’s particular flavoring of Zen is reality. It’s the reality of the spiritual marketplace online and in this modern internet age.
If he establishes a large, thriving zen center, there will likely be even more, tougher criticism to come. I don’t think Brad’s a wilting flower, so I’m sure he can handle it.
But at the same time, there are many occasions when he and other “Zen Buddhists” on this blog (and elsewhere) seem pretty think skinned for people that make the kinds of claims they make.
But then he (and other zen practitioners) want to turn around and have it both ways. Zen doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt feelings, lose your temper, behave badly, have affairs with students, act violently, and on and on.
Some of Brad’s “behavior” on this blog, as well as the behavior of others in this space (cough, Fred, cough) does not really present a cogent argument that zen practitioners have any more wisdom than the next fellow.
Brad’s forbearance is not in question. But a statement like “please don’t fill my comments section up with answers” without any explanation or context is hard to interpret. Is it:
a) An ironic joke with tongue in cheek? Just teasing?
b) A complaint about wordiness?
c) He had to buy more webspace because the database was full of comments?
d) A passive aggressive bitch about the know-it-all commenters ?
e) A koan??????????
f) Something else?
Nope, if someone has a question or answer pertaining to zen practice specifically then its not a waste of web space, but all the other masturbatory trolling costs and wastes money.
Hey Fred, I’d love to hear an explanation of how “masturbatory trolling costs and wastes money.”
It costs Brad money? How so? How does it waste money? The bandwidth for this site and the amount of space the comments take up must be trivial, no matter how long or how many they get.
I would guess the moderator is also a volunteer. It may waste time, but I don’t see how it wastes money. And in point of fact, Brad receives money through his blog, in the form of donations and the attention it gets him.
Even the trolls you want to disavow are a part of that process, like it or not, Fred. Seems very un-Zen of you to believe that those you agree with are the only ones who are good for this blog, but everyone you consider a troll is “bad.”
Quite the dualistic mindset, buddy.
Hey SO,
Brad’s always had a love/hate relationship with his blog and the comments section.
But again, that really puts some perspective on the entire ball of wax of Zen Buddhism and what Brad (and others) claim vs the reality of how they behave.
Now, Brad writes a popular blog and he has a fairly edgy voice and the whole punk rock persona. As a result, he gets people flocking to his blog that have an affinity for that sort of voice. You think people like me and Andr3w and Zafu show up on Thich Nhat Han’s forums (or Oprah’s blog or Rush Limbaugh forums) and start messing around? There’s a reason we come here, and has to do with the voice of the writer in this space.
Brad should understand that the nature of the subject matter he writes, and the voice he writes in, creates a kind of backlash or effect that might be perceived as negative (trolls, imbalanced personalities, etc).
However, at times, Brad seems completely amazed and uncomprehending of why he gets these reactions. He’s oftentimes seemed annoyed or perturbed that there is this misunderstanding of his writings, this backlash, this reaction to what he writes. I don’t know if it’s an act or not, but I’ve seen him write those types of comments many times over the years…
He even got rid of the comments on his blog for a period of time, and I started a “reblogging” site that got thousands of hits every day, and tons of discussed Brad’s new posts. Finally, Brad seemed aware that he was losing some of his interaction and audience, and opened his blog up to comments again.
Then, when the unmoderated posts got out of control, he moved to this new and moderated space.
Interestingly, he continues blogging and also requesting (and getting) donations here.
Now consider, from a Buddhist perspective, the karma involved. He can’t really just go offline and stop writing posts because he gets money from his readers and he values the reader engagement which helps sell books and get him speaking gigs.
And yet he sometimes makes comments as though disowning the commenters here, the very people who keep this place feeling lively and interesting and unique. But at the same time, some part of him understands this is the case–because he won’t close comments, since he did it before and didn’t seem to care for the results.
This is a very symbiotic relationship, and Brad’s blog and the comments section and trolls are all part of this cycle that creates a kind of thriving, if bizarre ecosystem.
Why is it that someone who’s practiced Zen for so long and seems to understand that there’s not really an us/them separation, can so often seem boggled by the way his choice of words and subject matter create the reactions he gets here and elsewhere?
Why it is that a “wise man” who’s done zen for thirty plus years and seems to claim a level of insight into the universe and reality, still struggles with come critical comments or snark on his blog that also helps feed and clothe and get him gigs?
I would argue that this is some evidence of proof that Brad’s zen does not do what he claims it does. I don’t argue that zen or meditation has no effect, or no import.
I argue that the claims he and others make about it are simply not in evidence.
And I don’t think that’s mean to Brad. Once again, big claims call for big evidence and Brad makes claims about zen showing you the nature of reality, of the self, allowing you to cut through your delusions.
I’m curious why there’s such a lack of evidence of that in Brad’s blog and his tolerance for criticism.
gniz, you want to have a “real, vigorous examination of the truth of the matter” on an open Internet comments board? Wow! What color is the sky on your planet?
A real, vigorous examination of the truth of the matter is jacking off into the wind.
Were you called Diogenes in a previous life Fred?
Afraid I don’t get your sarcasm. I don’t see why I can’t have that conversation here, and in fact, I feel at times thats exactly what’s occurring.
Of course, I don’t really have a problem with trolls, people accusing me of trolling, tangents, or anything else.
I think that discussing this stuff here is just one more avenue (among many) that I can use to think about things and pressure test ideas, and get gut checked now and again too.
I haven’t done this in a long time, but right now it feels okay to me.
You can have that intention, but you’d be as well carrying out the vigorous examination in your own diary. Random, anonymous Web users can only barely communicate with you, because of the limits of the medium, and have no incentive to be honest, or stick by anything they’ve said.
The signal to noise ratio will always be too low to get near the truth of anything
Hi SO,
I don’t expect to come across THE TRUTH, but rather, to engage in constructively thinking through my beliefs and my practice and my viewpoints. Whether the commenters do that or not is their problem, but some–like yourself–do push me to think differently than I otherwise might.
Through engaging with others who perhaps have differing viewpoints and beliefs, for me, it’s interesting to test my current mindset against the critical voices of others in this way.
I don’t just do it here, but in conversation with close friends, my wife, guidance from an elder, a book or film, scholarly articles…
You might be surprised how much I sound like Fred or Brad or someone else when speaking with my wife, lol. And then she slaps me around and makes me think yet again.
And then of course there’s the practice itself, and my continuing internal doubt and questioning of exactly what I’m doing and its benefits and costs to me (costs being possible negative outcomes).
I’m finding my own way, my own process–and talking through this stuff is interesting to me right now.
Shit things move fast here…
gniz wrote: Is that what this is—an exclusive little club where you can come and make posts and have obscure discussions about sanskrit and prefixes and reference old Godzilla and ultra-man movies?
Or is it a place where people can put the evidence on the table for what this practice claims, and actually have a real, vigorous examination of the truth of the matter?
Sanskrit prefixes? That’s me!
gniz, mate — This is not either “an exlusive club” or “a place where…” It never has been. It’s Brad Warner’s blog, the comment section of which has always been open to anyone with something to say who wanted to say it here. I thought that was one of things you liked about it — the thing that draws you back from time to time.
Hey Anon, That’s EXACTLY what I like about this place.
But what’s interesting is how few people around here seem to understand it, even and including Brad himself from time to time.
Oh Ok. Carry on : )
I’m not very interested in if God exisits or life after death.
I am learning a lot from reading Pema Chodron.
Being more adept at life is still just a side effect of trying to undeRstand it.
Zafu said: “In a word, it looks like wisdom, and I offered an example of wisdom relevant to the current situation. At least most Buddhists would believe that wisdom is characteristic of the cessation of suffering, being that they believe ignorance where the wheels start a roll’n. Religious folk can and do say all sorts of things about the cessation of surfing in Buddhism. None of it needs to be true, as I’ve mentioned, it only needs to be meaningful.”
See now that sounds like an actual answer. I don’t know that I fully agree, since it looks to me like wise people also suffer, but I think a case could be made that they suffer less due to their wisdom. Of course, the question wasn’t aimed at “most Buddhists.” It was aimed at you, so I’m not sure you’ve answered the question. On the other hand, people play real fast and loose with what they imagine “most people” or “most [pick your favorite demographic]” think, and I think that’s always projection. So maybe you did answer the question inadvertently even if you are trying to pin it on “most Buddhists.”
My problem with your first answer was that you seemed to be equating the cessation of suffering with “not being a slave to religious beliefs.” This didn’t make any sense to me as I’m not a slave to religious beliefs, and very, very many of the people I’ve been close to in my life are e areligious and/or straight up atheists, and we all suffer. You’ve denounced religion as loudly as a closeted gay preacher denounces homosexuality, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say you suffer as well.
“But that’s Buddhism, in the religion of Hardcore Zen, what does ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ look like?
I don’t know, I’ve never read it.
““But that’s Buddhism, in the religion of Hardcore Zen, what does ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ look like?
I don’t know, I’ve never read it.”
Interesting how many of the readers of this blog, so annoyed by folks like me and Zafu, have not even read Mr. Warner’s work.
Can’t speak for Zafu, but I do read Brad’s stuff and I enjoy a lot of it. But it’s a lot easier to be uncritical of the guy when you don’t read his work, watch his documentaries, and follow his blog posts on a regular basis.
🙂
I’m not annoyed by you. I think the real meat of this particular thread has been generated by you. I just happen to have been pissing around with Zafu, so I haven’t had the time to address your posts.
Also, who says I’m uncritical of Brad?
I trust you’re kidding. I didn’t make up the religion. Other folks made it up and keep it going.
Emptiness looks like everything, numbnuts.
No, what I mean is, you weren’t asked what you thought “most Buddhists” would say the cessation of suffering looks like, but what *you* thought it looked like. It looks like you’ve given an answer here, but then you attribute the answer to “most Buddhists,” so I’m still not sure whether your answering the question or sidestepping it to talk about what you think other people think instead.
you’re
Come on guys, I am still at work and am looking for procrastination here. Where’s the new posts?
You all are taking me on a one way trip to Yawntanamo Bay. Booooring. . .
gniz,
I’ll hazard a partial reply to one of the topics you have raised. I’m curious if and how you will respond.
One of the chief points that Brad is making in this blog post is that the answers that zen practice provide are highly individualistic and impossible to describe. Even apparently sensible questions turn out to be nonsense.
On the basis of my own experience with practice I have noticed that same sort of thing, over time some of my questions have been answered, only I couldn’t tell you what those answers are.
Another way of looking at it is that I came to zen looking for answers. Over time I started getting more interested in the questions themselves. At this point some of those questions are staring to drop off and loose any importance. Maybe, at some future point even the stupid answers will drop away.
Something is different but I can’t really explain what that difference is.
This seems to be consistent with a lot of zen “mythology” which tell a lot of really bizarre stories which make no sense to me whatsoever. Except that over time, some of those senseless stories are starting to make sense to me.
Brad and his dharma brother Kevin have made it very, very, very clear to me that this practice is not about figuring things out in my head, but instead is about training myself to live and act in the moment by moment changing world. I am not anywhere close to doing that, but I’m sadly aware of what an impossibly difficult and endless job it really is.
Memorizing ideas and intellectualizing about what ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ looks like can be fun. But it isn’t what it’s all about.
In addition, having a ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ doesn’t mean that the jobs over, you’ve figured it all out, and can move forward in peaceful harmony with the universe. Bills still happen, crappy jobs must be done and trolls still exist to test the worlds sanity.
I hope I’m not making this sound really profound. It’s actually distressingly mundane. Some days I feel like everything is falling apart.
By the way, if you do choose to respond, please don’t expect a lengthy back and forth from me. I type at about ten words a minute so this little M.S. has destroyed nearly an hour of my life. I can’t afford to be too wordy.
Cheers.
But a meaningful job, right! That’s the reward, the only reward, so enjoy it while you can.
“At least most Buddhists would believe that wisdom is characteristic of the cessation of suffering, being that they believe ignorance where the wheels start a roll’n.”
They might, but I think it’s interesting that Gautama identified the ignorance as ignorance of the four truths, which you seem quite conversant with, Zafu. Gautama did not say wisdom is the initial condition in the conditioned genesis of the cessation of suffering. He said the cessation of ignorance was the initial condition.
Although he said a lot of things, so maybe somewhere he says something about wisdom in connection with the cessation of ignorance; my feel for his teaching, I doubt it.
It’s very hard to rise above the reactive on this thread, or with friends and loved ones, not to mention those who wish me harm. Action can take place in the absence of will, that is my experience, yet all I can say is the place and thing is the action between waking and sleeping.
If it doesn’t walk and talk, it ain’t zazen. “profound insight into the nature of reality” is not the practice.
IMHO, I should add, even though it’s definitely true!
Mark, I’d suggest that if it couldn’t walk and talk, it couldn’t have been a profound wisdom.
For those who can’t stand videos on Brad’s comment thread, I apologize, and offer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEEUGaQTTQ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg
🙂
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the post. I’ll take a crack at a response.
ALAN:One of the chief points that Brad is making in this blog post is that the answers that zen practice provide are highly individualistic and impossible to describe. Even apparently sensible questions turn out to be nonsense.
GNIZ: I’ll admit, Alan, that sounds rather nice (and convenient) in the abstract. But why would sensible questions turn out to be nonsense? You see, I think this sort of sloppy thinking and poor analysis is why Zen really whiffs when it comes to solving these problems of consciousness (or not solving them).
I think there ARE answers to these questions. Because we aren’t currently at a place to answer them doesn’t mean they CAN’T ever be answered someday. The solution is not to just say, “well, since we don’t currently know, let’s pretend the questions are stupid and the answers don’t really exist.”
ALAN: On the basis of my own experience with practice I have noticed that same sort of thing, over time some of my questions have been answered, only I couldn’t tell you what those answers are.
GNIZ: This also seems a cop out. You got answers, but you don’t know what they are…that sounds like you found a way to sidestep the question. Zen’s labyrinthian way of describing things could cause that to happen, I’m sure. By changing the meanings of words, changing the meanings of questions, you start to lose track of what things really are. Just as Brad has found ways to change the meanings of various words (such as God) to fit his theories, and make the answers feel less important and the questions less interesting.
ALAN: Another way of looking at it is that I came to zen looking for answers. Over time I started getting more interested in the questions themselves. At this point some of those questions are staring to drop off and loose any importance. Maybe, at some future point even the stupid answers will drop away.
GNIZ: You see, I think the questions are still important. And what religion does is twist logic and change the nature of the questions to fit its own ends. Brad tells us that he knows the questions about life after death and so forth, have no meaning. I think he has no idea, but rather than say–I don’t know and Zen can’t address this question–he says that the question itself is wrong. That’s convenient.
ALAN: Something is different but I can’t really explain what that difference is.
This seems to be consistent with a lot of zen “mythology” which tell a lot of really bizarre stories which make no sense to me whatsoever. Except that over time, some of those senseless stories are starting to make sense to me.
GNIZ: The in-group has a way of creating that feeling. If you were a practicing Scientologist, you’d also find that as you read more of L Ron Hubbard’s philosophy and engaged in auditing, more and more the religion and stories would make sense. Eventually you’ll except anything.
ALAN: Brad and his dharma brother Kevin have made it very, very, very clear to me that this practice is not about figuring things out in my head, but instead is about training myself to live and act in the moment by moment changing world. I am not anywhere close to doing that, but I’m sadly aware of what an impossibly difficult and endless job it really is.
GNIZ: Once again, if you convince yourself that you can’t figure these questions out in your head–I’m sure that’s exactly what will appear to be true. I’ve had that experience myself. But I’m not at all certain that it’s anything but wishful thinking. How nice it would be to find out none of the important questions are even important–and that the only answer I need is to sit still and have NO ANSWERS.
That would be nice. But that doesn’t mean it’s real.
ALAN: Memorizing ideas and intellectualizing about what ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ looks like can be fun. But it isn’t what it’s all about.
GNIZ: Then what is it about? At least if I intellectualize, I’m being honest about the parameters of what I’m trying to understand and make sense of. There may be a “nature of reality.” There may be an answer to the question, “do we have a soul?” “Does life continue after death?” “Is there God?” That the questions are complicated and may not be answerable with current knowledge, does not mean the questions are worthless. But yes, Zen is likely worthless in answering them.
ALAN: In addition, having a ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ doesn’t mean that the jobs over, you’ve figured it all out, and can move forward in peaceful harmony with the universe. Bills still happen, crappy jobs must be done and trolls still exist to test the worlds sanity.
GNIZ: I don’t see that there’s any indication that you, or Brad, or any other religious teacher–has had a profound insight into the nature of reality. I don’t think we can know that at all. People of all stripes believe they’ve had such insights, and yet much of what they say contradicts one another. And from my own experiments, I’ve become more and more wary of such conclusions from religious folk.
ALAN: I hope I’m not making this sound really profound. It’s actually distressingly mundane. Some days I feel like everything is falling apart.
GNIZ: So do I. It’s called being human, and we’re all going through it, no matter what stories we tell others and ourselves.
Thanks for engaging. Great post, and I do appreciate your thoughts on these matters, Alan.
Re-reading Brad’s post again, I came across this key passage…
BRAD: To me, meditation – zazen specifically – is a way to decrease some of the distractions of the mind. We don’t realize, generally, how incredibly distracted we are by the processes going on in our own brains.
GNIZ: I would agree that meditation is good for apparently “settling” the mind and body, creating a more peaceful, and generally less distracted experience for the practitioner. But I’ve got a couple of problems with how he stated this. Firstly, he continuously asserts that this is unique to Zen practice, when it simply isn’t. There have been scientific studies that show mindfulness, yoga, and other forms of meditation also create these changes in the brain. And I reckon they happen with running and playing music and other activities as well. In other words, Zen meditation is not the exclusive holder of this kind of activity, and trying to address it as such elevates Zen meditation to a position that it doesn’t deserve.
BRAD: But if you work on dealing with some of your distractions you discover that there was a whole world out there you had not noticed before because you were too distracted to perceive it. Do this for long enough and a shift in perception/understanding occurs. At least that’s how it was for me.
GNIZ: What is this whole world out there and why is it so impossible for Brad to explain it in any cogent way? What didn’t I notice? And why is it that words suddenly fail Brad whenever he has to actually give an answer to one of life’s important questions? At least Christianity, Scientology and Judaism puts their chips on the table and comes up with some bullshit about God, demons, and aliens and shit.
You see, I agree that certain kinds of activities can bring about an apparent “change in consciousness.” The issue is that we still have very little real understanding of what that change is, or what any of it means. We’re infants, and even science and cosmology and our understandings of biology and the brain is very limited right now.
But even if our science never develops to where these questions can be answered–that simply does not mean the answers aren’t in existence, or the questions are stupid.
People like Brad remind me of children who want something so bad, and when it’s denied them, pick up their toys and run home. They want to know the answers, and when its denied them by circumstance, they either make the answers up or claim that the questions themselves are stupid.
Sorry, I am not buying that line of reasoning at all.
Meditation seems to create important and helpful changes in the brain and body. Other than that, folks like Brad no very little about it, or about life, that the rest of us don’t know. That’s what I’m seeing right now…
Hi again gniz. Again, I don’t think your reasoning is flawed, but it doesn’t seem like news. I’m quite happy to sit zazen while holding very similar views to those you express.
If the results of the practice are of a type that doesn’t lend itself to a discursive explanation – so what? I can either choose to see someone like Brad as a reliable witness or not. I can choose to engage in goalless sitting on a given day, or not. Buddhist theory calls it bodhicitta… you either got it or you ain’t. That’s a big part of what makes zen a ‘religion’ imho: the suspension of disbelief, the faith that the tradition points to something worthwhile and realizable.
Also, gniz, it’s experiential learning based on a very specific practice. If you haven’t done shikantaza, how can you say that Brad’s claims don’t ring true? I’ve done several variations on zazen, with different groups, and the devil’s in the detail. If the ‘insight into the nature of reality’ refers to something fairly subtle that is associated with a very specific practice, then I can’t see how you can be too critical before attempting the technique. Of course you’re free to decide it’s not worth the effort too. Based on my experience with the technique, I don’t think Brad’s statements are too implausible… but I don’t read them as pointing to anything supernatural or superhuman either.
Sinchan: “Were you called Diogenes in a previous life Fred?”
” Diogenes made a virtue of poverty. He begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar in the marketplace. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized and embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting attendees by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also responsible for publicly mocking Alexander the Great.”
He slept in a large jar.
Mark said:
“It’s very hard to rise above the reactive on this thread, or with friends and loved ones, not to mention those who wish me harm. Action can take place in the absence of will, that is my experience, yet all I can say is the place and thing is the action between waking and sleeping.”
Who are those that wish you harm, Mark?
The reactive can’t help themselves. They’re thrashing around in the spider’s web.
Hello SO,
I’m also happy to continue my meditation practice.
That you and a few other souls seem to agree with my points doesn’t change the fact that 99.9 percent of Zen and Buddhist teachers and practitioners are simply not practicing or teaching this way. They are teaching a system of superstition and practicing learning shoddy thinking and actually obscuring the basic practice of meditation–which has nothing to do with philosophy or religion and is incapable of answering scientific questions.
Not because those questions are meaningless or because the answers don’t exist, but because that isn’t what a solitary contemplative practice is equipped to do.
But religious people–most of them anyway–rarely understand the difference.\
I’ve been there myself–and I probably will be again. Hopefully, if I get too delusional, someone will knock me upside the head. 😉
The meaning of words and concepts depends on context, I think we can all agree. Perhaps the most significant context is you – your character, your personality. And people have different characters, different personalities, different abilities, different needs and wants, different insecurities and different ways of dealing with and compensating for them.
I started practising zazen almost 10 years ago, just after my life had undergone a significant change. Some of you know about that. For those that don’t, I don’t want to talk about it here, now. Suffice to say I’d been unhealthy and getting steadily unhealthier. I was forced to stop the behaviour responsible for that and I started feeling better about myself, physically and mentally. I took up Zen, which had interested me for a long time.
I kept a diary during the first couple of years of my Zen practice. I was going for enlightenment — the enlightenment D T Suzuki and Philip Kapleau had written about — and wanted to record my progress for the book I was bound to write, the one that would make me famous. I didn’t get enlightened. But I did have insights as a result of practising zazen. Not insights into the ultimate nature of reality. Certainly not an encounter with the fundamental ground of all being/God. But insights into the way my mind works and how that affects the way I respond to other people and the situations I find myself in.
Understanding my thoughts and behaviour better has made me more content, less likely to get depressed by adverse circumstances, more accepting of the way things are. I still want stuff I can’t have. I still want to be, if not famous, at least recognised and respected by more than my immediate circle of friends for being good at certain things, for having talent. But I now understand that may never happen – not in the way I still dream of it happening. Of course all this may be symptomatic of the changes that people undergo as they get older and idealistic fantasies fade. There’s no way of knowing what would have happened to me if I hadn’t found a Zen group and a teacher. I did what I did and I am where I am.
What I want to say is that Zen/Buddhism has — in addition to giving me a hobby, an interest — played a part in giving me greater understanding, greater insight into myself. Zen/Buddhism gave my life meaning at a time when I needed it and I’m grateful for that. It’s also helped me understand the value of (what the Buddha allegedly called) alpecchu, small desire.* In the early days it provided a meaningful system, a philosophy, I could relate to — one that never required me to accept anything just because it was written in a holy book and which, most of the time, made sense to me; confirmed my experience. As time has passed I’m less committed to the philosophy, less evangelistic about it. But it still makes sense to me. More so than the few other belief-systems I’m vaguely familiar with.
So the word enlightenment doesn’t mean much to me anymore. I translate prajna as wisdom. I translate bodhi as understanding. I translate duhkha as dissatisfaction. Those translations best describe my experience of what Buddhism is about. I can say I now have a little more of the first two and a little less of the last one. Other people hear those words differently because they’re different people, with different characters, different personalities, different abilities, different needs and wants, different insecurities and different ways of dealing with and compensating for them. No amount of debate will get different people to see things the same way. The best we can hope for is that a person might learn that to call someone with a different perspective, a different vocabulary, a different sytem of meaning, an idiot, a sheep or a numbnuts is very raely helpful and most probably means nothing worth meaning.
* Not NO desire. See http://nothingbutthelifeblood.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/buddhacarita-478-never-too-old.html (I knew that Mike Cross had written about alpecchu on his blog and googled. Coincidentally, I see, gniz commented on this post.)
When I was 18-20 I wanted to put a needle in my arm, but I never did. I suppose if someone had placed one on my arm, I would have pushed it in. And drifted off into an opiate coma for 10 or 20 years.
Anon 108,
Perfect.
Cheers.
Hi Anon 108!
Nicely put. I don’t have much of an issue with anything you wrote. Glad you feel better.
My one comment would be that none of the properties you describe seem at all exclusive to Zen Buddhism. But I do agree that some of what you describe may have come from practicing Zen, just as it could come from doing other activities.
And it’s possible that much of what you attribute to Zen was just your simple desire to change, to grow, and to understand your life better. It’s called maturity. A lot of people get that as they go through life. 🙂
And it’s possible that much of what you attribute to Zen was just your simple desire to change, to grow, and to understand your life better. It’s called maturity. A lot of people get that as they go through life.
I did acknowledge that in what I wrote. So yes, I agree.
Alan – Steady on! And thanks : )
He also walked around the agora publically masturbating…
Fred: “a real, vigorous examination… is jacking off into the wind”
That’s a reply to Fred, re: Diogenes. .. ended up in the wrong place.
gniz,
Believe it or not I do come from a scientific background so I do share some of the frustrations and doubts that you are expressing about zen practice.
However, one thing that I have come away from after practicing for some years is that what happens in practice is not measurable in any conventional way.
It’s a shame that you see that as a cop-out. But as Shinchan Ohara pointed out, it’s perfectly fine to practice with doubts. It’s even essential. When you are trying to practice with what is happening at any given moment, if you are experiencing doubt, be with doubt.
“What is this whole world out there and why is it so impossible for Brad to explain it in any cogent way?”
That sentence describes perfectly one of my early zen fantasies. When I started practice I told myself that one day I would “get it” and then explain my great insight to all my friends and family. I now see very clearly that that will never, ever happen.
In all of recorded history no mystic has ever come back with a ‘profound insight into the nature of reality’ and been able to explain it in a way that convinces everyone who hears it. Brad can’t. Dogen can’t. Even you couldn’t.
Which also happens to be an excellent reason for me to bow out. Having never experienced any of what I am writing about my chances of convincing you that any of it is might be true hovers below zero…
Cheers.
“Having never experienced any of what I am writing about my chances of convincing you that any of it is might be true hovers below zero…”
What a nice parting jab, Alan.
How do you know what I have or have not experienced? What traditions I’m familiar with? I don’t regularly practice shikantaza but I have sat in a more “open awareness” type of meditation style at times, which is my understanding of the nature of that practice.
And my own 15 years of practicing closer to an insight style of meditation has also brought me various experiences that I can sometimes expound on in much the ways that you and Anon 108 speak of here.
That I am coming around to viewing those experiences in a different way than you does not mean I haven’t had them–although, since you won’t much say what yours are–we can really only guess what you and I share in common or even if you and Brad have experienced anything remotely similar.
That’s one of the problems with this practice, and the fact that comparing notes is almost impossible due to the way its discussed and the baggage brought to the table from the Buddhist philosophy.
gniz,
In no way was my last comment meant as a parting jab.
I’m sorry you saw it as such.
I was just trying to note that we seem to be coming from different directions on the whole zen mediation thing and I have neither the tools, experience or motivation to convince you of anything.
Cheers.
Alan, you said: “However, one thing that I have come away from after practicing for some years is that what happens in practice is not measurable in any conventional way.”
I’m surprised that you would claim such a thing. Neuroscience is actually measuring the results of practice, and showing many wonderful things that many different kinds of meditation practice can do to the brain and body.
Things like lowering blood pressure and heart rate, improving immune function, seeming to help certain types of focus and concentration, among other things.
That science is a long way from showing some of the broader and grander claims of meditation that religious folk make–does not mean results are impossible. And personally, I don’t at all extrapolate that because meditation does some things well, that it must therefore do ALL the crazy stuff religious people claim of it.
I’m resigned to waiting for much more verification from objective sources, and I will use meditation in conjunction with all the other normal and healthy life activities (including but not limited to, rigorous intellectual discourse) to continue to learn and grow and remain open.
I’ll restate myself a bit more clearly here, because being clear and concise is something I think religious folk could learn to do a bit more of.
I’ve practiced breathing meditation (similar to insight meditation but with slight variation) for about fifteen years now.
I would say that in my own practice, I’ve learned how to relax a bit more, and how to notice certain patterns of my behavior, and overall I’ve likely increased my physical and mental health a bit.
Scientific studies seem to back up this general sentiment.
As to some of the grander experiences I’ve had–there really is no way of knowing the truth of them. I’m certainly not convinced, although it’s nice to put things in a different perspective through having experiences of bliss, or calm, or moments of insight into behavior and so forth. I’ve had one or two BIG moments–what someone might call kensho I guess. Not sure if that’s what it was–as I remain unconvinced that such experiences have validity in terms of the deeper insight into the nature of reality.
I will wait for science to back up, reaffirm, or perhaps contradict what my own BIG experiences have indicated. Until then, I remain firmly in the agnostic camp as to whether meditation can accurately show me such things.
And I think that’s a very important distinction. Because people have LOTS of big experiences, and many of them don’t pass the smell test. That doesn’t stop us from having experiences though, so it’s important, I think, to be very careful about believing or putting any real stock in an experience.
Beyond that, I think that openness and willingness to grow and change and explore new ideas is important for survival and in order to thrive. Zen and Buddhist thought is mostly full of dead ideas and dead words.
We move beyond that by continuing to evolve the way we explore these concepts, throwing out old, superstitious nonsense, and keeping what makes sense. And we hold off on making sweeping proclamations of truth. For instance, stating (like Brad does) that there can never be answers to the big questions of life–seems to go very much against the grain in terms of growing and evolving.
There are things that we as individuals might not be capable of knowing, but that doesn’t mean science won’t shed light on some of this as we continue. Being open to that is not such a bad thing.
Admitting that personal experience is not necessarily sufficient to warrant “truth” or even a “real experience of truth” is also important. If my practice has taught me anything, it’s taught me that much of what I experience and think isn’t to be believed.
And that’s not some deep insight into the notion that thought is useless, thoughts are not real, the self doesn’t exist, or any other nonsense that Buddhists talk about.
It’s simply saying, don’t believe your own hype or anyone else’s. Wait for more results, and tread very carefully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
“Mostly it takes the willingness to work hard, and write quite a few words. No doubt, just in the last few years I’ve written well over a million words, likely close to two million.
I have hundreds of titles out in various combinations; stand-alones, series, boxed sets, you name it. The name of the game is volume, and I don’t anticipate that ever changing. As long as you let me put out as much content as I like, I’m going to flood the market.”
Hi Fred,
Yeah, you searched and found my ebook blog. That’s a place where I discuss the business of ebooks and how to approach writing/selling books and what’s worked for me.
I have no idea why you would put that quote here on Brad’s blog. If it’s a joke about “flooding the market” or what you see as spamming, okay.
I’m not spamming, Fred, because I actually engage posters on topic. Sorry if what I say isn’t to your liking, but I wouldn’t call it spam either.
Fred be like: http://www.geni.com/people/Fred-Stalker/6000000006348350975
Hi Fred. Let’s once again try and be precise with our words.
From Wiki: Spam in blogs (also called simply blog spam, comment spam, or social spam)..It is done by posting (usually automatically) random comments, copying material from elsewhere that is not original, or promoting commercial services…
So Fred, I like to be precise with my language and terms. You’ve seemingly accused me of spamming Brad’s blog, but as usual, the facts don’t align with your opinion.
Where have I put random comments or copied material from somewhere else? My comments, though voluminous, are on-topic and engaging in a dialog with other posters here.
What you seem to find “spam” is my strong opposition to the kinds of poorly thought-out assumptions and assertions that folks like you, Fred, tend to make here.
It’s not surprising at all to me that you would like to classify my comments as spam, as junk, or as a waste of time. You actually refuse to engage on points, Fred. Daresay, I think your posts here frequently fall much closer to the line of spam than most.
So pot, meet kettle.
“Ok, I thought you guys would figure it out. This is Gniz, the troll. Didn’t you notice once Anonymous started posting, all my posts under Gniz stopped? Just wanted to let you know.
Gniz = anonymous”
Brad:
“And for those of you who wish to comment about this page, Aaron, the infamous troll from the old comments section here known as Gniz, has opened a page. It’s here:
http://rebloggingbradwarner.blogspot.com/“
“As someone who has spent a great deal of time labeling people idiots, fakes, frauds, and assholes, I have my own perspective about this name-calling thing and the precepts.
I’ve personally never taken vows and I also never bought into the precepts…
But i have found that the way i spoke in the past was deeply harmful to myself.
I can ONLY speak for myself on this. Brad or others may infact have found a way to say certain things (line asswipe) in such a way that it does not deeply harm themselves.
It wasnt that way for me, and I’m happy to have (mostly) stopped speaking that way to people.
Aaron”
Fred, are you seriously confused? I’m honestly asking.
People here are well aware of who I am and my history on this blog. People like Anon 108 and many others know who I am, I haven’t tried to hide any of it.
I would say that in the past I’ve trolled Brad. Do you know that Brad and I have also corresponded many times, privately via email? That we at one time considered putting out an ebook of his blog together? That brad even approached me about moderating his site for awhile?
I don’t think you get it, Fred. Maybe you should spend less time trying to show people what a troll I am, and more time engaging on topic.
And Fred, I’m going to now ask you to stop posting my old comments on this blog, unless you’re willing to engage with me about them in your own words.
What you’re doing right now–reposting other people’s material in profuse fashion…that’s actually the definition of spamming.
If Brad comes on and tells me to stop commenting (or emails me as he’s well capable of), I would stop immediately.
So I ask you to do the same. It’s insulting and making me very uncomfortable.
BTW that comment actually wasn’t me. I don’t post anonymously, Fred. That was a troll impersonating me…
Well, that seems perfectly reasonable.
I’m glad you wrote this summary as I’ve wanted to respond to you on this thread, but, you know, if you don’t respond quickly, it’s suddenly fifteen comments later and I can no longer tell exactly what you’re criticizing, just that you seem to be throwing out a generalized “this is all bullshit.”
One of the things you keep returning to is that you want some kind of “scientific verificatin” of your kensho experiences. You’ve lambasted Brad and others for being vague about describing these types of experiences or shifts in perception, but I’m not seeing you being any more forthcoming on what you’re actually talking about in regards to these moments. Can I aks what, exactly would science be validating in this case? What kind of controlled experiment would “back up, reaffirm or condtradict” these experiences, and what, exactly would they be reaffirming?
This comment was directed at gniz. Meant to hit “reply.”
Hey Jason,
You say “One of the things you keep returning to is that you want some kind of “scientific verificatin” of your kensho experiences. You’ve lambasted Brad and others for being vague about describing these types of experiences or shifts in perception”
To be clear, what I’m stating is that whatever these experiences are that meditators have–I don’t believe any single person can possibly know that such an experience is a “truth” about reality or “insight” into the nature of the self, whether God exists, life after death…
Nor do I think that having such experiences allows us to comment on whether such questions are valid or capable of being answered at some future point in time.
Right now, I don’t believe that science of the brain is far enough along to pinpoint kensho or insight experiences. I think neuroscience (likely in conjunction with other sciences) will probably eventually be able to start to pin down the nature and mechanisms of these kinds of experiences.
As of now, I find that whether one experiences emptiness, oneness, or a vision of Christ on the Cross–all of them are equally unprovable and unverifiable.
Thus, I personally think that the dogma surrounding such experiences is almost useless. It’s not possible to know what comes from “wanting to have or attain such experiences”, what comes from culture, tricks of perception, and on and on.
Meditation is simply a tool, like many other tools. It’s not magic, its not in the purview of one tradition or one religion. And in fact, my contention is that religion serves to obscure the usefulness of these tools by surrounding them with unproven assumptions, and discouraging criticism and intellectual discourse (as well as discouraging the scientific method).
Well, I certainly agree with you about the uselessness of dogma and the fact that Zen doesn’t have a monopoly on meditation or insight.
But I was referring, specifically, to this part of your text:
“I’ve had one or two BIG moments—what someone might call kensho I guess. Not sure if that’s what it was—as I remain unconvinced that such experiences have validity in terms of the deeper insight into the nature of reality.
I will wait for science to back up, reaffirm, or perhaps contradict what my own BIG experiences have indicated. Until then, I remain firmly in the agnostic camp as to whether meditation can accurately show me such things.”
and asking what it was that your experience “indicated” and how those indications might, theoretically, be validated.
Hi Jason…
Okay, I had an experience one day about a year ago or so, maybe a bit more. I was sitting outside on my deck, relaxing and breathing and paying attention (aka meditating)…
It seemed to me at the time that every piece of sensory information that was occurring was all a product of awareness, and that awareness or consciousness itself was fused into and the very foundation of every piece of sensory information that was happening.
And I was the experiencing of that awareness, the experiencing of the input was me, for lack of a better description.
Around that same moment (or moments), I started to sort of fall back into myself, for lack a of a better term. It almost felt like I was, I don’t know how to say–dissolving perhaps.
Later, I equated it to falling or sinking into the depths of the ocean and your foot starts to touch something–something big–like an iceberg–something so big its frightening. And you swim back to the surface and try to get away from it.
Whatever that experience was, it was both exhilarating and frightening and afterwards, for some time, my life felt different and my experience of life had changed a bit.
Now, that’s a very personal, very subjective description of something that happened to me. I’ve had other experiences, similar to an extent, but that one felt qualitatively different, more intense, more vivid, and I wanted to re-experience it again but never have. Again, this happened after well over a decade of practice, which falls in line with things Brad has described from his own viewpoint.
The thing is, over time I’ve arrived at a very different conclusion than Brad, or even my own teacher, did. My teacher told me that what I’d described to him was familiar to him, was an insight into the nature of things.
But my point is that I no longer ascribe to that kind of certainty.
As to how science might test or answer what that experience actually is, in reality.
I think when neuroscience is further along, questions about the nature of consciousness and awareness, its origins and how its experienced through the body and senses, will become more and more possible to answer. It will be answered probably in very complex ways, through observation at smaller and smaller levels of detail.
Lots of different ways to examine both the body, the mind, and the ability to locate awareness or at least create a theory that would describe what consciousness might be, or how it might originate.
And then, looking at the brain during meditation, it might also become possible to understand what states of consciousness are being experienced at those moments of so-called insight.
Now, whether those states are also responsible for allowing us to see into the true nature of reality is another matter entirely. These are wildly complicated and diverse subjects.
The notion that my own personal experience is a better measure or way to come up with the realities of consciousness than science…that’s like saying using meditation to come up with drugs to treat cancer is better than science.
It’s just not.
“I’ve already had a few incarnations on this board. First, as a loudmouthed troll, next as a…shit…still a loudmouthed troll.
Whatever, I think full disclosure (as much as possible) is actually important when discussing the realm of the so-called spiritual.
So now you know that I’m full of shit. Not just a little bit, but utterly and entirely full of it.
And of course, I like you to know that I’m full of shit ‘cuz it helps keep me honest.
Aaron”
You’re now engaged in a full on spam campaign, Fred.
I doubt Brad asked you to do this. I’ve not ever tried to hide my past, as I could’ve done easily by changing my moniker.
This is what religious people unfortunately resort to, when you knock over some of their sacred cows.
I would ask you to stop, unless you want to engage with me in your own words, rather can spamming Brad’s blog with my old comments.
“Because I KNEW that I had absolutely NO right telling Jack these things. The truth was, I didn’t really understand the practice and was very confused myself. I still am.
Eventually, as we hung out together more, I opened up about things in my own life–times when I was anxious and depressed and frequently I’d ask for Jack’s advise. Sometimes he would ask me stuff too. It was a mutual exchange and over the years, he became more than well aware how much I am consumed by the same problems as him. He no longer asks me to teach him anything.
But believe me, it wouldn’t have been hard to take his money, tell him more stuff I’d read off the internet, and carefully keep all my own doubts and fears and insecurities bottled up inside. And maybe, eventually, he would have told a couple of friends about me…
I believe the only difference between me and 99.9% of these other fake and fraudulent teachers is that I ADMIT how full of crap I am (leaving room for the .1% who might be genuine). Yes, I say it often, but not nearly often enough. And I need to remind myself of it even more.
There’s nothing at all wrong with being a crazy, wacky, insecure, fearful human trying to understand consciousness and the human experience. What’s wrong is lying to yourself and others because you can’t deal with NOT KNOWING ANYTHING.
Aaron”
geez, dude, so you’re a troll and embarrassed by things you’ve said in the past. Own it, stop complaining about it, and move along. No one actually cares but you.
The notion that my own personal experience is a better measure or way to come up with the realities of consciousness than science…that’s like saying using meditation to come up with drugs to treat cancer is better than science.
—————————————————————————————-
So you devalue your own subjectivity in favor of some mythical “objectivity” that you think science can provide in relationship to consciousness (but just not yet)?
Your analogy of “like using meditation to come up with drugs to treat cancer” is a false equivalency IMO.
You might be waiting for science to come up with answers to important questions you have about consciousness…forever. Or beyond this lifetime. And in the meantime? To me, it’s all about discernment, and I mean subjective discernment and intuition, which is something that can be developed to separate wheat from chaff…personally.
To rely on the outside authority of “science” in all cases is just the pendulum swinging all the way to the other side. If you distrust your own subjectivity 100%, you’re just giving away your own power of discrimination to an outside authority. Punch your own ticket, man, and learn how and why you actually can trust yourself, at least under some circumstances.
Hello, Fred. I’ve asked you to stop spamming me. I’m willing to engage in an actual dialog. Is your amazing, beautiful enlightenment so threatened that you can only now engage in sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “nah nah nah nah nah?”
Let’s discuss the points you’re supposedly attempting to make with these posts. Use words Fred. Yours, not mine. If you want to quote me, I don’t mind, but I’d prefer you to also include your own thoughts.
Otherwise you’re just being a troll and a spammer yourself. And I think that’s beneath you, dude.
The thing about sociopaths is that they can be very, very charming. It’s a waste of time speaking with them.
Fred, plenty of people engage with sociopaths. Are you so certain of what I am or am not, that you actually think it’s okay to simply spam this site to try and get rid of me?
You might succeed in making me go away, because I don’t find what you’re doing very pleasant. But you won’t make my ideas go away, or the issues I’ve brought up disappear.
I don’t think I’ve been charming here at all–quite the opposite.
But I’m willing to actually discuss. And I don’t mind discussing my old posts or comments, if you want to do more than just spam the site with them one after the other.
What do you think you’re showing people by doing that?
Fred, are you seriously confused? I’m honestly asking.
People here are well aware of who I am and my history on this blog. People like Anon 108 and many others know who I am, I haven’t tried to hide any of it.
I would say that in the past I’ve trolled Brad. Do you know that Brad and I have also corresponded many times, privately via email? That we at one time considered putting out an ebook of his blog together? That brad even approached me about moderating his site for awhile?
I don’t think you get it, Fred. Maybe you should spend less time trying to show people what a troll I am, and more time engaging on topic.
“Now its true that people make stories out of everything. But that includes you too. You’re spinning a story right now, about me and Buddha and a whole lot of other people you don’t know. Why? What’s the motive behind your story? Have you even bothered to look?”
Spin away Gniz. That’s what you do. I’m not buying any of your story or your attempts to manipulate conversation on Brad’s blog in a non-Buddhist direction.
Fred, if that’s the bone you have to pick with me, then fine. We don’t appear to get along very well or see eye to eye.
And I can admit, if I was you, I wouldn’t like me very much either.
But not to worry. I’m not taking up permanent residence here. I’ll be gone very soon and you can get back to doing whatever it is you want to do on Brad’s blog (take it in a more Buddhisty direction or whatever).
You sound like Helacoid. Are you an Aspie?
Interesting, Fred. Don’t think I’ve directly called you a name yet. Not sure why you are doing that.
I’m not calling you a name. I’m asking a serious question.
I would point to the postures of contemplation/prayer/practice in the world’s traditions:
on the knees, in Christianity;
in the lotus, in Buddhism;
whirling slowly, in Sufism;
bowing and alternately bending and straightening the knees, in Sufism;
holding a standing bent-knee posture, such as the horse stance, in martial arts
I would say that remaining in such postures brings out the fundamental mechanism of support in an upright body, the displacement of the thoracolumbar fascia behind the sacrum and the lower back through pressure maintained in the fluid ball of the abdomen.
It helps me sometimes, to feel for stretch behind the sacrum on the diagonals, across, and from below and above.
The freedom to beat the drum is different from beating the drum, however. The empty hand grasps the hoe handle; it’s the autonomic nervous system that controls the action here, and the exercise of volition is uncalled for:
“After a lengthy period of sinking the ch’i to the tan t’ien, you will reach a certain level where the ch’i will automatically go through the coccyx. You must not force it or the effort will be in vain and will cause problems. Be careful! You must follow the guidance of a teacher and fellow students.”
(“Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on T’ai Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man Ch’ing, trans. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, pg 78)
The autonomic nervous system controls the action, and my principal idea is to relax and experience the vestibular, proprioceptive, and otolithic senses along with the rest. The freedom of the location of awareness to move “as though through open space” (or not) with whatever enters into awareness results in a pressure in the abdominal cavity and the displacement of the thoracolumbar fascia, as appropriate. “As appropriate” means as the autonomic nervous system sees fit. Belief enters into it, just as the suggestion of a hypnotist can become the action of the individual under the appropriate circumstances.
That the induction of trance is involved is the best-kept secret in Zen. It’s no secret, in the teachings in the Pali Canon, and the happiness that Gautama spoke of was specifically connected with the “meditative states”.
Why is there no mention of trance in Zen: it’s there, it’s just an open secret:
“…the confusion technique (can) also be applied through engaging the patient’s mind with a sentence whose meaning (cannot) be found through the normal interpretation of the words and syntax (engaging the patient’s mind in a transderivational search).”
If a person spends time with any of the postures of contemplation/prayer/practice, then the double-entendre of Zen speak (or Sufi speak?) at the right moment may initiate the experience of a coordination among the senses moving the body, without any conscious agency.
“You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality.”
(Zen Letters, translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84)
“holding a standing bent-knee posture, such as the horse stance, in martial arts”
Kundalini /Lowen body work as well.
” Belief enters into it, just as the suggestion of a hypnotist can become the action of the individual under the appropriate circumstances.
That the induction of trance is involved is the best-kept secret in Zen. It’s no secret, in the teachings in the Pali Canon, and the happiness that Gautama spoke of was specifically connected with the “meditative states”.
Why is there no mention of trance in Zen: it’s there, it’s just an open secret”
The trance begins the day you are born and start sucking on the nipple. After that it’s continuous conditioning and reinforcement by the nipple.
Gautama’s meditative techniques are the means to a wrenching out of the daily trance to experience reality without the cultural overlay.
Quoth Fred: “Kundalini /Lowen body work as well.”
Lowen got his standing postures, like his ‘bow’ exercise, directly from Tai Chi, he said. Also his key idea of the importance of “grounding” was from Tai Chi. That was the big improvement he made on what Reich taught him: teaching the client to stand on their own two feet.
Any time I’m extremely stiff, if I’ve hunched over a computer for too long, or been on a long drive, I do some Lowen work before sitting zazen. The effect is impressive.
Hi MB.
You say,
So you devalue your own subjectivity in favor of some mythical “objectivity” that you think science can provide in relationship to consciousness (but just not yet)?
GNIZ: Pretty much. Just because science hasn’t explained something YET doesn’t mean the answers aren’t possible, or that it won’t do it at some point. If that never happens, I won’t make something up just because I want to know something that’s currently unknowable.
MB: Your analogy of “like using meditation to come up with drugs to treat cancer” is a false equivalency IMO.
GNIZ: Please show me how its false. In other words, I think that meditation as a tool probably doesn’t allow us to adequately describe or understand very complex workings of consciousness, awareness, the brain, the body and the universe. So using meditation to try and do that is sort of like saying you’ll discover a new cancer drug that way, too. It’s the wrong tool for that job. That doesn’t mean meditation is the wrong tool for any job–just not that one.
MB:You might be waiting for science to come up with answers to important questions you have about consciousness…forever. Or beyond this lifetime. And in the meantime?
GNIZ: In the meantime you admit the data isn’t there. You don’t just make it up cuz its taking too long to figure out. That doesn’t make sense to me. I agree the answers might take a long time or never come.
MB: To me, it’s all about discernment, and I mean subjective discernment and intuition, which is something that can be developed to separate wheat from chaff…personally.
GNIZ: I agree that we can still have some blueprints of how we currently see the world and how it operates. But I think, if we’re being honest, we have to admit these are very primitive, likely incorrect blueprints we’re using when it comes to consciousness and the nature of reality/the universe, etc.
MB: To rely on the outside authority of “science” in all cases is just the pendulum swinging all the way to the other side. If you distrust your own subjectivity 100%, you’re just giving away your own power of discrimination to an outside authority. Punch your own ticket, man, and learn how and why you actually can trust yourself, at least under some circumstances.
GNIZ: I trust science for the things it’s meant to do, and meditation for what it’s suited to do. I think meditation is one tool that can be used for self-observation, observation of the world, focus, relaxation, better health…its actually an amazing, amazing tool. It’s just not a tool for commenting on the truth of everything in the universe, I don’t think.
Okay y’all.
This time I am really out. Done. Finito.
Unfortunately, Fred was able to best me in dharma combat, as anyone reading here will clearly note.
As a result, I must now slink away into the darkness…
Goodbye and goodluck.
Well, Fred jr. was probably helping behind the scenes so it wasn’t a fair fight.
Fare thee well.
We were working hard. Dad had the whip out and I’ve gor umpteen paper cuts from thumbing thru the suttas. Every time I protested he mentioned that friggin flowing bridge thing and something about pissing gasoline on my leg, lol 🙂
As you indicate, it doesn’t need to be true, it only needs to be meaningful.
Religious rituals, like zazen in Hardcore Zen, service our desire for meaning, which could be considered a practical need.
“It seemed to me at the time that every piece of sensory information that was occurring was all a product of awareness, and that awareness or consciousness itself was fused into and the very foundation of every piece of sensory information that was happening.
And I was the experiencing of that awareness, the experiencing of the input was me, for lack of a better description.”
Thanks, gniz. That’s not so dissimilar from:
“If a person spends time with any of the postures of contemplation/prayer/practice, then the double-entendre of Zen speak (or Sufi speak?) at the right moment may initiate the experience of a coordination among the senses moving the body, without any conscious agency.”
Except, of course, there was no Zen-speak involved.
I’ve enjoyed writing on this thread very much, so thanks to everybody who participated, including the irascible Fred, the inscrutable Freddy Jr., the curmudgeonly Zafu, the delightfully English anon 108 (& Alan?), Shade, Leah, justlui, gniz, and not to mention, the host with the most, the right Rev. Mr. Warner. Thanks, Brad.
We now return you to your regular programming…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-C_HVoiJpY
& thanks to Jason & mb…
& Conrad.
Good night, John Boy.
“Unfortunately, Fred was able to best me in dharma combat, as anyone reading here will clearly note.
As a result, I must now slink away into the darkness…
Goodbye and goodluck.”
There was no dharma combat, and no one was bested.
Slinking away into the darkness is fiction
“It seemed to me at the time that every piece of sensory information that was occurring was all a product of awareness, and that awareness or consciousness itself was fused into and the very foundation of every piece of sensory information that was happening.
And I was the experiencing of that awareness, the experiencing of the input was me, for lack of a better description.”
Thanks, gniz. That’s not so dissimilar from:
“If a person spends time with any of the postures of contemplation/prayer/practice, then the double-entendre of Zen speak (or Sufi speak?) at the right moment may initiate the experience of a coordination among the senses moving the body, without any conscious agency.”
And not so dissimilar from the universe realizing itself.
To be fair to gniz, I didn’t really answer all his questions, due in part to time and space limitations here. But also due to the more basic fact that he’s looking for scientific proof of subjective experience, which simply isn’t possible.
Science is pretty good at exploring the objective domain of experience, but it does so by deliberately trying to exclude all forms of subjectivity. It can’t then be turned around to try to say anything definitive about the subject life. It can measure your respiration, heart-rate, neurological activity and so on, but it can’t actually use that to determine what your subjective experience is. It can’t “see” in that direction. Because it deliberately excludes it.
Meditation and spiritual experience in general is subjective. It’s not like a claim of physical levitation. A claim of the experience of satori simply is not verifiable by objective scientific means. Dukkha is not the same as some neurological state, it’s in the nature of subjective experience. And the transcendence of dukkha can’t be described neurologically either, even if you hook a guy up to the brain wave monitors and see a calm person. Dead people are very calm, does that make them expert meditators?
So gniz is just setting himself up for endless frustration with this discussion. Which is the very definition of dukkha. We don’t need to hook him up to the brain wave machine to see that. We’ve all been there and done that. We still are. He’s just a bit more dramatic and less self-aware than most.
Mark said:
“Why is there no mention of trance in Zen: it’s there, it’s just an open secret”
Here’s an other’s open secret: there’s no one home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP98G4vk_lE
I was all set to engage with gniz when I got time, but I think Conrad pretty much nailed it here. To go further would be to belabor the point. Also, I had no idea about the multiple identities or history of gniz. Damn, Fred. That was some internet Hong Kong Fooey.
Delightfully English, Mark? Im chuffed. But what would what my yiddishe mamma say, G-d rest her soul?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5z27MVfgs8 (mainly for the pictures)
By the way, I must compliment you chaps on your hillbilly music. Simply marvellous!
“By the way, I must compliment you chaps on your hillbilly music. Simply marvellous!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSbXSTaxozo
Make me laugh! 🙂
uh, the yiddesh one…
The religion of Hardcore Zen is not about “transcendence of dukkha.” The good Shepherd reported in this blog post that anyone talking about that sort of thing “clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” It’s about “profound insight into the nature of reality.” The “MOMENTARY” transcendence of profound insight into the nature of reality, if you can call momentary transcendence in any meaningful way transcendence, is measurable but the technology to measure it simply doesn’t exist yet.
Your narrow-mindedness is only due to your fear that science will render your meaning system meaningless. Don’t worry, meaning can be found everywhere. You don’t need a belief system like Hardcore Zen.
Zen practicers apparently never transcend suffering, but it clearly does a good job at increasing their arrogance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXdE7pBTjQ
“Zen practicers apparently never transcend suffering, but it clearly does a good job at increasing their arrogance.”
You must practice a lot of zen.
Snap!
I don’t need Zen to find meaning in life, and I don’t need it to increase my arrogance either. 🙂
Yes, I get it. You feed yourself with a big boy spoon. It’s been established. Can say more about the connection between religion and meaning? Do you think there is one?
“The religion of Hardcore Zen is not about “transcendence of dukkha.”
Yes, I get that. It just means that Hardcore Zen isn’t Buddhism. Which is fine with me. I don’t limit myself to Buddhism. I like Brad, even if he is pretty sketchy in claiming to be a Buddhist. He isn’t the first or last to go there.
Buddhism has a long history of people using its techniques and methods to stoke their cravings and improve their lives and so on. People even get positive results that make them feel they are getting somewhere. Brad criticizes people who do that, whose names aren’t Brad. A long tradition for that also.
But the noble truths are still what they are. The Buddha’s teaching with its focus on dukkha and tanha are what it is too. In fact, it’s understandable to me that guys like gniz notice that approaches like Brad’s don’t bring an end to dukkha, even though that’s what Buddhism claims to be about, and complain about it. He just doesn’t seem to notice that this isn’t what Brad is about, and it’s not what Brad ever promised.
It’s an understandable conflation, in that Brad still claims to be a Buddhist. But it’s a pretty open tradition and all sorts of people can claim to be a part of it without having to worry about the Pope excommunicating them or burning them at the stake. My claims to any connection to the tradition are pretty weak myself.
The good Shepherd reported in this blog post that anyone talking about that sort of thing “clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” That book “What makes you not a Buddhist” would make me a Buddhist, however, and not Brad, so there’s that. But I’m sure Brad disagrees with that guy too. None of us are going to lose sleep over it.
“http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-You-Not-Buddhist/dp/1590305701
“The good Shepherd reported in this blog post that anyone talking about that sort of thing “clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
Brad is entitled to his opinion, but the long history of Buddhism pretty readily contradicts him. Brad has often admitted he hasn’t really read much on Buddhism or Buddhist teachings. He’s just done some minor studies with his own teacher, and accepted that, and he likes Dogen a lot. So I don’t think Brad cares much what Buddhism has to say on the topic, unless it’s that small subset of Buddhists who kind of sort of agree with him.
As for science, undermine away! I have no problem with science, or neurology, and welcome its findings. It just has a pretty difficult job trying to study subjective experience. It can’t do that without relying on subjective accounts and reports, which it has no way of confirming are real. So what?
As for “transcending suffering” I think you misunderstand the phrase. It doesn’t mean, “no more trouble in life”, it means accepting all trouble without resistance, and instead welcoming it and being grateful for it. Trouble ass-rapes you, offer the other buttock cheek, gladly. That will show dukkha a thing or two.
As for insight into the nature of reality, I’m all for that too. It just doesn’t come without paying the price of releasing the craving for satisfaction. If you don’t do that, all your insights will be like sand, and your house will be built on tidal islands. You don’t have to believe me, just take a look around.
I haven’t read the all the comments but from what I have read it seems that gniz’s complaints centered around the way Brad talks about “profound insight into the nature of reality.” I’m going to refer to that as ’emptiness’ henceforth, to reduce typing. If nowhere else, Brad made it clear in this blog post that he doesn’t believe in the cessation of suffering. I’m rather confident in gniz’s reading comprehension.
What we covered early in the comments was that sure, Buddhism promises the cessation of suffering and such a promise is an essential characteristic of a religion. Hardcore Zen merely has a different promise of this kind, the promise of emptines, and so still qualifies as a religion. Congratulations, Brad!
Offering the other butt cheek will not help to save the next rape victim. I think this is the essential critique of a watered down Buddhism. It may be prone to nihilistic tendencies. Self-centered meditation junkies are no real help to the world and society. But the mindset you describe does wonders for the old letch Zen master’s sex life, as we know. The naive Zen students have offered the other butt cheek gladly, just as you describe.
So you are claiming that Brad Warner and others of his kind have released their cravings for satisfaction? Seriously?
“I’m rather confident in gniz’s reading comprehension.”
I’m not. In fact, I’m pretty confident gniz is dyslexic. His criticism of Brad doesn’t make much sense if he accepts that Brad doesn’t believe that Buddhism ends suffering. But if you’re right, it only means he’s making even less sense than I thought.
“Hardcore Zen merely has a different promise of this kind, the promise of emptines, and so still qualifies as a religion. ”
I’ve never heard him say that, but if you say he does, it isn’t much of a promise. Emptiness isn’t a promise, it’s just the nature of things. If knowledge of emptiness doesn’t end dukkha, what’s the point of it? Is Brad saying that dukkha and realization of emptiness are compatible? I hope at the very least it improves his guitar playing.
“Offering the other butt cheek will not help to save the next rape victim.”
Of course not. It won’t cure cancer either. It just means that whether you’re being raped or dying of cancer, you’re free of dukkha. Maybe you think those are bad things and are looking for cures and preventatives. Which is fine, as long as you don’t image curing cancer will end dukkha. It won’t. So it’s a matter of priorities. End dukkha, or cure cancer? Which is more important to you?
“I think this is the essential critique of a watered down Buddhism.”
I agree. I just think the watered down version of Buddhism is the one that doesn’t even bother to end dukkha, but puts that off until we’ve made our lives more comfortable, even cancer-free. The one that is so nihilistic that it doesn’t think such a thing is even possible, and so tries to create meanings out of its cravings for satisfaction. Which is futile and endless. But go ahead, give it a whirl.
“Self-centered meditation junkies are no real help to the world and society.”
The entire craving for satisfaction and invented meaning is of no real help to the world or society. Even if you cure cancer, you won’t satisfy anyone. A meditation junkie, btw, is by definition someone who is pursuing meditation to fulfill some craving. Real meditation is the cessation of such cravings, so it can’t be addictive.
“But the mindset you describe does wonders for the old letch Zen master’s sex life, as we know.”
How so? How does freedom from craving and unconditional gratitude encourage a zen teacher to pursue the satisfaction of his cravings? Quite the opposite. On the other hand, even if he does try to victimize his students, the student who has no cravings for the teacher’s approval or a desire to please them, isn’t going to be exploited, because they lack the cravings that make them vulnerable to such predations. Unless sheer force is used, of course. And even then, they are going to be able to get through that painful experience pretty well, with few problems or repurcussions.
“The naive Zen students have offered the other butt cheek gladly, just as you describe.”
Not gladly, but fearfully, and because they crave some kind of satisfaction from having their butt reamed by the holy one. If they are free of such cravings, why would they bother to submit to him?
“So you are claiming that Brad Warner and others of his kind have released their cravings for satisfaction? Seriously?”
Ask Brad. I thought I had inferred the opposite. Since Brad pretty clearly rejects the whole notion that Buddhism is about relinquishing one’s cravings and moving beyond dukkha, how likely is it that he’s free of that? Not likely at all. Still, even just practicing zazen a lot can help reduce cravings, even if that isn’t his intention. There’s something inherent in the practice of just sitting that frustrates any desire for satisfaction. So maybe he’s gotten the point without being able to articulate it. Or maybe he thinks that by saying it out loud, it will just encourage people to crave the cessation of craving, which would be counterproductive. Or maybe he’s just a punk who likes to punk people by denying that he understands this. Whatever the case is, that’s his problem And his student’s problem too. Unless his students are smarter than him and stop craving his approval.
I watched three TED talks on youtube last night, that relate to what’s been going on here. The first is called ‘Psychosis or Spiritual Awakening: Phil Borges at TEDxUMKC’ , and the second is called ‘Depression is a disease of civilization: Stephen Ilardi at TEDxEmory’, the third is ‘Depression and spiritual awakening — two sides of one door | Lisa Miller | TEDxTeachersCollege’ (I can’t decide which to link under the one link rule, look them up if interested).
To sum all three of these talks up at once: indigenous peoples who live hunter-gatherer lifestyles never get depressed; this is because their lives are so tough that they don’t have time for idle speculation and rumination; all these cultures have a form of shamanism, involving communal rituals; when you CT scan the brains of people who claim some kind of ‘spiritual awakening’ involving a sense of connectedness/non-duality with the rest of the world, their brains are more active, and the cortex is thicker precisely in the areas that are atrophied in depressed people.
Why is that relevant? Well…
1) Indigenous people have ZERO shortage of meaning in their lives, just surviving is filling that hole for them… yet they still develop ritual practices, ie religion. So: there is more to religion than just ‘providing meaning’. My guess is that in these ‘primitive(!)’ cultures it serves to enhance group bonding, and to arouse and focus the energies needed for daily life.
2) The constant negative rumination that many of us engage in in these comments is likely to make us depressed and anti-social.
3) The thickened cortex thing suggests that the ‘benefit’ of spiritual practice is not to be found in any one-off, brief experience of insight so much as in an ongoing openness to all experience, and sense of fellowship with other beings. Also, that such a state is the result of training, or practising a particular style of perception, rather than the result of a single sudden insight.
4) Such a condition of brain/mind appears to immunise the person against depression, as well as what we call ‘mental illness’. If not the ‘cessation of dukkha’, it sounds like a drastic reduction of dukkha.
Overall these talks tend to confirm things I thought already. That the rituals and ‘religious’ aspects of Zen (chanting, drums, bells, statues) are not incidental: they help release the group’s primal energy needed for vigorous meditation. That the theory and philosophy is not incidental either: it’s designed to push the brain away from habitual, linear, egocentric thought – and towards a more joined-up perceptual style. That because of those things, the effectiveness of Zen is dependent on being embedded in the whole culture of Zen: teachers, sangha, robes, incense… and at least entertaining the idea system, which is part of the whole mind-body workout. That can all be done with or without skepticism, with or without a simultaneous effort to find an objective, scientific, non-religious explanatio for the whole thing.
The problem with that is that depression is a physical event associated with hyperarousal of stress hormones.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16769179
Shit, I’m quoting science
Yes, it’s a physical event involving stress hormones. How is that out of synch with anything I wrote above? (w.t.f.?)
I like a lot of this. But I think you overestimate the desperation of hunter-gatherers. From what I’ve read, most hunter-gatherer societies are pretty chill. A lot of downtime and relaxation. It’s estimated it took no more than about 20 hours a week back then to fulfill basic food and shelter requirements. Less than we work in our highly competitive world. And a whole lot more equality among the people, simple because it just isn’t possible to hoard much wealth while living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
It was the introduction of agriculture and empire that created a lot of the social-cultural suffering and anxiety over survival that makes for our screwed up motivations in life, and complications in the mind. A lot of specialization of skills, and with that, inequality and social competition. And of course the hoarding of wealth. Anthropologists notice that it wasn’t until agriculture came along that some people’s houses or huts started getting a lot bigger than others.
Even so, both paleolithic and neolithic life tended to be relatively calm. Sure, diseases and occasional starving really sucked and shortened lifespans, but people still had lots of free time. People had time for religion and art and just sitting around shooting the shit. So it’s not some constant quest for survival that kept them occupied. They occupied themselves with lots of other things. Like you say, communal things. Because there wasn’t much else to do. Religion became a big part of that too. And you’re right that’s where a whole lot of the rituals of zen and other religions come from. Religion means “to bind again”, and that refers to its ability to hold communities together. Tight-knit communities with not a lot else to do, and plenty of time on their hands, doing the same rituals over and over to keep those bonds alive. It’s hard to get depressed under those circumstances, as you say. But all the other existential problems of life still apply, including dukkah, tanha, and this strange quest for satisfaction and meaning that accompany them. So even in the relatively placid (and reasonably wealthy) culture of ancient India, the Buddha felt a pressing need to investigate and address those issues.
Hi Conrad, I agree with most of that. I just want to add something about your concept that religion arises from leisure time and relaxation.
The anthropologist in the TED Talk, who went and lived with the tribe in Papua New Guinea for twenty years, attributes the zero incidence of depression to a number of factors. These include:
1) These people are built like Olympic athletes, even in old age. They make full strenuous use of their bodies in a purposeful way in daily life… they have no concept of exercise for exercise’ sake.
2)They’re always being attacked by parasites. So their immune systems are always being challenged. So rest time, relaxation time, sleep etc. are already pretty ‘meaningful’ for their whole organism.
3)Some other stuff: their diet is rich in Omega-3 fats; they have very strong social bonds and a live in community.
He then came back to the States and started treating depression with exercise, Omega-3 etc. (hopefully not tropical parasites), and got good results.
…So although hunter-gatherer people might not be engaged in finding and preparing food every minute of every day, it seems they’re constantly stimulated and challenged. Their life has a lot of hardship, but they don’t have much time suffer about it. Their religious activities can’t be just about adding some meaning to their lives.
There is no shortage of meaning for anyone. But this is an interesting, and telling, thing for you to say.
Enhance group bonding, etc……. via a shared system of meaning.
I’ve already told you I agree that religion provides meaning… you’re mistaking me for somebody who gives a fuck
Playing football, dancing, having sex, going for a walk together – all enhance group bonding: do you think that’s down to a shared system of meaning???
wtf? Are you human? Do you have a body? We’re animals who bond through physical activity, and the associated hormones. Shared meanings are, if anything, just how we express the bond linguistically.
Don’t you mean somebody who gives a fuck . . . . . . . . about meaning?
No. I mean what I said.
Said . . . about meaning?
No. About what Zafu said….
“There is no shortage of meaning for anyone” … yes there is. Depression and various other unpleasant conditions are highly correlated with the lack of a sense of meaning or purpose. This has been studied extensively. For example, depression is endemic among the unemployed: but the rate is much lower for unemployed people with strong religious or political views.
People NEED meaning: either spoon-fed, or self-generated.
Wow, the cure for depression is employment, and no one figured that out til now.
Okay bad joke.
Yes, part of the cure for depression may be – you’ll love this – meaningful work. Which is not the same thing as alienated capitalist wage slave employment.
And one more thing, re: who is a Buddhist/not a Buddhist.
If the archaeologists dig up an edict of Ashoka tomorrow that says, “this Brahmanism isn’t maintaining social order enough, I’ve invented a crock o’ crap that will keep the populace meek and mild, based on a dude I invented called Gautama Siddhartha, and some bs called noble truths and 8-fold paths – and that crock o’ crap is now the state religion”, I’d still do Zen, based on the literature that starts with Bodhidharma.
And if ‘Bodhidharma and the Six Patriarchs’ turns out to be a fairytale, I’ll start my Zen history with Dogen. And if Dogen’s writings turn out to have been written by some Shogun as propaganda against the Yuan dynasty Sino-Mongols, I’ll stick a poster of Richard Chamberlain on my wall and do prostrations.
And, only in case of a direst emergency, I’d even resort to adopting Brad Warner, L. Ron H. – style, as the founder, and put a copy of his book (the one with a toilet on the cover) in the butsudan.
It’s NOT about historical accuracy, or organically-sourced dogma. Zen makes sense to me like no other practice or ideology, and I’ve dabbled with most of this planet’s big ones at one time or another. I studied philosophy obsessively for a long time – desperately looking for some reliable co-ordinates to live by, because I was unhappy, and because my experiments with hallucinogens had left me confused to the core. Every single explanation of life and the universe I examined had a whiff of shit about it, every one of them left some part of subjective or objective experience out, or made some aspect of life unholy and to be ignored. Except Dogen. So I choose to stick with him, regardless if he deviates from the reported sayings of Shakyamuni in some way (I’m not sure he does).
And anyway, this idea of ‘core beliefs of Buddhism’ is a modern invention. The endearingly English High Court Judge Mr. Christmas Humphreys, QC, had a notion to proselytise for Buddhism in Britain, so he went round all the main schools of Buddhism in Asia, trying to find a lowest common denominator of belief, that would satisfy his legalistic mind, and a country that expected religions to have ten (or so) commandments. After a heck of a lot of wrangling, he got all the poor soft-headed Asians to agree on 12 points http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/consensus.html. Goddarnit, they’d managed just fine without imperialistic standardisation for 25 centuries!
Not that I feel the same way about everything you said…
Where’s the Like button?
So Humphreys contrived the four noble lies and the soft headed Asians, as you refer to them, began to believe in them? Interesting.
Not really, I was painting with broad strokes… but something roughly like that
“Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million-colored sun
Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizons infinite.”
excerpt from Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Hashish Eater -or- the Apocalypse of Evil”
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/572
Re gniz (who can speak for himself):
Conrad wrote: “He’s just a bit more dramatic and less self-aware than most.”
And Jason wrote: “Also, I had no idea about the multiple identities or history of gniz. Damn…”
And Fred… did what Fred does.
Gniz is not a personal friend of mine. We’ve chatted on Brad’s blog (and on gniz’s reblogging BW blog) a few times over the years and exchanged one email. So I don’t know gniz. But I’m surprised by the reaction of some people to what he’s written.
If being self-aware means being as honest as you (the particular you that you are) can be about your weaknesses (strengths don’t count), I’ve found gniz to be one of the more self-aware folks ever to post in this comment section.
Sure, when he writes he writes a lot. Gniz is aware he writes a lot. He’s said so. But he’s always responding to something someone said or clarifying something he’s said himself. What he writes is always clearly written, very rarely rude, and- as far as I can tell – honest. So what’s the problem?
I think the problem some of you have with gniz is simple. He’s not saying the things you’d like him to say. He disagrees. He’s not a Buddhist. He sees things differently. A couple of you have conversed civily with him about your differences. But when civil conversation fails to convince gniz to see things the way you do, out come the digs, the ‘proof’ that he’s a fraud (anonymous posting!), the re-posting of past posts. What’s that supposed to show? That gniz is inconsistent (is he?)? That gniz has admitted *trolling*? ‘Once a troll always a troll’, is that it?
You know gniz has posted anonymously (not for some time, I’ll wager) because gniz told you. Which is more than I did for the first few months I contributed to this blog. I posted in all sorts of daft names. I always meant what I said but I was embarrassed by some of it. I didn’t want people to associate some of what I wanted to say with me. I didn’t want the members of my sangha – and particularly my teacher – to know that I could be defensive, snarky and arrogant – that I wasn’t enlightened. I haven’t done that for a few years now. I now only post stuff I hope not to be embarrassed about. As far as I can tell, gniz hasn’t done it either (and I’m not saying his motives were the same as mine). More importantly he’s fessed up. More than once. About more than just anonymous posting.
So erm…give a guy a break, will ya?
Have you read the blog post? Here’s a portion:
He asked, “how could there be any other answer to questions like that?” He’s apparently so blinded by his belief system that he can’t even conceive the honest answer, which is “I don’t know.”
Any critical thinker would have a problem with Brads posts, perhaps especially a Buddhist critical thinker, come to think of it.
It seems like you can’t imagine gniz’s point of view because you can’t imagine a Buddhism sans-4NT’s and so any discussion surrounding a ‘Buddhism’ of this kind would be senseless. It’s not senseless because, as I’ve mentioned countless times, a religion doesn’t need to be true or sensible, it only needs to be meaningful.
I agree it is difficult to image that the nature of things is not emptiness, but do we really know? Relatively speaking, we might be the dumbest sentient beings in the universe. It seems likely that we’ll destroy ourselves within a century.
And so what if emptiness is the case. Do we really need to build a religion around it?
Meaning.
I thought Zen practice was supposed to cure people from suffering such dualities. I believe we can subscribe to meaning systems and work on cures for diseases simultaneously.
We satisfy our hunger by eating, but inevitably we get hungry again.
“If knowledge of emptiness doesn’t end dukkha, what’s the point of it?”
Meaning.
Then what’s the point of meaning?
See below.
Zafu,
I’m not a regular here, and I’ve never encountered gniz before, so I really don’t know much about him and his trolling. So my opinion is just from the limited exchange we had above and on the last thread. I don’t find him either interested or capable of the kind of subtle reasoning or patience that is required to discuss these topics. Even the quote you give from Brad confirms this. Brad points out that yes and no answers to a lot of questions aren’t very meaningful. I agree. But gniz wants yes and no answers, and if you don’t give them, he starts hurling insults. It’s pretty childish.
That doesn’t mean he’s wrong or unintelligent. But if a person can’t try to empathize with another’s point of view and try to figure out what they are trying to say, it’s not going to work. And I’d point out that it was gniz who refused to discuss things further with me, not the other way around. So it’s not me who dismissed him.
Likewise, “I don’t know” isn’t the only possible answer to these sorts of complex questions, unless one is demanding unquivocal yes/no answers. Which again makes the discussion an absurdity. Gniz fails to even grasp the principles of science, by saying several times that science seeks and finds proofs of various statements. It doesn’t. The very word is anathema to any scientist. Science seeks data that supports or discredits various theories. It is always dealing with shadings of evidence and theory, never anything remotely resembling a proof. In fact, it’s fair to say that science is always wrong, and never knows, it just tries to be less wrong and less ignorant over time.
Likewise, it’s easy to imagine gniz’s point of view. Anyone can drop into the mindset and get argumentative about it, and make it impossible for anyone else to make a valid point. I’ve dealt with such people many times before. I’ve even been that person before. Haven’t you?
It’s not that I can’t imagine a Buddhism without the 4NTs, I just think it’s definitionally not Buddhism any longer if you take your eclecticism that far. I suppose you can slap the name on just about anything you like, but words do mean something, and Buddhism at the very least means the 4NTs. Why would you still want to call yourself a Buddhist if you rejected those? Just to make yourself feel connected somehow to a venerable tradition? What’s that all about?
As for emptiness, I should have clarified my statement simply by adding that it’s a proposition about the nature of things. It may or may not be true, but it isn’t some sort of promise that if you do various Buddhist methods, you will be given emptiness as a reward. It’s supposedly true for all beings and all things, Buddhist or not. So you have to find out if its true first.
You say the purpose of emptiness is meaning, but I don’t see how that can be the case, since according to Buddhism, all meaning is empty. So I’m not sure how emptiness leads to meaning. Maybe you could explain?
“I thought Zen practice was supposed to cure people from suffering such dualities. I believe we can subscribe to meaning systems and work on cures for diseases simultaneously.”
I think Zen simply highlights these contrasts, and requires that we resolve them. Yet life demands priorities. You can’t cure all diseases, and everyone is still going to die somehow. So dukkha isn’t going away. The Buddha’s entire approach was predicated on the idea that it was necessary to address the problem of dukkha first, and not worry about the rest so much beyond the minimums necessary for survival. I think it turns out that if you address core and root problems first, most of the other things fall into line. Not that cancer cures miraculously pop out of nowhere, but death and disease are no longer insurmountable problems requiring cures. An ultimate cure isn’t even possible, so one settles for what’s possible, and accepts those limits with grace.
“We satisfy our hunger by eating, but inevitably we get hungry again.”
That’s exactly the point. We never actually get satisfied, even with food. This should tell us that there’s no ultimate meaning in eating, or in any other craving. There’s just temporary, provisional, and unsatisfiable meanings that come and go depending on the circumstances.
Keep in mind that the cessation of craving won’t stop your body from needing food and getting hungry. But simple hunger is not craving. Craving refers to our existential need for permanent satisfaction. Meaning is nothing more than the mental equivalent of hunger. And the basic teaching of Buddhism is that there’s no satisfying and lasting meaning to anything, just these provisional meanings that come and go and at best give temporary and incomplete sustenance to us in the short run. So you can’t build some system of meaning that will hold together over time, or even completely answer all questions in the moment. The mind is unsatisfiable.
Gniz is an example of that mind seeking satisfaction. He’s further evidence that Buddha was right. But so is everyone’s mind. No one’s mind is any better in that respect. Not mine, not yours, not even Buddha’s.
Well said.
Meaning of this kind serves to bond people in common values and purpose so they may live cooperatively. Cooperation for mutual benefit is what’s behind it all. It’s a survival strategy. It is far from frivolous, especially in harsh environments where people must work cooperatively to survive, and expulsion from the group means almost certain death.
But maybe you can explain or flesh out your reasoning, it is unclear.
Meaning.
Contrary to popular belief, mockery is the greatest form of flattery. Why? Meaning.
Tasty bait, Zafupathy. Yum!
I agree with that quote completely Zafu. You’re right. And we already agreed on the statement “religions provide meaning”. I will flesh out what I was getting at vis-Ã -vis primitive society in another comment. But I think we need to agree on how we’re using terms, before we can have a clear discussion. Now, here’s the rub:
The word “meaning” has many variations and nuances depending on when and how it is used. There are quite a few philosophers who make a living in the field of Semantics – the Theory of Meaning – it’s problematic enough to keep a lot of smart, dandruffy, middle-aged white men up at night. Among other things, “meaning” can be:
1) The ‘sense’ of a word or sentence: how it’s understood conceptually.
2) The ‘reference’ of an utterance: the material or mental phenomena it addresses.
3) The ‘definition’: another expression that a word is equivalent to in the same language, or by translation into another language.
4) The ‘motivation’ behind an action or pattern of behaviour, known to the agent
5) The ‘motivation’ behind an action or pattern of behaviour, not known to the agent (in this case the ‘meaning’ is an interpretation by an observer)
6) A ‘translation’ of an action or pattern of behaviour from one domain of discourse to another.
7) An overarching objective, abstract, purpose or explanation for an action or pattern of behaviour, that goes beyond the immediate cause and effect repercussions of the action or behaviour.
Now, the statement “religions exist to provide meaning” could be used in any of the senses 4),5),6) or 7). Here’s some examples of those:
“The meaning of zazen is sometimes thought to be attaining enlightenment”: that’s an example of 4) … what the zazen person thinks he’s zazenning for.
“Zazen means balancing the autonomic nervous system”… that could be a 5) so long as it’s unbeknown to the sitter, (maybe it’s an unconscious motivation).
“The Book of Leviticus looks like it’s about following the arbitrary whims of יהוה, a bronze age sky fairy – but it’s real meaning is about public health and sexual hygiene” … that’s a 6): a translation from religious discourse to clinical discourse.
Of course, usually, “religions exist to provide meaning” is a 7), Meaning with a big ‘M’. But, it could be the others as well, so let’s be clear. Other examples of a 7) are: “God’s knowledge is the cause of all things” (Ibn-SÄ«nÄ); “Man’s Search for Meaning” (Viktor E. Frankl); “The purpose of life is to fart about” (Brad Warner).
The reason Buddhists and Zennists get knots in their shorts when you say “religions exist to provide meaning”, is because you’re accusing them of having a 7): and a major pretext of Zen is that there’s no 7) to be found, and looking for a 7) is a cause of suffering.
Now, my view is that Zen gives me loads of 4)s, 5)s and 6)s … but no 7). And the rituals of the Papuans under discussion ain’t a 7) either. Capisci?
So, what is the 7) of Zen?
So that’s what meaning means. Thank you for that, Shins. I was actually starting to ask myself what the meaning of meaning is.