My name is Brad and I subscribe to Deepak Chopra’s Twitter feed.
Hi Brad!
I don’t even really “get” Twitter. I’m not sure just what you’re supposed to do with it. The best stuff I’ve seen there has been funny one-liners like Shit My Dad Says or my friend Precious Veal. She’s a hoot!
A lot of “spiritual” type guys are on Twitter these days throwing out little sound bytes of spirituality. But I doubt there’s anything truly worthwhile in the realm of spiritual practice that can be reduced to 140 characters.
Of course, having said that I also have to mention that there is a tradition in Zen of so-called “turning words.” These are short phrases that, when heard by just the right person at just the right time, have a profound effect. One such phrase that often gets quoted is, “From birth to death it’s just like this.” A lot of the koans end with “turning words.” For me, hearing the phrase “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” really blew my head right off when I was about 18 years old.
But I seriously doubt that a Twitter feed is the best way to disseminate “turning words.” It’s not like those ancient Zen guys subscribed to a service that would sling random “turning words” at them from multiple sources of varying quality at a rate of four to six an hour popping up on their cell phones among fart jokes from drive time DJs and news about Paris Hilton’s latest Brazilian wax job. It was a different sort of thing altogether.
I’ve responded to a couple of Deepak’s tweets already. But one came up last night that I think really needs to be addressed in detail.
Right at the outset I want to emphasize that this is not about the man Mr. Deepak Chopra himself. It’s about what he tweeted. It’s not even about everything he tweets. It’s about this one specific tweet. I don’t know enough about Mr. Chopra to criticize him as a human being or even as a brand. I know he’s got a comic book series and a bunch of TV shows and even a video game. As dubious as the spiritual applications of these things seem to me, I’m not even all that fussed about them. If someone wanted to make a graphic novel or a video game out of Hardcore Zen, I’d probably do it. So this isn’t about that.
It’s about what Mr. Chopra says in his tweet. And what he says is this:
When you reach pure awareness you will have no problems, therefore there will be no need for solutions.
Let’s analyze that for a minute.
When (in the future, not now) you (who exist now and will continue to exist in the future) reach (whatever you imagine to be) pure awareness you (who exist now and will continue to exist in the future) will have (in the future) no problems (for your self), therefore there will be (in the future, not now) no need for (you to have) solutions (and won’t that be wonderful, over there, past that hill, just out of sight, let me sell you a way to get there).
If it were only Deepak Chopra who believed this, it wouldn’t really matter much. But this is how pretty much everyone approaches meditation practice and it’s why meditation practice seems to fail those people. It is certainly how I myself thought of practice for a very long time. I wanted something for myself. I might have even thought of what I wanted to get in terms of “pure awareness.” I read enough shitty books that used shitty phrases like that.
There is no pure awareness for you.
That might sound harsh. But really it’s not. What you are can never enter that place. Because you are the subject that sees things in terms of objects. Joshu Sasaki put it like this in his book Buddha is the Center of Gravity; “The God that is standing in front of you as an object says, ‘I am your God.’ But he is not. Even if that God has great power, he is not the real God.”
Pure awareness, whatever that is, or God (my preferred term), cannot be the object of you, cannot be the possession of you, it isn’t in your future, it isn’t something you can ever possibly reach. It will not solve all of your problems. It couldn’t even if it wanted to. It’s a fantastic dream that can never come true.
This doesn’t mean everything is bleak and horrible and hopeless. It just means that approaching it in terms of you and the things you want to get cannot possibly work. It can’t work precisely because thinking of things in terms of you and what you want to get is exactly the thing that blocks it.
The attitude expressed in Mr. Chopra’s tweet sits right at the very epicenter of where things have gone wrong for mankind. It is the source of all of our troubles. The solution to what’s wrong in the world is not some distant dream of pure awareness. It’s the understanding that what exists right now is pure awareness, is God, whether you know it or not. We, who seek to know it and possess it, are the very thing that makes it so hard to understand that.
A couple of blogs ago Broken Yogi made a comment that, “Brad is mixing categories. I can’t pole vault 18 feet like a top Olympic athlete, but I doubt that athlete would call me physically ill because I can’t do that… Likewise, I’m not enlightened, but I’m not spiritually lame either.”
In response I said something like, “Enlightenment (I hate that word) isn’t like pole vaulting 18 feet. It’s more like walking to the bathroom, if we were to continue that analogy. Most people, instead of walking to the bathroom, which (let’s say) just happens to be 18 feet away instead try to pole vault to the bathroom. And they can’t do it because the ceiling is too low. Yet they try anyway and keep injuring themselves. The pole keeps breaking, they keep hitting their heads, they keep beating themselves up over not being able to do it, and they still have to pee. The only thing an enlightened person (I hate that term) does differently is that she walks straight to the bathroom, does her business and then goes back to bed.”
Enlightenment or pure awareness or God or whatever isn’t some complicated thing we have to chase after far, far away. It’s the chasing itself that gets in our way. We wear ourselves out running in circles to try to arrive at the place we already are.
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Mysterion will make more than 4 comments on this post.
I like what you've said here, even if I vaguely suspect that by picking on Deepak (and earlier, Thich Nhat Han) you are also trying to get more hits to your blog.
These kinds of statements appear to be the snake oil salesmen trying to make a buck and build their brand, don't they? The implication being that Deepak is already there, at the pure awareness place, and he can–for a fee–bring you there too.
But I think we all need to look at our own sales pitches with this same eye. As others have pointed out, you have your hardcore zen brand sales pitch. Your POV, although more reasonable and practical, is still a brand and a POV that you're selling to the masses. As such, you promise something whether you mean to or not.
You promise that "you too can be cool, can be above it all, not fazed by the squares and the dopes that take everything so damned seriously."
I think Harry has been trying to get at this with some of his recent posts. It's easy for each of us to pick apart everyone else's brand. But what about our own brand?
I think seeing you dissect your very own sacred cows would be much more instructive, but you haven't done much of it–except perhaps in Zen Wrapped in Karma.
"Enlightenment or pure awareness or God or whatever isn't some complicated thing we have to chase after far, far away. It's the chasing itself that gets in our way. We wear ourselves out running in circles to try to arrive at the place we already are."
Hi Brad,
Can you explain how the view expressed here is different from the heretical view of naturalism that Dogen was so fond of criticising?
Also, how does it square (or should it?) with Dogen's various positions on many different types of effort being of the nature of realisation (such as acting in the diginified ways of buddhist ancestors, groping for mindfulness, polishing tiles… etc etc)?
I too like what you say, because it's easy and would have me do very little… doesn't seem that reliable tho, if I can suspend my own tendency towards laziness for a moment.
Regards,
Harry.
… and Zen Wrapped in Karma is my worst selling book even though it's my best.
Maybe we can't pick apart our own brand. And maybe it isn't such a bad thing. Because different approaches will appeal to different people.
I got into Zen through the person of Tim McCarthy and stayed with it through the person of Gudo Nishijima. It wasn't the nebulous something called "Zen" that interested me. It was Tim and Nishijima. The books I read, by and large, meant nothing to me. I wouldn't have even considered stepping into a Zen temple except for the fact that these two people, who I came to regard as friends, did it.
I started writing about Zen because I thought, "There are a lot of people who would understand this Zen stuff and who would be very much helped by it. But those people, like me, will never look at a book full of soothing words of wisdom with a little lotus flower on it."
I understand your point and Harry's. I just think it's a necessary part of the process.
Also, I have to project this stuff through the personality I have. Years ago the drummer of the Meat Puppets very kindly listened to one of my amateur tapes. He said, "Sing in the voice God gave you." That's what I try to do.
A way to avoid this problem would be to make the Hardcore Zen brand/identity strictly nonprofit. Release all books and audiobooks freely in a Creative Commons license. Earn money with a day job.
But I don’t know how feasible (or desirable) such an approach would be for Brad, or whether there’s some kind of dayjob he’d be happy with.
Harry,
This is Dogen's big question. He started off asking, "If we are already perfect as we are (which is what all the sutras say) why do we need to do practice?"
He spends pretty much all of Shobogenzo addressing that question in various ways. And the answer he comes up with always seems to me sort of like, "Because that's just the way it is."
When you practice zazen it starts to become clear why you practice zazen. But I've never met anyone who could explain it. My friend Greg Fain, who is the practice leader at Tassajara, said something like, "The longer I practice zazen, the more difficult it gets to explain why I practice zazen."
I know that's a kind of lousy answer. But that's the best one I can come up with.
I'm not saying here that you don't need practice. You definitely do. It's just really hard to pin down why.
"A way to avoid this problem would be to make the Hardcore Zen brand/identity strictly nonprofit. Release all books and audiobooks freely in a Creative Commons license. Earn money with a day job."
Which problem?
Look. I'm not saying Deepak is bad for making money. And I don't think that earning a living by explaining spiritual practice is a bad thing.
If Deepak works hard on his books and video games and what-not, let him earn some money from them. Same as if he worked hard as a physician, he ought to get paid. I ought to get paid too.
I think you can be excessive in how much you make at this stuff. But, trust me, that has not become a problem for me at this point! I barely scrape by. Maybe when it becomes excessive, then I can give my books away for free.
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Hi Brad,
I think you'll find that Master Dogen talked about many other things besides zazen and was concerned with aligning forms of conduct, language and meaning, and traditional buddhist teachings including koans etc in ways that expressed realisation.
Shobogenzo, a remarkably indepth and lengthy literary undertaking, is testament to his *effort* and the fact that Dogen didn't think it was just a matter of 'because that's just the way it is'.
It is a lot to do with free creativity, and it's origin is ungraspable, but if we don't express it (in whatever way) it is not realised/expressed.
Regards,
Harry.
Isn't that phrase meant to encourage people to practice ?
Goddamn, Brad. You've been poking and prodding at Chopra for weeks now. Congrats on getting an angle to post about him with.
I guess.
"I like what you've said here, even if I vaguely suspect that by picking on Deepak (and earlier, Thich Nhat Han) you are also trying to get more hits to your blog."
Exactly my point to you on Twitter a couple of weeks ago.
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Which is precisely what I'm doing in this post. Thanks for the encouragement!
I agree with Brad!
I suppose it will do no good to say that I didn't post this to get more blog hits. I don't really care that much about blog hits. If I knew of a way to translate hits on my blog into something concrete like money, maybe I would care. But I haven't figured that one out yet. I'm actually working on that very problem, believe it or not. And not by posting about Deepak Chopra.
I honestly think that Deepak Chopra's tweet concisely expresses something that is a very widespread, perhaps even universal, problem in meditation practice. Especially for Western people like me.
But OK. If you want to think I did it for more blog hits, go ahead.
Harry said:
I think you'll find that Master Dogen talked about many other things besides zazen and was concerned with aligning forms of conduct, language and meaning, and traditional buddhist teachings including koans etc in ways that expressed realisation.
Shobogenzo, a remarkably indepth and lengthy literary undertaking, is testament to his *effort* and the fact that Dogen didn't think it was just a matter of 'because that's just the way it is'.
Yes. True. But I think when it comes to his core question of "why should we practice" his answer usually seems to be something like "we practice because practice is necessary." And practice includes not just zazen but the other aspects of practice that you mention.
"I suppose it will do no good to say that I didn't post this to get more blog hits. I don't really care that much about blog hits. If I knew of a way to translate hits on my blog into something concrete like money, maybe I would care. But I haven't figured that one out yet. I'm actually working on that very problem, believe it or not. And not by posting about Deepak Chopra."
You and I actually traded some tweets a couple of weeks ago, and Chopra interacted with us as well. I tweeted to you that I believe that you "exploit," or something like that, these big name guys. You wrote back something like "depends on what you mean by 'exploit.'
Anyway, when we were both tweeting to Chopra and he was replying, you were seemingly satisfied by his clarification on something that he'd tweeted earlier. Have you tweeted with him over this tweet?
My God, I've written "TWEET" quite a bit, haven't I?
The strange thing is, Brad, that what Dearheart Chokem says is remarkably similar to the way you present zazen… like it's some sort of aloof, magically protected mystery place that is in some way removed from 'the personality/voice that God gave you' and the way you speak and act in the world.
Great thing about Dogen was his emphasis on expressing realisation/zazen in words and deed, and integrating zazen/realisation into all of what we are… this requires specific sorts of effort, not just sitting for a while every day and assuming that we have it all covered, as if by magic.
Maybe it would help if you looked for your God-given voice in zazen, and determined its nature right down to the inscrutible root?
What a drummer told you years ago may be very valid in a sense, but, no more than getting transmission, it might be pretty dangerous to consider it an invitation to stop learning. Your voice seems calcified and stilted these days.
Regards,
Harry.
"For me, hearing the phrase "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" really blew my head right off when I was about 18 years old."
So what? You were 18 years old. Kiss blew your socks off too. That phrase sandwiched between sexual fantasies might be all there was to your blown mind.
When I was 18, I was blown away by
"There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas."
“Although the Bodhisattva saves all sentient beings, there are no sentient beings to save” ~ Diamond Sutra
No "you" to have problems, no "you" to reach pure awareness and not have them, no "you to be saved.
What's the issue here?
I think what people react to with you, Brad, are these apparent contradictions wherein you're clearly trying to find a way to make money through writing (mainly about zen and "spirituality") while holding yourself aloof and above the "spirituality industry" (as represented by guys like Genpo and Deepak).
The thing is, more and more you are a part of that industry. More and more you come to depend financially on the business of spirituality.
Rather than still pretend you are doing something different from these folks, why not really cut away to the core of what it means to be a part of it? By always seeming to critique "others" you come off as a hypocrite.
I don't think you entirely are, but I get the feeling that the further entrenched you become (with your new nonprofit Doghen Sangha LA and the like), the more you will truly become that hypocrite.
I've found out the very very hard way in my own life that the thing I strive most to avoid has often been the very thing I've become.
Is Deepak Chopra a Zen Buddhist? Does he follow the line of teaching from Dogen?
When you're done with this guy I've got a whole world of philosophers you're welcome to criticize 🙂
Here's one…
"A lot of people in spiritual life use the awareness of difference, and the spiritual glorification of difference, as a justification to indulge in that which is ultimately unreal." ~ ANDREW COHEN
And BTW, I think your personality and writing are refreshing and interesting and a lot more honest than a lot of these pretenders.
That being said, when you become a critic of some of the biggest names in the biz, you get held to a very high standard.
And rightfully so, I think.
No problems at all, Wow I would like that!
Lately I came around a problem that is not mine!
Or is it?
About saving all sentient beings. Somehow I can not understand, even accept, the idea that the structure of this world we live in is: We have to go through shit to get to a point we find out there actually is no shit at all.
But why the fuss? If all is right from the start? Why do we need to go through this shit in the first place, and some people like Jesus or Boeddha have to tell us there is no need for shit. Who comes up with some kind of insane structure? What is it? What is the meaning of it? is God bored? There is no need for suffering, do some meditation etc.. What about some innocent people who do not know about the trouble the self causes and go through a big deal of shit, but don't know better. Who thinks up a system like this, that requires gurus, prophets, teachers.. what is this? I think it's mean and stupid. Maybe I have no problems, hm or do I ? By having no problems I have even more problems! More then one can imagine. So don't meditate and do not free yourself! If you don't want problems. Deepak is just mean!
BTW, Probably the nicest 'reason that we practice' that Dogen presents is at the end of Genjo-koan after his discussion of the 'fanning' koan. This koan is directly about the nature of Buddhist effort:
Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"
"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."
"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.
The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river.
So, our practice (fanning) brings forth the wind (the effect) of rendering the earth golden and it makes fragrant the long river (which is the Chinese name for our galaxy)… can we make anything of that in these cynical times?
Regards,
Harry.
Gniz said, "I've found out the very very hard way in my own life that the thing I strive most to avoid has often been the very thing I've become."
You've become a inner city person of color??
forgot something,
Yeah the only answer I came up with, as long as the structure is like this we have to deal with it. That we are here to help each other.
But still what the hell is this? and why?
uh… did you say "fragrant cream"?
"There is no pure awareness for you."
Thank you, Brad. A wonderful description of pure awareness – no subject, no object, no "you".
Lyn
Hi Brad – I'm wondering if you've heard of this organization "Landmark Forum" — http://www.landmarkforum.com/ — "designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in the quality of your life in just 3 days…". A friend of mine has joined it and from what she's shared with me it sounds like a fast-food rip-off a Zen – blending various ideologies of self-help-proselytizing in typically American fashion – "we can help you quickly & easily, forget all that hard, lengthy work of sitting on a cushion." It also sounds dangerous to me. Wondering if you've heard of it and if so, your thoughts. Thanks.
"Somehow I can not understand, even accept, the idea that the structure of this world we live in is: We have to go through shit to get to a point we find out there actually is no shit at all."
We will NEVER get out of the shit, but all of us, including zen teachers, use, at some extension, meditation as a way to get rid of suffering, instead of BEING the emotional/body pain.
@Harry thank you for the fanning koan
@Jamal
"There is no pure awareness for you."
Sounds like the Soup Nazi.
Seriously, not only are you right – though I disagree re:"God.". It is even deeper & more intimate than can be said here.
Re: Chopra – he's a bad example, his ilk is why I abjure the word "spiritual."
Newsflash::: mysterion isn't the only California jackbooter.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/09/EDUE1OF99A.DTL
"If I knew of a way to translate hits on my blog into something concrete like money, maybe I would care."
So all you care about is the money. You are exactly like the other "spiritual masters" you criticize.
Cancel my subscription to Tricycle.
I am so done with this bullshit.
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I love reading comment sections on blogs, or any website really. I love being able to see how people process what is written, and then express their acceptance or rejection of the main points of the post.
Brad; I find your writing to be clear and concise. Even though I may not always agree with everything say, you express your ideas in what I think is a clearly understandable way. Quite often when reading the comments on your blog, though, I'm not sure about how other people are interpreting it. There's a lot of people commenting on things that you aren't actually saying.
As for talking about what is said by the big names in spirituality; why not? These are the voices that most of us hear every day; Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama,etc. If someone disagrees or has a different take on what they say, then why can't that be discussed without the inference that one person hates the other, is trying to make them look bad, or is hoping to gain some sort of gravitas by ‘denouncing’ them?
As far as making money; it is a very difficult dance to manage. It is not easy to balance being true to your beliefs and the lure of celebrity. Most people want watered down sound bytes that make them feel good about themselves without having to think about it. I know several musicians who used to have major-label deals, but through their unwillingness to compromise their vision have since been dropped. I hope there is some way to monetize the site without losing the message.
Why is it that rockstars always seem to lie so much…?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIVCneVSvIM
We should cut Brad some slack; it can't be easy being landed with the Pope job, and then there's all our unreasonable expectations… I'm only concerned that he's resting on his enlightened laurels as a practitioner.
He should have some fellow Enlightened Master (a big, strong Rinzai psycho) chase him round a zen garden with a large stick or something for a few weeks, to scare him out of the brand-skin lest he becomes his own most unremarkable student.
Regards,
Harry.
John, john: Brad cares about more than the money, he cares very deeply about the womenfolk as well.
I like Brad. He is willing to endure eons of karmic torment for the sake of educating himself about how the teaching and writing thing really works.
As to why I practice, here is my best guess:
"Only the spontaneous occurrence of consciousness, impact, and feeling in response to the necessity of the current circumstance develops the stretch in existence as a function of well-being.
Because the occurrence of consciousness, impact, and feeling is in the nature of beings, everyone realizes selfless activity in the course of their daily lives; because well-being depends in part on the stretch that is in existence as consciousness takes place, the activities and postures that lend themselves to the experience of stretch find their way into our lives.
The witness of a location of consciousness conditioned by feeling frees the occurrence of consciousness, and everyone experiences such a witness in the course in their daily lives, yet such a witness has no significance without the need to bring an end to suffering."
(An Unauthorized and Incomplete Guide to Zazen, by yours truly)
Yes, waking up and falling asleep is entwined with enlightenment; my authority on this is Mr. B. Warner:
"The only thing an enlightened person (I hate that term) does differently is that she walks straight to the bathroom, does her business and then goes back to bed."
Maybe I'm nitpicking Brad's work. I actually think the last few things he's written have been pretty darn good, a bit of a resurgence of actual stuff to dig into.
That's well and good.
Maybe it's that nothing is ever good enough.
I appreciate Brad's writing a lot, I'd miss it if it were gone or no new work was being produced.
If I critique, it's because I care. And because here and there some little red flags to pop up.
Red flag 1: Dogen Sangha LA, a nonprofit organization from which Brad will draw a salary
This is very much like what Genpo Roshi was doing with his zen center. Just because Brad won't make as much money (at first) doesn't mean there's not a bit of a slippery slope being climbed down.
Red Flag 2: Commenting on the "big guns"
Brad has been doing a lot of critiquing of guys like Genpo, Thich Nhat Hahn and Deepak Chopra. Maybe Brad's not trying to gain attention by piggy-backing off of their notoriety, but it's a fairly common tactic that people in "showbiz" use to elevate their own profile.
Red Flag 3: Failing to critique his own position or that of his own sect. As Harry and others have mentioned, it's easy to take on other folks' sacred cows (the dali lama, mindfulness etc). But taking on your own is a whole other kettle of fish. Brad's insistence on lampooning other teachers while showing nothing but worship of his own is somewhat of a disappointment in that regard.
Are those 3 red flags the end of the world? No. But they are cause for concern, as much as anything can be cause for concern when you're talking about a person you don't really know and whose live has little effect on your own.
In the end, Brad is going to do what he does, part of which is to write to entertain us and give us something to chew on. As a a bit of a curmudgeon and muck-stirrer himself, he's a magnet for other shit stirrers. And that's part of why he gets such a hard time from the peanut gallery.
I think the minute he truly ignores his nay-sayers and stops reading any of his criticism will be the day he is truly on the road to being just another Genpo Roshi.
All of you clowns missed the most obvious joke.
When you reach pure awareness you will have no problems, therefore there will be no need for solutions…in bed.
C'mon Mysterion…. let loose!
Brad: There is a word play here.
Pure Awareness could be equated with nirbana/nirvana of sense without the physical (e.g. being without 'being in the flesh' as it were).
Nirbana/nirvana is not an easy concept to Occidentalize.
Do we cease to "be" when we die?
Perhaps.
But Buddhism was not formed in a vacuum nor did it evolve in the absence of external influences.
Buddha rejected the atman or 'soul,' yet did advocate birth-death cycles.
When one supposedly escapes the birth-death cycles (e.g. nirbana) then there are, by definition, no more problems (suffering) to confront.
Not having been there, that I am aware of, and not having done that, that I am aware of, I can not, in the absence of charisma, state with a high degree of certainty nor can I buy the tee shirt.
Cheers,
Chas
What then is impure awareness?
Ignorance?
People will look back at us in the early 21st century and marvel
at the fact that almost the entire world was what they will call
"mentally ill."
anonymous @ 4:16
that is correct.
between right wingnut 'hate talk' radio and sleeze for jeeze, something like 55% of the residents in the USA could be considered either abused or battered – by republicans.
the entire exercise in television, although I made a career of it, was a great waste of bandwidth – or a vast wasteland.
I would extend that to the entire human experience on Earth. We arrived, we destroyed, we died off. We were not missed (nor should we be!).
Unfortunately, the devices of our destruction will be here long long after we have gone.
anony @ 4:01
impure awareness alludes to greed, lust, or any desire beyond basic needs.
Basic needs are water (pure enough to drink), food (clean enough to eat), shelter (from wind in winter and sun in summer), and sex – in that order.
"Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell probably belongs there." – someone way smarter than me.