Words, What's the Point? or Stupid Non-Duality...

I'm sure it's just a stage, like those one passes through when dealing with grief.  If that's the case, I have no choice but to fully throw myself into it and wallow in the frustrating paradox that is coming to grips with non-duality.

A big issue with Zen teachings is their stereotypical "illogical" nature made famous by the promotions of D.T. Suzuki.*  I had pretty much wrapped my mind around the emptiness of words and how we shouldn't rely on them when practical experience is a better teacher, but having experienced directly a handful of things that, in the light (or should I say "darkness") of non-duality, are inexpressible in words; my heart has not been so pliant.

Remembering a post by Shundo at The Ino's Blog concerning the use of jargon at San Francisco's City Center, inspiration struck.

We're always told that only a realized teacher can confirm "enlightenment" experiences and I'd more or less just taken this on faith.  They see that you get "it" enough, so yeah, the experience is valid.  But when it comes to koans not having fixed answers, I just didn't understand how this could work.

Just as a visitor wouldn't really know what the "doshi door" was without experiencing it, we can't really know the true nature of anything without experiencing it.  People can give descriptions, even show you pictures, but until you actually experience it, your only reference of the door is secondary sources, shallow imitations of the real deal.

In having misunderstands/disagreements about the meaning of terms, or even whole and fundamental teachings, with people online and in person, I do and have realized that we really are talking about the same thing, but that our concepts of what the words we use mean, are different.

I've long felt that people are who they are because they are comprised of their experiences, built up as individuals by a lifetime of events and influences.**  All of these situations have determined how we see the world and how we define the things around us.

Words, being abstract representations of these experiences, only have meaning because we have all agreed up their meaning, this is how language develops.  Someone says, "This is a ball, from now on, you see one of these and call it a ball, I'll know what you're talking about." Everyone agrees and we have one idea of what a ball is.  Something else shaped the same way, the same size, color and everything pops up and we have a dilemma. Do we agree that this new object is a ball, too, or do we call it something else?  So now we have criteria for what a ball is.***

But abstract ideas add a new dimension to this because we can't point to them.  (I could write a whole book on this phenomena, but then I'd have wasted my time because that's what Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about.)  I'm very fond of the idea of words as fingers pointing to the truth so this is a metaphor that pops up for me a lot.

Each moment of our existence is different from those around us, so the rules that we assign to our existence are different.  Most notably the difference between right and wrong is a good example.  Given an individual's upbringing the appropriate way to interact with authority figures can be drastically different, giving them a different sense of right and wrong.  I could go deeper into this, but I hope you get where I'm going.

When it comes to our experience of reality, this causes trouble until we have an experience in which we glimpse its true nature.  The words we use to communicate our experience to a teacher are direct references, and if we're lucky our words will point at the same thing our teacher's understanding looks towards.  Until we have that experience ourselves (like seeing the doshi door) our fingers just point at other fingers and our experience isn't direct.

(I hope you're still with me.)

Words, unfortunately will always just point, so all I can do is point and hope you understand, not what I'm pointing to, but that this sign I'm holding up is understood to even point.  So I'll just keep pointing, not expecting anyone to understand or even read this blog just like I did at the very beginning. 

Maybe the mountains are becoming mountains again, they sure seem to be trying.

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 *I've more or less given up on his works as a practical reference as I don't think he really knew what he was talking about.  Sure in a talking "about" way, he did.  He was talking circles around the truth, but never pointing directly at it.  Scholarly analysis just doesn't do Zen justice and as a practitioner, this was one of the first gates I passed through finally after ten years of intellectual study.

**Later Buddhism gave me a framework for expressing this. Since these are the heaps/aggregates/skandhas, that are fundamentally empty, the "face we had before our parents were born" is like the blank canvas or empty vessel that all of this goes into.  This is not however, a belief of environment over genetics determining who we are since genetics have evolved as a response to the environment of our ancestors ("before our parents were born") as well as forms of life and even the planet, then stars, making the history of the entire universe influential in who we are in every moment of our lives.  Thus, that "face" is the self independent of phenomena, the absolute primordial inexpressible action/actor.

***When I took an intro to philosophy class in college, one of our discussions was an epistemological argument concerning whether or not it was possible to distinguish whether one of two objects, having identical properties, was removed a second time from a box or if it was the one left behind the first time.  Hating hypothetical questions for their assumptions, I questioned whether one of the identical properties was that it was really one object existing simultaneously in two places.  This blew the lid off the conversation, effectively ruining it, but it's a hypothesis that's stuck with me. Eventually, I mean to post about this. (if you have a comment about this, just encourage me to write the post and we'll discuss it then)

Response to "Lineage Delusions: Eido Shimano Roshi, Dharma Transmission, and American Zen"

Before I run off to next week's retreat with Tenshin Reb Anderson Roshi, I've got to loose these feelings about this highly recommended (and agreed with by those who have recommended it to me) essay/article by Erik Fraser Storlie on Sweeping Zen concerning the controversy surrounding Shimano Roshi as well as the validity of Dharma Transmission as an institution and its role in the future of American Zen.

I happen to strongly disagree with almost every argument in this piece and find it borderline offensive.

First of all, I'd like to address the statement that spiritual leaders of Eastern traditions in America engage in inappropriate behavior which is then explained away as a teaching is taken out of context.  This implies that these teachers willingly and intentionally engage in these behaviors for the express purpose of teaching us a lesson.  I find this as ridiculous as the author, but not for his reason.  These behaviors are referred to as teachings in an accidental way.  Happenstance has provided us with this series of events, and as good bodhisattvas, we see the dharma gate and walk right in.  These are not intentional lessons, they are examples of imperfect people doing imperfect things, which I'll get back to later.

I don't know the specifics of the situation's history or supposed cover up, but for my point, I don't think that matters.  I may not even have been in the know about this scene for very long, but what I do know is what I've been told and what I've experienced for myself.

Do I think it's a shame that unsuspecting individuals were hurt by teachers of the practice that I believe in and follow myself taking advantage of their authority? Yes, I do and it is tragic.

Do I think this is a one way street where an irresistible authority overwhelmed an individual, who even if not helpless and trusting, would have been seduced anyway?  No, I don't.  But that also doesn't mean that this wasn't a case of a vulnerable and trusting person being taken advantage of.

On this point, I'd have to agree with Brad Warner that authority figures only have the power that we agree to let them have.  This opinion is not coming from some sycophantic blogger that can't think on his own; this makes real sense and can't be argued against. 

I have been taught, and verified myself, that Zen is about discovering the illusionary quality of what we hold to be true.  That, like scientists, we should doubt what we observe (or are told) until we're able to confirm it through experimentation and thus experience the truth for ourselves.  It's not about dismissing the objects of the senses, but just not blindly trusting them.  Given these instructions, why would I wholeheartedly and blindly agree with anything a teacher told me without testing it myself?

I want to know where these "masters" are that are said to:

“dwell in the absolute,” or is a lineage holder in “crazy wisdom,” or can raise the kundalini energy, or read our chakras and past lives, or help “burn up” our karma, or is offering to share our wife, husband, girlfriend, or boyfriend so as to assist us in breaking our unfortunate attachments – all of this, of course, to stretch us beyond our parochial notions of right and wrong and bring us to the ultimate attainment enjoyed by the master himself (the master almost invariably being male)

  - cause I'd say "thanks, but I think samsara's a better deal."  Sure some people would fall for this, but surely not enough serious practitioners under him, and especially not his peers or superiors.  To what kind of ridiculously poisonous teachers has the author been exposed?

Sure, tradition expresses such poetic sentiments concerning Zen teachers as "dwelling in the absolute" or "realized masters," but this doesn't make them perfect.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time around a teacher with their minds open will have seen them make a mistake, this doesn't accord with perfection.

These individuals are recognized as having "realized" the true nature of the Dharma, not "actualized" it; they're not assumed to be Buddha.  They're still working on life.  Just because they know all the rules to the game now, doesn't mean they can win.  Because they're recognized by their teachers as knowing the rules, they're allowed to teach them to others, but enlightenment cannot be taught, you have to win it yourself.

We play the game against Mara, and the more we play the better we get.  The Buddha just got so good that Mara couldn't beat him anymore.

So the matter of authority and the legitimacy of Dharma Transmission comes down to one question: Do the rules this teacher is telling me sound like they'd help me win this game against suffering?  We must further explore and inform our answer to this question by asking if it looks like the teacher is, in fact playing by those rules and do they seem to be winning themselves.  Yes, this will take a serious investment of time and effort for us to find out for ourselves.

As the author states "the most important thing we can bring to these inquiries ... is our sincerity and selflessness."  There's where the sincerity comes into play.  If we're serious about getting to the root of it, we must be sincere in our practice.

But we must tie that in with selflessness, if things don't seem right, we should set aside our egocentric opinions and accept our losses, remembering the lessons we've learned and move on. This is where so many get caught up and look the other way, allowing abuse to happen.  If we are sincere about our practice, as in defining what I expect my teacher to teach me as Soto Zen in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi, we would question the teachings if they are not in accord with our ideal.  If the teacher's answer is unsatisfactory, we should go to others with our questions, or at worst, concerns.*

This presents a contradiction to the author's statement implying that American Zen is not democratic, contrasting it with the first pioneers seeking religious freedom.  "Their polity was congregational, where the minister served at the pleasure of the congregants."  We're not enslaved by our teachers.  If I didn't like a teacher, I'd leave, even if it means going without.  If enough people "vote with their feet," the powers that be will question the right for that teacher to be teaching unsupervised.

Are there individuals that have the authority to teach who still struggle with their own practice?  I challenge anyone to show me one who honestly believes that he or she doesn't.   Are there individuals who have the authority to teach who shouldn't?  Show me any organization with teacher student/relationships that doesn't.

To dismiss the tradition of Dharma Transmission for this reason is ridiculous.  In every game there are players who try to play by their own rules, sometimes they even win, but if I may reverse a popular saying, "Hate the player, not the game."  What makes individuals, and even organizations, believe that if they set stricter rules, these rule breakers will follow them, they'll just get sneakier about it.  Why do you think lawyers have such bad reputations?  It's because they know all the rules.

The author also seems to believe that Dharma Transmission is also holding American Zen back, preventing it from speaking to people, or becoming "more than an odd, idiosyncratic subculture."  It speaks to me!  It speaks to countless numbers of American, as well as European and even African practitioners!

What keeps it the way the author views it is that it's misunderstood.  How can you blame the phenomena of Dharma Transmission on this when the average American has no idea what that is and when asked what they think about Zen, they're likely reply is "Isn't that some form of Buddhism... like from Japan?"   What does Dharma Transmission have to do with that?

Yes, it's from Japan.  Yes, we do dress weird and chant funny things in Japanese and sometimes Pali.  We bow to statues have other weird rituals.  But these are forms, and what does the Heart Sutra say about forms?

They're all empty!

The average American is not aware of this beautiful and subtle teaching.  They live in a world where people that do those types of things often take offense when they're told how ridiculous that kind of behavior is and has no basis in reality, while our tradition celebrates that fact and still takes it seriously!

One interpretation of the first Pure Precept, usually read a vow against doing evil, is to embrace and sustain all forms and ceremonies.  I find these two related because evil can be equated with chaos.  While we recognize the emptiness of these forms and ceremonies, to act formlessly would be chaotic, and dissrespective of nature which is both chaotic and harmonious.  We practice these specific forms out of tradition, knowing that it's their purpose of practice that matters not their content.

These traditions include Dharma Transmission which is a form as well.

 Does it really matter if Shakyamuni attained a mind of absolute perfection?  Does it really?  Right here in the moment where we're told to live?

And how could Mahakasyapa have "attained this perfect mind" if there's nothing to attain?

The rationale behind celebrating a "an unbroken chain of such 'mind to mind' transmissions has descended, generation after generation, in a known lineage, down to today’s living dharma heirs" isn't to show how important and pure the teachings have been throughout the ages, it's to show us today how importantly we should consider the business of involving ourselves in that legacy ourselves.  Sure, it's a romantic notion that adds depth and meaning to the tradition, but do I need to debate whether or not some person who lived halfway around the planet 1500 years ago with a name I can't even pronounce, living in a world I can never understand not only realized his own Buddha nature under the guidance of a realized teacher, but was successful in pointing a successor to the same realization?  Does it really impact the veracity and effectiveness of the teaching?

Even if the lineage existed historically and somewhere along the line there are a few spots where Dharma Transmission was incorrectly issued, if someone learns enough of the rules to win, they may figure out some of the others on their own.  What really matters is winning against delusion.

One thing I do agree on, is that author was correct in refusing Dharma Transmission, not for the reasons that would immediately come to mind, though.  I respect him, and he probably deserves it.  I still accept his teachings as valid, and as an experienced Zen practitioner in the same general lineage as myself see it as Zen.

Why do I think it  was the right decision, then?  Because to him it's a prize to be won in an ass-kissing contest, a piece of paper to be held up declaring "listen to me, what I say is true and unquestionable!"  If that's how I viewed it, I wouldn't want it either.  Accepting lineage papers in that mindset, they would be good for nothing more than wiping the Truth of the buddhadharma off the ass that is the ego.

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*To preserve the good name of our ideal, actions to defend it must take place.  If someone says what they're teaching is Zen or Buddhism, and it's not or they're admitting to trying to make it less esoteric or more accessible, then it's not Zen or Buddhism.  I have no problem with the majority of people doing this, they just shouldn't call it what it's not.

Are You Ready for the Truth?

One of the first things we were taught in the Intro to Zen Meditation class at the Zen Center was the two types of Zen meditation.  I've found "types" to not be a very accurate word to use, when we're letting whatever happens happen, the two can arise on their own, sometimes at the same time. I guess "effects" may be more appropriate, but I don't make the rules...

But anyway, these two types are insight and calming/relaxing.  The first involves the dissolution of delusions, allowing us to see reality for what it really is.  This may be about the interconnectedness of everything, the reality of the causes of suffering, or the impermanence of everything; which together are referred to as the Three Marks of Existence in Buddhism.

However, without a calm, relaxed mind we won't be to experience this insight.  Calmness and relaxation also allow us to remain upright physically, mentally and spiritually.

So these ideas hung around me for the better part of a year, occasionally surfacing with some meaning but usually not much impact.

A few months ago, I participated in a retreat and one of the themes that arose during the dharma talk was this twofold aspect of zazen and things clicked a little more for me.

If we don't relax, we may still experience the insight, but it can frighten or upset us.  The Truth can be cold and uncaring if we're not ready to see it even if it is for our own good.  I think that this potential is greatest observed in those who pursue spiritual awakening with psychotropic experimentation or any sort of short cut "enlightenment now" methods.  The same things are experienced but without the spiritual discipline provided by long training the event can be damaging.  The Truth can be heavy; you don't just walk into a gym and try to bench press the heaviest weight in the room with no training.  The Truth can crush you in the same way.

So in my head, this all made sense.  Even in experience some light was shone.  But only recently have I been able to observe how I've experienced how all of this ties together.

Our delusions are like toys, as Uchiyama Roshi put it.  They distract us from reality.  Practicing zazen allows us to loosen our grip on those toys so that when we see them for what they really are, we'll be comfortable letting go.  We invest a lot in our delusions, sometimes thinking them as the only things we really have.  Like babies, we hold on to them with all of our might.  Sometimes Life comes along and wrenches them out of our hands and we panic and cry out in fear.

Sometimes though, babies let go of their toys and they fall aside on their own either because something new comes along or they relax.  In the same way we deal with our delusions.  The best of the two options being when we relax and realize we don't need that particular delusion any more.  For me these usually happen in "ah-ha" moments.  Something clicks inside me and I realize the truth behind my thought.  Realizing the truth that a particular koan points to is a good example.  Everything just falls into place and makes sense.

Other times my reaction is more emotional than a eureka moment.  The realization can cause my heart to break a little and I tear up.  These experiences are on the border of readiness between overdue and completely comfortable, and being unprepared for such deep insight.

Staring into the dark, the light may shine on small truths we've already felt with our hands; knowing their identities before the light goes on.  Other times it shines on things that have brushed against our leg.  Our other senses have given us ideas about its identity, but still unsure, the sudden light frightens us.  The truly frightening is when all the lights go on to reveal to us things unimagined and thus thoroughly not understood staring us in the face with all its glory.

So with zazen, we feel around in the dark and our experiences are flashes of light illuminating the truth.  Sometimes we see and understand, sometimes we don't.  Other times it catches us off guard, but no matter what, if we're serious about finding the real Truth we must relax our grip and let go of our fantasies and delusions about what joys and horrors are out there so that we will acknowledge it when it shows itself.  It's always there just waiting for us to enter the endless Dharma gates.