When we examine the ideal of non-grasping serenity, the first thing we notice is how far we are from it.  Most of our thoughts are centered on ourselves and the things we want or don’t want, and selfish thoughts and impulses vastly outnumber generous ones.  Ambition, greed, desire, jealousy, resentment, irritation, and anger are frequent companions.  The Pali Canon says if we follow the eight-fold path we can reach a state where all of that simply ceases — where desire, aversion, and delusion stop arising — the original meaning of the word “nirvana”.  When we observe the gap between the way we are and this imagined end-state, we’re as far from that end-state as we can possibly be.  We may also wonder just how desirable that imagined end-state actually is.  Do we really want to be that seemingly bloodless, endlessly calm, desire-less being?  Or do we just want to be more human, vulnerable, open, and alive?

Compare the Nirvana ideal to the life Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) recommends in his poem “The Guest House”:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for a new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

Because each has been sent

As a guide from beyond.

(Translation by Coleman Barks)

Rumi’s Guest House metaphor offers a Sufi parallel to the contemporary Western Zen ideal of Zen as a continual opening, widening, and acceptance of life as it is.  As we sit we create a space for our full human being –  no cutting off, suppression, or delusion about who or what we are in this moment.

How does the Zen ideal of fullness of being square with the aspirational aspects of Buddhism — the Bodhisattva vows — the widening of compassion, lovingkindness, and equanimity?   Because a part of us would truly like to be more compassionate and kind — to the extent this cruel and capricious life allows us to be.  Buddhism contains a variety of techniques like Theravada lovingkindness meditations and Tibetan tonglen meditations to help us develop our capacity for compassion and lovingkindness.   Can one widen one’s capacity for care for others without choking off the sources of one’s vitality?

We can if we stop pretending to live up to an ideal.

One can water the seeds of compassion without pretending to be more compassionate than one actually is.  One can hope over time that compassion will grow without denying that ambitious, competitive, and aggressive parts of ourselves exist and are an important part of who we are right now.  We can also do more than ruefully accept their continued existence, but develop a friendly ongoing relationship with them.  We are not trying to eliminate them, but to integrate them in with the other parts of ourselves — to, in essence, tame them and harness their energy for higher purposes — much like the fierce Tibetan protective deities were tamed by Padmasambhava and enlisted to serve the Dharma.  We have this idea in the West as well — Freud called it “sublimation,”  Jung called it “individuation,” and Perls called it “being whole.”

On one of my early ten-day meditation retreats, I had the following experience:  The more calm, serene, and peaceful I became during the day, the more violent my dreams became at night.  Not only were the dreams violent, but I was the perpetrator and I was enjoying it.  It was if a part of me was reminding me “I’m still here, don’t forget me.”  On yet another meditation retreat I became paranoid about a fellow yogi — fearful he was a serial killer and I was his next intended victim.  I’ve written elsewhere about how I overcame that fear, but it occurs to me now that this was another message about how I was disowning a part of myself  –  this other yogi was the container for my own projected aggressive capacity.  Two retreats, the same message.

American Buddhist teachers have a name for aspiring to be “spiritual” without really working through and integrating all of oneself to achieve a genuine reorganization of the personality at a higher level.  They call it “spiritual bypassing” — the attempt to take a short cut on the Enlightenment Superhighway.   It’s a good word.  We live in a world with the sky above and the mud below.  While we may reach for the stars, we’re grounded in the earth.  Like Prospero in Shakespeare’s Tempest, our inner world contains both Ariel and Caliban — the airy sprite and the chthonic mooncalf.  We move forward by integrating opposites, not by embodying one while denying the other.  We must honor not only the Sky God, but the Earth Mother as well.

This is an aspiration to a wholeness in which nothing is left out.  We move forward in the world with all our capacities, all of our energy, all of our engagement, and all of our complexities and contradictions.

As we practice Buddhism, let’s take care.  Let’s not put ourselves on a Procrustean bed.  We don’t need to kill our egos or deny our true being.  We don’t need to magically become the epitome of an imagined perfect Buddhist — calm, selfless, inhuman.  We bring our whole selves to practice. It’s our gift to the Dharma.  It’s the way we transform ourselves by becoming who we more truly are — only a better, deeper, more whole version of that self we imagine ourselves to be.

Technorati Tags: Nirvana, Rumi, Zen

One obvious difference is the role of duty, obligation, and commandment in other religions.  In Judaism, “charitable giving” and “not standing idly by when someone is endangered” are two of six hundred-and-thirteen mitzvot, commandments from God.  In Hinduism, Swami Nirliptananda writes:

“Interdependence is when each of us fulfills our duties as a father, a mother, a daughter, a son, and so on, as a part of society….  When we perform duties with the attitude of not thinking of any selfish rewards, but as an obligation, as a contribution to life — that spirit will develop an inner detachment.”

In Confucianism, rulers and ruled, parents and children, spouses, siblings, and friends are linked together by a web of mutual duties and obligations in order to promote social harmony.

In Christianity, ethics are based on the Bible as an infalible source of revelation, on believers’ personal relationships with Christ, and on human understanding through reason of God’s Eternal Law.

In Islam, ethics are based on the Qur’an as an infalible source of revelation, and believers have a duty to submit to God’s will.

In comparison, Buddhism seems relatively free of deontological rules that stress duty and obligation.  The Five Lay Precepts, for example, are not divine commandments, but commitments freely undertaken for the sake of progress on the path and as fields of investigation.  One may also chose to commit to the Vinaya rules or take Bodhisattva vows or tantric oaths as part of one’s path. Those commitments are “skillful” and “wholesome,” but are only obligatory after one has voluntarily assumed them.  Buddhism has no Deity who ordains the rules we ought to follow or punishes us for failure to follow them.

In Theravada Buddhism one may withdraw to the forest and meditate and, as long as one acts harmlessly towards others, one can reach nibbana.  Arhats abstain from causing harm and are filled (one imagines!) with benevolent and compassionate mind states — but there seems to be no obligation for Arhats to actually do something to relieve the suffering of others or change the systemic social, political, and economic causes of suffering.

Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, has a Bodhisattva vow to “save all beings.” While some might interpret “saving beings” narrowly to mean “bringing beings to an enlightened state,” others might interpret it more broadly to include all compassionate acts to relieve suffering.  Shantideva certainly interpreted it that way when he wrote:

May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger
And during the aeon of famine
May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all things they could need
And may these be placed close beside them….

May I be protector for those without one,
A guide for all travelers on the way;
May I be a bridge, a boat and a ship
For all who wish to cross the water.

May I be an island for those who seek one,
And a lamp for those desiring light,
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.
(Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Stephen Batchelor, trans.)

In Buddhism, compassion is both an effect and a cause.  It’s an “effect” because the more clearly we see the reality of interbeing and the more we free ourselves from the power of  avarice and aversion, the more naturally and spontaneously compassion arises in response to suffering.  In addition, the more we free ourselves from delusion, the greater awareness we have of the suffering of others.  But it’s a “cause” as well because the more we practice acts of compassion, the more we become aware of the feelings of well-being and the beneficial states of affairs that flow as consequences.  Compassionate acts are recursive: they initiate positive feedback loops that reinforce their reoccurrence.

Compassion has many faces — giving loved ones our time and attention, teaching the Dharma, donating to charity, volunteering in civic organizations, working in soup kitchens, caring for the sick, and working to change the political, economic, and social conditions that give rise to suffering.  The “right way” will be different for each of us, depending on the situations we find ourselves in, our unique talents and dispositions, and our stage of life.

Acts of service are natural expressions of awakening that spring from our perception of what’s needed and our aspiration to reduce suffering.  There are no hard-and-fast rules about how much service is enough or what’s the proper balance between giving and self-care.  Instead, there is moment-to-moment living with an open question: “What’s possible right now?”  We bring all our wisdom and compassion to each moment — and live at the shifting edge of possibility.  We are responsible for all of our choices, and the most meaningful choices are ones that express care and concern for whatever falls into the small circles of our lives.

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Ethics, compassion, Shantideva

Flanagan writes:

“Imagine Buddhism without rebirth and without a karmic system that guarantees justice ultimately will be served, without nirvana, without bodhisattvas flying on lotus leaves, without Buddha worlds, without nonphysical states of mind, without any deities, without heaven and hell realms, without oracles, and without lamas who are reincarnations of lamas.  What would be left?  My answer is that what would remain would be an interesting and defensible philosophical theory with a metaphysics, a theory about what there is and how it is, an epistemology, a theory about how we come to know what we can know, and an ethics, a theory about virtue and vice and how best to live.  This philosophical theory is worthy of attention by analytical philosophers and scientific naturalists because it is deep.”

 

What’s left, among other things, is a metaphysic that focuses on impermanence, emptiness, selflessness, and unsatisfactoriness, and a virtue theory that emphasizes mindfulness, compassion, lovingkindness, equanimity and overcoming greed, aversion, and delusion.  Pretty good for a start.

Flanagan then goes on to explore a number of interesting questions.  What has psychological and neuropsychological research on meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, and well-being proven at this point?  Flanagan explores this question thoroughly without the irrational exuberance that sometimes accompanies this topic, clarifying what is meant by (and how to measure and explore the relationships between) meditation, Buddhist belief and insight, and achieving Buddhist well-being and/or happiness (as opposed to other kinds of well-being and happiness).  He also explores the relationships between Buddhist, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and contemporary Western conceptions of well-being as well as exploring the current philosophical status of the concept of virtue.

Flanagan explores whether Buddhist conceptions of virtue are either too demanding — or not demanding enough.  For example, what is really meant by impartiality when it comes to compassion?  Does Buddhism really expect Bodhisattvas to love/care as much about strangers as they do about intimates?  Imagine a situation where two houses are on fire, one containing your child, the other a stranger.  You can rescue only one. Does Buddhist impartiality really require you to flip a coin to decide who to save?  If you did just that, would you really be more virtuous than the person who instinctively chose to rescue his own child — or would you have descended into becoming inhuman?  You can see where this line of questioning leads.  On the other hand, what level of actual compassionate activity — as opposed to merely developing compassionate mental states — does Buddhism really require?  While the Bodhisattva vows to save all beings, what level of compassionate activity is required of the Arhat, or the cave-dwelling yogi?

Flanagan wonders whether the Buddhist metaphysic of emptiness/selflessness logically necessitates its ethic of compassion.  Could the realization of selflessness lead to either hedonism or withdrawal in some individuals, rather than to lovingkindness?  Flanagan also wonders whether Buddhism puts too much emphasis on compassion, and not enough on fairness.

All of these are interesting questions, well worth wrestling with.

In the end, while Flanagan decides that a naturalized Buddhism is worthy of serious attention as a prescription for living well, he’s too much of an ironic cosmopolitan to privilege Buddhism over all other prescriptive systems (e.g., Plato’s or Aristotle’s).  He’s happy to live in a pluralistic postmodern world in which all of the world’s wisdom traditions are open to learn from, and one is not obligated to adhere to one as if it were the only truth.

He concludes:

 “Cosmopolitans relish the hybridity of the world, the exhilarating anxiety that comes from  lacking confidence in any single traditional way of living and being, while at the same time being hopeful and grateful that the wisdom of the ages can accumulate into new ways of being and doing that advance the project of flourishing.  Philosophy’s contribution is to examine the great traditions of the past for useful insights into what to do now and next.  For that purpose, for going forward, Buddhism has something to offer.  Is it the answer?  Of course not.  Nothing is the answer.  This is something Buddhism teaches.”

I find myself in agreement with Flanagan — up to a point.  I share his postmodernist sensibility. It’s wonderful to live in an age when we can read Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, the Buddha, Hillel, Rumi, Spinoza, Hume, Mill, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, James, Buber, Russell, Dewey and Wittgenstein side by side.  We are blessed by an embarrassment of riches.  Every wisdom book we consult, every novel  we read, every symphony we hear, every sunset we enjoy can teach us something new and deep about life.  Openness to learning and experience is a key to a life well lived.

On the other hand, the cosmopolitan runs the risk of dilettantism — of tasting everything but never committing to anything  –  of never exploring anything in sufficient depth.  Whatever truth lies within Buddhism is a lived truth.  The only way to understand the path is to live it — not just compare and contrast.  If you want to understand meditation, you have to meditate.  If you want to understand emptiness, it must be experienced in your bones, not just understood intellectually.  If you want to tame greed, aversion and delusion, you must work at it moment-by-moment in all its manifestations.  All this requires genuine commitment.  Committing to Buddhism doesn’t mean agreeing with all its tenets.  It doesn’t mean giving Buddhism a monopoly on wisdom or truth.  It doesn’t mean Buddhism can’t stand some improvement.  Buddhism is the ongoing work of fallible human beings — not the word of God.  Buddhism naturalized is a grand idea — but it needs to be inhabited, not just consulted.

Flanagan’s Naturalism is of a minimalist sort.  He’s not the kind of naturalist who believes all questions about the nature of reality have been answered once and for all — he just thinks that given the current status of our knowledge, Naturalism is our best bet.  I’m generally inclined in the same direction, but remain slightly more open-minded about surprising things we might still just discover about the relationship between consciousness and materiality.  I agree that dualism is nonsensical.  The trouble is, I still can’t wrap my mind around the “hard problem” of understanding qualia — how the raw feel of mental events arises as an emergent property of physical events.  The explanatory gap remains, at least for now.  Until it’s closed, I remain somewhat less committed to a Naturalist explanation.  Flanagan would probably think my agnosticism about this issue is due to failing to think things through logically enough, or giving insufficient attention to all the evidence.  Perhaps.  But I remain unconvinced.  I would agree with Flanagan, however, that the burden of proof lies with those who assert the existence of nonmaterial forms of consciousness.

That being said, I can’t recommend this book enough.  It’s thoughtful in the best sense  of the word.  It you’re a Buddhist (or someone leaning towards Buddhism) who likes to wrestle with philosophical issues, it will help you to think things through more clearly.  If you are a Buddhist who is inclined toward Naturalism, it’s always nice to find another ally.  Best of all, it’s fun to read.

Owen Flanagan

Owen Flanagan’s The Bodhisattva’s Brain (2011) is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Technorati Tags: Naturalism, Owen Flanagan

1. ^[1] James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy at Duke University ↩

The conference pulled together an exceptional group of speakers and panelists including Damien Keown, Bob Thurman, Karl Potter, Andrew Olendzki, Mark Siderits, Christopher Queen, Sallie King, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Charles Goodman, Owen Flanagan, Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Barry Schwartz, George Dreyfus, and some eighteen other presenters representing such diverse disciplines as Buddhist and Indo-Tibetan studies, analytic philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuropsychology, and literary theory.  The panelists addressed a wide variety of questions, but this post focuses on only one:  Why didn’t Buddhism develop an ethical theory of its own?  This topic was most fully developed by Damien Keown, ^[1] and I owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing these ideas to my attention.

Damien Keown

Keown’s keynote address pointed out that while Buddhism is rich in ethical teachings (sila, the precepts, the paramis, the Vinaya, the wholesome and unwholesome mental factors in the Abhidhamma, the Jataka Tales, the Brahmaviharas) it has absolutely no tradition of ethical theorizing.  That is, no extended exploration of why certain ethical concepts make it onto standard Buddhist lists (e.g., not killing, lying, or stealing) while others (e.g., not keeping promises) do not, or discussion about what to do when ethical precepts conflict (e.g., are there ever any circumstances under which it is permissible to tell a lie or take a life?)

The Western philosophical tradition is rich in ethical theorizing from Plato and Aristotle through Spinoza, Kant, and Hume, all the way to Mill, Sidgwick, Rawls, and Parfit.  These philosophers discuss questions like what is the nature of the good, what underlying principles make certain actions moral or ethical, and what constitutes a just social order that promotes human flourishing. Philosophers often organize ethical systems into various types, e.g., Virtue Theory, Deontology, Consequentialism, Particularism, etc., and there is interest in developing a unified theory that combines the best features of each.  Academics in Buddhist Studies find aspects of both Virtue Theory and Consequentialism in Buddhism, but really, these are acts of creative interpretation, as there is little evidence that Buddhist thinkers would have had much use for these categories.

Why did none of this interest Buddhist thinkers?  One could argue that they just wanted to lay out minimalist broad principles — be compassionate, work towards the liberation of all beings, use skillful means — and let practitioners work out the details on their own through some combination of mindfulness, discernment, and innate wisdom.  But this was uncharacteristic of Buddhist thinkers in other philosophical domains.  They paid a great deal of attention to other philosophical matters — epistemology, phenomenology, logic, metaphysics, cosmology, and so forth.  Why leave only ethics to fend for itself?

The possible answers to this question are manifold.  Here are a number of suggestions:

1. Not only Buddhism, but other religions/philosophies originating on the Indian subcontinent, including the ones that preceded Buddhism, also neglected ethical theory.  Buddhists didn’t take up the subject because no one before them had, and none of their competitors did.  It just wasn’t a part of the conversation at the time.  My objection to this argument is that in any tradition someone has to be the first one to address the subject.  Why was there, over the course of 2,500 years, no Buddhist Socrates?
2. Buddhists saw ethics as subservient to soteriology.  Once one had become a Buddha, one’s infinite compassion and wisdom would directly see what was skillful in any immediate situation, so there was no need for elaborate rules or theories.  Once one had become an Arhat, freed from greed, hatred, and delusion, one would also be constitutionally incapable of unethical action.  The idea that ethics were inherently knotty and might always require a certain degree of conscious deliberation, even when one has reached the end of the path, seems foreign to Buddhist thought.  Perhaps this lacuna is one reason why contemporary Buddhist teachers who have reached a certain impressive level of awakening still fall prey to ethical lapses?
3. Buddhist teachings focused on turning inward, withdrawing from the world, living as a wandering mendicant.  Social, economic, and political systems were something one dropped out of, not something one improved.  There was no impetus to develop a theory of what constituted a social order that promoted either justice or human flourishing.
4. Buddhist teachings focused on the community of monks rather than the laity.  The Vinaya had many complex rules governing the life of the monk and the sangha.  Less attention was given to rules governing the life of the laity living the lives of householders, parents, and business people.  Of course, this explanation neglects why Buddhists failed to develop a critical literature exploring the Vinaya itself, e.g., the theory underlying the monastic rules and an exploration of whether the listed rules are either exhaustive or equally appropriate.  As a result, Buddhist rules concerning the sangha are never really thought through.  Are rules about alms rounds and the handling money, for example, appropriate under all economic systems? Why does generosity to the sangha create more merit than giving to the poor?
5. The Buddhist doctrine of two truths, while paying lip service to the idea that form was emptiness and emptiness form, privileged “emptiness” as the ultimate.  At the ultimate level, relative concepts like “good” and “bad” become meaningless.  There is ultimately no wrong-doer or victim — everything is perfect just as it is.  Overemphasis on the absolute may foster disinterest in theorizing about the relative level, which is the level where ethics apply.

Buddhists never developed a variety of disciplines that could have added greater depth to the tradition.  Not only is there no Buddhist ethical, political, or social theory, but Buddhist history has also been, by and large, ignored.  Buddhism has not been very good at examining itself.

As Buddhism moves West, philosophers and historians, schooled in Western philosophical and historical methods, are using their skills to help Buddhism examine itself.  As a result, we now have a Professor of Buddhist Ethics, a Journal of Buddhist Ethics, revisionist Buddhist history, and Engaged Buddhism. This is all to the good.

Psychologist Jeffrey Rubin once warned of the twin dangers of Orientocentrism and Eurocentrism in approaching Buddhist teachings.  One school of thought bows to the sacred wisdom of the East, the other assumes the West knows best.  Rubin recommends “a more egalitarian relationship in which there is mutual respect, the absence of denigration or deification, submission or superiority, and a genuine interest in what [we] could teach each other.”^[2] The Dharma offers Westerners something precious and unique — but the West also has precious gifts to offer the Dharma.

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Ethics, Damien Keown, Western Buddhism

1. ^[1] Damien Keown is Professor Emeritis of Buddhist Ethics at Goldsmiths University of London — the only Professor of Buddhist Ethics anywhere in the world.  He’s the founding co-editor of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Buddhism, a member of the Pali Text Society, and the author of many books including The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (1992), Buddhism & Bioethics (1995), Contemporary Buddhist Ethics (2000), and Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism (with Christopher Queen and Charles Prebish, 2003).  Nice work if you can get it. ↩
2. ^[2] Rubin, J. (2003). Close encounters of a new kind. In Segall, S. (2003). Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings. SUNY Press: Albany, NY. ↩

Glass Buddha (Susan Gott, 2011)

Religions and philosophies thrive, wither, or die according to their ability to address the existential concerns of a particular time and place.  As religions evolve, traditionalists strive to maintain ideas and practices which have lost their resonance, while modernizers strive to reinvent the religion to meet the needs of the moment.  Religions that survive over millennia manage to thread the needle between these two extremes.

Judaism, for example, evolved over time from the worship of a local semitic tribal deity, to a monotheism based on ritual animal sacrifice, to a rabbinic religion based on prayer, sacred texts, charity, and moral observance. There was plenty of in-fighting along the way between traditionalists and reformers — Hellenists vs. Maccabees, Nisnagdim vs. Hasidim, Orthodoxy vs. Reform.

Buddhism has also evolved in response to changing circumstances.  Many Buddhisms are long extinct — who remembers the Hemavatika or Rajagiriya? — while newer forms emerge with predictable regularity.  Today we honor many of the re-inventors (e.g., Nāgārjuna, Dōgen, Hakuin), but there was plenty of in-fighting along the way — Theravāda vs. Mahāyāna, Kamalaśila vs. Moheyan, Nichiren vs. Ryōkan, Wallace vs. Batchelor.

As we explore Buddhist evolution, it can be useful to examine how Buddhism has adapted — and continues to adapt — to changed existential circumstances.  We can ask,   for example, “What concerns did Buddhism address in 500 B.C.E. India?” and “What concerns does it address in the West today?”  Answers to these questions may help us understand the trajectory of Buddhism’s ongoing evolution.

Speculation about the existential concerns of a vanished culture and era is always perilous, but we can at least explore the concerns that animated the philosophical debates of that time and place.  All of the philosophical systems that emerged from the Indian subcontinent (e.g., Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita Vedanta, Yoga) were concerned with pretty much the same thing: liberation from cyclical existence.  Life was suffering, the endless cycle of rebirth was meaningless, and the doctrine of karma, based as it was on a set of Brahmanic ritual practices, had lost credibility.  The Buddha provided a way to moralize karma and elucidated a path for ending cyclical existence that resonated with his time.

Those primary concerns no longer resonate with us today, at least not in the West.  It’s not so much that a maximalist, unnaturalized view of karma and a literal doctrine of rebirth have been proven false.  It’s just that these ideas no longer have much traction.  Most Westerners are satisfied with some alternative belief of what happens after death,  either some Abrahamic version of the afterlife, or a Naturalist view of cessation of consciousness.  Since most Westerners don’t believe in cyclical rebirth, the question of how to end it is not a front-burner issue.   A Buddhism that insists on unnaturalized karma and literal rebirth as essential core teachings is irrelevant to primary Western concerns. Westerners don’t become Buddhists because they want to end the cycle of rebirth  –  they’re motivated by some other inner disquiet.  While a naturalized version of karma and a metaphorical version of rebirth can be acceptable to Westerners, they will never be the core features that motivate Westerners to practice.

What, then, are the primary existential concerns that contemporary religions/philosophies have to address to acquire relevance?  Any such list would probably include the following:

1. Naturalism and Materialism have seriously undermined Theism’s authority.  It’s harder today to define what’s right and meaningful by relying on “God’s word.”  At the same time, Naturalism and Materialism can’t fill the void left by Theism’s demise because they can’t — on their own — address fundamental questions of meaning and goodness.
2. Western emphases on individualism, competition, achievement, and acquisition have driven rising living standards, but have also fostered a spiritual vacuum.
3. Technological advances have raised the specter of global extinction, but our social and political arrangements have failed to rise to the challenge. At the same time, an exponential increase in the rate of technological change is driving an increased rate of social change. How can we address the global challenges of nuclear proliferation and climate change, and how can we adapt to the rapid pace of technological and social change?
4. The Global Village thrusts peoples with vastly different histories, concerns, grievances, and perspectives into more intimate contact, straining traditional allegiances and identifications, increasing potential conflict, and increasing demands that we be able to adopt multiple perspectives.
5. As the problems of infectious disease and subsistence-level poverty gradually recede in importance in the developed world — albeit, much too slowly! — problems of inequality, overindulgence, and chronic disease move to the foreground.  At the same time, global inequality and the difficulty of integrating emerging societies into the established international order persist.

Does Buddhism have core features that directly address these concerns?   I think it does.

1. Buddhism provides a non-theistic ground for defining the desirable and ethical.
2. Buddhist teachings on impermanence, interdependence, and the constructed nature of the self resonate with Naturalist accounts of the physical world and emerging ideas from the fields of ecology and neuroscience.
3. While a maximalist, unnaturalized view of karma with supernatural connotations rubs against the grain of Western thought, a naturalized view of karma can reinforce the reality that our thoughts and actions have consequences in terms of our character development, relations with others, and long-term well-being.
4. Buddhism offers an effective set of tools to help people accept pain, mitigate suffering and increase their personal sense of well-being, meaning, and fulfillment.  It builds core cognitive skills of mindfulness and discernment, decreases cognitive rigidity, and helps develop internal resources.
5. Buddhist teachings on compassion, non-identification, non-greed, non-harming, and mindful listening can help resolve conflicts within the Global Village. These same values can also facilitate the further taming and civilizing of social structures Steven Pinker has described in The Better Angels of Our Nature.
6. Buddhist teachings on impermanence can foster resilience in the face of change, while teachings on interdependence can deepen ecological awareness.
7. Buddhism can help the West overcome its one-sidedness.  Buddhist teachings on non-greed, generosity, and compassion counterbalance Western consumerist and acquisitive values, ameliorating economic inequality and existential emptiness.  The Buddhist cultivation of inner being balances the Western emphasis on doing and achieving, while its teachings on interdependence balance the Western over-emphasis on individualism.

We shouldn’t be surprised by the direction Western Buddhism is taking.  Its emphasis on human thriving and well-being, mindfulness, values, ethics, and social engagement   is entirely predictable.  For most Westerners, a modest meditation practice will suffice to improve their subjective sense of well-being.  While there will always be adepts who will access deeper meditative states and make greater commitments on the path of Awakening, the average Western Buddhist will most likely make do with less.  This is the way Buddhism has always been  –  One path for the householder, one for the ordinary monk, a third for the exceptional adept.

Some will be dissatisfied with a naturalized Buddhism that focuses on human well-being.  Fortunately, more traditional forms of Buddhism will still exist for them to turn to.  They’ve been around for a long time and aren’t going anywhere soon.  If Hasidic, Orthodox, Reform, and Secular Judaism can exist side by side in our modern era (as do  Liberal and Fundamentalist forms of Christianity), so can traditional and naturalized forms of Buddhism.

It’s just that most of us will opt for a Buddhism that speaks our own language and addresses our deepest concerns.

The Buddha image used in this post is my photo of a copyrighted work of art by Susan Gott, used with her permission.  

Technorati Tags: Naturalism, Western Buddhism

I derived my own commitment to “niceness” from the teachings of parents and teachers, from the Jewish tradition of menschlichkeit, from my respect for public figures like Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and from a genetic endowment that inclined me in a non-aggressive direction (mild temperament, small stature).  Later influences fit David Chapman’s bill — sixties Hippie (check) political liberal (check), psychotherapeutic values (check).  O.K.!  So, I admit it!  I brought my liberal Western values and ethical principles with me to Buddhism.  I think, however, they are concordant with the core of Buddhist ethics (non-harming, non-hatred, non-greed) and where they are discordant (e.g., traditional Buddhist misogyny and homophobia) they improve upon it.

Is Buddhism invariably nice?  No.  One can point to a wide variety of “not nice” behaviors in the stories of fierce mahasiddhas, Tibetan yogis, and Zen masters that have come down to us through the ages.

But these stories are counter-narratives. They’re interesting because they rub against the predominant grain of Buddhist thought and teachings, in much the same way the Heart Sutra rubs against the grain of the Tripitaka teachings that preceded it.  Buddhism doesn’t want us to grasp onto anything — including Buddhism.

The fact is however, that the Buddha of the Pali Canon is invariably nice.  If he has something unsettling to say to someone, they have to request it from him three times before he’ll say it.

Other Asian Buddhist teachers who have shaped Western Buddhism have also been notably “nice,” following the example of the Buddha:  Angarika Munindra, Ajahn Chah, Lama Yeshe, the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh, to name a few. I’m sure readers can come up with others (as well as some exceptions).  Niceness is normative Buddhism. The not-niceness in Buddhist stories is there to remind us, as Shunryu Suzuki suggested, that the very heart of Buddhism is “not always so.”  Niceness as a rigid straight-jacket that constrains one under all circumstances?  No.  Niceness as a norm to strive for whenever appropriate?  Why not?

What is niceness, exactly?  One should never confuse it with its near enemies: passivity, deference, and conflict avoidance.  Niceness is based on a set of principles: that everyone deserves respect, that kindness can be one’s default option, that understanding other’s concerns, problems, and desires is an important part of negotiating relationships and resolving conflicts.  Niceness doesn’t obviate truth telling.  One can tell the truth in ways that are respectful to others.  As a therapist, I frequently had to tell patients how their behaviors and beliefs were undermining their goals and well-being, but I strove to do so with kindness, in a way that promoted understanding without provoking defensiveness.  Niceness doesn’t have to imply being a doormat or pushover.  Even Mary Tyler Moore stood up to Mr. Grant at times!  As Roshi Joan Halifax suggests, keep a “strong back, soft front.”

Are there times when niceness is out of place?  After all, the world is not entirely made up of nice people.  There are a reasonable number of psychopaths, narcissists, thugs, bullies, terrorists, tyrants, and miscreants around who pursue their own will-to-power without empathy or remorse.  How does one defend oneself, one’s loved ones, and civil society as a whole, against would-be predators?

The answer is, of course, that one should, one must.

The question is, in what spirit does one go about doing it? Does one do it with malice, out of hatred?  Does one do it skillfully and effectively, without becoming a predator in turn?  Albert Camus suggested we should strive to be “neither victims nor executioners.”

A menacing stranger once tried to pull Sharon Salzberg from her rickshaw while traveling through a dark alley in Calcutta.  A friend managed to push the man away and they luckily escaped unharmed.  When she told Angarika Munindra what had happened, he exclaimed “Oh, Sharon, with all the lovingkindness in your heart, you should have taken your umbrella and hit the man over the head with it!”  Criminals need to be deterred, invaders repulsed, bullies withstood.  But is it possible to do so motivated by our highest aspirations rather than our basest instincts?

This week my grandson, Roshan, received a “Good Manners Award” in his kindergarten class.  This teacher wrote:

“Roshan… always has such a positive attitude and is really fun to have in class! Today I heard him talking to some friends while playing a game and he kept saying “Can you please pass me that piece?” and “Thank you!”  He won the award for having such nice polite manners. I also looked over to the art center and saw him cleaning up everyone’s paper scraps without being asked! Thanks Roshan!”

 

The family tradition of niceness continues.

No, David. Niceness doesn’t “suck.”  If anything, we need more of it.

 Bodhidharma cartoon courtesy of Adam at Sweeping Zen

Technorati Tags: Buddhist Ethics, David Chapman, Joan Halifax, Niceness, Sharon Salzberg

In music something exciting happens when traditions cross-breed.  African music’s encounter with the European tradition gave birth to gospel, blues, and jazz; Chicago and Memphis electrified blues and made it rock; Rock-a-Billy merged Rock and Country;   Bernstein melded classical and jazz and put it on Broadway; Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project furthers the cross fertilization of Eastern and Western traditions.

Similarly, Modern Buddhism (or “Protestant Buddhism,” or “Western Buddhism”) continues to emerge from ongoing dialogues between East and West, traditionalism and modernity, Buddhism and science, romanticism, and existentialism.  Purists deride emergent forms as heretical, inauthentic, and watered-down. Skeptics think the emergent forms don’t go far enough in a modernist (or post-modernist) direction. Charismatic con men, hucksters, and self-appointed gurus ride the emergent wave along with a spectrum of sincere seekers, scholars, teachers, bloggers, reformers, and critics. In the midst of this ferment, Buddhist influence on American culture continues to grow (and vice versa).  According to the Pew Foundation’s 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, “Buddhism” (whatever that means) is now the fastest growing religion in America.

In staking out my own position regarding American Dharma – - loving practice, affectionate towards tradition, skeptical of dogma, favoring transparency, appreciating scholarship’s demythologizing of received narratives — I’ve recently come across a number of contributors to the Buddhist Blogosphere who take a position towards Buddhism somewhat more radical than my own.  I am thinking of writers like Ted Meissner (The Secular Buddhist) who is atheist where I am merely agnostic, of David Chapman  (Meaningness) who rues the incorporation of Western Romanticism into Modern Buddhism, and Glenn Wallis (Speculative Non-Buddhism), a long-term practitioner and scholar who, having found the Buddhist project “fruitlessly tedious,” makes no assumptions about the validity or value of any Buddhist practice or tenet, wishing to open everything to the “coruscating gaze” of reason.

I want to focus this particular post on Glenn Wallis, who holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from Harvard.  He’s taught at the University of Georgia, Brown University, Bowdoin College, RISD, and (currently) the Won Institute of Graduate Studies, and has written a number of books including Basic Teachings of the Buddha (Random House, 2007), The Dhammapada: Verses on the Way (Random House, Modern Library, 2004),  Mediating the Power of Buddhas (State University of New York Press, 2002), and, most recently, Buddhavacana: A Pali Reader (Pariyatti Press, 2011).  Clearly Glenn Wallis knows more about Buddhism than I can ever hope to know.

I welcome Wallis’s intention to examine Buddhism dispassionately — neither as insider nor outsider — from a distance sufficient to obtain clarity, but close enough to know the material intimately.  He brings an interesting and provocative mind to the online mix.  It’s his tone, however, that I find disquieting.  He intends his gaze to be coruscating, but his voice tends toward the corrosive  –  arrogant, scornful, and dismissive of those holding differing beliefs and attitudes.  Now I’m not one of those who believes, along with Alice’s Dodo, that “everybody has won and all must have prizes.” Not all opinions are created equal — some are clearly wrong.  (As Daniel Patrick Moynahan famously observed, we are entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts.)  It’s fine to engage in robust discussion and critical discourse, to call things as you see them.  I draw the line, however, at sneering derision that impugns the intelligence and motivation of one’s peers.  Buddhist (and Non-Buddhist!) values call us to a higher standard.

Let me cite examples from two of his recent posts on Speculative Non-Buddhism.   Wallis begins a post entitled “The Elixir of Mindfulness” with the following paragraph:

 “The mighty “Mindfulness” juggernaut continues to roll joyously throughout the wounded world of late-capitalism. And why shouldn’t it? The Mindfulness Industry is claiming territory once held by the great occupying force of assorted self-help gurus, shrinks, health care workers, hypnotists, preachers, Theosophists, the church, the synagogue, actual gurus, yogis, meditation teachers, and even—gasp!— Buddhists themselves.  Who, after all, can compete with an industry that claims to offer a veritable fountain of bounty, an elixir to life’s ills?”

 

He concludes:

 “By re-packaging age-old optimisms, the Mindfulness Industry feeds off of the multi-billion dollar addiction of the desiccated twenty-first century middle classes for anything that will lead them to the promised land of ‘well-being.’”

 

Not content to skewer would-be healers who have jumped aboard the mindfulness train without sufficient grounding in practice, Wallis goes right for the jugular in attacking its founder, stating “the vacuity of the term ‘mindfulness’ can be traced, in fact, to the vague, platitudinous, and circular definition given it by Jon Kabat-Zinn.”

Now Mindfulness is not sacrosanct.  There are plenty of unresolved questions about what to properly include in its definition, how best to measure it, differentiating state and trait aspects, discriminating active ingredients from placebo, and understanding who might best benefit from it.  There is already a substantial and mind-numbingly voluminous body of research and scientific literature exploring all of these questions.

Having followed a great deal of that scientific literature (which I doubt Wallis has), having contributed to it, having participated in an MBSR internship at the Center for Mindfulness in Healthcare, Medicine, and Society, and having had the experience of teaching mindfulness to clinicians, medical patients, and psychiatric patients over the years, I have a different perspective on mindfulness than Wallis has.  I found it to be personally transformative and of great benefit to a variety of my clients with problems as diverse as anger management, chronic pain, borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorder.  The research literature has found it helpful in a great variety of other disorders, as well as in simply relieving stress, and has begun to explore the biological correlates of mindfulness practice, including its effects of brain structure and function and immune function.  This is not trivial work.

Nowhere, however, does Wallis acknowledge Kabat-Zinn’s depth of understanding of the Dharma, sincerity, intelligence, and commitment to the scientific method as a means of exploring the nature and value of mindfulness.  I find Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness to be perfectly intelligible and clear as a guide to practice, if not sufficiently operationalized for research purposes.   I’ve always found him, and the researchers associated with the Center for Mindfulness in Healthcare, Medicine and Society, to be open to critique and willing to follow wherever the data leads.  These are serious people engaged in a serious project.

Why the animus against them?  Why question the relationship of mindfulness practice to Buddhist practice in general?  Are Thich Nhat Hanh (who wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness and Bhante Gunaratana (who wrote Mindfulness in Plain English) not sufficiently Buddhist-y for Wallis?  Who meets his qualifications?

In the second example,  Wallis accuses Buddhism (in general) and Zen teacher Barry Magid (in particular) of “flinching” because of its/his claim that practice leads to deep joy.   Wallis begins by expressing admiration for Magid (and his teacher, Charlotte Joko Beck), but then quotes Magid’s “In Memoriam” piece for Beck in Buddhadharma:

“When students were preoccupied with transformation, she took what was in danger of becoming a toothless Zen cliché—being just this moment—and turned it into the challenge of having no hope—a radical acceptance of the totality of the present. Yet she never failed to emphasize that at the bottom of the well of self was deep joy. A lifetime of teaching about death and dying was summed up as ‘this too is joy.’”

Wallis, apparently, objects to all this “joy” talk, writing:

“He, Beck, and all of Buddhism shore up the existential nullity…  with what amounts to an ideological sandbag: “deep joy.” The “bottom of the well” and the “deep” are not given in the equation. They are smuggled into to it by merchants of hope. They are instances of a transcendent, specular, all-seeing-from-above dharmic dream of what should be/we would like to be the case. They are not, by any means, necessarily what is. The “deep joy” at the “bottom of the well of self” is a new, uniquely self-help-obsessed-American Zen cliché; one, moreover, that flashes the sharp teeth of all “spiritual” salesmen—and saleswomen. For it locks the practitioner into the endless pay loop of should-could-want-would-like-deep-joy.”

Toni Packer, one of the teachers who has deeply influenced me, shares a great deal in common with Joko Beck.  Like Joko, she makes all of life grounds for investigation and questions the value of many traditional Buddhist practices.  She also went one further than Joko, leaving even words like “Buddhism” and “Zen” behind.  For Toni, there is truly “just this.”

I can’t remember Toni ever using the word “joy” per se, but this ^[1] is her interpretation of her own experience:

 “Sitting quietly, without desire or fear, beyond the sense of time, is vast, boundless being, not belonging to you or me.  It is free and unattached, shedding light on conditioned being, beholding it, and yet not meddling with it…. It is not what is seen that matters, but that there is seeing, revealing what is as it is, in the light of wisdom and compassion too marvelous to comprehend.

I suspect this description of “vast, boundless being” and “wisdom and compassion too marvelous to comprehend” is what Beck and Magid mean by “joy.”  It’s what Shabkar Tsodruk Rangdrol meant when he described the mind’s nature as “intrinsically empty, naturally radiant, and ceaselessly responsive.”  It’s quite all right to say that never having experienced what they experienced, one wonders whether their view of the way things are is real.  Its quite another to say that in presenting their own experience they are “flinching,” in other words, being intellectually dishonest and evasive.  I never thought Toni was offering up a “new, uniquely self-help-obsessed-American Zen cliché” or acting as a “spiritual” saleswoman.  She was just sharing her own experience, and her belief that if others would only look they might discover the same.

Magid responded to Wallis in this way:

 “The Buddha might have said Life is Suffering and left it at that. Impermanence is inescapable and our practice is first and foremost a confrontation with our avoidance of this reality. But Zen is not just a matter of swallowing bad tasting medicine. The experience of long sitting also opens the door of joy — when we cease our protests against life as it is we experience the poignancy and joy that life emerges changes and departs. I don’t hold this out as a carrot or antidote or promise. But it is my (and Joko’s) first hand report from the front lines.”

 

To which Wallis, in turn, responded:

“I am sure you’ll agree that each of us has to submit our own first-hand report. It’s wonderful that some reports contain descriptions of deep joy. But I can’t submit a report based on what you or Charlotte Beck or the Buddha discovers on the front lines. That report would be untruthful. Why are some first-hand reports from the front lines universalized by tradition (and its present-day teachers) as necessarily desirable, as a special species of experiential truth-telling? And what effect does it have on students when teachers make such reports openly? What are teachers doing when they do so?”

I’m sorry that Wallis hasn’t found the joy at the bottom of the well in his own practice.  I can’t imagine, however, why he questions the value of teachers reporting on their own experience as a way of pointing out what might be possible to their students.

All of this boils down to the question of what motivates our practice to begin with.  Why practice at all, unless one is seeking medicine for spiritual unease and the unsatisfactoriness of one’s life?  If the Dharma isn’t authentic medication for that, what use is it?  Does it provide us with a way of being that feels more authentic and vital?  Does it help us to develop awareness and equanimity?  Does it help us in becoming less self-centered?  Does it assist us in exploring our narrative of who we are and the way we construe the world? Do we become more compassionate in the process?  These are all meaningful questions.  We all have skin in this game.  We are in it because we are seeking something.  If some people who have been at this longer than we have report that joy is part of what we might find at the bottom of the well, is that somehow magically illegitimate?  Is that hucksterism?  Is that wishful thinking?  Why not include that in the list of things we may just discover if we persist in our practice?

Wallis loves the idea of existential courage — of facing things as they are without any sops.  But the idea that in moments of clear seeing there might be genuine peace and happiness beyond mere sensory pleasure can be part of reality too. It’s not all grimness and eat your peas.  There’s a certain degree of sourness at the bottom of Wallis’s well.

I want to contrast Wallis’s slash-and-burn style with an alternative mode of inquiry that Andrew Olendzki proposes in an article excerpted in the latest issue of Buddhadharma.

In discussing rehabilitating Protestant Buddhism Olendzki writes:

“A crucial first step in the process is to recognize that new forms of Buddhism, at their best, are based upon the creative ways of synthesizing meaning rather than on undermining the beliefs and practice of others.  In other words, while it is not okay to say that others have got it wrong and this is the right way of looking at things, it is entirely appropriate (and natural) to say, “ Here is an interesting new way of understanding things that I find particularly meaningful.”  Even if we get it wrong once in a while, better to be actively inquiring into the meaning of the dhamma at every opportunity than to passively accept tradition in a given form…. We are not necessarily better at understanding these teachings because we are moderns or Westerners or humanists or typing on keyboards.  We cannot assume the troubling bits, about miracles, rebirth, and hell realms, for example, must not be “true” and that we, of course, know better.  It is possible to hold the greatest respect for all those who think differently from ourselves, for all those who construct their own meaning of these teachings differently than we do, and simply say at some point that we are not capable of seeing it that way.”

 

Exactly.

Catch the difference in tone?  It’s possible to question, critique, and explore, without being beholden to any orthodoxy, and at the same time remain open to, and respectful of, those who hold the teachings differently.

I’ll continue to read Wallis’s blog.  He has interesting and important things to say.  It’s helpful to grapple with ideas that challenge one’s own assumptions.  He’s a member of my club — the club of Westerners struggling with the gift of centuries of Buddhist practice, devotion, and contention.   But I hope he finds a way to be more at home in the world, more happy, and  — dare I say it — more joyous.  And I hope he discovers a tone of voice that’s less prickly, less irritating, less dismissive, and — dare I say it — more consistent with Buddhist aspirations.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Olendzki, Barry Magid, Glenn Wallis, Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness, Toni Packer

1. ^[1] Packer, T. (2004). The Wonder of Presence. Boston: Shambhala, p. 131 ↩

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form” — Heart Sutra

“Form is nothing but form, emptiness is nothing but emptiness”  — Dogen

Is it all right to be in love with form?

I love the form — the formalities and order of our Zen sittings.  It’s the beautiful container that holds the essence of the practice within:  Bowing to one’s cushion, one’s neighbor, and the Buddha, lighting the incense, chanting the Gatha of Atonement and Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo, the posture of sitting, walking kinin between sittings, chanting the Four Vows, listening to the jikido intone his closing gatha, the final bows.  Molded by centuries of practice, it’s like a piece of driftwood sculpted by the elements until nothing remains but an inner grace revealed through the wear of time itself.

There’s nothing in the form itself that will get you enlightened, make you a Buddha.  Chanting obscure words in a foreign tongue creates no insight, improves no character.  Walking in circles around a room is just walking around in circles around a room  — it’s not even particularly good exercise.  Bowing to others does not, in and of itself, create respect.  Vows to save beings are just words.

One can go through all the motions, and it can all be empty — not the Buddhist “empty,” but the existential one.

One can bristle and rebel:  Why am I doing any of this?  What has this got to do with anything?  Bow to the Buddha? Isn’t that idol worship?  Save all beings?  Isn’t that claptrap?  Keep my mind on Kannon day and night?  What’s up with that?

What matters is the spirit in which it is done.  Can it all be done with constant presence, with undivided attention and intention, with one’s full being?  If so, then form is no longer  form but something inhabited and alive — a vehicle that carries you beyond itself.  Form becomes content.  It becomes a window into emptiness.

You could have been doing something else with your undivided presence — chopping wood, carrying water, making music, making love.  You could have been at home, in the woods, by the sea.  The zendo is just a building.  There was nothing special about the form itself that awakened you.

But the form itself is beautiful.

Is it all right to be in love with form itself?

Enmei Jukko Kannon Gyo

 

Kanzeon!
Namu Butsu!
Yo Butsu u in;
Yo Butsu u en;
Bu po so en;
Jo raku ga jo.
Cho nen Kanzeon;
Bo nen Kankeon.
Nen nen ju shin ki.
Nen nen fu ri shin.

 

Kanzeon!
Veneration to the Buddha!
With Buddha I have origin;
With Buddha I have affinity;
Affinity with Buddha, Dharma, Sangha;
Constancy, joy, self, and purity.
Mornings, my thought is Kanzeon;
Evenings, my thought is Kanzeon.
Thought after thought arises in mind.
Thought after thought is not separate from mind.

(trans. Robert Aitken Roshi)

Actions can have meaning, too. We can ask “What did you mean by that?”  Human actions have underlying motives. There is something beyond the action itself, an intention that lies behind the action.  We can look at actions and infer, or inquire into, the purpose that generated it.

Does the universe have meaning?  The universe includes everything — it cannot point to or refer to something that lies outside itself — it cannot signify anything.  The universe is also not a purposeful agent — it doesn’t possess intentionality.

I once heard Wolf Singer, the Director of the Max Plank Institute for Brain Research, explore this topic at a Mind and Life Conference hosted by H.H. The Dalai Lama.  He suggested that if there was a larger purpose to the universe, our brains hadn’t evolved in a way that would allow us to discern it.  He gave the example of a single neuron hanging out near a synapse.  If we could personify that neuron, we might ask it what role it played in the generation of thought and creativity.  The neuron might reply, “I don’t know anything about that.  I just hang out here, and every once in a while I get real excited, and then I let go!”  It’s the same with us.  We just hang out here, earn a living, and take care of our families.  If there’s some larger purpose, who knows?

In any case, Zen doesn’t posit any purpose for the universe.  It (we) just always is (was)/(will be), in constant transformation.  Its “meaning” (in this case “meaning” is a meaningless term) is its existence.

Science fiction writers have had fun playing with this type of meaning. In Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a group of pan-dimensional beings create a supercomputer called Deep Thought to answer the question of the meaning of everything.  After computing for over seven million years, the computer spits out the answer: “Forty-two.”  The pan-dimensional beings then realize that while they now have the answer, they didn’t really understand the question. On to building a new and bigger supercomputer!

In Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan, humans exist so they can evolve to the point where they can invent the humble beer can opener.  As it turns out, the “beer can opener” is really a replacement part for a stranded alien spaceship.  Our existence is meaningful for the aliens. For ourselves, not so much.

One way to give life meaning is to believe in some superordinate external meaning-giving source.  If one believes in a God, one can believe that the God imbues the universe and our lives with purpose.  After all, God lies outside the universe giving it something to refer to, and he possesses intentionality. That’s two kinds of meaning in one!  If one doesn’t believe in God, however, one is out of luck.

Existentialists believe that while the universe has no purpose, we can imbue our own lives with purpose.  Meaning is something human beings create.  As authors of our own existence, we ourselves can endow our lives with meaning.  In Existentialism, meaning isn’t there to be found — it’s up to us to create it.  This is both liberating and burdensome at the same time.  Liberating, because we are not bound to accept meaning from an external authority.  Burdensome, because if we fail to define a purpose, our lives are left meaningless.

In Zen, we take on a meaning and try it on for size.  We are here to live our lives wisely and compassionately for the sake of all beings.

We have our Four Vows:

Shu jo mu hen sei gan do

Bon no mu jin sei gan dan

Ho mon mu ryo sei gan gaku

Butsu do mu jo sei gan jo

 

I vow to liberate all beings, without number

I vow to uproot endless blind passions

I vow to penetrate dharma gates beyond measure

I vow to attain the way of the Buddha

We can spend our entire lives exploring what these vows mean — they exist as both intention and koan — but both the intentions — liberation, uprooting, penetration, and attainment — and the emerging understanding we derive from wrestling with their outlandish impossibility –  gives our lives meaning, direction, and purpose.

This is the (no) meaning of Zen.

Technorati Tags: Doug Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, meaning, vows, Wolf Singer

Most readers don’t post comments, but I hear from regular readers via Facebook, Google +, and Twitter, and its nice to know that what one writes makes a difference to others. That’s one of the benefits of blogging.  When one publishes a book one gets the initial reviews and Amazon stats, but one doen’t get the degree of reader participation and involvement that lies at the heart of blogging.

The Existential Buddhist has provided me with the opportunity to clarify and develop my own thoughts on a variety of issues pertaining to Buddhist philosophy, ethics, meditation, art, and history.  It’s allowed me to participate, in my own small way, in the ongoing dialogue between traditionalists and modernizers, believers and skeptics, universalists and sectarians.  Listening in, contributing, and receiving feedback has helped me to cultivate my own path more deeply.

If anything is clearer now than it was a year ago, it’s that the Buddhist way is not a set of abstract propositions which can be successfully analyzed for theoretical coherence.  It’s a set of pointers to a way of life which can only be evaluated through lived experience.  It’s a path of embodiment, intimacy, engagement, discernment, and decency.  It’s something we practice in all of our encounters with ourselves, others, and the world.  The only valid evaluation of Buddhist tenets is whether they guide us towards a life that’s richer, more meaningful, more aware, more connected, more present, more compassionate, and less harm-inflicting than the life we were living before.  It’s this very idea of validation from lived experience rather than from texts, argument, or authority that makes this Buddhism existential.

I want to thank you, dear reader, for being part of the The Existential Buddhist’s first year.  I hope you have found it interesting and helpful, and that whatever disagreements we may have had along the way, we remain spiritual friends along the path together.

Here’s to our next year together!

Technorati Tags: Anniversary