It was about 20 years ago that I was initially interested in Buddhism. I was drawn by the various tantalising nuggets of wisdom and the promise of inner peace. I was put-off by apparent tendencies towards supernaturalism, and preoccupation with faith-based metaphysical theories. After the teacher of our undergraduate meditation course went off to become a nun I didn't take it any further.
More than 10 years passed, in which I started a career and had a son, before I returned to Buddhism in the form of Zen. Zen suited me well. I was attracted by it's simple, down-to-earth emphasis, being relatively free of supernatural and metaphysical elements, although I still found it sometimes traditionalist and backward-looking.
Lurking around in online Buddhist forums with my tentative new 'Buddhist' identity, I was told repeatedly that those who did not accept literal rebirth as an article of faith were 'not real Buddhists' and was reminded of the more conservative and authoritarian aspects of the faith. In the light of our modern understanding of the universe and the mind, I grew weary of the narrow, backward-looking nature of much contemporary Buddhism and the tendency of some Buddhists to try to exclude people like myself and I wondered if the best solution was to find like-minded individuals and call ourselves something else altogether.
I felt that the teachings of the Buddha and his descendents should not be discarded but should be re-examined in the light of modern understanding - and vice-versa. The setting up of this blog as an area to discuss these things unmolested was part of that.
With a full-time job, family, a long commute to work, daily meditation practice and MBCT training I don't have a lot of time for blogging. But looking back, it also occurs to me that I no longer feel this tension in my practice in the way that I did.
I think this comes down to irrelevance of metaphysical theories to Zen practice (although in form it can still be very traditionalist), I think that my practice itself has helped and my MBCT training is helping too.
For me now, it seems likely that there will always be valid traditional forms of Buddhism and yet it is through mindfulness based therapies and similar secular approaches that the Buddhist methods will be (and already are) opened up to the mainstream. For those who wish to go beyond the great matter of birth and death, to realise the unborn, there is still Zen. And for those wish for a good rebirth or to end rebirth there is Tibetan or Theravada.
So now it seems to me that there is no need to 'reform Buddhism' since there are enough avenues for people of all persuasions to benefit from it, one way or another.
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor tradition; nor rumor; nor what is in a scripture; nor surmise; nor axiom; nor specious reasoning; nor bias towards one’s beliefs; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' When you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them.
Hey Justin - I'm surprised to hear you're a Zen practitioner. So much of what you refer to in Buddhism seems to be early or Theravāda - why don't you refer to more Zen stuff, if that's your tradition?
ReplyDelete(Or is this a different Justin than Whitaker?)
Different Justin ! :)
ReplyDeleteI've edited my blogger profile to include my dharma name. I'm now 'Shonin Justin'.
ReplyDeleteReading widely I discovered there are scholars out there who feel the interpretation we have of the Buddha's teachings have lost understanding through a loss of context. Reading the suttas myself with a critical eye, I tend to agree. It never made any sense that the core of the Buddha's teaching is that we should not cling to views; that we need to go with direct experience, yet we should believe in karma and rebirth? Hmmm. Something wrong there. Not to mention that there's "no self" to get reborn.
ReplyDelete"So now it seems to me that there is no need to 'reform Buddhism' since there are enough avenues for people of all persuasions to benefit from it, one way or another. "
ReplyDelete'Dem apples be bitter. Hmmmmmmmmm....
Shonin Justin,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned "backward looking" a couple times. Could you expand on that?
Would you nail down exactly what your practice is? ...as I can be a little slow, sorry.
And your second paragraph seems to ctridict itself.
What does Shonin say about you?
By 'backward looking' I mean using ancient texts as the reference point for traditions and truth, as opposed to, say reason, science, direct experience or some combination of these.
ReplyDeleteMy practice: I've been practicing Soto Zen for nearly eight years, 6 months ago I started koan practice with a Rinzai master and began to train as a MBCT teacher.
The second paragraph doesn't contradict itself. Zen can be 'traditionalist and backward-looking' and still be 'simple, down-to-earth emphasis, being relatively free of supernatural and metaphysical elements'.
Shonin is my dharma name.
Shonin Justin,
ReplyDeleteAlright, then.
By Soto, you just sit, or what?
I guess any way that has been around for awhile can meet that description.
I got that Shonin was your dharma name, silly, what does it mean?
Well, not alright then.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying ancient texts are not based on direct experience, or reason for that matter?
Soto is mainly 'just sitting' - shikantaza.
ReplyDeleteShonin means 'true person'
Ancient texts may be based on direct experience or not. When they are it is experience seen through the eyes of a particular world-view and personality. No one truly has direct access to truth - the wider the view we have of truth the better.
Even when they are based on direct experience, 'ancient textx' are a good deal less direct to us. There are problems with interpretation, with knowing how accurately they have been passed down and there are problems with the limitations of the world-view of the people who had the experiences. Yes, in most ways we do have a more sophisticated and better understanding of the world than the Buddha did (insightful visionary as he was).
ReplyDeleteFor me, 'ancient texts' are a very valuable reference point, not to be thought of as infallible sources of truth.
Shonin, 'true person', how do you know when an ancient text is based on direct experience or not?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that if no one truly has direct access to truth then a wider view is just more of the same; just an accumulation of no direct access. Can we have a direct experience of what no one has direct access to?
"Even when they are based on direct experience, 'ancient texts' are a good deal less direct to us.' What is it that makes them less direct? Are there different degrees of directness?
But I'm confused again, No one has direct access to truth yet in most ways then we do have more sophisticated and better understanding of the world than the Buddha? How is that?
It might really help me figure this out if you would let me know what a direct experience is? That slowness, again.
I hope I'm not annoying you. You're obviously a student who wrote a piece of work that other students will read and one student is not clear so hopefully you are prepared to clarify.
Thanks for your patience,
-/\-
how do you know when an ancient text is based on direct experience or not?
ReplyDeleteWe don't ultimately, which is part of the problem. I see these texts as a useful reference point for our own practice.
It seems that if no one truly has direct access to truth then a wider view is just more of the same; just an accumulation of no direct access. Can we have a direct experience of what no one has direct access to?
The Buddha didn't have a lot of interest in knowing how things really are independently of our experiences and nor do I. It's about what can be experienced. I don't subscribe to this incoherent post-modernist notion that all views are equally valid and nor did he.
No one has direct access to truth yet in most ways then we do have more sophisticated and better understanding of the world than the Buddha? How is that?
Buddha was an empiricist of sorts. There is some similarity between his approach and that of Karl Popper who argued in favour not of finding 'objective truth' but of growing 'verisimilitude'. We can see that our understanding of the world has improved with time because of (among other things) all the useful technologies we can make, based on that understanding.
What is it that makes them less direct? Are there different degrees of directness?
Of course. If you see your neighbour load up the back of his car with money with your own eyes, you have a greater degree of certainty that this occured than if you read in the newspaper about a man who says that his son's best friend told him that he had heard that this happened.
It might really help me figure this out if you would let me know what a direct experience is?
You really need me to explain that? You eat a meal, it tastes salty. That is a direct experience. You stick your hand in a flame, it hurts. Another direct experience.
Hope that helps.
For now, how is your answer to the last question of your comment the same kind of experience you are talking about in your post?
ReplyDeleteI practice Zen, my experience of life changes in positive ways. A few people insist that I need to subscribe to belief in literal rebirth, I don't experience anything that encourages that belief. Inner peace/clarity continue to grow. I practice MBCT, my experience of life changes in similar positive ways. In spite of tradition in makes no difference whether my legs are folded into a pretzel or whether I sit in a chair. Other descriptions from 'ancient masters' correspond to my own. I find it helpful to follow my own intuition/reason/experience informed by others rather than blindly follow others.
ReplyDeleteShonin,
ReplyDeleteI was going to ask a different question, but you really didn't answer my last one.
Sorry it wasn't entirely clear what you were asking.
ReplyDelete"how is your answer to the last question of your comment the same kind of experience you are talking about in your post?"
Can you re-phrase?
It was in reference to your last sentence in answer to the question you repeated above it about direct experience on the 18th at 8:50.
ReplyDeleteI gave you a summary of my direct experience of Buddhist and related practice focussing on traditional vs modern approaches. Is there anything else you want to know about?
ReplyDeleteYou're summary didn't jive with what you told me on the 18th a direct experience was, Shonin, and this is common with people that say they practice "Zen". They want it both ways.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be blunt.
Both ways being what?
ReplyDeleteI told you about my practices and my experience of the results of that practice. This corresponds to putting food in your mouth or hand in a flame and observing the result. If you want more precision or detail that you'll have to be more precise with your questions. I'm still not sure what you're trying to get at. If you're suggesting that I may have some influences or preconceptions from my Western upbringing, then sure, it would be surprising if I didn't.
It seems clear that you disagree with me in some way.
The confusion I wanted to clear up with my question stemmed from your examples of direct experiences through your body contrasted with your speaking of your mental life. You ended up reinforcing your position, being consistent, so yes I do not agree with your view of direct experience and to me this clouds the whole subject of your post by making it sound all mystical and stuff... or just ego centered as I brought up with Kyle in one of his last posts here.
ReplyDeleteLevi, over at Larval Subjects, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com, has a timely post on this subject today called 'Transcendental Realism?'. Particularly the third paragraph which starts, "However, if the last 300 years of philosophy have shown anything, it has shown us that we do not have any direct or immanent or immediate access to our own minds."
"Progressive" Buddhists could do well to ask themselves the question Levi asks at the end of the post.
And Amod Lele at 'Love of All Wisdom', http://loveofallwisdom.com/, has a thoughtful post, and the one before it, for that matter in realation to this issue called, "Caution Towards Innovation".
Dr.Amod? The one who thinks Dukka = suffering. ROFL!! Do you think posting over here or at my place will somehow make us change our minds. Read his last paragraph...he is renonuncing reform...so come pick on me.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to make my next post about what an idiot Zizek is...
Go for it Mr. Squirrel.
ReplyDeleteKiyle,
ReplyDeleteSo Amod can't give a thoughtful post because you think you've got him on a technicality?
Hi Ted,
ReplyDeleteI must say, your last response leaves me no more clear about what you're saying.
It seems to have little to do with the main topic of the post, but is some sort of criticism of my ideas about the nature of direct experience.
I tried to deduce what you criticism of it is by reading the article you cited, but that didn't help much either. It's hard to see what his philosphical views have to do with what I said about my experiences with traditional and modern forms of practice."However, if the last 300 years of philosophy have shown anything, it has shown us that we do not have any direct or immanent or immediate access to our own minds."
I'm not aware that I made any transcendental arguments. I'm more of an empiricist myself.
Nor can I see anywhere in my post that sounds "mystical and stuff".
I'm pretty much in agreement with the author that "we do not have any direct or immanent or immediate access to our own minds."
I could ask myself Levi's question "why is it less plausible to argue for a transcendental realism?" but I don't see the point since I don't have a belief in a transcendental mind and I'm not a transcendental idealist.
So, I'm left rather confused as to what you are trying to say.
As for Amod's post, yes I agree there is a strong tendency in Buddhism to prefer what is old and to be cautious towards innovation. For example, the false attribution of the Mahayana Sutras to Gautama Buddha. The reason for this, I believe is to do with authority. For most Buddhists, the Buddha, and by association or inheritance, tradition represents unassailable authority, while us ordinary mortals apparently just have conditioned and deluded opinions.
"I could ask Levi's question, "why is it less plausible..."
ReplyDeleteBut shonin, I pointed to the last question, which was, "Why not instead point to the indisputable fact that things change and therefore this change must have a cause? Inquiring minds want to know."
This is nothing but Dpendent Origination which is the bases of tradition that Chinese Buddhism sought to eliminate by the transfer of authority from The Indian sutras to a Buddha Nature doctrine.
The rest I'll just have to leave alone for now and probably write a post on it, so I'll let you know. :)
I appreciate the candor and vigor in your responses. Thanks for your time.
Essentialist (Yogacara) interpretations of Buddha Nature that contradict Anatta, Anicca and Sunyata don't interest me much.
ReplyDeleteThere are good arguments to support the idea that this doctrine was a positive way of teaching Sunyata (and thus Anatta and Anicca). Dogen is right to identify Buddha Nature with Impermanence. And Nagarjuna was right to identify Sunyata with Dependent Origination. It's all the same thing.
What is the cause of change? Change in one condition occur because of other conditions. Because the nature of things is not independent or absolute but arises in dependence on other conditions, ie Dependent Origination, Emptiness.
Ok, Shogin,
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame those arguments don't interest you much, considering you're writing so much Shobogenzo posts.
I think maybe Dogen just repeated stuff, to say something else with his writing, but that's another thing, so he didn't "identify" anything...unless identifying Buddha Nature with impermanence is the same as saying there is no such thing as Buddha Nature. Which would fit with the made up term in 6th century China in order to legitemize a "New" Buddhism opposed to the alien one.
To be picky, since you were, I say there is no cause of change, only causes of changes.
And the Buddha's teaching on Dependent Origination had to do with suffering arrising. No chain of causation, no suffering...points to the fact of there being no such thing as not-suffering, per Parmanides. That's the Sunyata of Nagarjuna.
You're feisty, Shonin, I like that! I've brought up things on your blog before and you didn't seem to want to get into it.
Ted, You are correct in so far as pointing the absolute being absolute, ie no cause of change, no not-suffering. The words Buddha nature are relative as well, but to say Buddha Nature, or the fact that all beings have the capacity to see ultimate truth because they are part of ultimate truth is forgoing the relative to only see the absolute. But we are talking, aren't we?
ReplyDeleteI was trying to be more concrete with Shonin, Kyle. You're just being more vague now...unless you can actually type what Buddha Nature is. I don't see that there is such a thing as ultimate truth, Kyle, as truth, as I've learned it, doesn't work that way.
ReplyDeleteNo cause of change, ie evrything is change. Yea, so?
"Things", which are named by speaking beings, change and they don't based on perception and perception by a speaking being is thought. How far do you need to go, Mr. Squirrel? Can we do anything other than talk? That's the only way to work things out because I don't kill squirrels. On purpose. :)
Ted, I am really trying to understand what you are saying, I am interested to hear another point of view. However, probably because I am dense, you know us slow Zennie's, I can't seem to put my finger on what your angle is. Is there a book you could recommend, or some other blogs that will help me.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't kill squirrels either, hence sarcasm. :-)
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteWhy would I send you somewhere else to find out what I'm trying to say? If you're sincere you might ask more questions instead. The fact you can't put your finger on my angle at leats says you are trying to finger my angle...wait, that's your blog talk.
I don't think Zennies are slow.
I'm not trying to say something in particular, or spar, as much as leap frog a thought given, as in Shonin's post.
Hi Ted,
ReplyDeleteWhich thought are you trying to leap-frog?
unless identifying Buddha Nature with impermanence is the same as saying there is no such thing as Buddha Nature.
As the Heart Sutra says:
"There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no cessation of suffering, and no path.
There is no wisdom or any attainment."
Even Buddhahood does not exist in an absolute sense. In the sense that it has no absolute/independent existence no, Buddha Nature does not exist. However, like all these other things it is a useful concept that can be said to exist in a relative sense.
The way I see it is that Dependent Co-arising (in the broader sense of Conditionality or Interdependence, not just the 12-steps that give rise to suffering) aka Impermanence, aka Reality, when conditioned by desire, aversion and delusion is experienced as Samsara/Birth and death/Dukkha. Free of desire, aversion and delusion it is experienced as Bodhi/the Unborn/Nirvana. Buddha Nature is always present in the sense that we just have to apprehend reality clearly to realise it. On the other had, it's realisation (Nirvana) has causes.
I say there is no cause of change, only causes of changes.
Well, the Buddha would agree I think - he rejected the idea of a 'First Cause'.
And the Buddha's teaching on Dependent Origination had to do with suffering arrising. No chain of causation, no suffering...points to the fact of there being no such thing as not-suffering, per Parmanides. That's the Sunyata of Nagarjuna.
The Buddha also taught a positive chain of the dependent origination of Nirvana which is not independent or uncaused (can't find a reference to that right now).
Shonin,
ReplyDeleteI was just trying to leap frog with what I was hearing about direct experience in relation to a perception of traditional vs. modern forms of Buddhism. I had the impression your essay was open ended and were still learning so I was going to learn with you, instead of the old "Great post! Glad you're part of our club cause we totally agree with you! Take it easy!", kind of response.
But, ok, I'll play. I'll respond to each one of your points just now by the end of the day.(I'm entertaining my 5 year old for now.
Peace