Been a long time - お久しぶりですね
I haven't updated this blog in ages, almost a year. I'm sure no one reads it but oh well, it is more for myself anyways, a wall off which to bounce ideas. Here are some of my thoughts on Zen Bhuddism.
I'm drawn to Zen even though all people who know me will tell you that I'm a very logical person. Zen on the other hand serves to break out of logic. I find I am too logical and would like to escape from the trap a bit if I could because it is indeed something which paints one into a corner on occasion.
Zen also shows that words are just words and have no innate meaning. Aside from a few symbols which seem to be universal (if there are any) Zen says that the answer to the question of kouan of "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" is not a logical one. The answer "it is the sound of air being pushed by the hand," is not wrong but it is not right either. An answer of, "it is the sound of a tree falling in the forest with no one there," is more correct as is, "the sun rising in the west." Zen is not logical and its words trascend their usual meaning. This Zen dialogue or 禅問答 (zenmondou) in Japanese also means incomprehensible dialog for to the lay person, it seems not only without logic but completely illogical and nonsensical.
In Japanese I've found cases where English cannot be translated to Japanese or vice versa. Onomatopoeic words are different for cases which should be the same. The Japanese can say "meow" but for the sound of a cat they say ニャー "nyaa" instead (which reminds me that Chewey is outside and I must let him in). Dogs say ワン ワン "wan wan" instead of "woof woof" even though I know of no dog that says "wan wan". Some of this may be attributed to the phonetic differences between the languages but not all of it. It really does show that words are just symbols, not tokens that can be universally used for understanding. If they cannot be universally used then perhaps they should never be used to convey meaning. This is Zen dialogue. When it is understood along with the breaking out of dualities (limiting the world as right and wrong, you and me, true and false), out of logic, when the self is no longer seen as unique you are said to be awakened, 悟り or satori which is the purpose of Zen. Read some D.T. Suzuki if you are interested.
More basic Buddhist ideals also interest me. I've written before how things were much simpler when I was just a student in an apartment with almost no possessions. Ironically, this is a very Bhuddist way of thinking and existing. The Buddha said that all suffering comes from cravings. That even when you satisfy the cravings the satisfaction is short lived; once you have something you'll want something more. I agree with this; there is never enough money and having possessions only makes you worry about them and insure them and maintain them. Many days it does not seem worth it. The overall ideas of living without cravings, without suffering from these cravings (which are the root of all wars, though ironically the Buddhists have endorsed wars and assassinated people throughout history), of being kind to everyone, of being honest at all times, of avoiding lust and other bad qualities are all very appealing to me. Some are very much against our nature, or against mine at least so I struggle with them daily. I have hoped that Buddhism might help me with them though I may be too logical to follow through with it.
Buddhism is overall a very reasonable religion, if it even is a religion at its heart (it certainly is practiced as a religion by most of its believers). While most consider vegetarianism a part of it, if you give meat to a Buddhist monk he will eat it; he shouldn't kill it himself but that is where their philosphy on life taking ends for the most part. They believe you should not become intoxicated because it leads to bad things and limits your ability to understand the wisdom of Buddhism but they do not ban intoxicating substances outright. I enjoy my whisky so it would be hard for me to follow it if it weren't so reasonable.
Stephen Bachelor's book "Buddhism without Beliefs" (see Chapters, Amazon, et al) is very interesting to me because it gets rid of some of the initial problems I saw with Buddhism. Buddhism also includes the ideas of kharma and reincarnation which are both very Indian and found in Hinduism as well. These ideas are fairly well known, though often in a slightly perverted sense as many people in the west seem to believe in "instant kharma" while it was originally intended as a next life effect. Stephen would remove these from Buddhism saying that they are holdovers from the Indian religion where the Buddha lived and even one who is revered as being so very wise as the Buddha cannot take himself out of his time. He saw suffering in his time, much caused by India's class system and saw a way to break out of it, which was his great wisdom of the time.
I would also argue that like most 'prophets' his writings are in fact the writings of his disciples from generations after his death. Much of it may have been modified to make useful some of the standard aspects of religions which are control. By using kharma and the threat of coming back as a worm in the next world if you are evil, Buddhists are able to convey the same sense of fear as eternal hell and brimstone in Christianity and the usual consequences of other religions. Many organized Buddhist religions believe you are reborn to be a monk in the last one or two of your lives where you still have an individual self. The lay persons, landowners are able perhaps at minimum to only perform one thing to improve their kharma: the giving of alms, especially to the monks. In this way behavior was controlled to be 'good' as per the teachings and as well like other religions the dana, alms or tithe ensured that the monestary like all other churches had a source of income.
The Tibetan monks do a "black hat dance" (which is a bit odd anyways as many other monestaries ban dancing outright) which celebrates the assassination of a lord who was unkind to the monks and others. A monk hid a bow in his robes and killed him. They justified it by saying that the lord was doing more harm to his kharma alive than dead. This kind of thing reeks of the many evils done in the name of god by other religions and serves as another example as to why the idea of kharma is bad as it can be twisted in this way by one of the Buddhist sects considered the most devout of all.
If you remove kharma and reincarnation from the equation as Stephen suggests then it simplifies things quite a bit and even removes Buddhism from the realm of religions. It says you should be good just to be good, just to be unselfish and a problem I have with kharma in Buudhism is thus removed: my problem is that doing something on purpose to improve your kharma is not unselfish; it is selfish. All the stories of people cutting off their own heads to give a poor man the bounty on their head and giving away their own children to childless couples to remove the suffering of others moves from unselfish acts to very selfish ones as they hope to improve their prospects in the next life so they can move onto the perfect selfless state. If you remove this promise of the next life then basic Buddhism simply becomes a nice way of living, going beyond the standard golden rule to one in which you also have suggestions for your own wellbeing. It becomes simply a philosophy and a set of heuristics for daily life which is what most people really want from a religion anyways. A philosphy I can certainly accept as an ideal to strive for.
The Buddha was just a man and did not want to be revered as a demigod or even as a prophet and yet many Buddhist sects chant his name and most of them revere him as a god. They do blessings and weddings, neither of which are from Buddhism but which shows again that people want in a religion a set of standard things, laying out the way they should live in their society. These common themes of religions really show human needs. They need to believe in something more than a man for they themselves are men and they seemingly cannot believe in themselves alone. Nor can they believe in their own rules alone, they need to believe they come from a higher source.
Enough for today I think.
I'm drawn to Zen even though all people who know me will tell you that I'm a very logical person. Zen on the other hand serves to break out of logic. I find I am too logical and would like to escape from the trap a bit if I could because it is indeed something which paints one into a corner on occasion.
Zen also shows that words are just words and have no innate meaning. Aside from a few symbols which seem to be universal (if there are any) Zen says that the answer to the question of kouan of "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" is not a logical one. The answer "it is the sound of air being pushed by the hand," is not wrong but it is not right either. An answer of, "it is the sound of a tree falling in the forest with no one there," is more correct as is, "the sun rising in the west." Zen is not logical and its words trascend their usual meaning. This Zen dialogue or 禅問答 (zenmondou) in Japanese also means incomprehensible dialog for to the lay person, it seems not only without logic but completely illogical and nonsensical.
In Japanese I've found cases where English cannot be translated to Japanese or vice versa. Onomatopoeic words are different for cases which should be the same. The Japanese can say "meow" but for the sound of a cat they say ニャー "nyaa" instead (which reminds me that Chewey is outside and I must let him in). Dogs say ワン ワン "wan wan" instead of "woof woof" even though I know of no dog that says "wan wan". Some of this may be attributed to the phonetic differences between the languages but not all of it. It really does show that words are just symbols, not tokens that can be universally used for understanding. If they cannot be universally used then perhaps they should never be used to convey meaning. This is Zen dialogue. When it is understood along with the breaking out of dualities (limiting the world as right and wrong, you and me, true and false), out of logic, when the self is no longer seen as unique you are said to be awakened, 悟り or satori which is the purpose of Zen. Read some D.T. Suzuki if you are interested.
More basic Buddhist ideals also interest me. I've written before how things were much simpler when I was just a student in an apartment with almost no possessions. Ironically, this is a very Bhuddist way of thinking and existing. The Buddha said that all suffering comes from cravings. That even when you satisfy the cravings the satisfaction is short lived; once you have something you'll want something more. I agree with this; there is never enough money and having possessions only makes you worry about them and insure them and maintain them. Many days it does not seem worth it. The overall ideas of living without cravings, without suffering from these cravings (which are the root of all wars, though ironically the Buddhists have endorsed wars and assassinated people throughout history), of being kind to everyone, of being honest at all times, of avoiding lust and other bad qualities are all very appealing to me. Some are very much against our nature, or against mine at least so I struggle with them daily. I have hoped that Buddhism might help me with them though I may be too logical to follow through with it.
Buddhism is overall a very reasonable religion, if it even is a religion at its heart (it certainly is practiced as a religion by most of its believers). While most consider vegetarianism a part of it, if you give meat to a Buddhist monk he will eat it; he shouldn't kill it himself but that is where their philosphy on life taking ends for the most part. They believe you should not become intoxicated because it leads to bad things and limits your ability to understand the wisdom of Buddhism but they do not ban intoxicating substances outright. I enjoy my whisky so it would be hard for me to follow it if it weren't so reasonable.
Stephen Bachelor's book "Buddhism without Beliefs" (see Chapters, Amazon, et al) is very interesting to me because it gets rid of some of the initial problems I saw with Buddhism. Buddhism also includes the ideas of kharma and reincarnation which are both very Indian and found in Hinduism as well. These ideas are fairly well known, though often in a slightly perverted sense as many people in the west seem to believe in "instant kharma" while it was originally intended as a next life effect. Stephen would remove these from Buddhism saying that they are holdovers from the Indian religion where the Buddha lived and even one who is revered as being so very wise as the Buddha cannot take himself out of his time. He saw suffering in his time, much caused by India's class system and saw a way to break out of it, which was his great wisdom of the time.
I would also argue that like most 'prophets' his writings are in fact the writings of his disciples from generations after his death. Much of it may have been modified to make useful some of the standard aspects of religions which are control. By using kharma and the threat of coming back as a worm in the next world if you are evil, Buddhists are able to convey the same sense of fear as eternal hell and brimstone in Christianity and the usual consequences of other religions. Many organized Buddhist religions believe you are reborn to be a monk in the last one or two of your lives where you still have an individual self. The lay persons, landowners are able perhaps at minimum to only perform one thing to improve their kharma: the giving of alms, especially to the monks. In this way behavior was controlled to be 'good' as per the teachings and as well like other religions the dana, alms or tithe ensured that the monestary like all other churches had a source of income.
The Tibetan monks do a "black hat dance" (which is a bit odd anyways as many other monestaries ban dancing outright) which celebrates the assassination of a lord who was unkind to the monks and others. A monk hid a bow in his robes and killed him. They justified it by saying that the lord was doing more harm to his kharma alive than dead. This kind of thing reeks of the many evils done in the name of god by other religions and serves as another example as to why the idea of kharma is bad as it can be twisted in this way by one of the Buddhist sects considered the most devout of all.
If you remove kharma and reincarnation from the equation as Stephen suggests then it simplifies things quite a bit and even removes Buddhism from the realm of religions. It says you should be good just to be good, just to be unselfish and a problem I have with kharma in Buudhism is thus removed: my problem is that doing something on purpose to improve your kharma is not unselfish; it is selfish. All the stories of people cutting off their own heads to give a poor man the bounty on their head and giving away their own children to childless couples to remove the suffering of others moves from unselfish acts to very selfish ones as they hope to improve their prospects in the next life so they can move onto the perfect selfless state. If you remove this promise of the next life then basic Buddhism simply becomes a nice way of living, going beyond the standard golden rule to one in which you also have suggestions for your own wellbeing. It becomes simply a philosophy and a set of heuristics for daily life which is what most people really want from a religion anyways. A philosphy I can certainly accept as an ideal to strive for.
The Buddha was just a man and did not want to be revered as a demigod or even as a prophet and yet many Buddhist sects chant his name and most of them revere him as a god. They do blessings and weddings, neither of which are from Buddhism but which shows again that people want in a religion a set of standard things, laying out the way they should live in their society. These common themes of religions really show human needs. They need to believe in something more than a man for they themselves are men and they seemingly cannot believe in themselves alone. Nor can they believe in their own rules alone, they need to believe they come from a higher source.
Enough for today I think.
posted by Harry at 4:05 AM
2 comments
