Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!demon.siemens.com From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: Zen Buddhism Message-ID: <14546@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 15 Mar 90 14:41:32 GMT Sender: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Lines: 117 Approved: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Perhaps the people who read this newsgroup will be interested the following articles, which I submitted to talk.philosophy.misc a few months ago, when there was a discussion about Zen Buddhism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have done extensive reading on the topic of Zen. Here is a list of some of my favorite books on zen. All are/were available in paperback. 1. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones - compiled by Paul Reps A collection of zen koans, anecdotes, etc. from historic sources. May not make much sense to you without prior exposure to zen. 2. Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism - (a Chinese or Japanese author - sorry, I don't remember his name. Yuan - something, I think) A very good account of the historical evolution of Ch'an ( the Chinese word for Zen). This book will give you a good view of the changing approaches to zen and meditation, and the philosophical ideas behind them. 3. Manual of Zen Buddhism - D.T. Suzuki A collection of translated excerpts from Sanskrit sutras, and also Chinese and Japanese Zen Buddist sources. D.T. Suzuki wrote many essays on zen and translated many of the original texts into English. Dozens of volumes are available containing various selections of his works. He was a major figure in bringing zen to the west. 4. Be Here Now - Ram Dass - published by the Lama Society Not specifically zen, but Buddhist. This is a fun book, full of pen-and-ink drawings. It's somewhat dated in its 60's counterculture attitudes and language, but I find it amusing, having survived my teens during that period. In spite of its datedness, it manages to convey many of the basic ideas of Buddhism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There has been some discussion about whether zen is a philosophy or a religion. I think it is neither. Zen is a way of life. It is living fully in the present; being awake and aware in the here and now, and accepting it as it is, whether rational or irrational, pleasant or unpleasant, orderly or chaotic. This way of living can't be achieved by philosophizing or by believing in something, it can only be achieved by living and experiencing. Zen Buddhists traditionally discourage philosophizing and conceptual systems. When we are engaged in constructing rational systems or preoccupied with a context of beliefs through which we interpret our experience, we tend to shift our attention away from what is going on here and now. Rather than accepting it as it is, we view it through the "glasses" of our concepts and beliefs. As useful as that may be, for some purposes, it draws us away from Zen. Zen meditation techniques are exercises in focusing attention on the here and now and casting aside preconceived notions of what it is or should be. "If you want to enter the path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as sky." - Nanen (from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some thoughts regarding the Zen Buddhist assertion that there is no Self: While it is true that Buddhist literature repeatedly asserts the idea that there is no Self, I think that maybe the reason for that is not so much a commitment to the belief that the Self doesn't exist, but rather a more pragmatic consideration. Zen is concerned with experiencing freely in the here and now. As I have said in previous articles, if you have any ideas of what the experience is or should be, you come into it with a bias and can't have the attitude of unbiased acceptance that Zen places such emphasis on. If you are preoccupied with making rational sense of it, or if you are trying to match it to some conceptual model, you can't experience 'tathata', which is translated as 'suchness' or 'is-ness'; and, to a Zen Buddhist, tathata is reality. It is a reality that can't be found through conceptualization, it can only be experienced; and experiencing reality or 'tathata' is what Zen is all about. Any conceptual framework places biases or restrictions on it. The Lankavatara Sutra quotes Gautama Buddha as saying that philo- sophers cannot see reality because they are addicted to concepts. Whatever statements or arguments are made by Zen Buddhists are only made for the purpose of pointing people toward that experience. By contradicting ideas, such as the idea of a Self or the idea of an external universe or even the idea that there is a reality, they attempt to tear down conceptual structures of all kinds, which might interfere with a clear and unbiased experience of tathata. Zen Buddhists are fond of referring to any Buddhist text or statement or philosophical argument as 'a finger pointing at the moon', in the sense that the words are not a representation of reality, but rather a pointer toward it. If you say that something exists or is 'real' in some way, a Zen Buddhist will contradict you. Zen does not mind contradictions, in fact it thrives on them. In one context, they may think that a particular statement is the most appropriate 'pointer', in another context, they may use a completely contradictory statement as a 'pointer'. Logical consistency is not important to Zen. Historically, Buddhism began in an environment that was predominantly Hindu. The idea of Atman ( or 'Higher Self") is central to Hinduism. The Buddhists saw this as a concept which had to be transcended in order to experience 'tathata', so they contradicted it with a counter-concept of 'Anatman' or 'No-Self'. The purpose was tho eliminate an obstacle to Zen experience. It was intended to jolt people out of what was then the predominant conceptual model of reality. Of course, since conceptualization IS a part of conscious experience, it can't be ignored or denied by a pre-bias against it, and Zen Buddhists recognize that fact. For this reason they also reject 'quietistic' meditation, which seeks to stop the flow of thoughts. What they seek to do is to stop *judging* concepts, or any other type of experience, as 'true' or 'false', 'valid' or 'invalid'. To them, conscious experience is reality; and to set up a fixed conceptual model as a 'true' representation of reality is to exclude some part of experience, since any model imposes a set of bounds. A Zen Buddhist seeks to remain open to all experience, whether or not it fits into some rational scheme. Conceptual schemes come and go, but conscious experience rolls on. 'Tathata' is viewed as being unlimited and inexhaustible, hence there is no model which can accurately describe it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Simmonds (simmonds@demon.siemens.com)