Zen ( troubled waters)

              Zen is unique in schools of Buddhism, it is the only school of Buddhism that has what it calls priests.  I have written another blog post a long time ago on this subject so I'm not going to go into that right now.  The problems that this has caused in America and other Western countries are many.  Starting with the problem of us ending up with priests who seem to have been corrupted by the West. Usually this took the form of sexual exploitation of would be students. This problem of course is not unique to Zen or Buddhism or religion in general it seems to be its constant traveling companion.  But a new an increasing problem in Zen is the phony. There are people out there claiming to be Zen priests who have no qualifications or credentials to make that claim. 

I recently ran across one of these charlatans when doing a little research about the different Buddhist centers in my old hometown.  I saw person that I have met on an off for several years who was now claiming to be a Zen priest.  The fact that I personally knew that he was not a Zen priest bothered me.  So I did further research on what his claims were based on and discovered that his credentials were entirely false.  One of the things that really stuck out was the fact that he claimed to have been ordained by Zen priest at a center I have been a member of for decades,  So I contacted the Abbot of the center and some of its elder members to make sure I wasn't mistaken.  Not only had no one there ever ordained him as a priest. The person that he claimed had ordained him as a priest there has never been there.  I checked into the person he said had ordained him and as far as I can tell that person has no authority to ordain anyone.  Several years ago that person created his own school of Buddhism and declared himself a priest without ordination and even he makes no claim of having ordain this man as a priest. This p3erson Is not only running his own group but telling other non Zen centers he is a priest and giving lectures  at these centers on Zen.

 

We are coming to a time when  very many of the truly ordained Western teachers are reaching an elderly age and will soon be passing away.  I heard this referred to by one of those elderly priests as the great die off.  I have never been a great admirer of the claims of 1000 year lineage that many Zen groups make but I do believe that making up your own phony credentials is simply fraud,

 

So I'm writing this small post with the hopes that it along with my blog having been digitally  transcribed onto the ether we call the Internet will outlive me.  I hope that it serves as a warning to all future people wishing to pursue Buddhism and Zen to beware of frauds. Zen does require training and its nature is such that it almost always requires a teacher at some point. The Tibetan schools of Buddhism adhere to a text (a small book in English) that tells potential students what to look for in a teacher and a teacher what to look for in a student. Unfortunately few people who pursue Buddhism in the West actually take the time to do in-depth studies of what they hope to practice and this sets them up to be victims of the frauds, the fakers, the sexual predators and the charlatans. I know right now a teacher in lower Georgia who has almost no understanding of Buddhism at all.  I know others that have practiced for years and still do not have an inkling of what they're supposed to be teaching. Most of these people are very good salespeople but they're not Buddhist teachers. So I'm leaving this word of warning to all the young people who will follow after us to make an effort to understand what Buddhism and what Zen are about and what to look for in a teacher .  Be very careful before you call a person your teacher.

           

What is A Buddha

 

            First  I would like to talk about enlightenment for a moment.  It is an interesting word that has like so many words and phrases overtime shifted in its meaning and certainly in its application. Both Buddhism and Christianity throw this word around constantly.  It seems like starting at some point in history everybody on a spiritual path decided that their goal was enlightenment. I would like to take a short trip back to this words introduction to the English language. This word is used today usually in a figurative sense and speaks of spiritual enlightenment. It's history indicates that around 1865 it was in fact a translation of the German word "Aufklarung"  which was a name for the spirit of independent thought and the rationalistic system developed by philosophers to indicate that the individual may hope for improvement through his own efforts....These efforts were through education, participation in politics, activities and on behalf of reform, but not through prayer and not through a higher power.  It was in direct opposition to the concept of original sin that had become part of the basic  theology of the Catholic Church and most Protestant Christianity. The context of the introduction of this word was what became called the Age of Enlightenment.  It is usually described as an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century.  Most historians would put the Age of Enlightenment as somewhere between 1715 and 1789.

            If the word was used in its original sense that is to say that the individual may hope for improvement through his own efforts then I would say that it is not a bad description of the intent of the teachings of the Buddha. However it has been my experience that most people today use it in a completely different sense.  In a spiritual sense of high elevation and purity and it contains subtleties that I don't have time to go over in this essay. In that sense I think it is a misapplication to the Buddha and what we call Buddhism.

            It is not unusual of course for religions to steal from each other ideas and concepts and to see those concepts shift in both context and meaning as they bounce back and forth in translation by people whose educational and cultural experiences are based in those other religions when trying to propound a religion to which they have been introduced.

            A wonderful example of this is the book "The light of Asia" which was published around 1925 or thereabouts by the Englishman Sir Edwin Arnold, who represented the book as a translation of an Indian text which was supposed to be the life and teachings of Gautama. That is to say the Buddha.  In the preface of the book the English author admits that he is quoting from an imaginary Buddhist teacher. The book itself literally overflows with Christian concepts and terminology.  He refers to Saints and he refers to Buddha as the savior of humanity and the Christian terminology just never ends. While this is not a book that's read a lot today and won't be found on most Buddhist library shelves it is the sort of English writing that later Buddhists who were learning English absorbed when they themselves were translating the sutras and the teachings of Buddha. Part of which might explain why Tibetan Buddhist teachers have a tendency when they learnEnglish to  translate words like awakening into the term enlightenment.

            Even today in the year 2018 if you go on your search engine on your phone or computer it's going to tell you that the word Buddha means the enlightened one.  Which is a little hard for me to swallow since the word enlightened didn't even come into existence until around 1865 CE and Buddha was born around 623 BC in Lumbini Nepal . He is generally believed  to have taught between 546 and 324 BC.  The root of course of the word Buddha is Bodhi . At least most dictionaries will give the meaning of the word Bodhi as either "enlightenment" or   "awakening".  Since the word enlightenment wouldn't even exist in any form for almost 2189 years after Buddha died I'm going with "awakening".

            Given the above argument I'm going to define a Buddha as an "awakened one". I truly believe that that's what he referred to himself as, an nothing more.  The Bodhi tree was the tree of awakening. I will leave it to you to look at the story of how Buddha wandered around and finally ended up under that tree.  That is certainly a tale that it's easy to come by and one you should look up on your own.

            Now the simplest and most direct definition of the word awake is to not be asleep. Waking up to something that we all do virtually every day.  I will suggest at this time that you to think about what actually goes on when you wake up.  Now I am speaking about what goes on in your head not necessarily what goes on in your house. I want you to please think about the difference between being awake and asleep. I have always found it amazing that so many creatures such as ourselves have to sleep in order to be able to function while we are awake.  I of course have no idea what kind of dreams you have or what you're dreaming experiences are when you sleep.  At one point in my practicing of Buddhism I even learned from a teacher to do what is called Lucid dreaming. But that's not really the point of this essay. Only you know the world you left when you awoke this morning and the world that each of us wakes up to is different.

            There are many fables and myths that purport to describe what Buddha did and said when he arose awakened under that fig tree. But the truth is there probably wasn't anybody there that noticed, saw or heard those things. So I'm going to ask myself what was the first thing that we can be certain of that Buddha did once he was awake. In other words what was, at least in his mind,  the most urgent thing that he wanted to communicate from this awakening.

            Well almost every school of Buddhism admits that probably the first thing he did was go find a group of the other men that he'd been practicing asceticism with and take them up on a place I believe call vulture peak. There he gave a lecture to them and I suppose anyone else who was willing to listen that is called by some schools of Buddhism the first great turning of the wheel. So I don't think it's unfair to say that of all the things that Buddha awoke too, the four noble truths was probably the most pressing thing on his mind when he awoke.

In the original that went something like this:  

            "We crave and Cling to impermanent states and things which are dukkha "incapable of satisfying" and painful. This craving keeps us caught in samsara the endless cycle of repeated bhava ("becoming") and juati (literally: "birth"), rebirth, and the continued dukkha that comes with it. There is, however, a way to end this cycle , namely by attaining nirvana, cessation of craving, where after rebirth and associated dukkha will no longer arise again. This can be accomplished by following the eight fold path  restraining oneself, cultivating discipline and wholesome states, and practicing mindfulness and dhyana. "

            This of course has been simplified and rarefied for the Western mind especially by  Zen teachers and other teachers in the west wishing not impose upon your preconceptions of the world by suggesting that Buddha believed in karma and rebirth. (maybe even suggesting he was a Hindu , God forebid) So I will restate the four noble truths in the below abbreviated form that has been found palatable to most of the Western audience that the modern Zen teacher caters to.

1. The truth of suffering.

2. The truth of the origin of suffering

3   The truth of the cessation of suffering

4.  The truth of the past to the cessation of suffering. (The Eight Fold Path)

 

The Eight Fold Path

 1. Right you are right understanding

2. Right Intent

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

             I suppose at this point it would be rude of me to point out that a lot of the things that you have been taught in your life are Buddhism and Zen are not mentioned in this first urgent message that the Buddha felt he really needed to communicate once he awoke.

            The list of these things of course which were developed over the next couple thousand years is quite extensive. You know things like emptiness, no self, Buddha nature, and doctrines that were developed over those thousands of years by many brilliant meditators and Buddhist scholars.  I wish to point out that I'm not saying that these teachings are wrong.  What I'm saying is is that when Buddha woke up the four noble truths and eightfold path were the things that he felt really needed to be communicated to the world.

            Over the eons the different schools of Buddhism developed philosophies and practices that they called yogas and skillful means by which members of their culture and their time could accomplish what they believed Buddha wanted for his fellow sentient beings. Means and methods of waking up.

            So now I'm going to leave you with this simple thought. A Buddha is an awakened one. Now my friends go out there and wake up.

            Or as my generation would say it's time to smell the coffee.

           

What You Gain From Zen

 

           

      In my experience  people who get involved in Buddhism and Zen in the West see themselves as seekers,  they're looking for something that their life doesn't have. Some people call this thing they're seeking enlightenment others simply call it peace of mind and some call it the truth.  I am old and I suppose a little bit jaundiced or jaded but I've always found it amusing when a Zen teacher will face a group of students and tell them clearly that he has nothing to offer them.  The confusion on their faces and the way their  body language literally glows with discomfort when the person they've come to as a seeker tells him that he has nothing for them at this late stage is to me a little amusing. 

         

Of course Zen contains more paradox and confusion than any of the other schools of Buddhism. I sometimes think that Zen teachers are not unlike stage magicians that like to see the look on your face when they make statements that cause your mind to twist into knots.  And like stage magicians it's considered impolite to show how the trick is done. Houdini was at once asked if he ever explained his tricks to anyone and he just laughed and said, " NEVER!"

           

So I suppose that there will be many Zen teachers who are not going to like this post.  But I don't write this to please them I write this to help myself and others.  Zen like most stage magic takes place right in front of you and depends primarily upon misdirection.  There are of course thousands of years of Buddhist teachings that might suggest that each and every one of us is born a Buddha. If anyone asks you , you didn't hear this from me. This idea that you have everything that you are seeking already, and that the reason that Zen has nothing to offer you is that you've already got it.

          

I'm going to suggest that if you're a seeker who has come to Zen looking for something to gain perhaps what you should be looking for is the things that you can lose. While Zen can't give you anything perhaps the practice of Zen can  help you lose a lot of things that are making you miserable. The things I am speaking of are things like anger, fear, anxiety, depression, envy,  a grasping mind and hate, what do you suppose would be left if you lost all those things.  And that is what I would call the short list of things worth losing. 

So the end of this short little essay is simply to say perhaps what you're seeking is something you wish to lose not something you wish to gain.

 

 

 

 

          

Suicide and the Buddha, and Zen

I'm writing this post because of the current issues in our media concerning the recent suicides of Mrs. Spade and Anthony Bourdain. I'd also like to point out my frustration and note that at the present time an average of 22 veterans a day are committing suicide in our nation,  yet it takes the suicide of the rich and famous to bring any attention to the subject in our country. Probably one of the saddest events in my Sangha occurred a few years ago when one of our members who was a veteran committed suicide. Being a veteran and having several issues with depression myself I had only wished that she had reached out to us but she did not.

            Having taken a cursory survey of the things on the Internet concerning Buddhism and suicide I once again found that what was available extremely lacking in both healthfulness and humanity. I will not recount the tragedies that led myself to the brink here.  You can read about those in  earlier posts. I'm just going to say that this is an issue with which I have had personal experience and would reference you to my post " Zen, Grief ,Death and Buddhism".
            I suppose that concerning the title I should give some information about what Buddha himself has said on the subject.  Strangely enough the events recounted in the Vinaya may even seem very relevant to things that happened today. It seems there was a group of monks who had not had proper guidance and teaching that were meditating on the problems created by the human body. Two monks had fallen in love with each other and this created a profound depression in them.  As the physical manifestations of this love are forbidden by the rules of monasticism. And during these meditations on the effects of   the body on the struggle toward awakening and the obstacles it created they fell into despair and committed suicide in the hopes that they could be together in eternity.
              When told about these events the Buddha commented  that these actions were based on desire and ignorance. In Buddhism in general whether it be Theravada or Mahayana the taking of a life is a violation of the very first precept. Even the taking of one's own life would be considered an action motivated by obstructive mental states such as loathing, fear,  anger and desire.  In the case of suicide the despair created by depression and anxiety in all likelihood have the same obstructive emotions at their base.      
            There is of course a history in the Mahayana tradition of monks committing suicide.  This is generally been done I would say without due consideration to the actual teachings of the Buddha. There are some text that actually seemed to praise certain acts of suicide as some kind of religious sacrifice and I think all of these teachings are misguided. The fundamental concept of Buddhism itself is the minding of mind and the observation of mind. Buddhism is fundamentally a tool to accomplish what I call awakening to what others I think due to an error in translation call enlightenment.  In any case it is easy to get lost in almost 3000 years of teachings.  The taking of life especially one's own is a breach of the fundamental basis of the teachings of Buddha. Of course modern Zen in the West has wandered from many of the basic teachings of the Buddha but I will not  address that here.
             I am writing  this to say  that there are events in life that can overcome our perspective and the teachings.  A darkness can fall upon the mind that leaves a person  into utter despair.  Modern science would have us believe that perhaps this is the result of biochemical problems in the brain. I myself believe that Samsara can inflict such suffering on us and a feeling of hopelessness that we feel alone and without hope.  So regardless of whether this is simply the nature of our existence or some scientifically explainable biochemical imbalance in our brain it is a reality that many of us must face.  
            There are two things that you must hold in your mind beyond all others. The first is that there is always someone who can help and the second is that there is always someone you can help.  Even if everything the demons that are saying to you  are true.  Even if you can see no hope for the future if you have taken refuge in the Buddha the Dharma and the Sangha then you must always cling to the fact that you have taken a vow to help others. As long as you can take a breath there other sentient beings that you can help.  And as long as you can take a breath there are bodhisattvas out there that can help you.

            Reach out.

Why the Buddha taught.

Why the Buddha taught.

 

        In our modern world, it seems that every bad act, every crime and atrocity, every sorrowful thing that happens in our world is instantly reported all around the world.  Every now and then we will see a report of someone doing a compassionate act for other people but for the most part these things simply are not news news.  Certainly, reading and watching history has a tendency to instill a belief that the human race is irredeemable.  We have been slaughtering and killing each other as far back as our memory goes and that’s as far back as history goes. The depravity of humanity would seem intrinsic and without end, a part of our nature that seems to define us above all other things.

                Many if not most of the religions of the world have for all intents and purposes encouraged us to have no faith in humanity but to have faith in something else that will reach down from the heavens and redeem us and change our very nature, or at least forgive our nature. St. Augustine canonized this concept in what he called Original Sin.  And in many religions the belief that humans are fundamentally and irretrievably flawed is part of the teaching.  It’s certainly not hard after you’ve lived a few years to believe this to be the case.  That there is no possibility of man as a species resolving the issue of the depravity of his nature on his own.

                One of the things that separates Buddhism from most other religions is that it has not accepted the concept that man as a species or even that an individual person for that matter cannot change or improve their nature.   I recently put the phrase “why Buddha taught” into a major search engine on the Internet. I received absolutely no results for that inquiry, every single result that I received was entitled “what Buddha taught”. Unless these major search engines are flawed this will be the first essay available on the Internet about why Buddha taught.

              Embedded in several stories about Buddha’s original enlightenment are several short and curt sentences addressing the debate Buddha held with himself after he awakened.  In at least one of them he walks a few paces away from where he had been sitting under the bodhi tree and points to that spot and declares “this cannot be taught”.  In other stories of the Canon the gods themselves come down and plead with Buddha to teach what he has learned, I’ve read most of the Pali canon and the many Mahayana sutras but I have never seen the issue of why Buddha decided to spend his entire life teaching what he had learned to others. Just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but if they do exist there fairly well hid or considered of little interest.

 I’m going to make some simple deductions here since so little source material seems to address this issue in any depth at all. The very idea of a Buddha, and the man that we called the Buddha and his story demands that we believe that a human can become enlightened or awaken by means of his own human endeavor and his own human nature and intelligence.  If this idea is removed from the story of Buddha there simply would be no Buddha and there would be no Buddhism.  Clearly one of the things to which Buddha was awakened and observed was that a human being could through his or her own effort  overcome what all the other religions would call our Original Sin or intrinsically flawed nature.  That self redemption is possible.

In all of Buddhist teachings it is clear that skillful means are being provided by which each individual can change and improve those things that we despise in ourselves.  One of the very pillars upon which Buddhism stands is that each person with effort, study, and self-observation can move themselves closer to what we now call a Buddha.  In modern day terms, I think it would be clear to say that Buddha taught for over 50 years because he had faith in humanity.  It seems that one could call Buddha the first self-improvement guru, but I think that would be trivializing his teachings.  He framed his original sermon as a diagnosis and prescription for an illness, he certainly didn’t believe that illness was incurable.   The ocean of human suffering  in which he  and all other humans swim  was an illness  not a birth defect .

In our world as a child grows up and starts to seek spiritual awareness and an understanding of the world around them one of the first mistakes they seem to make is to believe it is other people’s responsibility to prove to them that humanity is and can be good. As mentioned above our own personal experience and the centuries of history which we have read shows us a great many people who were what almost any moral system would call bad.  We see centuries of killing and tormenting and torturing each other in what seems like an endless cycle of depravity. This creates a weight upon our soul and often slays our hope and faith for humanity.  Religions occur and reoccur implying that you must get permission from some higher power to be kind and compassionate and loving in your thought actions and words.

Perhaps one of the reasons that we find our present world so disheartening is that we especially in Zen have abandoned the ideas of karma and rebirth and only look at the present from which to take our cues.   It seems simple for the Westerner, the American teacher of Zen to cut these ideas away from their teachings seeing them as primitive superstition.  That in itself narrows their own view and  that of  their students  as to what is possible and what can be done.  In the end most of them conclude that nothing can be done, that one can only accept this horrible world in which we live.   I am Soto Zen and the man  who started the school of Buddhism was a brilliant  Buddhist scholar perhaps one of the most brilliant that has  ever lived.  Anyone who is read anything that he is written cannot honestly say that his teachings and writings can  be summed up into  parking your butt on a pillow and shutting down your mind .  Many of the things that he said were paradox in and of themselves,  if you can't work out that the greatest Buddhist scholar of his age and perhaps any other was speaking about  also relying upon studying the Buddhists teachings, that he didn't consider them to  be useless doesn't need to be teaching  anyone.

It is my hope one day that Zen will go back and begin to incorporate Buddhism in their teachings again and have less of this easy idea that there is nothing to be learned and nothing to be done and that self-improvement through meditation, learning and teaching is a delusion. It’s easy to sell an empty box or so it would seem from what I have observed in recent years.

Buddha thought that change starts with you, that it is entirely possible for you to rid yourself of the kind of thinking that has enslaved humanity into an endless cycle of suffering as far back as anyone can remember. This is why Buddha taught. This is why he spent his entire life from the moment of his awakening walking up and down the world teaching what he had learned. The only humanity you need to have faith in is yourself.  but never forget that you are humanity  in whole and in part .

The Heritage of Human Sorrow

     Somewhere around 567 BC a young prince named Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini , Nepal.  He grew up shielded from all suffering or at least that’s what we’re told.  But on the birthday of his first son and after being exposed to things like disease , old age and death he ran away from home in search of an answer to life. The fact that Buddha lived, and taught, and died is proved by an overwhelming amount of evidence.   After about five years of searching he sat under a tree and contemplated everything that he had seen and heard and been taught. He considered the human condition and after about 50 days of setting under that tree he had an epiphany. Some people choose to call it his enlightenment the older texts indicate that he himself referred to it as his awakening.  Upon due consideration he gave a sermon. That sermon is often called the first turning of the wheel. It was written down later on in the form of a doctor’s diagnosis and prescription as it would have been given in the time that Siddhartha lived.  What we now call the four noble truths were his observations that he considered self-evident. They are listed below.

      

Four Noble Truths

   1. Suffering exists
   2. Suffering arises from attachment to desires
   3. Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases
   4. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path

            What we call science presently estimates that the modern form of humanity has been on the earth for about 200,000 years.  All things considered that a young prince should notice 2584 years ago that the most striking thing about the human condition was the heritage of human sorrow is not an amazing thing in and of itself. But it cannot be denied that his turning of this wheel and the medicine which he prescribed for that heritage of suffering changed the world forever.

            His prescription for mitigating this sorrow and the suffering is now called the eightfold path.  Literally thousands upon thousands of Buddhist practitioners, scholars and yogis have written and contemplated and analyzed and re-analyzed those two paragraphs which Siddhartha  taught so many years ago. And of course with each application of each individuals perception and intellect and their own experience of suffering there has resulted an almost endless parade of interpretations of those few words Buddha taught on so many years ago. 

            Modern Zen practitioners for the most part have surgically removed the concepts of karma and rebirth from the teachings. But even with this dissection the truth of Buddha's  observations still hold fast to the human condition.  Anyone who says they have never suffered is lying to you or to themselves or to both. 

     Now comes a few simple questions. Has your practice of Zen reduce the amount of suffering that you have experienced since you started practicing Zen?  Since you started practicing Zen have you changed?  Has your teachers words had the effect of reducing your suffering.  Are you happier now that you have sat for hours meditating than you were before?  Has the obscurity of Zen and it’s amorphous paradoxes  helped you in any way?  When you set under the steely gaze of your Zen master and he says you can expect nothing from Zen what’s really going on in your mind? 

            I only ask that you be truthful with yourself on dealing with these questions. You can brush them aside and ignore their consequence or you can give them due consideration the choice is of course always yours.

            Long ago when I was practicing another form of Buddhism I was taught a fable.  In which the teachings and precepts of Buddhism were boiled down into a little story that even a child could understand.  The ancient teacher of Buddhist wisdom looked up at an all powerful king who had just asked him what the nature of Buddhist teachings were. He responded that:

 

1.      Do as little harm as you can.

2.      Do as much good as you can.

3.      Try to purify your heart.

 

I have looked down the tunnel of time and taken unto myself this heritage of sorrow that we all carry with us. I have lived and died and been reborn upon the rising of each sun. It’s useless to tell people to change because change is inevitable.  It’s useless to raise your fist at the sky and curse your fate.  It is however absolutely mandatory that we look within ourselves for the truth that lies within.

If I had but a couple of minutes left of breath, and I wished to tell you something            before I go, it would be:

1.  Do as little harm as you can.

2.      Do as much good as you can.

3.      Try to purify your heart.

 Togen

Hollywood Zen

" He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak " Jackie Chan (Forbidden Kingdom)