Zen mind, a commentary on the mass shooting of nine black people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

                         I’ve never been quite sure why I started this blog several years ago, and it I have addressed personal issues and issues relating to the history and practice of Buddhism in Zen. I have no idea how long a blog like this will last I have no idea how long it will float through the Internet some of my posts have been read by thousands of people and some of my posts have been read by almost no one. I suppose this has a lot to do with the title of the post and the search engine that picks up that title.  But what I have rarely done is addressed current events things that are happening right now in our society. Buddhism is thousands of years old and as scholars do more and more research they find that its teachings reach far back in time the truth is no one knows how far back.

               Most of the issues that I address have to do with the practice of Zen as it exists today in the teachings of the Buddha as they have been passed down to us over those thousands of years. One of  the really amazing things about Buddhism and the teachings of Buddha is that they are so fundamental to human nature that they never seem to lose their power because of  their truth and I think it is that truth that has kept it alive and spread it from one end of the planet to the other over those thousands of years.

 I’ve written on Buddhist websites and I have taught in Zendo’s I’ve even given lectures in Christian churches on the teachings of Buddha but I have never seen myself as a priest I have seen myself more as a scholar and a student of the teachings of Buddha and the history of Zen and Buddhism. My last couple of blog posts have been very personal and they were posted in what may be a vain attempt to help other people that have gone through some of the sufferings that I have. After all if Buddha ever made one promise about his teachings it was that they would mitigate our sufferings as we dealt with this life.

        The subject of this post is the Zen mind, a commentary on the mass shooting of nine black people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston South Carolina on the evening of June 17, 2015. And it is being written shortly after that event. Anyone reading this post today will be very aware of the facts and the news media are flooding television and radio newspapers with the facts of this horrible event. But 10 years from now the world flooded by horrible events the people who are reading this post if it still exists might not remember that on the evening of June 17 a 21-year-old white man entered a historic church in Charleston South Carolina and sat down at a Bible study group. After about an hour of participating in the group he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot nine people to death in cold blood, he left at least one witness alive so they could relate the twisted reasoning that drove him to do this. It was a statement of pure irrational racist hate made by a man whose mind was consumed with hate. At this particular time no one is aware of any particular harm that any of these people had ever done to him personally or to anyone he knew. It was an action driven by a mental state that we in the United States have observed on numerous occasions, simply put , unreasoning racial bigotry, irrational hate  and fear.

            Any historical observer or psychologist or for that matter any person familiar with human history will recognize this state of mind, I will call it here the “us versus them” state of mind. This state of mind is characterized by the individual separating himself out into one group and convincing himself or herself that a particular other group is intent on his destruction. While we see this quite often in racism it is certainly not been limited to that over a period of the last 10,000 years. As I write this in the Middle East and Africa Islam's ancient schism Sunnis and Shia Muslims have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years based upon this “us versus them” irrational separatist hate. Christians and Moslems and Jews have been slaughtering each other for generations deeply ingrained in this mindset of “us versus them”. When the Europeans landed on the North American continent one of the traits of their society was to see the Native Americans as subhuman, within 20 years 97% of the population of Native Americans on the North American continent were dead. These Europeans then started importing black slaves to North America and treating them pretty much in the same manner as subhuman creatures  that they could own, for all intent and  purposes animals that they could own as property and do with as they will.  Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Ireland have killed each other in the same irrational mindset for decades if not for hundreds of years.

            Now I’d like to step back into the present were journalists civil rights activist politicians and religious figures all are at this very moment pretending that they have some kind of cure for what happened in that church. I have read a blog by a civil rights leader proclaiming that open dialogue is the only answer. I’ve heard statements by religious figures stating that only God’s love can save us from this unreasoning hate.  One very well-known pundit named John Stuart on the Daily Show bemoaned the fact that he was convinced that in the end American society would do nothing about the conditions or the mindset that led to this tragedy. And perhaps the truth is we as a species just don’t know how to cure this disease of the mind.  Beneath all the great compassion being expressed across the world at this senseless act one can sense a deeper feeling of futility and hopelessness.  Religious leaders from almost every religion have expressed a willingness to try virtually anything that will eliminate this kind of behavior in the future, they offer  prayer and preaching and tears. But history has shown us that prayer and preaching and tears have in the end not stopped this plague upon our species. On this same day  Christian preachers claiming to represent the Prince of Peace stand in their pulpits and demand the arrest and execution of Gay and homosexual people who want to get married. The Confederate flag the battle flag of the South that represents a nation that fought and bled to maintain slavery flies over the capital of the state in which this occurred. It seems no one who supports this flag is willing to admit that it stands for hate and  that state of mind that led to that shooting of those nine innocent people. It is an icon around which races haters gather and at the same time in the year 2015 they still refuse to acknowledge what it represents.

            But in our country there is a growing number of people have begun to practice an ancient philosophy and way of life. Some people call Buddhism, some call it  a religion other peoples call it a lifestyle but virtually every type of Buddhist acknowledges the basic teachings of Buddha. And one of the things that separates Buddhism from all the other world religions is its requirement to deal with your own mind, using what Buddhists call skillful means primarily through the practice of meditation the Buddhist is taught to observe his own mind. This can be called minding mind and it is a powerful tool when applied sincerely by the individual practicing it.

            Buddha was perhaps one of the most insightful psychologist who ever lived.  One of his first revelations was that we are the victims of our own mind and that we have little control over it as we stumble through life. Well over 2500 years ago he was teaching people about their minds and providing them with advice and direction on how to observe their minds. Buddha wasn’t a God and Buddha wasn’t a Savior he was just a man but he is what we would call an enlightened a man who had seen things about the human condition and took up the selfish life of trying to show us what he saw.

            One of his teachings that is accepted by almost every school of Buddhism is the teaching on the monkey mind. It might even be better described as monkey minds, minds  intoxicated with fear and  irrational thoughts,  our self awareness filled with what we call our mind is filled with a chattering screeching and howling of what amounts to a pride of monkeys rattling around in our head. Buddha observed that it is almost pointless to try to vanquish these monkeys to make them disappear because the paradoxes is that the harder we try to resist the more they seem to persist. And that is perhaps one of the reasons why for thousands of years different religions have tried to vanquish these monkeys called hate and racism with very little success and have in fact often ended up under their control. They can not be killed only tamed.

             It is my opinion that even deeper down inside of us beneath the monkey minds there lies another mind more primitive and more powerful than even the most howling irrational monkey mind. I will call this the lizard mind and it is in this the lizard mind that the mindset of “we versus them” resides. This state of mind is so primitive it cannot be described in any way other than as a animalistic survival instinct which is why it is so strong and filters its way up through our higher minds gaining a coating of false rationalization and self-deception.  There was perhaps the time when there were 20 or 30 other types of humanlike primates walking the earth.  In that primitive time the lizard mind was probably King and that  probably explains why none of those other primates exists today.

            Buddha showed his students how to meditate in order to quiet those dozens of monkey minds hiding in our skulls. He showed us that the pratice of meditation could calm them down and that with a great deal of practice and observation many of these monkey minds could be tamed. In fact if one practices meditation and observes your own mind there comes a time when you can have a talk with these minds, you may not be able to reason them into changing their nature but through these conversations you can silence their voices sometimes almost putting them to sleep or under a kind of self control.  The monkey mind of fear cannot be dissolved or totally vanquished but it can be reasoned with an calmed down and put in its place.

            But perhaps the hardest mind to reach, the hardest mind to calm down the hardest mind to unbind its power upon you is that lizard mind. And it’s in that lizard mind that the key to our future continued existence on this planet resides.  The simple truth is Buddha knew that the only way to actually change the world was to change ourselves. This is not quite as hard a task as it may seem. If we teach our children to take the time to meditate a few minutes a day. If we teach ourselves that we are in fact responsible for ourselves and our future and our children’s future then perhaps there will be some hope that this lizard mind can be tamed. 

             I’m not saying of course that this is the cure to all racism separatism and hate. What I am saying is that this is a tool that is now available to everyone on the planet Earth. It’s on the Internet it’s on television is being taught by psychologist and secular teachers many of whom have never even heard of Buddha. And it is a practice which should be offensive to no one. What valid complaint can be brought against the teacher that simply suggests that we take a few minutes each day to breathe deeply and quiet our minds.

             You don’t need a temple or priest to meditate. You don’t have to invoke the name of Buddha or the name of any bodhisattva,  meditation has become as secular in the West as the practice of going to the gym and getting a good workout. We can talk to each other and we can live next to each other and we can observe that people of other religions and races and belief systems are just people just like us. That has power in and of itself.

          But if I have observed anything in the last 60 years it is that no state governments or churches or political leaders have any real  power over this lizard mind that drives young men to walk into a church and coldly murder nine people simply because of the color of their skin. If in the end we destroy ourselves I think it will be because we are simply too stubborn and childish  to grow up and take on the responsibility of our own minds.  The tools are there, just waiting to be picked up.

 

Laughter and Humor as Skillful Means In The Zen of Life

                 There is an old cliché that laughter is the best medicine, Zen has a history of humor as a teaching tool. Zen  Koans are filled with stories about Zen teachers using humor primarily to push their students minds out of the trap of rational thinking.  There is probably no better tool to show us the absurdity of ourselves and most of our basic assumptions about the world. A humor can be  tool to expose the irrationality of the world and even Zen itself. True Zen is a leap into the absurd and the inexplicable with your eyes wide open and no net to catch you.  But in Zen this is no leap of faith,   this is a leap without faith  and that makes all the  difference in the world.  This is especially true when dealing with personal tragedy and loss because one of the first things that your mind generates at times like that is the simple question why? Why did this person have to die, why did this have to happen to me. Why, why, why?

 

         I do not want to give anyone the impression  that humor or Zen  or any of Buddhism's skillful means  will give you an  unshakable  place to stand,  a place of refuge that is unassailable  by the daggers of the world .   The refuge that we  take  when we take our vows is only as strong  and as unassailable  as we make it.      

          In fact if you decide to stand on Zen  assuming  it is an unshakable platform  upon which you may always stand you will almost always find yourself like Wiley coyote going over the cliff with a very strange look on your face. The fact is both Zen and humor have one thing in common to be successful the punch line has got to be a surprise. If it’s what you expected than it hasn’t worked. If what you seek Is some fantasy of superhuman powers, Immortality an unearned wisdom that sets you above others you have a long road ahead of you. 

          Buddhism's  only real  power lies in its truth. And the only real enlightenment is seeing that truth. The Buddha's words come down to us through the millennium without a promise of miracles,  just a promise of the truth. They say in the west that the Buddha was the "Tathagata" , and commonly define this as he who has thus come, but a more accurate definition is "he who sees  the world as it really is".  

 

              They say that a Zen master that cannot learn from his students is not unlike a car that can only travel in reverse.  In my case it is my one remaining son who has taught me the healing power of laughter even when my  brain was about to explode and my soul turn to ashes.     

          This is my son Sean White's new Comedy CD, " Dead and Gone"   You can buy it on iTunes Or from Amazon.com, Or go to this link:

http://astrecords.bigcartel.com/product/dead-gone-cd
            
         In any case those of you that have read my blog know my approach to the healing of what cannot be healed, I think it would be worth your while to listen to this CD and see how the same set of circumstances can be dealt with by the skillful means Of humor.


                  It may or may not  amaze you,  it certainly did amaze me, I guess all fathers consider their sons  their students  so this is a perfect example  of the teacher learning from the student .  The one thing I do promise, you will laugh, which is never a bad thing.

Togen

   

Zen, Grief & Death and Buddhism

Zen, Grief & And; Death and  Buddhism

 

        I have over the last several years searched in books and on the Internet and in the far-flung reaches of my own humanity for some kind of guidance on death and grief and the loss of loved ones. I have found articles written by Zen priest and Tibetan priests and psychologists as well as so-called grief counselors and even lay men and women who wanted to put in their thoughts on the subjects of death and grief and coping with the death or loss of a loved one.

        I think it’s amusing that these articles always seem to be so poetic and philosophical they are so often written by people who use words every day in their jobs or professions and they are often very skillful in the crafting of these words.  I should tell you right now that I have made my living for 30 years with words so I’m not unfamiliar with their use as a tool of persuasion. I seldom see in any of these articles or books much outlining of the person who is crafting these words qualifications for handing me their well-crafted and well-meaning advice.

            I can start this blog by telling you that I am a lay Zen priest, that I have practiced Buddhism for almost 35 years, including Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism under several teachers some from Taiwan some from India and some from Japan and even an American Zen master or two. But if that is what you want to hear than your standard for qualifications on this subject are as prosaic as the many articles I have read over the last few years from monks and Lama’s and Zen priests. Now I want to start this article by stating my qualifications in a different manner.

             A little over five years ago my wife of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer, it was a rare form of cancer with a low survival rate, four months after she was diagnosed my oldest daughter was studying for finals took a pill that a lot of college students take meant for people with attention deficit disorder to focus her mind, she went into anaphylactic shock and died. 11 months later after months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment my loving wife of 33 years set in a chair after her liver transplant and had a heart attack and died. Approximately 8 months later my oldest son was opening up a Starbucks getting it ready for the customers in the morning, his heart had a defect, a small hole and through a blood clot into his lungs and he died on the floor of a coffeehouse. One year after that my youngest daughter walked into her office fell to the floor and died of causes unknown. These are my qualifications to write this blog about death, loss of loved ones, and grieving, Zen and Buddhism.

            Please don’t mistake my intentions here I am not writing this because I think I’ve had some epiphany or vision different from yours if you’ve lost a loved one. I’m writing this because all the well-crafted words neatly numbered clichés and well-intentioned crafted prose that I have found on the subject at hand has in total been all but worthless to me in my experiences with death and loss.  If there is one thing that I truthfully believe that Buddha taught that we must all achieve if we are to come close to awakening it is compassion for others. I am writing this out of compassion in the sincere hope that something that I say in this essay may actually help you if you have suffered a loss so devastating that it is crushing your soul and you would give anything to hear, see or even see the hope of an offer of a modicum of relief. Being lost in grief,  and seeking something that might help you find your way.

             The very first thing that I would tell you is that people who you love when they die,  do not die on a specific date or at a specific time or at a specific place.  The people that we love and cherish do not pass away from us like a bus or a train leaving the station.  The people we love die one memory at a time over a period of years. You should brace yourself for this and understand that you can make this a good thing or you can make this a bad thing but that you have the choice as to which it will be.

             You can be walking through the mall or cruising through some channels on your television set and a memory of this person that you love so much will hit you; sometimes a gentle tap ; sometimes a slap on the face and sometimes it will hit you like a freight train. You can’t know what will trigger this. you can’t walk around these sections of  your life. Nor can you not smell that smell or see that little child that reminds you so much the person you love, not loved, that person you love, there is simply no way of avoiding this, there is no way of predicting this and it’s going to happen, and it will not stop and can not be avoided.
            You can run from this but you can't hide from it. I sold my house, stopped doing the things I had loved doing with them, I stopped, no I couldn't work at a career I had had for 28 years.  I moved to a new city.  I hide from all things that had come before, I could not sleep, because they lived in my dreams. I  went to therapist, took antidepressants, drank alcohol, I bought things I didn't need. It was all a waste of time.  Love and memory will note leave because combined they are what our reality is made of.    

            The freshness of loss brings all sorts of feelings like anger and frustration and fear and perhaps  most strongly comes frustration and a feeling of helplessness.  As a Buddhist we must realize that this is a form of self cherishing. When you feel like you are responsible when you feel guilty like there must’ve been something you could have done different something you could have done that would have prevented the loss of the person you love, that is your ego, not real  grief. Somewhere down inside you, you think your God, that you in your almighty omniscience should have been able to twist the universe in such a way that the world and karma and impermanence could have been controlled,  bent to your will so that none of this should’ve happened. If you’re a Buddhist you must recognize this in yourself and get over it. But I warn you that you can’t get over it by an act of will, you can’t get over it by looking away from it,  you can only get over it by seeing it for what it is, your ego wallowing in its own self-importance. If you have studied Buddhism then this is where the teaching of Buddha can be of great help to you. You’re using the death of a loved one to dwell here on feelings of your own self-worth and punishing yourself at the same time and you must realize that you’re giving yourself far more credit than you deserve.
            One thing that you’ve got to realize is this death happened to them not to you, it’s their death not yours. You are simply a witness to their death, they are the ones that suffered the pain of death so don’t be so selfish in feeling and acting as if death was something that happened to you and not to them. Your job in loving them is to bear witness to their life and the value of that life and while their death is something that you had to endure you were simply  a witness and nothing else. You do a disservice to everyone that you love that has died when you mock them by acting as if it was your experience, your death and not theirs. Further you do them a disservice, because your assuming because their life was short, it somehow had less value than a nice long life.  A beautiful, brilliant child's life short or long has value beyond your petty evaluation.
            I’ve read so many articles on death and loss written by Buddhist and perhaps the first word that jumps off the page of each of these writings is the word "impermanence".  One of the fundamental elements of the Buddhist view toward reality is of course impermanence. The problem with using the word impermanence in English is that it’s tends to lend itself to a meaning that something is here and then it’s gone.  That people are like a cloud of smoke visible for a moment and then blown away by the wind. Now I’m not talking about reincarnation or rebirth or the transmutation of the soul. I’m talking about the impermanence that is the fundamental nature of things as they really are and that in reality  impermanence is composed of never ending change,  not extinction. 
             Earlier in this essay I was talking about memories and the things that trigger them and in doing so bringing back experiences of our life with the person that we love and that has died. In so many of the articles I’ve read the experts will list phases of grieving and telling us that we must get over grieving that we must work our way through these experiences by the numbers and finish off our grief like it was a bowl of soup that needed to be consumed and then done with. These experts explain that  grief is a  process like having a tooth extracted.
             First we are told that the tooth’s got to go and then an appointment is set where  a dentist reaches into our mouth and yanks the tooth out. And this hurts. In grief,  just like having a tooth extracted in the modern world, we are given drugs to ease the pain of the extraction. To soothe the pulling of the tooth the dentist will inject some pain relieving drug into our gums and then once the tooth is pulled give us a prescription for pain relievers like hydrocodone because we all know it is going to hurt for a while afterwards.
         We are told that grief is like that,  that our gums where the tooth was will begin to heal and that the pain will go away and eventually we will learn to do without it.  In the modern world they give us antidepressants for the loss of a loved,  some  drugs to ease the pain and make the loss that’s going to hurt for a while more bearable.  But like the extracted tooth we will eventually heal and learn to do without it or in this case the person that we loved. It’s all very neat and tidy and they’ve got it all figured out. You just follow the instructions on the pill bottle and everything will be okay. When a tooth is pulled it's nice to not feel the pain. But in grief the drugs they give you, change you in a way that simply delays the pain, there must come a time when you must face the pain of your loss, and it must be you, not a cardboard mockup of you that deals with the loss and the pain. My advice is antidepressants are fine for a while but don't wait to long before you give them up or what's left won't be you, it will be something else.
            The cliché of course is that time heals all wounds whether it be an extracted tooth or our dead child or dead wife.  That somehow our brains are wired in such a way that we will get over it and everything will be okay in the end.  It has not been my experience that this approach to grief and grieving is not overly successful.  It’s not the same thing and it doesn’t work the same way.  This is especially true when the loss happens out of the natural order of things. We all expectant parents to die before us and we all miss and suffer grief for them when they pass. But their passing is expected and accepted by us as the natural order of things.  But this is not the case when we lose a child or even when we lose our mate.  These losses are out of order,  they are not the expected, not the  way things are supposed to proceed,  which makes them that much  harder to cope with, alas they are often inexplicable to the mind. Then that wiring mentioned above becomes twisted and often breaks rather than heals.
             Our wife or husband or children are by their very nature an integral component to our perception of the world and our life.  I think it can truly be said that when you lose a child or person you shared your life with for 30 years it is a loss of part of yourself maybe even more significant than the loss of an arm or a leg,  it is truly an overwhelming and incomprehensible experience. And when I talked about death happening to them and not to you and when I talked about self cherishing and the  loss of the child or a wife or husband makes that tendency almost justified almost true because they were a part of you, a part that you naturally feel you cannot do without. But the reality is you must now do without them and that is hard and that hurts beyond description. 
            The only way to truly survive such a loss is virtually to undergo a form of rebirth of  your mind and soul, you must be reborn, and yet remain, you must somehow accomplish this and there is no guidance and no pill that will accomplish this for you or even deaden the pain because birth is always a painful experience and a shock to the soul. This is an experience that’s for you and you alone,  there is no science to it. If anything there is an art to it, a creative process. But if you do not accomplish it in some manner you will be crippled, damaged beyond repair, so it’s something you must do despite the pain.

            It’s about this time that most Buddhist start talking about attachment and not being attached even to the ones you love, and this is absurd. You can no more remain human and at the same time unattached to the people you love then you can turn to stone and still keep breathing. For me I have found that turning those memories that could’ve destroyed me into something that gives me joy and helps keep me afloat was what I had to do to obtain the rebirth that is required after the loss of a wife and children. These memories can keep you warm at night can make sure that you’re not alone and never will be. This takes effort on your part not willpower and not force of ego, perhaps a little compassion for yourself mixed in with love for those you remember helps in changing what would be poison into something else completely. Always remember nothing is ever truly lost. But it  will be you who must mix the potion to make this work. You must conjure this cure.

            When you suffer a devastating loss your friends want to help you and they all say they’re there for you. After a while this compassion becomes a very irritating experience but it’s something you’ve got to learn to live with. I know this doesn’t make sense and that it’s what we call counterintuitive,  but having people feeling sorry  for you can often be as destructive as anything in the experience of suffering such a loss.  I can’t speak for other people but I myself want my friends to treat me the way they did before the loss I want them to be my friends I want them not to tiptoe around me and treat me different.  I once had a well-meaning friend I had not met in a long time blurt out “my God why haven’t you killed yourself”.  Needless to say he suddenly realized what he said, he  saw that it  was perhaps the most damaging statement I had heard in a few years.  He didn't understand my laughing at him.

            Almost every article I’ve read about grief and dying has the expert giving advice to the friends of the person who is grieving or for that matter the person that is dying.  I didn’t find any of it anything much but condescending.  I think people who are dying and people who are grieving want you to treat them like you did before they were dying or were grieving.  I don’t think I’ve had more than one or two of my friends call me up like they did before my so-called tragedy and invite me out to dinner or to a movie or to any of the things that they used to do. The last thing a person who is grieving wants is to be treated like a leper. They want to be listened to when they feel like talking and when they don’t feel like talking don’t ask them to. No one likes to feel like they’re being managed or treated like someone with a  disease or mental illness because they are grieving.  If you tell a person who’s lost a loved one that you’re there for them then be there for them the same way you were before nothing more or less.

            Almost every article I’ve ever read by a Buddhist when dealing with death and grief includes the story of the woman who brought her dead daughter to the Buddha and asked him to bring her back to life. In the story the Buddha tells the woman to go find a household that death has not touched and he will bring the daughter back to life. The woman of course goes door-to-door and finds no house and no family that death has not touched.  And somehow this makes the woman more able to cope with her daughter’s death when she sees that everyone has experienced what she’s experiencing.  It’s a simple parable but I don’t think it’s for a person who’s actually suffering grief. I think it’s more of a warning that the death of a loved one is inevitable and that every person must find some way of coping with it.  I can’t say that this has been some great comfort to me and I wish people would quit throwing it out every time someone suggests they do a talk or write an essay on death in Buddhism. It almost seems like your being told to suck it up and walk it off.

                    I’m much more impressed with the story from the Buddha’s own life  concerning the death of his family at the hands of another king.

            One day word came to the Buddha who was a prince from a royal family that there was an army led by a vengeful king on its way to destroy his father’s kingdom. The Buddha ran in front of the Army and sat down in front of it.  It was the tradition in those times that the army could not pass a holy man so temporarily the attack was called off.  But not too long afterward the vengeful king did attack again. He took all of the Buddha's family that were still in the kingdom put them in a pit and had them crushed by elephants.  The Buddha himself found that he was powerless to save his father or his kingdom. Just as I was powerless, just as you were powerless to stop the deaths of your loved one. And he grieved just as your doing. This is a story for someone who is grieving: that not even the Buddha could save his family and in the end he had to share the grief that we all share in this life.
            We all ask ourselves at one time or another what is the point of life.  We all must endure unending change that is the impermanence that is the hallmark of our existence.  But impermanence is not extinction and while life may have no purpose as we define purpose it has a direction and a flow and in the case of a sentient being that direction and that flow is best toward awakening and away from delusion, seeing things as they really are, as free from the delusions that create suffering as possible. A life of compassion and wisdom, imperfection and learning.
             I know most of my modern Zen brothers and sisters do not believe in karma or rebirth but I cannot see the why of this. All the best efforts of man since he first became sentient has pointed in the direction that nothing is ever lost that things only change and that what is one thing today will be another thing tomorrow.  How boring the universe would be if there was no change and how hopeless would be a world both static and predictable. 

         This gift of being sentient is more than a blessing or curse it is a responsibility. It has been said that the Buddha after he awoke paced back and forth for days and finally said "this cannot be taught it can only be experienced" . But despite knowing this he still walked barefooted from one end of India to the other his long life teaching and pointing the way to the path of awaking, he was  a compassionate man who did not let the knowledge of his own limitations or our temporary nature  dampen his compassion or lessen  his efforts. If there is a lesson for those who grieve in Buddhism it is to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha no matter how hard or unbearable that path may sometimes seem.  Nothing is ever truly lost.

          I hope there is something in this essay that will be of value to you, if you suffer from grief or have suffered the loss of a loved one.  Even a grain of helpful wisdom at this time is rare, believe me I know.

   

 

“If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!”

                  “If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!” this is an old Koan attributed to Zen Master Linji, (the founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen).
 

      This like all Koan is a  puzzle to which each person must find their own answer and before they can find the answer they must discover what the question actually is.  Even though this is a statement and in fact a very emphatic statement it is in fact a question at the base of deciding to become a Buddhist. Over the years I’ve heard many people give their own interpretation of what this means. Some people’s answers seem so obvious that they hurt to listen to while others go so far away from what I see in this that they mean nothing to me.

    A Buddhist is a person who is decided to take a refuge in the Buddha the Dharma and the Sangha, at the same time the initiation ceremony that soon follows symbolizes leaving home. But I have often thought that a better translation for the word refuge in the English language might be the word home. A refuge in English defines more of a condition than a place, it can be defined simply as a condition of being safe and sheltered from pursuit, danger, or troubles. In English the word home is a place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. But most simply home in English refers to a place where one lives.  We often refer to the things we do, the ceremonies we perform, the skillful means by which we approach the idea of Buddhahood as our practice.

       As a verb in English practice means to perform an activity or exercise a skill repeatedly or in regular order to improve or maintain one’s proficiency, as a noun on in English the word practice means the actual application or use of an idea, beliefs, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use. I think most of the people that I have run into see their “practice” as the ceremonies that they perform, and the meditation that they do. In this sense their practice is separate from their daily activities.

      Anyone who spends any time studying Zen knows that one of its more frustrating admonitions is that it is composed of nothing more than your own daily activities.  When asked what is Zen many of the old Buddha’s simply said when you wash the dishes wash the dishes, when you carry water carry water, when you eat eat. This is very frustrating to us Westerners because it doesn’t seem to convey anything in the way of mystical meaning or anything that would push you towards that ever present goal of enlightenment.

     In Buddhism enlightenment in the English language is usually defined as a final blessed state marked by the absence of desire are suffering. Put more commonly I think that many people have all sorts of ideas as to what enlightenment means that have nothing to do with the Buddha or for that matter Buddhism. And this idea that enlightenment is marked by superhuman psychic powers and even omniscience has been part of the Buddhist legend probably from the moment that Buddha gave up the ghost.

    One of the earliest stories about Buddha was that after his, what has today been called enlightenment, under the bodhi tree, he was walking along and he was met by someone who noticed that he seemed different from other people and they asked him what he was, his response was not that he was enlightened but that he was "awake". Many of the old sutras referred to him as the Tathagata.  When you look up this word you’ll usually find it defined as “one who has thus come’ and this is explained in saying that he is beyond all coming and goings beyond all transitions. Which is to say he is beyond the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. But in a few of the old sutras it is simply defined as "one who sees things as they really are". And that definition of one who sees things as they really are is much closer to what Buddhist himself said that he was, not enlightened but “awake”.

 

        “If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!” –Linji

 

       I’m going to make the simplest assumption that a Zen master wasn’t instructing his students as they traveled around the countryside to murder anyone they found that looked or seemed like they were enlightened. I think this is an safe assumption. If you have taken the refuge vows, I suppose you must decide if this means that the teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha himself and other Buddhists, are to be used like a parasol to protect you from the rains of life, or as I prefer whether you have decided to make the Dharma your home, the place where you live. If you make it a shield and not a home and you make your practice separate from your daily life, Buddhism becomes a thing, that you brandish when you feel that you are in danger or threatened. If you make Buddhism your home, if you make it the place you live every day for the rest of your life, if your practice is your life, then the admonition to chop wood when you chop wood, to eat when you eat, and to wash when you wash becomes not a useless mystical saying but a common sense direction to make the road from birth to death your practice. In this way Zen holds no mystery it simply becomes your state of being and your state of mind. In doing this you can become awake but you may never become enlightened because enlightenment is nothing more than a bunch of preconceptions that you had when you came to Buddhism in the first place.

       If you see enlightenment is a state of being marked by omniscience and magical powers, and you see the Buddha as a person who was omniscient and had magical powers and you meet this creature in your meditations or even in the form of a teacher, then it is time that you woke up and killed this creature in your mind.  This certainly doesn’t mean you should shoot your Zen master, but it does mean you should stop projecting your fantasies onto him or her. If you are striving to become a Buddha and that Buddha is composed of all your preconceptions, it is doubtful you’ll ever meet him or her, so it’s much better to kill that Buddha, and once you have made Buddhism, the Dharma, the Sangha and the Buddha your home, and once you’ve made your practice your life and your state of mind and not these ceremonies and meditations, then perhaps you will  actually have killed the Buddha and then maybe you’ll be one.


Togen

Buddhist Reincarnation and Buddhist Rebirth

          Since this blog was started several years ago I have  developed all of 19 followers however over 120,000 people have read some or all of my blog posts and one post for some reason has drawn the attention of at least 50,000 people who seem to be interested in the subject that I was posting about. I once did a small post simply titled rebirth and simply put a small epiphany that I had had while I was in meditation. It simply said that nothing ever happens only once.  I think about 80 people read it and I’m not sure they actually gave it any thought if they had I think they might have gotten an impression that I was talking about them as well as myself.

       As some people know who have read this blog I practiced Tibetan style Vajrayana  Buddhism for many years. Certain things happened in my life and I came to a teacher who just happened to be a Zen teacher. I started this blog after a few years of setting with my teacher in order to create a record of this new practice that I had taken on.  But as I’ve mentioned several times before even the eight years I have spent now practicing Zen have no stripped me of my basic Buddhist beginnings and those decades of teachings by some very wise and amazingly educated Chinese and Tibetan monks.  If you’re one of the 50,000 people that read my post on monk versus laymen then you’re aware of my feelings concerning Westerners recent tendency to be enthralled with robes. Especially the wearing of and selling of such spellbinding materials. The only explanation I can find for this is the need to be set apart in a  practice were one is supposed to expand and merge with the other not separate yourself out with some sort of mystical looking garb. But I digress.

            I have unfortunately had the dubious honor of recently reading a web post and watching a lecture by the ever entertaining Brad Warner entitled literal reincarnation or some such thing. I have always been a little bit fascinated by the Western Zen attitude toward reincarnation I suppose it seems a little too magical for modern Western minds that were raised on Newtonian physics and trained in high school laboratories around the American and English world so first I’m going to do what I have a tendency to do which is set a little background work on the basic Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Then I’m going to address Soto Zen and master Dogen and this modern viewpoint that is personified in the lectures by Mr. Brad Warner. Normally it’s against my policy to be condescending toward any particular Buddhist practitioner teacher, but since Brad seems to be so set on attacking anyone who holds the view opposite of his, I’m not going to feel bad if some of my statements are a little bit contemptuous of his.

          Reincarnation commonly called rebirth by modern Zen practitioners or the transmigration of the soul by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Has been a part of Buddhism since its very beginnings. However if you’re familiar all with the history of Buddhism you must realize that Buddha was a Hindu. Many of the basic concepts of the world that he lived in were part of the very fabric of his society and his belief system. Buddha did not invent the idea that the world was subject to constant unending change he simply accepted it as the truth. Nor did he invent the idea of reincarnation.   In Hinduism’s  Rigveda the oldest extant Indo-Aryan text, numerous references are made to transmigration, rebirth (punarjanma), and redeath (punarmrtyu) in the Brahmanas.    One verse reads, "Each death repeats the death of the primordial man (purusa), which was also the first sacrifice" (RV 10:90). Another excerpt from the Rig Veda states (10: 16. 1-4):

 

“Burn him not up, nor quite consume him, Agni: let not his body or his skin be scattered. O Jatavedas, when thou hast matured him, then send him on his way unto the Fathers... let thy fierce flame, thy glowing splendour, burn him With thine auspicious forms, o Jatavedas, bear this man to the region of the pious... Again, O Agni, to the Fathers send him who, offered in thee, goes with our oblations. Wearing new life let him increase his offspring: let him rejoin a body, Jatavedas. “

 

            The systematic attempt to attain first-hand knowledge of past lives has been developed in various ways in different places. The early Buddhist texts discuss techniques for recalling previous births, predicated on the development of high levels of meditative concentration      The later Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which incorporated elements of Buddhist thought, give similar instructions on how to attain the ability.     The Buddha reportedly warned that this experience can be misleading and should be interpreted with care. Tibetan Buddhism has developed a unique "science" of death and rebirth, a good deal of which is set down in what is popularly known as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

    I can think of no greater authority on the subject of reincarnation in traditional Buddhism than the Dalai Lama himself so the following is his own explanation of reincarnation translated from the original Tibetan and written by the Dalai Lama himself:

 

"Past and future lives



In order to accept reincarnation, we need to accept the existence of past and future lives. Sentient beings come to this present life from their previous lives and take rebirth again after death. This kind of continuous rebirth is accepted by all the ancient Indian spiritual traditions and schools of philosophy, except the Charvakas, who were a materialist movement. Some modern thinkers deny past and future lives on the premise that we cannot see them. Others do not draw such clear cut conclusions on this basis.



Although many religious traditions accept rebirth, they differ in their views of what it is that is reborn, how it is reborn, and how it passes through the transitional period between two lives. Some religious traditions accept the prospect of future life, but reject the idea of past lives.



Generally, Buddhists believe that there is no beginning to birth and that once we achieve liberation from the cycle of existence by overcoming our karma and destructive emotions, we will not be reborn under the sway of these conditions. Therefore, Buddhists believe that there is an end to being reborn as a result of karma and destructive emotions, but most Buddhist philosophical schools do not accept that the mind-stream comes to an end. To reject past and future rebirth would contradict the Buddhist concept of the ground, path and result, which must be explained on the basis of the disciplined or undisciplined mind. If we accept this argument, logically, we would also have to accept that the world and its inhabitants come about without causes and conditions. Therefore, as long as you are a Buddhist, it is necessary to accept past and future rebirth.



For those who remember their past lives, rebirth is a clear experience. However, most ordinary beings forget their past lives as they go through the process of death, intermediate state and rebirth. As past and future rebirths are slightly obscure to them, we need to use evidence-based logic to prove past and future rebirths to them.
 


There are many different logical arguments given in the words of the Buddha and subsequent commentaries to prove the existence of past and future lives. In brief, they come down to four points: the logic that things are preceded by things of a similar type, the logic that things are preceded by a substantial cause, the logic that the mind has gained familiarity with things in the past, and the logic of having gained experience of things in the past.



Ultimately all these arguments are based on the idea that the nature of the mind, its clarity and awareness, must have clarity and awareness as its substantial cause. It cannot have any other entity such as an inanimate object as its substantial cause. This is self-evident. Through logical analysis we infer that a new stream of clarity and awareness cannot come about without causes or from unrelated causes. While we observe that mind cannot be produced in a laboratory, we also infer that nothing can eliminate the continuity of subtle clarity and awareness.



As far as I know, no modern psychologist, physicist, or neuroscientist has been able to observe or predict the production of mind either from matter or without cause.



              There are people who can remember their immediate past life or even many past lives, as well as being able to recognize places and relatives from those lives. This is not just something that happened in the past. Even today there are many people in the East and West, who can recall incidents and experiences from their past lives. Denying this is not an honest and impartial way of doing research, because it runs counter to this evidence. The Tibetan system of recognizing reincarnations is an authentic mode of investigation based on people’s recollection of their past lives.



How rebirth takes place



                There are two ways in which someone can take rebirth after death: rebirth under the sway of karma and destructive emotions and rebirth through the power of compassion and prayer. Regarding the first, due to ignorance negative and positive karma are created and their imprints remain on the consciousness. These are reactivated through craving and grasping, propelling us into the next life. We then take rebirth involuntarily in higher or lower realms. This is the way ordinary beings circle incessantly through existence like the turning of a wheel. Even under such circumstances ordinary beings can engage diligently with a positive aspiration in virtuous practices in their day-to-day lives. They familiarize themselves with virtue that at the time of death can be reactivated providing the means for them to take rebirth in a higher realm of existence. On the other hand, superior Bodhisattvas, who have attained the path of seeing, are not reborn through the force of their karma and destructive emotions, but due to the power of their compassion for sentient beings and based on their prayers to benefit others. They are able to choose their place and time of birth as well as their future parents. Such a rebirth, which is solely for the benefit of others, is rebirth through the force of compassion and prayer.
"

 

(Translated from the original Tibetan)

Written by:  H.H. The 14^th Dali Lama of Tibet

 

    In his post and lecture on literal reincarnation Mr. Warner goes to great lengths to be contemptuous of anyone, such as Deepak Chopra, who holds an opposite view from his concerning literal reincarnation, and suggesting of course that the only reason that Mr. Chopra holds these views is to milk money out of gullible Westerners who want to be told that they can live forever. The ignorance displayed by Mr. Warner as to an even a basic  understanding of the concept of reincarnation, the wheel of death and rebirth and the entire purpose of Buddhism in this one statement is so mind-boggling as cause  smoke to rise from  out my ears in utter amazement. I have read many things that Brad has written and at the least I have found him amusing and at the best sometimes quite erudite concerning the basic concepts of Zen and Buddhism.  Now I’m beginning to believe he has a ghostwriter somewhere who has been writing this stuff for him all these years.

     I was touched by Mr. Warner’s willingness to admit that the man who founded Soto Zen the guy we like to call Master Dogen, clearly taught reincarnation and rebirth and that his masterwork the “Shobogenzo” has people being reborn all over the place in it. Then of course Mr. Warner makes a long apology for Master Dogen, observing that after all he was just a poor ignorant Japanese monk living in the Middle Ages firmly set in the archaic beliefs of Buddhism and simply didn’t know no better.  He goes on from there to say that his own teacher Master Nishijima who spent his life translating the Shobognzo didn’t really believe in any of that stuff he just left it in his translation and didn’t edited it out in respect for this poor misguided monk from the Middle Ages, poor ignorant Dogen Zenjii.

   Perhaps one of the first things I should say is that Dogen was perhaps the greatest Buddhist scholar in the last  oh I don’t know thousand years. Having read not only his Shobognzo and his extensive record, and compared these to numerous sutras, not to mention perhaps the greatest work ever written in modern Buddhism, The Lamrim, by TsongKhapa, founder of the Gelug school. I am more than ready to say that even though he wrote 700 years ago Dogen, was a bit more of the scholar and probably a little bit more intelligent than Brad Warner. I’m sorry Brad but I’ve meet Dogen, at least in his words and his works. And your no Dogen.

     Now I would like to addressed the simple issue of whether or not a modern student of Zen can endure the ridicule of  people like Mr. Warner if they happen to believe in the traditional underpinnings of Buddhism as taught by both Buddha, Bodhidharma and of course Dogen.  My answer to this question is absolutely. Other than intellectual fashion there is absolutely nothing in the modern compendium of thought and or science that would prove or disprove the reality of literal reincarnation or rebirth.

      And as pointed out by  someone as humble as the Dalai Lama himself there are people who in fact remember past lives. This of course is antidotal proof and despite the numerous cases over the years were people have challenged folks who remember their past lives and so many times find that their memories are quite accurate Buddha didn’t ask you to believe anything on authority so neither will I.  If I were to tell you that several years ago while in deep meditation I had a waking vision of a  past life, or rather a past death, I wouldn’t expect you to believe me any more than I would expect you to believe the last ho I don’t know 2800 years of Buddhist teachings and sacred Scriptures.: Much less the founder of Soto Zen.

      Science tells us that there are natural laws that govern the universe I think one of the first two I was taught when I was a child was the conservation of matter and energy, this was followed by the fact that both matter and energy are more or less the same thing and constantly in a state of flux becoming one and then the other, and at for the last oh I don’t know 15 years modern physicists have also held to the conservation of information, that is to say nothing is ever lost it can change states but it’s never lost. Perhaps the clear mind is at its essence information? But then again I’m not asking you to believe modern scientist either, after all  they keep persisting in telling me that 97% of the universe is made out of something called dark matter and dark energy that we can’t detect it in any way except through its effect on things that we can detect.  I mean what’s more spooky and mystical than that. When Einstein proved that two electrons separated by an infinite amount of space remain connected in some way and when one was affected the other one was affected he call this spooky action at a distance, I mean even Einstein was kind of freaked out by this. But I don’t expect you to believe in that either, after all Mr. Warner says there’s no such thing as literal reincarnation, he makes a great argument for this which as far as I can tell is based solely on his own opinion which he pulled out of his nether regions.

        A way to bridge this gap between the unwillingness of modern people to believe in anything that Newton couldn’t weigh and measure, and past teachings by Buddhist masters was in fact achieved by that poor medieval monk Dogen. When he pointed out that you were going through death and rebirth every instant of your existence. He observed that the you that went to sleep last night is not the you that  woke up this morning, during the night change occurred. If I understand what he was talking about at all I think he was saying that as a Zen Buddhist we should probably be more concerned with what’s going on right where and when you are standing then what may or may not occur in the future. Death is certainly assured and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that reality doesn’t give a damn what you think it is.

        A modern Zen Buddhists can certainly reject the traditional Buddhist belief in the six realms of existence, while at the same time accepting modern physicists belief that it’s extremely possible that we live in a multi-verse where every possible variation of this universe is occurring simultaneously with this one after all that is science not mysticism. I’m perfectly aware that scientists can saw open your skull sticking electrodes in your brain  and give you what appears to be mystical or spiritual experiences. You can have a painting of a rice cake or you can have a rice cake but you can’t eat the painting.

    It is my belief that every now and then here and there the universe has a tendency to manifest itself as me and perhaps even you. I have no reason to prove this to you and I don’t really care if you believe it or not, but I believe that Buddhism its basic ethics and its basic purpose reflect what Buddha called being awake, perceiving things as they really are, that’s why I’m still a Buddhist and why I’m still trying to figure out that little section of the universe that I seem to find myself standing in from time to time.

Letter to the 1%

1. Dear racists, segregation, genocide and slavery simply never works, just ask Hitler or Pol Pot, or Jefferson Davis and General Lee. Go talk to South Africa and mention segregation.


 2. Dear would be dictators, in the end it just never works, ask Cesare, ask Mussolini ask Stalin, in the end they either kill you or simply watch as you die. Go to Mongolia and ask to see the great Kahn.


 3. Dear super rich who would enslave the majority while you glory in your treasures, in the end they just drag you out and cut off your head. Just ask the Royalty of France. Go have a chat with The Tsars of Russian or spend a day with Pablo Escobar.


 4. Dear politicians and rich who find “science “inconvenient, and simply say its untrue, just ask the people of Pompeii or the people of Easter island.


 5. Dear religious fanatics who think you can force everyone to follow your religion or kill them, it never works, just ask the Mayans and the Catholic Church. Find a Templar knight or visit the Ottoman Empire.


 6. To all those industrialist who think natural resources are never used up, go find a tree on Easter Island. Bring me some California gold, or a few million American bison.


7. Dear Fox News who think lies and fomenting hate and fear will yield power and control for your masters. Ask Himmler how he and the Nazi regime are doing today.


    Would all of you please stop wasting our time, its almost 2015 and we the human race have no desire to go extinct because of a few greedy, stupid people caught in the evil dreams of the past. Go back to the 12th century where you belong and let the rest of use build a future for the human race.
There simply is no place for you in the future.


 Togen

Buddhism, Zen, .Religion, Philosophy or Nothing.

      For as long as I have practiced Buddhism there seems to be this ongoing argument about whether or not Buddhism and or Zen is a religion or a philosophy. In the last 30 years I have listened to Dharma talks given by Zen practitioners, Tibetan monks, and read dozens of articles and blogs and chat room posts on the subject of whether or not Buddhism and/or Zen is a religion or a philosophy. This question seems to prey upon the Western mind like some sort of rash that needs to be scratched and just won't go away. Frankly I've never been quite sure why so many of my fellow practitioners seem to be obsessed with declaring Buddhism in general and Zen in particular either a religion or a philosophy. It seems like in most Westerners minds a philosophy is more pristine, lacking in the contamination of superstition and outdated beliefs. Religion as a concept seems to be repugnant to many of the people in the 21st century who find their way to Zen in particular. Perhaps this is why so many Western thinkers feel free to rip off sections of the teachings, like mindfulness,  run out of the room with it clutched to their bosoms laughing maniacally and saying to themselves I've got the real center of this now I don't need all that baggage of the last 3000 years of Buddhism.  While others like to stir it in with their own brand of mysticism, usually having rebranded it, they begin to sell it on the street corner as some fresh new idea that just popped into their head because of their spiritual advancement and expertise.

    And so the argument rages as it has  almost from the very beginning of Buddhism,  there are many schools of Buddhism and there have been even more in the past,  and the reason for this is that everyone  has a different Buddhism and this is exactly  what the Buddha knew  was going to be the truth of what he had taught .  Paraphrasing his last words  to his followers  "I've given you everything I've got,  I'm old and I'm worn out,  and now it's up to you to work out your own salvation.  That's a paraphrase but more or less  his advice to the people that loved him  and followed him for years,  right before he died .

     Buddha never asked anyone to believe his teachings in fact   he was like a good salesman he said here try my product  it works  for you  then that's the truth  about Buddhism . Remembering of course  that Buddhism is an idea  more or less  developed  in the thousands of years since he died.  but still he had the forethought  to realize  that everyone  in the end  would have to find the truth on their own.

    The most commonly known illustration of this  is the day that the Buddha was  approached by some villagers  known as  the Kalamas.    Some of the villagers came to him and said that we've had these different teachers and different monks teaching  and each one of them tries to tear the other ones teachings down,  they all try to pull the other  teachers   teachings  apart  to show that their  false teachings .  I'm reminded of the time that Dogen  was approached about the validity of a certain Sutra  it seems like there were two versions floating around  one slightly longer than the other .  as a well-respected scholar of Buddhism he was asked which was the real version  of this Sutra , 's response was,  paraphrasing again ,  if a Zen master can enlighten you with a stick that makes it  the real stick.

    Buddha's response to the Kalamas was something like this :

“Do not believe in anything simply  because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it  is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because  it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything  merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in  traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But  after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with  reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then  accept it and live up to it."

      I've heard even the Dalai Lama  referred to Buddhism  as a nontheistic religion  and if you've ever practiced  with the Tibetans  you certainly can't miss the religious aspects of their teachings .  I've heard arguments  ad nausea  that Zen is different  is a different creature  all together  apples and oranges.   when you ask a Zen master is Zen is a religion or philosophy  you will probably give you a stern look  and tell you that Zen  is a way of being . That it is a state of mind.  One might even say that the Zen master would tell you that either you  or Zen is a tool  is up to you to figure out which . 

     Of course this obsessive need  to categorize  the practice of Zen   and  the middle way of Buddhism  is not an  irrational  desire,. after all we all like to know what that we  are doing.   That being said,  I would like to come back to the point  that Buddha made that  you have to work out your own salvation,  many people make  Zen and Buddhism a religion , and many people will fight you to the death,  verbally of course,  claiming it's a philosophy  which is of course much more reputable than religion.  I sometimes think  that the need  for religion  is genetic,  a safety mechanism  built into the human psyche  in order to cushion the fact  that we're all going to die and none of us has a clue  as to what happens  to the individual after that .  I think everyone feels helpless  and frustrated  by the fact that we have this wonderful sentient  mind and in just a few years  it appears it will simply  evaporate like a mist on a warm day . This is part of the Puzzle of being alive and knowing that someday soon you won't be. The end result of course of this puzzle is more often than not a deeply seated fear followed by an almost overwhelming need to believe in something that tells us this is not  so.

      At this point I would like to point out that Zen as a practice was created by people   who  considered  themselves to be Buddhist, and that Buddha himself  was a Hindu Holy man. He had a firm view of the nature of the universe and the world we live in.  Like most Hindus he took his world view as a given not speculation but  as a simple matter of fact.  In the 21st century especially among Westerners and particularly among  many  western  Zen practitioners  this worldview has either been rejected or  they are completely ignorant of it.  To put this as clearly as possible, or at least as clearly as possible for me, Buddha believed that all humans reside in the state of existence called samsara. The official definition of samsara that has developed over the  millennia is something like this:

       
     

                Saṃsāra (Sanskrit, Pali; also samsara) is a Buddhist term that literally means "continuous movement" and is commonly translated as "cyclic existence", "cycle of existence", etc. Within Buddhism, samsara is defined as the continual repetitive cycle of birth and death that arises from ordinary beings' grasping and fixating on a self and experiences. Specifically, samsara refers to the process of cycling through one rebirth after another within the six realms of existence,  where each realm can be understood as either a physical realm or a psychological state characterized by a particular type of suffering. Samsara arises out of avidya (ignorance) and is characterized by dukkha (suffering, anxiety, and dissatisfaction). In the Buddhist view, liberation from samsara is possible by following the Buddhist path.

         Some Buddhist simply call this a continuous cycle of  death and rebirth , and of course Westerners like to refer to this  by the handy name of reincarnation and Zen practitioners  just call it  rebirth,  if they call it anything at all . But the main point here   is that we are all  deluded  tricked by her own mind  into filtering out the real world  as it truly exists.   Buddhist teachings  basically say  that the world is filled with suffering  and that suffering  is caused by our own delusions .   My humble opinion  is that this obsessive need to classify  Buddhism and or Zen  is a wonderful example of what the Buddha was talking about.  

 

          Historically Buddhist cosmology typically identifies six realms of existence: gods, demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hells.These realms can be understood both as psychological states and as aspects of Buddhist cosmology. we as modern Westerners of course cannot accept the possibility of this because were all scientific and stuff  and this is just obviously  primitive superstition .  I could point out  that modern scientists  have conjectured  that the multi-verse is composed  of every  possible alternative  universe.  they also say that 75% of the universe is made out of something we can't see  smell touch or feel  called dark matter  and dark energy. but of course they're not superstitious  because they are scientist .   And of course scientist cannot believe in rebirth   despite the fact  that they do believe in the conservation of both energy  and matter and information,  which just happens to be one of the fundamental truths that Buddha said  rose in his mind when he woke up.  Back in the day   Buddha summarized three great truths,  which Einstein laid later put into a formula.  matter and energy of the same thing  nothing is ever lost and you just happen to be made out of matter and energy  and that ego you call you  that mind that you think with and the DNA that supports it is basically  information.  Buddha taught  that everything was one ,  that everything was in constant flux  and that  nothing was ever lost. but of course he didn't have a mathematical formula  to back up his awakening  it was an experience  and an observation   an epiphany a  if you  well .  We of course as modern people  can't believe in a bunch of superstitious claptrap,  but we can believe the same thing if a group of physicists tells us it's true . 

        I once heard a very elderly Tibetan monk comment that he didn't understand why people would bother with Buddhism if they didn't believe in rebirth and karma.  At the time that seemed like a very refreshing statement since most of the people in the room didn't believe in either.  And I would point out that karma is basically the law of cause and effect " Another very scientific concept That Westerners all believe in  and take for granted  in all their daily lives and comings and goings."    Karma simply applies the law of cause and effect to the information that's gathered together and organized into you. Even the brightest  western people refuse to extend Cause-and-effect to their personal existence and place in the universe. It seems it would never occur to them that maybe the thing we call morality Is a natural law that pertains to them even if there is no Santa Claus or God enforcing it. Perhaps the modern Westerner should consider the fact that maybe the Things we call good and the things we call evil,  the things we call right and the things we call wrong might in fact reflect reality as it pertains to sentient beings.

    I myself have never been afraid of the word  spirituality After all I can always say that  my spiritual essence exists somewhere in the microtubules of my  brain  on a quantum level and feel really scientific. Nor am I afraid of the word religion despite the fact that more damage more harm and more mass murder has  been that done in the name of religion than probably any other concept in history.  My  Zen teacher told me many years ago that his Zen and my Zen were not the same Zen and never would be.  When he told me that, I thought he was bragging that he was enlightened and I never would be. It took me a while to realize what he was actually saying to me and that it was true.

      There's one thing that I'm absolutely sure of, and one thing only: Reality doesn't give a rats rear end what I think it is. My only task in Zen, and Buddhism for that matter ,  is to root out that little rascal we call reality and see things as they really are.  And if I ever accomplish that  then and only then I will be Awake.  Buddha said this would make me suffer less, The fewer delusions the less you suffer and frankly I believe this is true.

       I gave up  Vajrayāna  Buddhism And came to Zen because I've finally realized that some people may be able to think their way two awakening but I just didn't think I could. Bodhidharma  the father of Zen  taught that there were two  paths to awakening,  Through reason Or through practice. Look it up! I'm sure there are those that think he only taught that one could awaken by staring at the wall. But that is not true.

       Zen is not for everyone, neither is Buddhism, To some people  Zen and or Buddhism is a religion, To others it's a philosophy, to others it's nothing. Buddha knew this was true back when he was walking around India teaching the Dharma.  That's why he said try it and see if it works for you.  Just remember that you live in samsara, whether you like it or not,  and your samsara is going to be different from everyone else's just like your Zen.