Double negatives and Naive Zen

[Aldebaran]

central to Zen is the idea that language kills lived experience through the construction of our delusion.

I'm not informed on Zen but this is a normal reasoning to follow (and even if not killing it, it certainly creates distortion).
You don't need to reject the use of language for that reason, you only need to stay aware of its consequences.

The true paradox of Zen is the meaningfulness of the apparantly meaningless.

That is not a paradox, really.

salaam.

 

[i-am-your-idea]

oh yes it is! oh no it isnt!

its behind you!

*jumps*

 

[if6were9]

hmmm. thats certainly true. But what is meant by "naive" Zen and what's the object of criticism here? A "naive" Zen as opposed to a "true" Zen? Do you know what a "true Zen is?" QUOTE]

na·ive
1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.
2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous
3. having or marked by a simple, unaffectedly direct style reflecting little or no formal training or technique

I think Zen is a bit like this. I love naive/ folk art and I think the ideas are compatible.

I hope going to art school will help me draw like an untrained artist.

oh, I see That would be a 'true' Zen of naiviety I suppose Which is probably spot on.

( Just read back wot I wrote on the previous post and it seems arrogant to say "long periods of zazen" as I don't think this is at all necessary...just better )

 

[Aldebaran]

hmmm. thats certainly true. But what is meant by "naive" Zen and what's the object of criticism here? A "naive" Zen as opposed to a "true" Zen? Do you know what a "true Zen is?"

It is not me who said anything on or about "zen"

salaam.

 

[nosos]

I'm not informed on Zen but this is a normal reasoning to follow (and even if not killing it, it certainly creates distortion).
You don't need to reject the use of language for that reason, you only need to stay aware of its consequences.

I agree and that's why people can write books on it. Some of them are really crap though.

That is not a paradox, really.

That's precisely my point.

 

[nosos]

It is.

And it is a mystery.

This in no means implies a romanticism of the far east, its a very living thing and a very irreducible thing. Talking zen has no meaning whatsoever without, for example, being concurrently engaged in cooking food for people, washing up and sitting very very long periods of zazen. It is irreducible in the sense it can't be reached by talking about it and it can't be reached through Western concepts. It is irreducible to the type of thought your otherwise excellent precis tried to hit it with.

I edited the post because I realised I was applying a precise and harsh interpretation of your words in one of the most inappropriate contexts possible. I agree with what you're saying, it's just not what I would call a mystery or irreducible.

 

[Aldebaran]

That's precisely my point.

Maybe I should study zen

salaam.

 

[nosos]

Has anyone come across David Brazier?

What is the most important thing to do in your life? The most important thing is what you are doing right now. Whatever it is, if you do not live this moment fully, then an opportunity has been lost which will never return. Lived fully, this is one moment of complete enlightenment. If it is passed by in a haze, then it is just one more moment of fog.

What is the most beautiful sight in the world? Open your eyes and look. If we can see this object—the page of this book, the bubbles in the washing-up bowl, the teacup held between one’s hands—whatever it may be, if we can really see it ,we will see that it is the most wonderful thing in the world. This is how people were led into spiritual practice by experimenting with drugs like LSD and mescaline. Such drugs, for all their pernicious effects, also enabled people to realise that there was a universe of wonder locked up in every moment of perception. The drug gave some people a glimpse of the jewel island on which we lie all the time. To have one’s eyes opened by a drug, however, does not give one control over this process in the way that mindfulness training does.

What is the most wonderful music in the world? What is the best perfume? What is the most important sensation you will have? You know the answers. The most important sensations you will ever have are the ones you are experiencing this minute. It would be a shame to miss them.

 

[nosos]

Maybe I should study zen

As good a book on the subject as I've ever come across. One of the most profound experiences of my life was provoked by one sentence in it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everyday-Ze...6955957?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187884077&sr=8-2

 

[Aldebaran]

It is called "awareness"

salaam.

 

[if6were9]

Has anyone come across David Brazier?

No, and its a nice quote

But there's loads of things going on here, noz, about "missing things" and "futility." One of the most important things in zazen is to really cut off the point of thought, where thought emerges or begins to emerge, so these feelings of insufficiency shouldn't trouble you.

Another way of saying this is that in zazen ( Zen Meditation ) there is no "bad moment" - no point at which you culpibalise yourself for having "missed the moment" so to speak.

Its a very subtle point but a very important one, when you become more adapt at practicising zazen you find yourself able to plunge yourself more wholeheartedly into the moment were you might believe your concentration is distracted and you are "missing the moment."

This is very important, because although the experience might be uncomfortable and unsatisfactory and you might feel your missing something you are no trying to extricate yourself from the emotion of your moment and your experience which is exactly the thing itself. Its a training for no lack, no lack whatsover, and Zen Buddhism is recognising there is no lack whatsoever and all our experience, enlightened or otherwise is utterly complete and utterly perfect in itself.

 

[nosos]

But there's loads of things going on here, noz, about "missing things" and "futility." One of the most important things in zazen is to really cut off the point of thought, where thought emerges or begins to emerge, so these feelings of insufficiency shouldn't trouble you.

They do though. Yet the frustration and insufficiency - the futile striving of my thought to transcend itself - seem to have been productive things because they've eventually served to start to undercut the striving.

Its a very subtle point but a very important one, when you become more adapt at practicising zazen you find yourself able to plunge yourself more wholeheartedly into the moment were you might believe your concentration is distracted and you are "missing the moment."

Yeah that's what I mean. This used to be probably my main area of intellectual interest: consequently I'd be walking round with the guiding principle that I had to fully take in each moment. Yet far from silencing the internal monologue which seperates myself from the moment, the intellectuality of my orientation towards it gave that monologue yet more fuel. As I've got older though, the desire to transcend thought and the frustration it engenders have started to coalesce into its own negation: with that, in some small (fun) areas of my life the seperation goes with the frustration.

Do you practice with others?

 

[Aldebaran]

Zen Buddhism is recognising there is no lack whatsoever and all our experience, enlightened or otherwise is utterly complete and utterly perfect in itself.

Sounds perfectly logical to me.

salaam.

 

[nosos]

Zen Buddhism is recognising there is no lack whatsoever and all our experience, enlightened or otherwise is utterly complete and utterly perfect in itself.

 

[if6were9]

They do though. Yet the frustration and insufficiency - the futile striving of my thought to transcend itself - seem to have been productive things because they've eventually served to start to undercut the striving.

Yeah that's what I mean. This used to be probably my main area of intellectual interest: consequently I'd be walking round with the guiding principle that I had to fully take in each moment. Yet far from silencing the internal monologue which seperates myself from the moment, the intellectuality of my orientation towards it gave that monologue yet more fuel. As I've got older though, the desire to transcend thought and the frustration it engenders have started to coalesce into its own negation: with that, in some small (fun) areas of my life the seperation goes with the frustration.

Do you practice with others?

Maybe you feel the striving of your thought to transcend itself is futile because its not reflected in the body and physical stuff confused:

Silly as it may seem walking around with the guiding principle of taking in this principle is probably not as good an idea as sitting still with it Zen Buddhists, and yeah, I'm one, believe the sitting position of shikantaza or zazen is making the buddha flesh and blood, it is buddha looking at buddha, it is absolutely no different, from the first minute you take it up, than satori itself.

DT Suzukis Rinzai buddhism ( I practice Soto ) is all about making the effort to 'kill' thought in the way you describe, by koan practice. Soto zen isn't particularly worried about thought as such, all thought it permitted, its about jettisoning it before it begins to make chains of causation, as it inevitably does. One of the most interesting things, after years of zazen, is to see how when we allow thought to replicate itself it inevitably creates its own reality. It tends to replicate structures which are designed to protect the ego and reveal the construction of this ego as put together by greed, vanity, pride, fear and covetuousness. Its just incredible how we create the world around us in the image of what we desire and what threatens us. And how utterly utterly different it is to the way things really are.

 

[nosos]

I have to go out but just one thought...

Its just incredible how we create the world around us in the image of what we desire and what threatens us. And how utterly utterly different it is to the way things really are.

This is where philosophy meets Zen for me and there is a conflict: for entirely intellectual reasons I can't assent to the reality/appearance dichotomy. I don't find it a philosophically tenable distinction to make. Do you think Zen practice necessitates some appreciation of it as revealing how things 'really' are?

 

[if6were9]

This is where philosophy meets Zen for me and there is a conflict: for entirely intellectual reasons I can't assent to the reality/appearance dichotomy. I don't find it a philosophically tenable distinction to make. Do you think Zen practice necessitates some appreciation of it as revealing how things 'really' are?

Im just talking from experience. You've got a really fine philosophical mind, but, if you praticised Zen seriously, you'd have to give it up, or let is go, because you'd constantly find yourself bumping up against obstacles of this sort.

For fear of sounding glib, the reality/appearance dicotomy is no real dicotomy because what I am describing is really the "absolute" or nirvanic perspective and there is no nivarna outside of samsara, they are from a relative perspective absolutely inseperable.

Having said that, yes, Zen practice necessities some appreciate of how things "really" are, but, drop down body and mind, and you'll find it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Zen is without a doubt one of the most iconoclastic systems of thought to have made its mark upon the world. Yet the unfortunate downside is that this iconoclasm can serve to license bizarre and empty obscurantism. Zen isn't simply contradiction: it implicates intellectual and philosophical principles. These can be spelled out (see Charlotte Joko Beck for probably the best attempt to spell them out without loss) but spelling them out rather misses the point because central to Zen is the idea that language kills lived experience through the construction of our delusion. Thus language cannot be used to escape language (conceptual/discursive subject/object thought). The rejection of philosophical articulation doesn't however entail the sort of catch-all irrationalism and meaninglessness displayed on this thread. The true paradox of Zen is the meaningfulness of the apparantly meaningless.

This sounds like something good, but I think a zen master would bend over and throw up on your wellingtons.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?" - people can (and have) written books on the philosophical question raised here. Yet doing so misses the point: conceptualising the unconceptualisable (at which point it becomes another element within our conceptual scheme) destroys what can only be grasped as an immediate visceral experience of contradiction. It's not logical contradiction - that's what it becomes when it's conceptualised - we can say why we can't say it and we can explain what it would be to say it but we can never actually say it. Ironically, as I remember former poster Ace observing*, the kind of people drawn to Zen (at least within a western context) are those most forcefully inclined towards trying to conceptualise these paradoxes: yet in the experience of the futility that comes with it - the constant sensation that only one further intellectual iteration lies between oneself and unmediated experience of one's not-self - can arise a disinclination towards conceptualisation and a dawning realisation that intellectual exploration of this kind is perhaps the most profoundly self-defeating exercise anyone can engage in. It's something to be pursued (yet not) with careful diligence (yet utter and profound carelessness) in the mundinity of our daily life.

*What happened to him? He was far and away one of the best posters this site has ever had.

Zen has these paradoxes etc for a reason that is based on its development in Japan. Japanese feudal society was highly regimented and rule bound, and people were inculcated with a spirit of obedience, respect for elders, etc.

The paradoxes were used by the masters, to create a sort of spiritual crisis in the students. If a master asked a question, the student would first, assume that there must be an answer, and second, would feel obligated to find the answer, in order to carry out the master's instruction.

Fact is, there is no answer, but the intense search for the answer by the student, would eventually, in some cases, lead the student to 'break down', and go into a state where he might see that existence is something separate from the bright lines painted by the things he'd previously been taught. Enlightenment came not from finding the answer, but from realizing the nature of the question, and the circumstances of the asking.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It is irreducible in the sense it can't be reached by talking about it and it can't be reached through Western concepts. .

But it can be reached by westerners. We're as capapble as easterners of throwing off the shackles of doctrinaire thought.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It is called "awareness"

salaam.

I think that for your religion and others like it, something similar might be meant by the term 'knowing god'. A true understanding of god is about understanding the perfection of existence.

I get the impression that the Sufis would sort of be like the zen types of buddhism, but I could be wrong.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Im just talking from experience. You've got a really fine philosophical mind, but, if you praticised Zen seriously, you'd have to give it up, or let is go, because you'd constantly find yourself bumping up against obstacles of this sort.

For fear of sounding glib, the reality/appearance dicotomy is no real dicotomy because what I am describing is really the "absolute" or nirvanic perspective and there is no nivarna outside of samsara, they are from a relative perspective absolutely inseperable.

Having said that, yes, Zen practice necessities some appreciate of how things "really" are, but, drop down body and mind, and you'll find it.

How you see things, is how things really are. How I see things, is how things really are. And an appreciation of zen doesn't mean that you have to give up your philosophic mind.

 

[if6were9]

But it can be reached by westerners. We're as capapble as easterners of throwing off the shackles of doctrinaire thought.

Yeah, absolutely. It can be reached by Westerners, but not by Western concepts.

Spot on distillation of Rinzai Zen above.

 

[if6were9]

How you see things, is how things really are. How I see things, is how things really are. And an appreciation of zen doesn't mean that you have to give up your philosophic mind.

No, I don't think you do, but you can't "appreciate" zen, its too lukewarm. You either practice it or you don't.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yeah, absolutely. It can be reached by Westerners, but not by Western concepts.
)

I'd agree with that.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

No, I don't think you do, but you can't "appreciate" zen, its too lukewarm. You either practice it or you don't.

You're already practicing zen. The question is whether you know it or not.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Spot on distillation of Rinzai Zen above.

I'll leave it to you to encapsulate Soto Zen...

 

[if6were9]

I get the impression that the Sufis would sort of be like the zen types of buddhism, but I could be wrong.

I think there are numerous parallels, not least the respective postions they respectively occupy on the "fringes" of conventional Islam and Buddhism.

Some great Sufis have been great boozers; like Japan's celebrated Ikkyu or Ryozan, both of whom wrote wonderful drunk poems, like the Sufi poet whose name escapes me who is very popular in the US right now.

Its a very fine and potentially dangerous line, open to abuse. There's a Japanese poem about a monk who mistakes the moon in the water of a puddle which is both a warning a koan and a celebration of enlightenment.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I think there are numerous parallels, not least the respective postions they respectively occupy on the "fringes" of conventional Islam and Buddhism.

Some great Sufis have been great boozers; like Japan's celebrated Ikkyu or Ryozan, both of whom wrote wonderful drunk poems, like the Sufi poet whose name escapes me who is very popular in the US right now.

Its a very fine and potentially dangerous line, open to abuse. There's a Japanese poem about a monk who mistakes the moon in the water of a puddle which is both a warning a koan and a celebration of enlightenment.

What's open to abuse: alcoholic enlightenment, or the seeking of truths universal to all religions?

 

[laptop]

"All things are true."

Even false things?

"Even false things are true."

How can that be?

"I don't know man, I didn't do it."