Sorry to be a bit late on this... The thread is closed for the previous section, so Jundo said I should just post my comments on it here. I haven't yet read this section, so maybe I'll have to post my comments on the next thread... (Just kidding.)
It's been about thirty years since I first had an epiphany reading an introductory book about Buddhism. I was living on Oslo, Norway, at the time, and I had long been curious about Buddhism. Prior to that, I had read a couple of books - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, for example - but hadn't really internalized very much.
But that cool spring day, after buying a book called The Buddhist Handbook, I sat on a bench near Frogner Park, and started reading this book. It was the simple explanation of the four noble truths that struck a chord within me, setting off powerful feelings of understanding something that had been gnawing at me for the nearly thirty years of my life.
Some months later, returning to Paris, where I had been living before, I bought two books on Buddhism: Chögyam Trungpa's Meditation in Action, and Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein's Seeking The Heart of Wisdom. I set out on a path of meditation on my own, and eventually followed the Tibetan tradition, is it was very present in France.
I say all this because of what David Loy says in this section of his book. He points out that many people in the west understand "the Buddhist path as a program of psychological development that helps us cope with personal problems, especially one's 'monkey mind' and its affective emotions." I "got on the bus" as we Deadheads say not because of any desire to understand my psychology, but to understand the world. I didn't see dukkah as something wrong with my own mind, but something that was endemic to the human condition. Back in the 1980s, the psychological aspect of the dharma hadn't yet taken hold; the generation of Buddhist teachers who espouse this view of Buddhism were, for the most part, being formed. (It's true that the insight meditation movement did look a lot at psychology, but not the way the western Tibetan Buddhists seem to.)
My point here is that people searching for meaning - asking the question of "why?" - are now being funneled, for the most part, into a Buddhism that claims to fix their minds, not guide them toward discovering understanding. What attracted me to Zen after many years - just about ten years ago at the time Treeleaf was being set up - was that this psychological bent took a back seat to a more visceral quest for oneness with the world, through understanding and realizing Buddha nature. I understand that Buddhism can be a psychological tool, but I think it's misguided to look to Buddhism for a cure for neuroses, anxiety, or any other mental imbalance. (Not that it might not cure some of these things indirectly...)
So in this section about immanence, Loy seems to be saying that the only way that Buddhism is immanent as opposed to being transcendent is through this type of psychological approach, which tends to seek out problems to be solved. But problems are never solved, and even if one is considered to be surmounted, this means that there need to be others created to continue practicing. (I exaggerate a bit, but I see this as similar to homeopathy. In France, homeopathy - which does not work - is considered to be valid medical treatment, and is covered by the country's national health insurance system. Those who believe in homeopathy have to continuously have some reason to treat themselves in this way. If one medical condition cures, they have to find another, and another, and so on... I digress...)
I think this is against the very nature of Buddhism. Yes, the Buddha did liken himself to a doctor, and certainly espoused how the eightfold path could heal the mind. But reducing Buddhism to a series of psychological treatments strips out what is most essential in this practice. It removes the inspiration to discover Buddha nature, and its culmination - at least for now - is seen in the mindfulness movement.
I have nothing against using meditation as a tool for relaxation. I think the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn is wonderful, because it allows people with chronic pain and other conditions to better manage their health by helping them learn to accept rather than reject their problems. But by diluting Buddhism and turning it into simply a series of exercises to make one happy - and I blame the Dalai Lama for his focus on happiness as the goal of the dharma - it strips away any chance of discovering Buddha nature.
I mentioned that epiphany I had thirty years ago. I've had a number of these over the years, sometimes when sitting, sometimes at other moments. I don't, like Brad Warner, think that these are moments of seeing God, but these kensho experiences are cracks open onto a truth that our delusions prevent us from seeing. We cannot cause these moments to happen; doing doesn't bring them about (though sitting meditation clearly helps potentiate them). It's the non-doing that lets us drop our blinders - drop away body and mind - and see the light through the fog that lets us glimpse our non-self.
"We come to Buddhism because we suffer, one way or another," Loy says. And this is certainly true. In my case, I didn't realize that I suffered when I first got on the bus. But understanding how much suffering there is in the world opened my mind, and my heart, to an understanding that things were not as they seem.
As I understand Zen, we sit with a goal of no goal; we're not focused on eliminating our suffering (even though it has to be there in the backs of our minds), and sitting with such thoughts would be counter-productive. It's the ability to drop away that lets us see what can be, and this isn't some psychological exercise that can be taught in a weekend.
I think that we, as Zen practitioners - particularly those following Dogen's teachings - sit on a knife-edge between the transcendent approach and the immanent approach that Loy describes. (I would say that to support my team...) I think the idea of immanence as being only a psychological Buddhism is wrong, very wrong, just as I think a transcendent approach is wrong. I think, however, that Dogen's idea that sitting zazen is illumination itself (I may be misphrasing that, but I can't find exactly how Jundo describes it...) is an immanent approach to Buddhism, and one that sits in the right spot between the other extremes.
Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, off-topic, and self-referential. I haven't yet read any of the reply's to Jundo's initial post, and will read them and perhaps comment on some of them. Again, sorry to be late to this episode.
Gassho,
Kirk
Sat
Note: having now read the section that is the object of this thread, I see that my reply also applies to this section, sort of.
It's been about thirty years since I first had an epiphany reading an introductory book about Buddhism. I was living on Oslo, Norway, at the time, and I had long been curious about Buddhism. Prior to that, I had read a couple of books - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, for example - but hadn't really internalized very much.
But that cool spring day, after buying a book called The Buddhist Handbook, I sat on a bench near Frogner Park, and started reading this book. It was the simple explanation of the four noble truths that struck a chord within me, setting off powerful feelings of understanding something that had been gnawing at me for the nearly thirty years of my life.
Some months later, returning to Paris, where I had been living before, I bought two books on Buddhism: Chögyam Trungpa's Meditation in Action, and Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein's Seeking The Heart of Wisdom. I set out on a path of meditation on my own, and eventually followed the Tibetan tradition, is it was very present in France.
I say all this because of what David Loy says in this section of his book. He points out that many people in the west understand "the Buddhist path as a program of psychological development that helps us cope with personal problems, especially one's 'monkey mind' and its affective emotions." I "got on the bus" as we Deadheads say not because of any desire to understand my psychology, but to understand the world. I didn't see dukkah as something wrong with my own mind, but something that was endemic to the human condition. Back in the 1980s, the psychological aspect of the dharma hadn't yet taken hold; the generation of Buddhist teachers who espouse this view of Buddhism were, for the most part, being formed. (It's true that the insight meditation movement did look a lot at psychology, but not the way the western Tibetan Buddhists seem to.)
My point here is that people searching for meaning - asking the question of "why?" - are now being funneled, for the most part, into a Buddhism that claims to fix their minds, not guide them toward discovering understanding. What attracted me to Zen after many years - just about ten years ago at the time Treeleaf was being set up - was that this psychological bent took a back seat to a more visceral quest for oneness with the world, through understanding and realizing Buddha nature. I understand that Buddhism can be a psychological tool, but I think it's misguided to look to Buddhism for a cure for neuroses, anxiety, or any other mental imbalance. (Not that it might not cure some of these things indirectly...)
So in this section about immanence, Loy seems to be saying that the only way that Buddhism is immanent as opposed to being transcendent is through this type of psychological approach, which tends to seek out problems to be solved. But problems are never solved, and even if one is considered to be surmounted, this means that there need to be others created to continue practicing. (I exaggerate a bit, but I see this as similar to homeopathy. In France, homeopathy - which does not work - is considered to be valid medical treatment, and is covered by the country's national health insurance system. Those who believe in homeopathy have to continuously have some reason to treat themselves in this way. If one medical condition cures, they have to find another, and another, and so on... I digress...)
I think this is against the very nature of Buddhism. Yes, the Buddha did liken himself to a doctor, and certainly espoused how the eightfold path could heal the mind. But reducing Buddhism to a series of psychological treatments strips out what is most essential in this practice. It removes the inspiration to discover Buddha nature, and its culmination - at least for now - is seen in the mindfulness movement.
I have nothing against using meditation as a tool for relaxation. I think the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn is wonderful, because it allows people with chronic pain and other conditions to better manage their health by helping them learn to accept rather than reject their problems. But by diluting Buddhism and turning it into simply a series of exercises to make one happy - and I blame the Dalai Lama for his focus on happiness as the goal of the dharma - it strips away any chance of discovering Buddha nature.
I mentioned that epiphany I had thirty years ago. I've had a number of these over the years, sometimes when sitting, sometimes at other moments. I don't, like Brad Warner, think that these are moments of seeing God, but these kensho experiences are cracks open onto a truth that our delusions prevent us from seeing. We cannot cause these moments to happen; doing doesn't bring them about (though sitting meditation clearly helps potentiate them). It's the non-doing that lets us drop our blinders - drop away body and mind - and see the light through the fog that lets us glimpse our non-self.
"We come to Buddhism because we suffer, one way or another," Loy says. And this is certainly true. In my case, I didn't realize that I suffered when I first got on the bus. But understanding how much suffering there is in the world opened my mind, and my heart, to an understanding that things were not as they seem.
As I understand Zen, we sit with a goal of no goal; we're not focused on eliminating our suffering (even though it has to be there in the backs of our minds), and sitting with such thoughts would be counter-productive. It's the ability to drop away that lets us see what can be, and this isn't some psychological exercise that can be taught in a weekend.
I think that we, as Zen practitioners - particularly those following Dogen's teachings - sit on a knife-edge between the transcendent approach and the immanent approach that Loy describes. (I would say that to support my team...) I think the idea of immanence as being only a psychological Buddhism is wrong, very wrong, just as I think a transcendent approach is wrong. I think, however, that Dogen's idea that sitting zazen is illumination itself (I may be misphrasing that, but I can't find exactly how Jundo describes it...) is an immanent approach to Buddhism, and one that sits in the right spot between the other extremes.
Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, off-topic, and self-referential. I haven't yet read any of the reply's to Jundo's initial post, and will read them and perhaps comment on some of them. Again, sorry to be late to this episode.
Gassho,
Kirk
Sat
Note: having now read the section that is the object of this thread, I see that my reply also applies to this section, sort of.
That not only resonates but is helpful in clarifying things for me as well. I completely agree with you; this reductionist approach as a self-help methodology is not right at all. I'm all for stuff that helps, but that approach is a bandaid at best, and it removes what you eloquently state is at the heart of our practice - the discovery. And it also propagates dukkha.
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