Buddhism Plain and Simple?

[Ishin]

I just finished reading Steve Hagen's book, Buddhism Plain and Simple.

To quote the rock band Van Halen, "I found the simple life ain't so simple when I head out on that road."


Hagen talks extensively about seeing correctly in his book. What "I" ( an ironic start) find myself struggling with is this whole business about self and non-self. I can see correctly, I believe, that this self that we call the self is an illusion/delusion of sorts. Yes the I who writes this now will not be the I that reads the responses. All the things that go into what I perceive to be "me" and everything else out there not separate actually seems fairly simple to fathom. I get all this and that whatever we try to pin down as this or that, me or you, is in fact not reality.

My confusion and flummoxed state about all this is how does this help?! Hagen seems to go quite extensively into clearly demonstrating the illusion of self and even from a rational perspective that makes sense. I feel no special state of being is required to get that. But to me, reading this book and thinking about the place this awareness is supposed to bring us is FAR from clear.

This me/ non-me still gets hungry, it still needs to drink water, it still needs to sleep,it still backs away from danger. I don't see how the non self state of awareness eradicates that, or somehow eradicates death as the heart sutra also echoes. I can see how this brings us to a better state of compassion, to a feeling of connectedness to all that is. I do NOT see how this eradicates fear. I do not fear death, per-se or loss of "my" life. But I sure fear the path of getting there. One could even argue that for life to exist at all this fear of death and drive to live is necessary.

Hagen writes if we could only see correctly then we would not experience fear. I am not sure how that is supposed to be. I am not sure how this is supposed to eradicate death etc. I also fear I am at a loss of words of how to explain this properly, but let's suffice it to say that this is one aspect of buddhism that NO I do not see.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Even though all your thoughts are my thoughts- apparently

Gassho
Ishin
Sat today/ lah

[Jakuden]

Buddhism Plain and Simple?

Huh... I guess I would disagree with the idea that we can get to where we don’t experience any fear, I don’t think we could ever eradicate fear. It’s a basic human emotion. Accept the fear and eat the strawberry on the way down into the lion’s mouth, maybe, if we develop lots of equanimity.

Or I could be totally wrong about that.

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH



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[Jundo]

Hi Ishin,

It is really very simple (simple to explain anyway. Actually feeling this, and bringing it to life off the cushion, is our practice). You have heard me say this stuff again and again (the following is from my new book on Dogen, which Kirk is now editing) ...

Dogen and the other great Zen masters of the past discovered how to thread this needle. The friction and fear of opposing requires a world of separate things to oppose each other. In turn, dropping away the sense of separation into Wholeness removes all chance of opposition, thus dissolving the friction and fear. One encounters a singular nature to reality, a unity, which is simultaneously this world of multiplicity. If it takes two to tangle, and if this world is “not just one, yet not two either” (i.e., a singular, flowing Whole that is also this world of separation and multiplicity), then the world’s problems untangle even as they tangle. In fact, if there is a separate person (you or me) who views an outside situation as a problem, that problem must vanish when thoughts of viewer and viewed, inside and outside drop away. Because the sense of viewer and viewed falls away, with no seer separate from what is seen, we sometimes call such knowledge a “viewless view.” Likewise, our practice involves dropping off into Wholeness our subjective and opposing judgments on situations as good or bad, happy or sad, up and down, problems or not problems. All is “just what it is” free of judgment.

We do so even as we continue to live by other perspectives (each simultaneously present together with the “perspective-less” beyond separation) of a life of good and bad, happy and sad, up and down, problems or not problems, you and me, and all the other separate people and things. Then, one encounters a world filled with good and bad, separate people and things; yet transcendent of the same at once.

One does this in our zazen (Zen seated meditation) and all our Zen Buddhist practice. That is where the sense of separation drops away in Wholeness, even as we continue to live in a world of separation too.

It is a feeling of wholeness and flowing that we realize on and off the cushion ...

The Zen masters found that one can be human and experience human feelings, yet balance and transcend our human feelings. We can better avoid the truly harmful emotional reactions and thoughts, not becoming their prisoner, while drinking deep of the sweet juice of this life and its beneficial emotions. One can love and savor life richly, yet not be addicted to life. One can feel natural sadness or fear, yet not drown in sorrow and anxiety. In doing so, our Zen ancestors found a way to see through our feelings, transcending our thoughts and judgments about the world, to a realm of Wholeness and Flowing beyond all loss and gain, division and conflict, this and that, me and you, coming and going; even beyond birth and death (as one realizes such Wholeness that ever flows on and on before, during and after our little lives). It is a most peaceful and complete awareness of seeing beyond all of life’s “full catastrophe” (to quote Zorba the Greek), which, the Zen masters discovered, is not ever beyond at all.



All we need do is open our eyes in zazen to see what is manifesting here all along. The Whole and Flowing, Peaceful Completion is fully present and dancing right in/during/through our world of broken things, a thusness free of conflict that is simultaneously present at the heart of the endless conflicts and disturbances, war and peace, impermanence, life, and death. One might say that the former is disguised as the latter. The latter is precisely the former blossoming as life. Thus, it is possible to feel sadness with no sadness at all, grief at death yet beyond death, fear and freedom from any fear as one.

So, the point is not to be free of fear and problems, drinking water and sleep, dying (humans can't be human without that). It is more to have, to moderate and to see through at once. A self has a problem. No self, no problem. However, so long as we are human we have a sense of "separate self" we need to be human. So, have it and see through it at once ... then "problems no problems." Very logical.

There truly is such a state beyond any “you” to have problems, no problems to be had, all desires satisfied in unbroken wholeness, but human beings cannot live there, cannot pay the bills and fall in love there. So, people should realize that, instead (and more effectively), they can be in this world of pain and complexity yet free of it, and seeing through it, at once. That is what the old masters typically meant as enlightenment, not some one-sided experience (rather, more a “neither one nor two”-sided experience). We can experience a flawed world that is also flawless. We can then learn to live in this flawed yet flawless life, fixing the flaws we can.

On a side note, I do have a couple of comments on Steve Hagen's book: First, he is a bit too materialist even for my taste, looking at the "nuts and bolts" of why we are not just separate individuals. Sometimes in his writings, the poetic and even "mystical" (for want of a better word) sense of "yippee, we are the universe, and all this just us" is missing a little as I recall (I have not read his books in some months.) Also, his description of Zazen was a little too focused on following the breath without the Shikantaza sense of sitting in the completion of sitting, as I recall. However, he is a great writer and Teacher.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Mp]

Hey Ishin,

We ALL have fear, sadness, joy, anger ... these are the conditions of being human. To remove, dilute, or destroy them I feel would just be another form of delusion. Just saying something doesn't exists doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Like all emotions, fear being one of them, it is all about understanding why we are feeling the way we are in that very moment. Fear in some situations will keep us alive and from harm. Irrational fear is when we don't understand our own fears and allow them to run wild within our own minds. So I too would have to disagree with Mr. Hagen's view on fear.

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[Jundo]

Hey Ishin,

We ALL have fear, sadness, joy, anger ... these are the conditions of being human. To remove, dilute, or destroy them I feel would just be another form of delusion. Just saying something doesn't exists doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Like all emotions, fear being one of them, it is all about understanding why we are feeling the way we are in that very moment. Fear in some situations will keep us alive and from harm. Irrational fear is when we don't understand our own fears and allow them to run wild within our own minds. So I too would have to disagree with Mr. Hagen's view on fear.

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

I don't think that Steve Hagen is saying that, somehow, Zen practice makes us totally free of fear.

What he is saying (me too ) is that Zen practice, by realizing the Wholeness that sweeps in separation, makes us totally free of fear AND humanly fearful sometimes at once, as one.

Unfortunately, I cannot access my copy of the book, but here is a quote from his "Buddhism Is Not What You Think" (p 15) ...

Our very quickness to express things in terms of good and
evil is what creates divisiveness and human misery. When we
see this, we can begin to act wisely.
When we catch ourselves adrift in our divisive thoughts, or
when we get caught up in our judgments about “them” (or
“us”), we can bring ourselves back to this. All we need is a
little bit of attention, a little bit of reflection, and a little bit of
patience.
See confusion as confusion. Acknowledge suffering as suffering.
Feel pain and sorrow and divisiveness. Experience
anger or fear or shock for what they are. But you don’t have to
think of them as evil—as intrinsically bad, as needing to be
destroyed or driven from our midst. On the contrary, they
need to be absorbed, healed, made whole.
Like ourselves, whatever we may want to call evil is already
a part of the Whole and cannot be removed. To see in this way
is to purify your own mind.

Gassho, J

STLAh

[Tairin]

Hi Jundo

Way off topic but since it will appear in your book, isn’t the expression “it takes two to tango” not “two to tangle”? I see the analogy or word play you are going for but realistically one can tangle all by itself (think of a piece of string or your Christmas lights)

On topic . Thank you for the teachings.


Tairin
Sat today

[Mp]

by realizing the Wholeness that sweeps in separation, makes us totally free of fear AND humanly fearful sometimes at once, as one.

Oh yes, I so agree ... and I too know there can be a play on words like this,

Hagen writes if we could only see correctly then we would not experience fear.

It was more of a literal view that popped into my noodle last night. So I know this practice can help us experience a fear which is beyond fear. =)

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[Jundo]

Hi Jundo

Way off topic but since it will appear in your book, isn’t the expression “it takes two to tango” not “two to tangle”? I see the analogy or word play you are going for but realistically one can tangle all by itself (think of a piece of string or your Christmas lights)

On topic . Thank you for the teachings.


Tairin
Sat today

Are you causing me "problems"? :-) Yes, just some word play.

But, actually, no, a piece of string is not really "one" but is two ends which tangle. A true singularity could not tangle with itself.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Shokai]

It's not really the ends that tangle, usually it's loops within loops. I get to untangle mnay times when Doreen drops her ball of yarn

gassho, Shokai

stlah

[Ishin]

Thanks for everyone's comments I am digesting this for now.

Gassho
Ishin

Sat Today/lah

[Ishin]

Hi Ishin,

It is really very simple (simple to explain anyway. Actually feeling this, and bringing it to life off the cushion, is our practice). You have heard me say this stuff again and again (the following is from my new book on Dogen, which Kirk is now editing) ...



It is a feeling of wholeness and flowing that we realize on and off the cushion ...




So, the point is not to be free of fear and problems, drinking water and sleep, dying (humans can't be human without that). It is more to have, to moderate and to see through at once. A self has a problem. No self, no problem. However, so long as we are human we have a sense of "separate self" we need to be human. So, have it and see through it at once ... then "problems no problems." Very logical.



On a side note, I do have a couple of comments on Steve Hagen's book: First, he is a bit too materialist even for my taste, looking at the "nuts and bolts" of why we are not just separate individuals. Sometimes in his writings, the poetic and even "mystical" (for want of a better word) sense of "yippee, we are the universe, and all this just us" is missing a little as I recall (I have not read his books in some months.) Also, his description of Zazen was a little too focused on following the breath without the Shikantaza sense of sitting in the completion of sitting, as I recall. However, he is a great writer and Teacher.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

OK, THIS, to put it simply, makes sense to me and I understand.

I do not wish to make this about Steve Hagen, but I think it is just something about how he does spend a great deal of energy explaining the "nuts and bolts" as you put it of, unity, but I find him very unclear on the "How this applies to us", part. I think your summation of his work is spot on, not to take away form the very good parts of it. My intent here was not criticism, but some confusion that reading this created for me. Perhaps for others it's fine.


Thank you to everyone who posted here trying to help me see better!

Gassho
Ishin
Sat today/lah

[Shinshou]

I am not a Buddhist scholar by any stretch of the imagination, so these are just my personal thoughts and experiences and not reflective of Buddhist terms, which often have very specific meanings and seem to have a history of being (at least initially) poorly translated. My experience is that "self" and "no-self" aren't describing quantity; to me the word self isn't a stand-in for "individual," "single," "one," and therefore separateness; no-self isn't representative of "all," "unity," or "wholeness;" nor are they describing some chronological barrier to meaningful personhood. To me the words are instead describing quality: the idea of "self" as a fixed, unchangeable identity whose characteristics define it; and "no-self" as an ever-changing, fluid identity whose characteristics are ancillary to its meaning. In other words, I like hot sauce. I put it on almost everything. I have 20 bottles of it in my refrigerator. I might think to myself that that's part of who I am, that it's a defining, meaningful characteristic of me (self). It's not. Neither is fatherhood, being a nurse, or anything else (no-self). I could just as easily have liked eating pickles with everything instead. This view has really helped me to look at my thoughts and reactions with honesty. Again, I may be misrepresenting the particular Buddhist terms "self" and "no-self," and will be happy to be corrected if so It's possible I'm describing a different Buddhist concept (or none at all!). But that's my experience nonetheless.

Shinshou (Daniel)
Sat Today

[Jundo]

I am not a Buddhist scholar by any stretch of the imagination, so these are just my personal thoughts and experiences and not reflective of Buddhist terms, which often have very specific meanings and seem to have a history of being (at least initially) poorly translated. My experience is that "self" and "no-self" aren't describing quantity; to me the word self isn't a stand-in for "individual," "single," "one," and therefore separateness; no-self isn't representative of "all," "unity," or "wholeness;" nor are they describing some chronological barrier to meaningful personhood. To me the words are instead describing quality: the idea of "self" as a fixed, unchangeable identity whose characteristics define it; and "no-self" as an ever-changing, fluid identity whose characteristics are ancillary to its meaning. In other words, I like hot sauce. I put it on almost everything. I have 20 bottles of it in my refrigerator. I might think to myself that that's part of who I am, that it's a defining, meaningful characteristic of me (self). It's not. Neither is fatherhood, being a nurse, or anything else (no-self). I could just as easily have liked eating pickles with everything instead. This view has really helped me to look at my thoughts and reactions with honesty. Again, I may be misrepresenting the particular Buddhist terms "self" and "no-self," and will be happy to be corrected if so It's possible I'm describing a different Buddhist concept (or none at all!). But that's my experience nonetheless.

Shinshou (Daniel)
Sat Today

Hi Shinshou,

Yes, you are not defined by hot sauce or being a nurse (and yes you are too). This is part of it.

But the liberation of Mahayana/Zen "non-self" derives from something more. It is the very real physical and psychological realization that we are not only these separate individuals, but that we are also ALL THIS!

The old joke about the Zen Master, "make me one with everything," is true.

ALL THIS! cannot conflict with itself (from the ALL THIS! perspective, although its bits and pieces can). Nor can ALL THIS! lack anything at all by definition of being THIS ALL!, nor does ALL THIS! come and go with the arising and passing of separate things (much like the traditional image of an ocean that flows on and on as waves on its surface rise and fall). It is that flowing singularity which we also call "Emptiness" much as all waters empty into the sea.

As well, ALL THIS! then pours back around into nurses and hot sauce and all things too.

The human mind creates a sense of self-identity which ends at the skin line and the top of the head, which is true and necessary for our living. However, it is not the only way that the individual can define its self-identity, or how the borders need be drawn (I am not talking about "solipsism," by the way, where someone might believe that they are the only being in the whole universe, and everything is their dream, which is just the ego made vast.) We are a wave on the ocean that simply realizes that it is also the flowing of the whole ocean.

This is what the Rinzai folks realize with their big "MU'ing" on a Koan phrase in Zazen, it is what we realize through the radical resting and wholeness of Shikantaza.

It is really not that complicated to explain. Realizing it, and really tasting the ALL THIS HOT SAUCE! is the tricky part.

It is existentially liberating. ALL THIS! is the Nurse of all Nurses, most healing.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Shinshi]

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT

[Shinshou]

Hi Shinshou,

Yes, you are not defined by hot sauce or being a nurse (and yes you are too). This is part of it.

But the liberation of Mahayana/Zen "non-self" derives from something more. It is the very real physical and psychological realization that we are not only these separate individuals, but that we are also ALL THIS!

The old joke about the Zen Master, "make me one with everything," is true.

ALL THIS! cannot conflict with itself (from the ALL THIS! perspective, although its bits and pieces can). Nor can ALL THIS! lack anything at all by definition of being THIS ALL!, nor does ALL THIS! come and go with the arising and passing of separate things (much like the traditional image of an ocean that flows on and on as waves on its surface rise and fall). It is that flowing singularity which we also call "Emptiness" much as all waters empty into the sea.

As well, ALL THIS! then pours back around into nurses and hot sauce and all things too.

The human mind creates a sense of self-identity which ends at the skin line and the top of the head, which is true and necessary for our living. However, it is not the only way that the individual can define its self-identity, or how the borders need be drawn (I am not talking about "solipsism," by the way, where someone might believe that they are the only being in the whole universe, and everything is their dream, which is just the ego made vast.) We are a wave on the ocean that simply realizes that it is also the flowing of the whole ocean.

This is what the Rinzai folks realize with their big "MU'ing" on a Koan phrase in Zazen, it is what we realize through the radical resting and wholeness of Shikantaza.

It is really not that complicated to explain. Realizing it, and really tasting the ALL THIS HOT SAUCE! is the tricky part.

It is existentially liberating. ALL THIS! is the Nurse of all Nurses, most healing.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Deep bows, and thank you. Intuitively, it’s obvious that although my love for hot sauce doesn’t define me, it’s as much a part of ALL THIS! as anything else, including ALL THIS! itself. To leave it out wouldn’t be ALL THIS anymore.

That’s a real help, Jundo, and reinforces the nature of this practice.

Shinshou (Daniel)
Sat today




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