Great Doubt, or "The Question"

I've been thinking some more about this and I can't really agree. To valorize Zen as somehow unique or special seems to miss the point. The itch, the scar, the original wound - is always there. It feels inflated to suggest that only Zennies are in touch with this - experience this. Some individuals experience the depths of life with a curiosity and intensity that simply isn't visible to others.

If those of us here choose to connect with the 'original wound' through Zen - that's fine - but it's incredibly judgemental to assume that others don't experience that sense of aliveness, intuition - call it what you will - just because they follow another practice.

The difference is that all other religions offer something to pour into that sense of an original wound. Zen does not do this. In fact, there is no original wound at all, but you don't realize this without confronting the fact that it feels as though there is an original wound - that something is off-kilter. In fact, my understanding is that the literal image of the word 'samsara' is a wheel off true - that is, with the axle incorrectly placed. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all attempt to explain that in terms of a self-soul-ego. Even other schools of Buddhism attempt to do this. Zen, more than most other religions, resists the temptation to do this. That is a particular strength, in my opinion, of Zen. This is not to denigrate other religions or paths at all, but to point to something unique about Zen. If you strip from Zen the things that separates it from other paths, what is left of Zen? It's a very strange inclination to do that, I think.

Chet

[Hogen]

I agree that inter-faith dialogue can bring forth many disatisfactions - but whether we like it or not 'the many paths up the mountain' metaphor has to stand.

the biggest of which is when we don't like the answers.

[alan.r]

This has been a really interesting read. Reminds me a lot of the new Leighton book in a lot of ways, where the opening chapter says basically the same thing: that when we sit we sit as a question. Still though, and let’s really cut through the bullshit: part of the reason this post is here is to pass some judgment. Which is fine, we all need critiqued, we all need a push here and there to see some of our own shit, which we typically take for something other than shit. Still, there are a few things I’d like to, uh, question. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself…okay, I’m done, no more bad jokes.

As long as we’re cutting through the bullshit, it often feels like this post is saying, “I’ve got it, I’ve figured it out, most Western Buddhism/Zen has it wrong and here’s where, and in particular, Treeleaf is too soft and easy and passive.” And maybe so. Who knows. Furthermore, I mean, the entire rhetoric of the post seems delineated upon two lines: those who are doing the wishy-washy hallmark zen (though it may work for them, but they’re still “dead” spiritually, which is most of Treeleaf (these are the implications)) and those who sit at the white hot center of things, with this burning question. Which again is fine, if not somewhat like: so you’re saying you’re doing it right and we’re not. Which, at first I thought, interesting read, but I’ll pass, but then Chet jumped in to say that people are like avoiding the post’s real shit. So, the above then, that’s what I see as the post’s real shit. It’d be one thing to say, “Does anyone else think there needs to be more questioning here at Treeleaf” and kind of explain what the Great Doubt is; it is entirely another thing to say, Treeleaf is passive, most Western Buddhism seems to be, and check out how I’ve got it right. In any case, this is nothing new, either. Slavoj Zizek’s been saying it for years and it might be of interest to some:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2122/

Pretty interesting articles really, and I recommend everybody at Treeleaf read them. And then we lead a revolt against Slavoj. I kid, I kid.

Anyway, I realize this post is a little antagonistic. I certainly don’t mean to be a jerk, only to be honest and share my perception of what this post really feels like (which Hogen also mentioned). I mean, I don’t know you Stephanie and it seems you’ve “found” something really great for you, or whatever (I can never phrase these things well enough, apologies), but the strategies of the post and the overall purposes of it, which seem complex to me, seem suspect and worth raising at least a tiny other perspective. Others are doing this as well, but I really think it's all in how the initial post is written, expressed that has us all going "wha?", you know?

Lastly, here’s a suspicion of my own: while some people at Treeleaf discuss their personal lives, most of us don’t do this very openly (I don’t mean this negatively). I mean, we all kind of use abstracts, to some degree, and it’s rare when any of us really gets into the details, the real details of our lives. Here, we have “darkness” and “angst” and etc, and that’s fitting, because who wants to read a bunch of people’s problems all day long? Further, who wants to read a bunch of stuff about how we’ve all suffered, really suffered, and here are the details of it, and how now we’re in the light, whatever light that might be – frankly, most suffering, unless you’re a really talented writer, is actually pretty banal stuff, and is mainly self-imposed (again, I could very well be wrong here, but that was my experience of “darkness,” years and years of it, and even in the midst of years and years of it, that always nagging thought, feeling, perception: “am I just pretending somehow?”). So, for me anyway, because of the nature of the forum, we don’t all post our Question(s) mainly because they can be pretty personal. Not only that (though almost everyone here is kind beyond kind), I don’t want to bore people with my own little questions which I sit on the cushion with, because we all have them. And the Big Question, the Great Doubt, that’s just the little question, the little doubt in our every day lives (was I a dick today? Did I really say that thing, think that thing? Treat her like that? Act superior like that?) And it’s those little questions that remind us of the Big Questions, those little doubts that remind us of the Great Doubt, and the little are nothing but the Big all along, just another way of playing it. But maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, I also want to say thanks for a compelling read and for knocking us all about some, which I also see as one of the purposes of the post.

-a

[Jinyo]

Chet wrote

And yet, there is something unique to Zen that can't be found in most popular religion and for the truly curious, I think it itches like a scar for which you don't remember the original wound. This is the part of Zen (I think) that resists comparison to all other religions. It resists the whitewashing required to make the 'many paths up the mountain' metaphor so common in reconciliatory overtures to inter-faith dialogue.

I've been thinking some more about this and I can't really agree. To valorize Zen as somehow unique or special seems to miss the point. The itch, the scar, the original wound - is always there. It feels inflated to suggest that only Zennies are in touch with this - experience this. Some individuals experience the depths of life with a curiosity and intensity that simply isn't visible to others.

If those of us here choose to connect with the 'original wound' through Zen - that's fine - but it's incredibly judgemental to assume that others don't experience that sense of aliveness, intuition - call it what you will - just because they follow another practice.

Each to his/her own path - really - I have enough trouble working out where I am with myself in all this without judging the rest of the human race.

Gassho

Willow

[Saijun]

Hello Chet,

No one is advocating this view. That's a straw-dog, Jundo. Sometimes one is simply in the shitstorm. Pretending it isn't there is pointless when one is in pain. Leaning into it with curiosity may indeed be the correct medicine.

Speaking as someone who has recently been plunged into this proverbial shitstorm, I can say that neither leaning in nor leaning away would be a useful strategy in the slightest. Just standing with eyes open and watching as it thunders and rains and shakes the earth is all there is to do. Jundo's "still still center of Crystal Clarity and Wholeness" is neither a place nor time; it is the simple activity of standing straight with eyes open. For me, the "still center" was and is letting go of my natural inclinations to rage against the storm or try to find shelter.

Metta and Gassho,

Saijun

Yes, but the point is Clarity. Not hallmark, not tranquilized dullness, not a foresaking of vibrant curiosity and questioning, not numbness ... but Crystal Clarity and Wholeness.

There is no Zen Teacher I know who would say that one should simply allow oneself to spiral into an endless whirlpool of questions, doubts, emotional dramas, self created soap operas, self-psychologizing, angsty existential searching, self-flagelating philosophizing on artificial mysteries. Even if pushed into the whirlpool by this Practice, the point is to arrive at the storm's still still center of Crystal Clarity and Wholeness ... not to wallow drowning in the shit storm.

No one is advocating this view. That's a straw-dog, Jundo. Sometimes one is simply in the shitstorm. Pretending it isn't there is pointless when one is in pain. Leaning into it with curiosity may indeed be the correct medicine.

Anyone who says otherwise seriously misunderstands the point of this Zen enterprise and Buddhism. Some of us have a bit of Crystal Clarity Wholeness amid the chaos of life ... even as we savor the questions and mysteries that this rich life naturally offers in each fresh moment.

Some other folks just like their angst as an anchor to cling to. They don't get their own mental game that they are caught in like a treadmill or a comfortable addiction, or are afraid to see through it. They do not understand this Path, only what they imagine it to be. They simply appear to lack True Clarity and Wholeness.

And some other folks never acknowledge the uncomfortableness realness of that angst because it hits too close to home - and acknowledging the realness of that angst in others requires facing it in oneself.

The thing is - in the end, only you can really know whether you're just shitting yourself - and it will manifest in the form of doubt and the cladding of tradition. I, personally, am not accusing Treeleaf of this. This sangha and its teachers have awakened me from deep delusion more than once.

Chet

[Hogen]

Also, in the replies I sense an amazing amount of deflection or not letting what she wrote really penetrate. That is likely the frustration she's talking about. The question need not be uncomfortable, it need not be a 'red hot iron ball'. Overall (and I don't mean to speak for her), it most definitely is not using the practice to comfort oneself. It could be as simple as wondering why you struggle, or who it is that struggles, who is asking the question? At some point, there can be pure interrogative without even subtle senses of self-or-other. It is determination free of goal, a precise arrow-shot without a target.


Chet

with all due respect, exactly what response are we to give when faced with a post which calls what we do "passive" and "soft". My response at least attempts to articulate how I see our approach to zen: sitting with "what it is". So what is it then: us not engaging in the debate or are we simply not responding in the way the poster wishes we did?

As I see it, what "it is" can be the scratch that cannot be itched or the hot ball in the throat or all things in between. Perhaps what we do is not question the why we have the hot iron ball in our throat but to sit with the existence of the iron ball. I will mull over the Youtube vid I posted above again, because I think it speaks about the "Great Doubt" not being "my Great Doubt".

I appreciate Stephanie's posts because they are direct and uncompromising, but I feel as though (especially in light of the thought that we were all deflecting), that its all mental gymnastics fashioned to somehow turn it all into an introspective exercise.

[Shokai]

Don't ya just gotta love it.

I think the questions are here and do get articulated. However, an honest pursuit of any koan-type question, especially real life koans, quickly goes beyond what we can express in words, especially written words without a chance to add our face, hands, tone of voice to what is being said. Speaking strictly for me, Taigu's talks sometimes make me feel very unsettled, like a punch in the hara. Poof, the question is right there: Who am I? To describe that experience would take so many words and still not hit it. So I take it and use it, and that's practice.

ditto, like she said, dammit! (thank you Nindo and Jundo )

gassho, 生海 Shokai

[Jundo]

Overall (and I don't mean to speak for her), it most definitely is not using the practice to comfort oneself. It could be as simple as wondering why you struggle, or who it is that struggles, who is asking the question? At some point, there can be pure interrogative without even subtle senses of self-or-other. It is determination free of goal, a precise arrow-shot without a target.

Yes, but the point is Clarity. Not greeting cards, not tranquilized dullness, not a foresaking of vibrant curiosity and questioning, not numbness ... but Crystal Clarity and Wholeness.

There is no Zen Teacher I know who would say that one should simply allow oneself to spiral into an endless whirlpool of questions, doubts, emotional dramas, self created soap operas, self-psychologizing, angsty existential searching, self-flagelating philosophizing on artificial mysteries. Even if pushed into the whirlpool by this Practice, the point is to arrive at the storm's still still center of Crystal Clarity and Wholeness ... not to wallow drowning in the shit storm.

Anyone who says otherwise seriously misunderstands the point of this Zen enterprise and Buddhism. Some of us have a bit of Crystal Clarity Wholeness amid the chaos of life ... even as we savor the questions and mysteries that this rich life naturally offers in each fresh moment.

Some other folks just like their angst as an anchor to cling to. They don't get their own mental game that they are caught in like a treadmill or a comfortable addiction, or are afraid to see through it. They do not understand this Path, only what they imagine it to be. They simply appear to lack True Clarity and Wholeness.

Gassho, J

PS　- Rich wrote ...

there are any Kwan Um groups/teachers near you. What is this? Don't know. is a big part of their practice along with koans.

The Kwan Um Path is wonderful, but that is a very misleading statement if it implies that the purpose of their path of "Don't Know" is "don't know" and anything but an ultimate arrival at solid, unshakeble "Big Knowing" ... Clear Holy Wholeness. The point of their "Just Don't Know" is NEVER just not knowing.

[Jinyo]

I don't think she's talking about koan practice. I think she's talking about the questionless question. Hagen calls it the pure interrogative because there is no really accurate English term for it.

Also, in the replies I sense an amazing amount of deflection or not letting what she wrote really penetrate. That is likely the frustration she's talking about. The question need not be uncomfortable, it need not be a 'red hot iron ball'. Overall (and I don't mean to speak for her), it most definitely is not using the practice to comfort oneself. It could be as simple as wondering why you struggle, or who it is that struggles, who is asking the question? At some point, there can be pure interrogative without even subtle senses of self-or-other. It is determination free of goal, a precise arrow-shot without a target.

It's antithetical to the part of you that thinks you grow in the practice, that one gets 'better' at it, or seeks a comfortable proficiency in Zen as though it's any other type of endeavor. It's the doubt about whether you really understand. It's meeting that insecurity with a direct, unencumbered connection to reality without insisting it be a certain way. Most of all, it's looking until you know you're really not shitting yourself.

I've come to the point where I don't think that sort of practice is for everyone. Some people are content with the simple comforts of a Hallmark Card Zen - and that's okay. That's how the religion penetrates the culture.

And yet, there is something unique to Zen that can't be found in most popular religion and for the truly curious, I think it itches like a scar for which you don't remember the original wound. This is the part of Zen (I think) that resists comparison to all other religions. It resists the whitewashing required to make the 'many paths up the mountain' metaphor so common in reconciliatory overtures to inter-faith dialogue.

IMHO, truly no offense is meant.

Chet

Chet - reading through the replies I can not sense an 'amazing amount of deflection'. This implies an intention to not understand/side step. I think there are honest and heartfelt answers here and in this jumble of words we all do our best to communicate.

I agree that inter-faith dialogue can bring forth many disatisfactions - but whether we like it or not 'the many paths up the mountain' metaphor has to stand. We each choose our own path/journey - and in advancing years I have become less hot headed in thinking any one religion/belief sysytem has the ultimate answer/approach.

We fashion what we may from all that is out there, in the areas of ethics, human relationships and our relationship to our planet - and this human race relies on such reconciliatory overtures in every area of life.

IMHO

Gassho

Willow

Hi Stephanie,

good to hear from you!
I think the questions are here and do get articulated. However, an honest pursuit of any koan-type question, especially real life koans, quickly goes beyond what we can express in words, especially written words without a chance to add our face, hands, tone of voice to what is being said. Speaking strictly for me, Taigu's talks sometimes make me feel very unsettled, like a punch in the hara. Poof, the question is right there: Who am I? To describe that experience would take so many words and still not hit it. So I take it and use it, and that's practice.

I don't feel among tranquilized zen zombies here. I've been part of a brick-and-mortar sangha where I had very little opportunity to even get to know other people because the time together was used for sitting. The energy of the shared sitting was still incredible. That's what I'm looking for in mutual support, and I find it here, too.

I hope you give us another chance. If you don't like the talks, listen to the "ordinary folks". If you need a punch, we can do that, too.

Respectfully,
_/\_ Nindo

I don't think she's talking about koan practice. I think she's talking about the questionless question. Hagen calls it the pure interrogative because there is no really accurate English term for it.

Also, in the replies I sense an amazing amount of deflection or not letting what she wrote really penetrate. That is likely the frustration she's talking about. The question need not be uncomfortable, it need not be a 'red hot iron ball'. Overall (and I don't mean to speak for her), it most definitely is not using the practice to comfort oneself. It could be as simple as wondering why you struggle, or who it is that struggles, who is asking the question? At some point, there can be pure interrogative without even subtle senses of self-or-other. It is determination free of goal, a precise arrow-shot without a target.

It's antithetical to the part of you that thinks you grow in the practice, that one gets 'better' at it, or seeks a comfortable proficiency in Zen as though it's any other type of endeavor. It's the doubt about whether you really understand. It's meeting that insecurity with a direct, unencumbered connection to reality without insisting it be a certain way. Most of all, it's looking until you know you're really not shitting yourself.

I've come to the point where I don't think that sort of practice is for everyone. Some people are content with the simple comforts of a Hallmark Card Zen - and that's okay. That's how the religion penetrates the culture.

And yet, there is something unique to Zen that can't be found in most popular religion and for the truly curious, I think it itches like a scar for which you don't remember the original wound. This is the part of Zen (I think) that resists comparison to all other religions. It resists the whitewashing required to make the 'many paths up the mountain' metaphor so common in reconciliatory overtures to inter-faith dialogue.

IMHO, truly no offense is meant.

Chet

[Omoi Otoshi]

Hi Stephanie!
Nice to see you again!

I tried Mumon's "red hot iron ball that you cannot swallow or spit out" when I was younger and first started to practice Zen in some self-taught Rinzai style. I spent years with the damn Mu koan!
And I didn't reach any greater understanding. All the red hot iron ball ever gave me was anxiety and frustration. The silver mountain only grew heavier, the iron walls only thicker. Perhaps with a teacher things would have been different, I don't know. But my first real understanding of Mu came after I started practicing Shikantaza. The Question still lives, the Investigation continues.

/Pontus

[Jundo]

I'm also not sure that we sit 'with' the question. Our living, breathing lives are the question. To think otherwise feels dualistic and doesn't equate with the 'wholeness' that is taught here.

I have long felt this way too ... and though a word is just a word ... and "with" is "are" is "as" ... and "we" precisely "that" .... all simply "sitting" ...

... from henceforth "shall we sit with that", as heard on many a sit-a-long talk, shall be "shall we sit as that" (pardon me if I forget from time to time). We might also say "shall sitting sit with sitting" "shall that sit as us" "shall sitting us as that" "shall sitting that as us" "shall us us as us" "shall that that as that" "shall Jundo Stephanie as Willow" "shall shall as shall" etc. etc. etc. ...

... sitting as/in/beyond/right-thought-and-through that.

Gassho, J

[Rich]

Hogen, thanks for that video. I believe that was Zen Master Bon Soeng of the Kwan Um School.

Stephanie, you may want to check if there are any Kwan Um groups/teachers near you. What is this? Don't know. is a big part of their practice along with koans.

All the teaching styles have at least one thing in common - sitting.