An astute blog, Mr. Roker; it seems that's what most of us can do, get a glimpse of something else and then off it slips. A challenge, to say the least. And a challenge it is made by Zen, which is, from what I understand, a distillation of Chinese Tao practice and Buddhism.
Ah, the koans! Mr. Rooson has remarked how this blog sometimes becomes somewhat opaque. Try Zen! I am towards the end of Matthiessen's "Dragon Mountain," where he does his best to describe just what Zen is all about. The koans, those little word puzzles like "the sound of one hand clapping," do not exactly clear the picture (nor are the supposed to). Maddeningly irrational, I recall that woman in Parade Magazine, Marilyn Vos Savant (the highest IQ in the world) answer a question about them. Her reply (more or less):"I dismiss them. They have no logic and say nothing. They are meant to obfuscate and confuse and mystify, creating a false aura of wisdom ( I guess, to perpetuate a priestly class). Have nothing to do with them."
Logically, she is right; but the point of them is to stop this very way of thought, to jam the gears, and more: to point to pure being, "as is." The idea is that everything is transient except the NOW; that to grasp eternity, one cannot project into the future or dwell on the past, the latter filled with learned knowledge that cloud the real. No. See the NOW with open eyes and you will grasp the ALL, for it is here, inherent in everything. For those who have seen Chinese and Japanese art, that it what it is about - a still life of exact, shining NOW. And as the IS is a manifestation of the all, so the clear perception of the NOW is transcendent; that is, can take you to the ALL, God, the big picture. It is, from what I can understand, Buddhism that uses the material reality to transcend itself, rather than transcending it by denying it through seclusion and intense meditation, although it uses that, too. Indeed, a tough nut to crack, and Mattheissen notes that the thread of its meaning has been lost regularly by the Roshi, or high priests, themselves, needing constant reformation by true masters.
This I put in direct contrast to the traditional theology of the Catholic Church. For the Church, form (ritual and dogma) are everything. One is not expected to become fully realized in the Zen sense, but to rely on Faith. Believe and Jesus will get you through. In the contrast we can say much, but there are two critiques that I would like to focus on. One: my dissatisfaction with the Church has always been that it lacks an emphasis on direct Man-God realization. The Church is for people of this world and in no way wishes to stop its business, only to elevate it to a more compassionate level. This has led to to a form that has become inert for many people. I must say that it doesn't have to be so; a devotion to understanding the theology behind the ritual can bring one closer to God, but this is rarely stated. Often, instead, we are told that some of the more startling things said by Jesus in the New Testament are merely metaphors. They are metaphors, but metaphors with a lot more teeth than what we are often led to believe. Jesus could be fierce and uncompromising, as he had to be, for we are mostly stuck, as Roker said, in this shared human world. Abandon all! Clear your very being of everything you have learned and throw yourself headlong into God. If he cares so much for the sparrow, how much more for you? Have faith, lose yourself (your attachments) to everything else and follow Him, the path.
Now, isn't that what the Buddhists say? But I have a problem with Buddhism, and particularly Zen. It is not about its use of irrationality. That is a method I understand, at least from the outside. No; my complaint is that it seems to have no heart. Where in Zen is the compassion of the creator? It is true that the realized man can wish no harm, for he has no ego to salve; but where, in all this great scary universe is the compassion? Christianity is overflowing with it, and I am glad. This may be anthropomorphism, but what are we but ignorant shadows of the ALL? Is not our imperfect love only a reflection of His perfect love? The problem with Zen seeing the ALL in a flower is that it seems to give little room for what we were born as: humans. Flowers may be beautiful, but where is the compassion? Where is the humanity? Or so it feels to me. It reminds me of the way of the sorcerer in Castaneda's Don Juan books. Big, bold, scary, mind-blowing, but where is the love?
Yes, I know; we are social mammals who rely on this form of comfort from our biological reality, but social mammals we are. Should we see the flower and discard the petals?
As a a corollary, and I admit something of an answer to the above criticism of Zen; in a quiet time of the day, I had the distinct realization of our situation in the cosmic scheme. I saw ourselves as we understand it, as the flat, temporary expressions of our spirit that I have long known that our reality is, but also something more. That is, that our difficulty in getting beyond ourselves makes us expressly who we are. What I mean by this is, we were born to this middle earth exactly because of our ignorance. I have no idea if we decided this ourselves or this was done through Karma or original sin (perhaps one and the same thing), but there it was: this is our condition of being human. It is not thrust on us by any particular society - at least not one in the present time - and certainly not by our parents. We are what we are because that was the condition, or rules, for our being in the first place. Yes, you can extend yourself beyond it - thus the idea of middle earth - but you will be snapped back like an elastic every time. Thus again the noted failings in many of our most holy men and women. This is what the great teachers, their wisdom at the very foundation of the great religions, were dealing with. As an enlightened being, how do you tell others that his life is only a thin vapor of reality? We are born to believe this thin vapor. A distant something (the soul or spirit) tells us that it is otherwise, and the enlightened ones try to work on this, to tease it out. They give us the various methods, but we know, the Zen and Christian masters know, that to truly reach beyond and stay there is a tough, tough road. As in dropping the foundations of your quotidian beliefs altogether; as in not giving a damn about everything that everyone else lives for. Oh, a tough row to hoe. But we have always known that, just seldom why. FK
Ah, the koans! Mr. Rooson has remarked how this blog sometimes becomes somewhat opaque. Try Zen! I am towards the end of Matthiessen's "Dragon Mountain," where he does his best to describe just what Zen is all about. The koans, those little word puzzles like "the sound of one hand clapping," do not exactly clear the picture (nor are the supposed to). Maddeningly irrational, I recall that woman in Parade Magazine, Marilyn Vos Savant (the highest IQ in the world) answer a question about them. Her reply (more or less):"I dismiss them. They have no logic and say nothing. They are meant to obfuscate and confuse and mystify, creating a false aura of wisdom ( I guess, to perpetuate a priestly class). Have nothing to do with them."
Logically, she is right; but the point of them is to stop this very way of thought, to jam the gears, and more: to point to pure being, "as is." The idea is that everything is transient except the NOW; that to grasp eternity, one cannot project into the future or dwell on the past, the latter filled with learned knowledge that cloud the real. No. See the NOW with open eyes and you will grasp the ALL, for it is here, inherent in everything. For those who have seen Chinese and Japanese art, that it what it is about - a still life of exact, shining NOW. And as the IS is a manifestation of the all, so the clear perception of the NOW is transcendent; that is, can take you to the ALL, God, the big picture. It is, from what I can understand, Buddhism that uses the material reality to transcend itself, rather than transcending it by denying it through seclusion and intense meditation, although it uses that, too. Indeed, a tough nut to crack, and Mattheissen notes that the thread of its meaning has been lost regularly by the Roshi, or high priests, themselves, needing constant reformation by true masters.
This I put in direct contrast to the traditional theology of the Catholic Church. For the Church, form (ritual and dogma) are everything. One is not expected to become fully realized in the Zen sense, but to rely on Faith. Believe and Jesus will get you through. In the contrast we can say much, but there are two critiques that I would like to focus on. One: my dissatisfaction with the Church has always been that it lacks an emphasis on direct Man-God realization. The Church is for people of this world and in no way wishes to stop its business, only to elevate it to a more compassionate level. This has led to to a form that has become inert for many people. I must say that it doesn't have to be so; a devotion to understanding the theology behind the ritual can bring one closer to God, but this is rarely stated. Often, instead, we are told that some of the more startling things said by Jesus in the New Testament are merely metaphors. They are metaphors, but metaphors with a lot more teeth than what we are often led to believe. Jesus could be fierce and uncompromising, as he had to be, for we are mostly stuck, as Roker said, in this shared human world. Abandon all! Clear your very being of everything you have learned and throw yourself headlong into God. If he cares so much for the sparrow, how much more for you? Have faith, lose yourself (your attachments) to everything else and follow Him, the path.
Now, isn't that what the Buddhists say? But I have a problem with Buddhism, and particularly Zen. It is not about its use of irrationality. That is a method I understand, at least from the outside. No; my complaint is that it seems to have no heart. Where in Zen is the compassion of the creator? It is true that the realized man can wish no harm, for he has no ego to salve; but where, in all this great scary universe is the compassion? Christianity is overflowing with it, and I am glad. This may be anthropomorphism, but what are we but ignorant shadows of the ALL? Is not our imperfect love only a reflection of His perfect love? The problem with Zen seeing the ALL in a flower is that it seems to give little room for what we were born as: humans. Flowers may be beautiful, but where is the compassion? Where is the humanity? Or so it feels to me. It reminds me of the way of the sorcerer in Castaneda's Don Juan books. Big, bold, scary, mind-blowing, but where is the love?
Yes, I know; we are social mammals who rely on this form of comfort from our biological reality, but social mammals we are. Should we see the flower and discard the petals?
As a a corollary, and I admit something of an answer to the above criticism of Zen; in a quiet time of the day, I had the distinct realization of our situation in the cosmic scheme. I saw ourselves as we understand it, as the flat, temporary expressions of our spirit that I have long known that our reality is, but also something more. That is, that our difficulty in getting beyond ourselves makes us expressly who we are. What I mean by this is, we were born to this middle earth exactly because of our ignorance. I have no idea if we decided this ourselves or this was done through Karma or original sin (perhaps one and the same thing), but there it was: this is our condition of being human. It is not thrust on us by any particular society - at least not one in the present time - and certainly not by our parents. We are what we are because that was the condition, or rules, for our being in the first place. Yes, you can extend yourself beyond it - thus the idea of middle earth - but you will be snapped back like an elastic every time. Thus again the noted failings in many of our most holy men and women. This is what the great teachers, their wisdom at the very foundation of the great religions, were dealing with. As an enlightened being, how do you tell others that his life is only a thin vapor of reality? We are born to believe this thin vapor. A distant something (the soul or spirit) tells us that it is otherwise, and the enlightened ones try to work on this, to tease it out. They give us the various methods, but we know, the Zen and Christian masters know, that to truly reach beyond and stay there is a tough, tough road. As in dropping the foundations of your quotidian beliefs altogether; as in not giving a damn about everything that everyone else lives for. Oh, a tough row to hoe. But we have always known that, just seldom why. FK
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