I Think, Therefore...

Ta-Wan

...I am not Zen.

This post originally appeared on Ta-Wan's blog, Tao Wow.

Jed McKenna's Theory Of Everything XIII

Scott Bradley

I think this series is winding down despite my not having finished this book (embedded in the title above). I don't usually make 'recommendations' — I have no realized authority for doing so — but I can recommend this book for its entertainment value, if for nothing else. McKenna gives the whole enlightenment game a novel and often irreverent spin, something quite refreshing in this era of New Age spiritual syrup. His iconoclasm is both mind-opening and good for many a chuckle.

Still, though it seems very likely that he is where he says he is, his presentation leaves me (at least) flat-footed and uninspired. There are others who have had his experience, and it is my guess that they might give the whole thing a very different spin than he, and among these, perhaps there is one who does not feel obliged to tell me where my journey must lead.

McKenna has jumped in and shouts, “Come on in, the water's warm”, but he has already pissed in the pool. BYOFT, he tells us. My guess is that this means Be Your Own Fucking Teacher. This, his exhortation to "dig", and his personal testimony are his true contributions to our assisted journeys; all the rationalistic apologetics about where that journey must end are a hindrance, not a help. If he knew when to shut up, we would be better assisted to BYOFT.

McKenna invokes Socrates; his method, however, is not Socratic, but Platonic. Socrates saw himself as a spiritual midwife, and through the irony of not-knowing hoped to instill the spirit of inquiry in his companions; to his thinking this was the best and only thing he could do. Plato, on the other hand, provided the "Answer". No truly adventurous journey 'knows' where it is supposed to lead, nor can authentic inquiry begin with a priori conclusions.

I am reminded of the Zen mondo in which a bunch of masters meet at an inn. Among them is one thought to be the 'most' realized (?), but he remains in his room and has nothing to say. Another complains that he could at least, "Say one word." Hearing of this, the most-realized says, "That would be one word too many." But the cook, overhearing this, remarks, "Now there are two rat turds in the rice!" Or is it three?

Jed McKenna might have "perfect knowledge", but this does not mean that his presentation of that experience is also perfect. For my part, there are far too many rat turds in this bowl of rice for me to accept and munch; to do so would be to perform the inquiry-deadening and essentially religious act of belief.

As does Zen, McKenna exhorts us to kill our buddhas. Ironically, his is the first head we need to put on the block.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

What Is Zen Taoism?

Ta-Wan

...to be smacked in the face with nothing.

This post originally appeared on Ta-Wan's blog, Tao Wow.

Intraworldly Mysticism IV

Scott Bradley

Yearley (in Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu) describes Zhuangzi's mysticism primarily in terms of the sage's ability to positively respond to and engage with every event as it arises, while simultaneously releasing events as they pass. The world is ever-transforming (hua) and the sage fully harmonizes with this apparent reality. This is suggested in the imagery of the mind like a mirror: "The Consummate Person uses his mind like a mirror, rejecting nothing, welcoming nothing; responding but not storing. Thus he can handle all things without harm." (7:14; Ziporyn) I have suggested that this is a fruit of the mystical experience, not the experience itself. I have also suggested that the extreme position to which this leads Yearley in his interpretation of Zhuangzi is a consequence of his mistaking the fruit for the root.

Yearley offers this story as an example of the sage's behavior: He is walking in the forest with his wife, whom he loves most dearly, when a tree falls on her and smashes her to pulp. At first he is shocked and grieved, but almost immediately he releases these emotions and instead wonders at the beauty of blood as it mingles with the leaves and the interesting patterns created by shattered bone. How did we arrive at this? I can only imagine that in having taken a behavior which has its roots in organic and in-articulable experience and having codified it with reason, and having made it into a principle to be applied, we will be led to such an extreme.

What is missing here is the "ironic": the grief that is also not grief. This is neither grief alone, nor not-grief alone. It is both simultaneously, however incompatible. What is missing here is the root mystical experience that gives spontaneous rise to our responses to events, instead of the application of prescribed behaviors.

It is true that Zhuangzi released himself from the extremes of grief at the death of his wife and instead of wailing, sang as he beat out a tune on the bottom of a tub, but this does not mean he did not miss her still. It is just that he also had the larger view, the view that allowed him to grieve without despair.

I am reminded of the Zen story where an esteemed master who, while being killed by bandits, screamed like a banshee. A novice, having seen and heard this, is shaken in his esteem and suggests the master should have behaved otherwise. A nearby monk raps him on the head and says, “Fool, he screamed because he wanted to.” What is intraworldly about Zhuangzi’s mysticism is that it enables our full participation in the full gamut of human expression while never being ruled by any of it.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

On the Nature of the Zhuangzi

Scott Bradley

Burton Watson, in his preface to Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu (Victor Mair, ed.; 1983), makes several interesting observations, some of which I will share here.

When he was commissioned to translate four classics of Chinese philosophy, he purposely left the Zhuangzi until last, first because he hoped that this would better prepare him to render this more difficult work, and second, because it gave him something to look forward to. In the case of the latter, he points to the way in which the Zhuangzi presents "flights of language so rapturous that they threaten to go beyond the borders of meaning." And this, he implies, requires the translator to follow him 'out there', to somehow imagine what this experience entails. And that, in my opinion, was very much what Zhuangzi himself hoped to accomplish.

Another reason he gives for having looked forward to his work with the Zhuangzi is "the incomparable wit and humor that lie at the heart of the Chuang-tzu" which he describes as "the single most potent device employed by the writer to jar the reader out of his mundane complacencies and waken him to the possibility of another realm of experience." If we require "jarring", then humor seems a particularly humane way to go about delivering it. And it is also a skillful means very much in harmony with its end, namely to enable our carefree and playful wandering.

However, he goes on to say this same humor and playfulness renders the Zhuangzi especially difficult to understand. "If he parodies so many others, is it not possible that he parodies himself as well?" How do we know what to take seriously, and what not? Perhaps, none of it. Surely, if we have captured the meaning then we need no longer take any of it seriously. Isn't this the whole point?

Finally, on a more critical note, in grappling with what he sees as the central experience advocated by the Zhuangzi, namely the "realm of nondualistic thinking", Watson seems to fall into the trap of believing that the Zhuangzi cannot have been meant to stand alone, but must have had "some similar exercises [to Zen koans] or set of practices that were meant to accompany the book and assist the student." To my thinking, this is equivalent to saying the Mumonkan or Blue Cliff Record, two compendiums of Zen koans, should have come with books of "answers". The whole point, of course, is that there are no answers, only the possibility of experiencing a meta-awareness of the non-dual. The Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi are themselves a koan.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

When the Shoe Fits III

Scott Bradley

The forgetting of the foot means the shoe fits comfortably. The forgetting of the waist means the belt fits comfortably. And when the understanding forgets right and wrong, the mind fits comfortably.
(Zhuangzi 19; Ziporyn)

Neither the forgotten foot nor the forgotten waist are lost, cease to be, or are in any way denied. It's just that worrying over them does not obstruct one's enjoyment of life. One typically hikes to enjoy being in nature; but if the feet hurt, that purpose is defeated. Forgetting right and wrong does not mean that there is no such thing, but that they do not obstruct one's free and spontaneous response to life.

Chu the Artisan did not stop in mid swoop to question whether his arc was true or no; to have done so would have insured its failure to be so. The art of wuwei is an invitation to live as Chu drew.

We can debate about right and wrong — whether there is any sure foundation upon which they can rest, whether they are entirely relative distinctions or not — but that would certainly not be to forget them. Somewhere in the Zen literature it says that to talk about right and wrong is to be bound by right and wrong. That we feel compelled to worry at their being forgotten means we are unable to forget them.

Let the art critic worry over whether Chu's arc is true; Chu trusts his hand's wisdom in transforming along with the requirements of an arc. Which is forgotten, the hand or the arc? Might it not be both? Like his hand, Chu simply follows along with the arising of life's eventualities, never finding it necessary to "check or verify" whether his responses are 'right or wrong'. That would be to hesitate mid-swoop and spoil what can only happen in spontaneity, the not-making of a work of art.

When the mind fits comfortably, life is enjoyed. If Chu turned about and worried about what his hand had made, it would not matter what it had made, he would not be living his art.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

A Conversion Experience III

Scott Bradley

Liezi's conversion experience is in part described as a "return to an unhewn blockishness". This "unhewn block" is a central metaphor in Daoism for the human experience before its manipulation by the "understanding consciousness". It was achieved by Liezi in this case by "remaining remote from all endeavors and letting [go] all the chiseled carvings of his character".

Were the "understanding consciousness" able to actually understand and explain itself, it might not be a problem at all. But it cannot; and it's continued attempts to do so create just that self-alienation that Zhuangzi's advocacy of a return to the unhewn block is intended to cure. It has other praise-worthy uses to be sure, but when it becomes so dominating of our existential engagement in the world that it excludes our more primal experience of connectedness, it sunders us from that experience. If this was a problem in Zhuangzi's day, how much more so might it be in ours.

Remaining remote from all endeavors and letting go our self-story is in effect simply an acknowledgement of our being okay just as we are. There is nothing we need do or become. Instead, we typically believe that we have a great deal to do. In fact, we have to do the impossible: we have to become somebody. Liezi thought the spiritual power of the shaman would make him someone and sought it for himself.

This is where philosophical Daoism says no thanks to just about every 'spiritual' path on offer; they invite the pursuit of something; our natural inclinations are simply re-channeled; we can become a spiritual somebody instead of the mess we are. Needless to say, the same pursuit can just as easily be the object of this advocacy of philosophical Daoism even when that philosophy tells us it should not. This is our default response, after all. Where philosophical Daoism may be said to differ is in that it ever self-negates in the face of our abuse. In this it is similar to Zen. There is no Zen until Zen is realized and what is realized is really nothing at all. At least that's my take after a good scrubbing.

Another metaphor for the realization of the Daoist ideal is to become, as did Liezi, "like a clump of soil". Shendao tells us that "even a clod of earth cannot stray from the Dao". But we can; at least psychologically; and our return to clod-like-ness is a psychological return to a sense of absolute connectedness and affirmation — just as we are. It is true of us now; all this endeavoring and carving is both unnecessary and counter-indicated.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Beyond the Human Inclinations IV: Beyond Right and Wrong

Scott Bradley

We are considering Huizi's question to Zhuangzi: "Can a human being really be without the characteristic human inclinations?" Zhuangzi replies in the affirmative and asks in turn how, since such a one would still have the form of a human being, she could not be so called. There may be more here than I am able to perceive, but all-in-all I find his answer less than satisfying. But then we need to remember that Zhuangzi is not a believer in the ability of rational debate to deliver us to an understanding of the way of things. I am reminded of the debate on the bridge over the River Hao; he knows the happiness of fish because he sees their happiness; he need not 'prove' his ability to know it. True knowledge is unmediated. True knowledge need not 'know'.

Fortunately, Huizi persists and asks again. This time Zhuangzi explains what he means, though once again he does not deign to rationally 'prove' its validity: "Affirming some things as right and negating others as wrong are what I call the characteristic inclinations. What I call being free of them means not allowing likes and dislikes to damage you internally, instead making it your constant practice to follow along with the way each thing is of itself, going by whatever it affirms as right, without trying to add anything to the process of life." (5:23; Ziporyn) Here we have in a nutshell the mind-boggling essence of Zhuangzi's practical recipe for harmonious living. Whatever we find 'problematical' here, he might suggest, is indicative of our full participation in the characteristic human inclination of discriminating between right and wrong as if it really mattered in the context of the equalizing vastness. They matter, yes; but until we understand how they matter not, we remain part of the problem.

This advocacy of freedom from the tyranny of preferences is common to most mystical approaches to life. The opening lines of the Zen Xin-Xin Ming read, "The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences." (Clarke) On this side of the river we might wish to debate whether one can still recognize a right and a wrong among things while simultaneously not being negatively affected by them, but on the other side of the river this balance simply works itself out naturally.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

A Piece of Shit (Revisited)

Scott Bradley
Original post date: April 12, 2011

When a monk asked Yun-men (862-949) "What is the Buddha?" he replied, "A dried piece of shit."

Why 'dried'? What kind of shit? Are all things then the Buddha? Inquiring minds want to know. But the point, of course, is that the inquiring mind is the problem; the statement was meant, by way of shock, to direct the monk away from his obvious bondage to the 'understanding mind'. Only an intuitive knowing can experience things spiritual. And, according to both the Daoist and Zen traditions, this kind of knowing is possible only after the rational mind is silenced.

In Zen practice this is accomplished through meditation and the contemplation of koans (of which this is an example). The methods of the philosophical Daoists, however, remain a mystery (at least to me). This appeals to me because it allows me to find my own way or to pursue no way at all. Somewhere in the Zhuangzi it says, "The sage has no use for methods", and I understand this to mean that the way that she follows is the way that happens for her.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Jesus Ain't No Buddha

Trey Smith

Ryan Rotella, a junior at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) said that his professor, Dr. Deandre Poole, of his Intercultural Communications class, asked students in the class to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and step on it. By the time FOX News and Commentary got to the story, “asked” had become “directed,” “step” had become “stomp,” and the “Stomp on Jesus” firestorm was manufactured. FAU reacted by apologizing to those who were offended, immediately placing Poole on administrative leave, and banning him from FAU’s campuses.

Poole was using an exercise from an instructor’s guide to a popular textbook, Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, written by Jim Neuliep, a professor of communication and media studies at St. Norbert College, in Wisconsin. The instructor’s guide describes the exercise:

This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings. Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper. Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence, instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.

Poole, under orders from FAU not to discuss the case, did say that he never told anyone to “stomp on Jesus,” but asked his students to step on the piece of paper. Poole said that one student approached him after class and said, “How dare you disrespect someone’s religion?” while hitting his balled fist into his other hand. Poole claims the student said the “he wanted to hit me,” but didn’t. Poole reported the incident to campus security and filed a report.

Poole, a former Sunday-school teacher, identifies himself as “very religious” and says that Jesus “is my lord and savior.” Poole has received hate mail and death threats, including one threatening Poole, an African-American, with hanging. Poole is on a one-year teaching contract with FAU, and although FAU may not fire him, the non-renewal of his contract will send the same message.

Not one to miss out on an opportunity to pander, Governor Rick Scott called the assignment “intolerant to Christians.”

Christians have learned well from their Islamic brothers. Any slight to their faith, real or imagined, is to be met with the full wrath of the faithful. As Poole’s situation demonstrates, no slight is too insignificant, or too illogical. Like Islam, the only way Christianity can get the respect they think they deserve is through threats and intimidation. Like Islam, it appears that Christianity has given up any hope of achieving respect through persuasive argument.
~ Academic Freedom Sacrificed To Religious Intimidation by David Drumm ~

For me, this news item highlights a key difference between a deity-based religion versus a philosophic religion or a philosophy. The former treats symbols as sacred, while the latter does not. For the former, even a symbol of the symbol -- like a word written on a piece of paper -- is holy, while the latter recognizes symbols for what they are -- symbols.

To underscore this difference, think of the Zen Buddhist koan, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." Can you imagine a Christian saying this about the savior (If you meet Jesus, kill him) or a Muslim saying this about the prophet (If you meet Mohammed, kill him)? Want to talk about blasphemy! You would be denounced by the faithful until the cows come home.

Think about the first line of the Tao Te Ching.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

Can you imagine a devout Christian standing up to declare, "The God we worship is not the eternal God"? Such a person would be tossed out of the flock so fast it would make your head spin!

People of a religious ilk -- particularly those of the Abrahamic religions -- have never come to grips with the notion that they treat the finger pointing at the moon as the moon itself. The finger -- the symbol of the deity -- has become just as important, if not more so, than that which they ostensibly worship!

This whole situation would be downright comical...if not for the societal implications it engenders.

More on Xunzi III

Scott Bradley

I have no way of knowing why (not to mention if) you are reading this, but if it is because you have an active interest in Zhuangzi, things Daoist, or Chinese thought in general, I would certainly recommend the Xunzi, if for no other reason than it is filled with wise counsels regarding one's conduct in the world. If we can forget his Confucian obsession with the past and the extremes of his rationalism, he has much to teach us.

It is this extreme rationalism that I hope to consider in this post and will begin once again with his criticism of Zhuangzi: "Zhuangzi was obsessed with thoughts of Heaven [i.e., Nature] and did no understand the importance of man." (21; Watson) It is Watson's interpolation that what Xunzi meant by "Heaven" (tian) in this context is "Nature". I am not so sure. Certainly that is what it meant for him, but I suspect he thought it meant something else to Zhuangzi, namely the quasi-supernatural. I think he was mistaken.

Xunzi's rationalism is so thorough in its dismissal of the supernatural as mere superstition that he could have been writing in the last century. "You pray for rain, and it rains. Why? For no particular reason, I say. It is just as though you had not prayed for rain and it rained anyway." (17) In this I personally find resonating agreement. Yet here, too, we find a certain close-minded rigidity that I also have experienced and from which I have found some release in Zhuangzi.

Sorting out the nuanced meanings of the Heaven, Earth, Man triad in any of these early philosophies is no easy matter, and especially so in Zhuangzi (who also declares himself unable to do so), but I think we can say that for him, ultimately and practically, there is only Heaven. Humanity is the Heavenly.

What this means in terms of Zhuangzi's spirituality and mysticism is that it is decidedly not an appeal to the supernatural, the otherworldly, but to an exploration of the human itself. And this exploration leads him to understand that the human experience is a great deal more than the "understanding consciousness" which parses reality into graspable packets of knowledge and moral discrimination. Our roots are deep in ineffable Mystery and it is in our openness to and experience of this that most profoundly determines how we go about doing our humanity in the world. Might not Zhuangzi then reply to Xunzi that he has become obsessed with one corner of his humanity, reason, and has not understood our profound rootedness in what reason cannot know? In this context, all of Xunzi's practical wisdom which reason has divulged remains as valid as ever, for it, too, is an affirmable expression of our humanity.

What is different is the spirit of our perceptions. The Zen (and Zhuangzian) metaphor of mountains coming to be seen as not-mountains only to be seen as mountains again speaks directly of this spirit. The full gamut of our humanity is most wonderfully experienced when informed by an open and contentless release into the mystery of our apparent existence.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Everyday Nirvana II

Scott Bradley

David Loy (in Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi) makes reference to Nagarjuna's observation that the everyday world is nirvana. Samsara is nirvana. Maya is nirvana. Delusion is nirvana. Buddha is a shit-wiping stick.

If we take a non-dual world view seriously . . . well then, all this differentiation between states of awareness and what not ultimately has to be revealed for the bullshit that it is. I choose to be vulgar here because vulgarity too is nirvana.

It is not that there are not possible awakening experiences, but that to think of them as somehow separate and other than taking your morning dump is to deny the non-dual nature of which they ostensibly consist.

Believing in 'enlightenment' we think there is something that needs to be achieved. Reality is in the future, not now. We are pulled out of our present. We believe we have to become someone else, experience something else, understand something else.

Yeah, yeah, we need to be enlightened here and now; it has to happen now. No. Nothing needs to happen. My fucked-up present reality is it. Fucked-up is nirvana. Rejoice and be glad.

"No-conditions-to-meet" is just this. Do you get it? (I'm trying, but can't say that I have.) It's true of you now. It's not true of some hypothetical buddha-nature or original-nature; it's true of the fucked-up you in your present fucked-upped-ness. Enough already with the abstractions.

Not fucked-up? Then you are either a sage or un-self-aware. If the former, I beg to be your disciple.

Thank you Darwin. I am a (not-so) hairless ape; a product of evolution without any known purpose; without any 'spiritual birthright'; without an ‘original nature’; without some back-door, sleight of hand preservation of my identity; without redemption or any need for redemption. And that is perfectly compatible with Loy's interpretation of a passage in the Zhuangzi to the effect that "everything is a manifestation of the Dao." Dao is this Happening and every happening, however momentary or ‘unspiritual’, is Dao; nothing else is on offer.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Everyday Nirvana I

Scott Bradley

David Loy's essay ("Zhuangzi and Nagarjuna on the Truth of No Truth") in Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi attempts a comparison of these two philosophies which, though in many ways helpful, also goes too far, in my opinion, in explaining Zhuangzi in the light of Buddhist philosophy. If it is possible to over-analyze, then Nagarjuna, who was undoubtedly a brilliant expositor of Buddhist thought, nevertheless might be said to have done so. In any event, Daoism in general, and Zhuangzi in particular, cannot compete with the overwhelming volume and profundity of Buddhist philosophy; to anachronistically attempt to explain what is in many respects purposely vague and tentative by that which is not is to do an injustice to the former. It is possible to drown in a sea of words and ideas.

There is no doubt a great deal of brilliance in Nagarjuna and other Buddhist and Brahmanist expositors; shall we as Buddhists or Brahmanists proudfully point to these as some kind of proof of . . . of what exactly? Can we not be both greatly impressed and yet somehow unimpressed?

The real question, it seems to me, is whether or not Zhuangzi can deliver on his own. Deliver what? He certainly cannot provide us with an awe-inspiring systematic explanation of "the way things really are", or as in the case of Nagarjuna, "aren't". Nor does he provide us with a methodology. In fact, there is so much 'lacking' in his presentation that some scholars have suggested that it was intended to be read with the accompaniment of a 'user's manual'. I don't think so; rather, I think we would do better to ask ourselves why we would wish to have one.

What then does Zhuangzi deliver? For me, he provides an opportunity to explore possibilities which he kindly only suggests. It's like getting a new book in the mail (oh boy!) only to find it blank. Zhuangzi offers us a spring-board from which to launch ourselves into our own inquiries. There's nothing ready-made here.

Admittedly, Nagarjuna would be the first to tell us that his total deconstruction of our every intellectual construct is just to point us to what can only be a personally realized experience, but cannot all this incredibly complicated fish-trap building end up being more of a distraction than a help? Zen's "Buddha is a shit-wiping stick" might be much more helpful for us of more limited intellectual prowess.

Still, to each his own.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

The One and Oneness

Scott Bradley

The author of the Trust in MindDaodejing uses it straightaway as a designation for a One that is beyond objectification; it cannot be known, yet it is suggested in all things. Zhuangzi uses it similarly, but in deference to the emptiness of the metaphysical Dao he also transforms it into a term descriptive of an experience, the experience of oneness. "Dao throughs as one." The experience of oneness is Dao.

The experience of oneness requires no One. Oneness is not experience of the One. The One does not grant the experience of oneness. A person does not experience oneness because there is One. A person experiences oneness because it is possible for the human brain to do so. There are no answers on offer.

Why then does one seek the experience of oneness? Because it feels good. If we seek it because it is our "birthright" we have rendered reality purposive, not empty. If we seek it because we 'should', we have rendered reality moral, not empty. If we say we cannot experience it if we have rendered reality purposive and moral, we have rendered reality conditional, not empty.

Oneness is not a metaphysical statement; it is an experience.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

This Statement Is False

Scott Bradley

Mu Soeng (Trust in Mind), in addressing the first element of Gautama's Eight-Fold Path, "right view", tells us how the right view can be the wrong view: "The radicalism of Chan . . . said that all views are erroneous simply by virtue of being views in the first place." This "right view" refers to the four ennobling truths (?!), namely that insufficiency (suffering) is universal, why it arises, what is its cure, and how one gets the cure.

Thus, the right view becomes the wrong view when it is thought to be anything other than a provisional paradigm for understanding the human experience. In this sense, the right view is never truly right, even though it need not be wrong. However, it can be wrong if thought to be right—but also only provisionally so. He continues: "In practical terms, we can work with views . . . as working propositions but when we grasp any of them as 'truth' these views become instantaneously erroneous. Therefore, a deconstruction of all views, bar none, is required before one steps into working with them provisionally."

This, of course, is precisely the understanding of Zhuangzi. And though Buddhism may very well understand the same, it seems to have taken an encounter with Daoism for it to remember. The result was Chan (Zen).

I have several times here expressed my disapproval of the idea of "right view", informed as I am by my righter view that there is no right view, but that obviously amounts to the same thing. Still, since there are very few (if any) realized buddhas among us, one generally encounters this admonition to "right view" stated as 'truth', so my wrong view about this wrong view is not altogether wrong, though I am.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Upaya: Universal Provisionality

Scott Bradley

"[W]hen we speak of Chan in China, we need to keep in mind that we are speaking of a thousand experiments on a thousand mountain peaks." (Mu Soeng; Trust in Mind)

Might we not similarly say that when we speak of any spiritual endeavor, we are speaking of a personal experiment? As I like to say, there are as many paths as there are pairs of feet to walk them. Even when we follow a certain traditional path, it might be better described as finding our own path up a traditional mountain.

Soeng's statement is not intended to suggest that, after much experimentation, the true way was discovered. Not at all. It is always and only this experimentation — if the individual journey is to be authentic.

He also makes the point that Gautama’s philosophical revolution was motivated in part by a rejection of the ontological substantiality, the 'ultimate' of Brahman, in the Brahmanism of his day. In other words, "he was a phenomenologist"; his interest was in the human experience, not in establishing 'facts' about ultimate Reality. Thus, by extension, does he similarly critique every other idea of the so-called Ultimate — Dao as Source, God, I Am, Universal Mind, and the rest.

This conditioned propensity to establish Being so as to secure our being easily infiltrates even those philosophies which began in the acknowledgement of no such thing; and thus did a Buddhism now religiously reifying Buddha, when it encountered the "not-knowing" of neo-Daoism, reform itself in Chan (Zen). (Neo-Daoism being a reform of religious Daoism, which had similarly lost itself in belief.) Or something like that.

What is left is upaya, "skillful means", always-provisional (and thus self-emptying) ways of understanding our being-in-the-world. As with everything else, my understanding of upaya has been rather shallow; I have thought of it as only applying to method — a fish-trap forgotten when the fish are caught. But Soeng demonstrates how upaya applies to our every understanding of and relationship with the world — the fish, too, are upaya.

And thus are the teachings of the Buddha "therapeutic rather than absolutist" and "a series of fictions" (Conze) designed to facilitate a certain favorable outcome. And thus does Zen suggest that if we meet the Buddha we had best kill him, for in meeting him we have met a lie.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

Buddho-Daoism

Scott Bradley

In his Trust in Mind: The Rebellion of Chinese Zen, a commentary on the Chan poem Trust in Mind (Xinxinming; Seng-ts'an ?, 6th cent.), Mu Soeng begins by emphasizing its roots in Daoism, going so far as to call it "Buddho-Taoist". This connection is what has made this poem especially attractive to me since I find myself much more at home in the simplicity of proto-Daoist philosophy than in the admittedly rich, but overwhelmingly complex and relatively religiously bound philosophy of Buddhism.

Thus, when his introduction begins by ascribing to Zhuangzi the seeds of the Chan revolution, I am hopeful of learning still more how the Trust in Mind can lead me to a better understanding of Zhuangzi: "Chan was born out of what might be described as a nuanced sensibility of the absurdity of the human condition. This was the gift of Zhuangzi to Indian Buddhism in China."

He goes on to quote Grigg (The Tao of Zen): "Zen is Taoism disguised as Buddhism. When twelve hundred years of Buddhist accretions are removed from Zen, it is revealed to be a direct evolution of the spirit and philosophy of Taoism. Indeed, the literature known as the Laozi and Zhuangzi begins a continuous tradition that can be followed through the Chan of China to the Zen of present-day Japan. The formative writings of early Taoism are essentially the teachings of Zen."

Mu Soeng takes a more balanced view, however. He suggests that the Trust in Mind, though it does demonstrate fewer "Buddhist accretions", is still a synthesis of Indian Buddhism, Chinese Chan as it already existed, and Daoism. To each he dedicates a chapter demonstrating in what way this is so.

Thus, will I get my Chan exposition of Zhuangzi, even if in moderation; and I suspect I will be sharing some of that here.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

Shame I

Scott Bradley

Shame, when experienced, is joined at the hip with name. It is a sense of having fallen short of an idealized identity that one wishes to be, but obviously is not. I said 'when experienced' because there is also the other shame that exists only as an idea; this is the shame that we believe other people should experience as when we say, 'shame on you', or when we 'name and shame' someone. This might be better refered to as 'blame', but these three, name, shame and blame, are inextricably related.

Unquestionably, there is a place for shame in the human experience, as a helpful impetus to change. Mencius, like other moralists, saw it as an absolutely necessary driving force in the work of self-cultivation. Shamelessness is a cardinal sin. Even the theoretical sage, even when free of every specific behavior that might elicit shame, would still not be shameless. For shame is the prerequisite to sagacity; it is that which brings us to and keeps us on the straight and narrow. We also call this 'conscience', the structural apparatus by which we make ourselves toe-the-line. Freud called it the 'superego', the inner potty-training parent and sometimes tyrant.

This is the standard operating procedure by which we train our children and keep ourselves and society properly regulated. For those who fail to follow the dictates of shame, we have jail or various forms of lethality.

Daoism takes a radically different approach. In fact, it seems so counter-intuitive to the way we typically function, that arguments for it seem doomed from the start. An analogous critique might be that found in the Xin-Xin Ming to the effect that "to set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind." This is a disease so prevalent, so innate, that to confront it on its own terms would be futile, not to mention hypocritical. It cannot be argued against any more than one could successfully argue against argumentation. At best, it can only be presented as an invitation to a possibility.

Once again this brings us to that thorny issue of 'good and evil', and not wishing to deal with that here, I will only speak of that sense of shame that arises from personal failure and that does not significantly impact upon others. Harming others is an entirely different arena.

Daoism understands shame as an expression of egoic self-identity. One falls short of how one wants to be seen by one's self and by others. One does not thereby fall short of how one actually is, however. How one actually is, this is where Daoism begins and ends. There is either affirmation or there is not. Provisional affirmation is not affirmation. True affirmation is a kind of shamelessness. And like the disease of the discriminating mind, when the mechanism of shame is transcended, all that that mechanism hoped to achieve but could not by virtue of its internal contradictions, just happens, naturally.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The One Revealed III

Scott Bradley

Each thing reveals the One, / the One manifests as all things. / To live in this Realization / is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection. / To put your trust in the Heart-Mind / is to live without separation, / and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.
— Xin-Xin Ming (Seng-Ts'an?; Richard B. Clarke, translator)

Putting our trust in the heart-mind is the same as "realization". This is saying a lot. What is it saying? I think it might mean something very different to Seng-Ts'an and his translator than it does to me, this difference being that which obtains between Buddhism and philosophical Daoism (as I understand them). Nevertheless, understood from a Daoist perspective, it still points to the pinnacle experience to which it aspires.

The heart-mind, for Zen, is identical with Universal Mind. This may be the case, but I cannot go there; or at least, I cannot begin there. I can only begin with this heart-mind that "I" am; this experience of "me" is the gate to my re-integration with source, not as something known, but as a not-knowing that need not know. This is the meaning of "trust". There is no reason to identify this mind with a distinct and unique universalization of itself beyond the universal integration of all things. One might just as easily speak of the Universal Not-Mind. Consciousness is indeed a wonderful experience, but it would still be anthropocentric folly to pronounce it special. Nevertheless, it is this experience which is both paradoxically the cause of our alienation from source and our opportunity to re-integrate with 'it'.

Trust is possible only because of individuated conscious experience; a rock has neither the possibility nor the necessity. Blessed rocks. Blessed humanity, which can actually consciously experience re-integration.

Trust is affirmation so profound that it is synonymous with surrender. Surrender is a letting go into things as they are, the inevitable and the unavoidable, that resonates back into the conscious mind as thankfulness. Trust is an opening of the heart-mind in thankfulness. As such, it has no object; it requires no tenets of belief; "source" is beyond imagining and re-integration with 'it' takes place in the realm of Mystery, empty of content.

Zhuangzi describes this as relying on nothing. To the extent that one believes in something, there is something relied upon; and where something is relied upon, there remains something unsurrendered. If something has to be "true", then conditions obtain, and where conditions obtain, something is relied upon; where something is relied upon there is a gap between that something and oneself.

"To put your trust in the heart-mind" is to surrender into the experience of you as sufficient unto itself as an expression of source. Trust need not be conjured up; it is already the deepest expression of one's existence. Life is trust. To live is to trust. To trust is to live most fully.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

The One Revealed II

Scott Bradley

Each thing reveals the One, / the One manifests as all things. / To live in this Realization / is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection. / To put your trust in the Heart-Mind / is to live without separation, / and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.
— Xin-Xin Ming (Seng-Ts'an?; Richard B. Clarke, translator)

To realize oneness is to transcend concerns about perfection and non-perfection; why does Seng-Ts'an tell us this? Might it not be because it is precisely this distinction that drives a wedge through the heart of reality as we experience it? For the most part we are able to affirm the non-human world even in its apparent non-perfection. Earth wobbles and fails of perfect symmetry. The pockmarked planets revolve elliptically. Stars die. The ever-accelerating Universe ever-expands into nothingness. Outside my window I see pine, fir and cedar, all bearing the scars of life, yet each one still somehow perfect.

It is upon the human world that we stumble. What a mess! Whether taken as a whole or individually, non-perfection is the rule. We need to improve. We need to become better. Unlike the trees, we can improve. Like the trees, we need not improve to be perfect. This is that inherent perfection that obtains because we are, a perfection that has nothing to do with perfection and non-perfection.

It is said that all conflict and violence arise from unmet needs. Things are not as they should be; we need to fix them. But what if we realized our perfection in our imperfections; might not our fixing be a non-fixing? Might not we and the world improve without conflict?

Needless to say, I speak theoretically. And I speak of a 'cure' because I understand I have the disease. And though that understanding may be more painful than a lack thereof, still it seems likely that only those who know they are sick seek a cure.

To realize perfection in oneself is not possible except in that one also realizes it in all others. If it is difficult to realize it in oneself, how much more so in others? Yet the proof of the former lies in the latter.

Our perfection is the perfection of the One, which we are; how could it be otherwise?

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.