Zen Buddhism and Alan Watts
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To appeal to the western mind, here are some tangible benefits I have achieved(And you can too) through meditation and zen:
* More appreciation for small things
* Less stressed over everything
* Lower blood pressure
* Far better ability to focus (A cure for my ADD)
* Better ability to express myself rather than just playing social games that we don't even realize we're playing
* Being more of a completionist and caring for the things I work on
To name a few.
Meditating daily also increases the grey matter in your brain[1]. That alone was good enough reason for me to start my practice.
[1] http://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/S0197-4580(07)002...
Here is the PDF:
http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf2/Mindfulness%20in%20Plain%20E...
"Mindfulness Defined" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/mindfu...
"The Agendas of Mindfulness" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/agenda...
"Right Mindfulness" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/rightm...
When eating you're aware that you are eating. When seeing something you are aware that you are seeing something. When enjoying the sunset you're aware you're enjoying the sunset. When thinking you're aware that you are thinking. When selfish you are aware of that. When sad you are aware that you are sad... And so on.
On some level it's like "seeing the matrix". Everything is clear, no longer overlaid by thoughts of gain or loss. No more "what's in it for me?"
Everything is wondrous. Everything is just there. There are no questions.
Wow... This just blurted out. Anyway, that's what it means to me.
I certainly can't claim to always be like that, but I can attain the feeling quite often.
It's been a long while since I've experienced that, but you describe it perfectly.
A few years ago I started to notice the underlying emotions when I said something that was designed to either a) impress or b) hurt the other person. Neither case felt pleasant. In the latter case self-righteousness can have a drug-like high, but there is often a hangover too (regret, guilt, shame etc).
So I started becoming more mindful of what I say. I strive only to say things that I believe at my core.
Occasionally I still catch myself saying or doing something that's about trying to impress or hurt the other person, but it's much less common now, and I feel like I move through my day lightly even under significant work stress.
Humor is a special case. I can "lie" by saying something absurd or snarky, but the underlying feeling is one of laughter. However, I try to avoid snide putdowns or Gawker-style schadenfreude. Most people, even those at "the top" (however defined) are struggling with something. Consider for example Elon Musk's apparent difficulty with relationships. I feel for the guy and don't see much humor in pouring salt in the wounds.
For example it's fine to watch TV if your intention is to relax and enjoy a show. But if you turn on the TV without intention and mindlessly channel surf with no set timeframe, that is not a very mindful practice.
Everything is simple during those moments.
I encourage anyone to try meditation. While I was always interested in the subject, it was not until I read Mindfulness in Plain English (referenced above) that I started taking it seriously.
Concentration is much more one of a one-pointed thing. It's about focusing like a laser on one thing. When I'm concentrated it feels like everything except what I'm focusing on drops away. It's like playing a video game, or reading an interesting book. It's a very calm experience, except that sometimes it feels like there is effort involved
Mindfulness is much more about paying broad attention to what's going on, about being aware and accepting of whatever experience is arising in the present moment. There is a strong intentional component -- I want to pay attention to the present moment, and there is an open curiosity and willingness to just be with whatever arises. There is a certain amount of memory involved, too, in the sense that you need to remember to pay attention and not get caught up in your own thoughts.
Ironically, at least among Western Mahayana teachers it's very hard to find such a coherent and pragmatic framework as the one described in "Mindfulness in Plain English."
Many of the people who visit this site and are interested in meditation would probably like the "pragmatic Buddhism" [1] movement, or the book "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" [2].
[1] there are other sites, but this is a good start: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB... [2] http://integrateddaniel.info/book/
I bought a handful of copies of this book so I could give them away. Of course often it is very important WHEN you read the book.
I suggest delving into Watts with his 'Out of your Mind' audiobooks recorded from his class lectures.
I found it not to beat around the bush the way other books do.
I don't understand the need for constantly interspersing an otherwise flowing article with references to science. It feels like the author thinks that the authenticity of his thoughts and personal journey hinges on validation from science.
Outside of zen (though very closely related). Phenomenology deals with this Subject/Object paradox our thoughts/language/science revolves around, and how it comes up short it describing some phenomena.
For the sake of argument, if the principles of OOP are: dynamic dispatch; abstraction; subtype polymorphism; and inheritance, what might be the equivalent for Subject-Orientated Programming ?
In my view, a charateristic of SOP must be that data is personal and unique. Every single usage of data specifies a new unique identifier. To read is to interpret: is to record a new ID. Here, identity (x==y) gets broken; so another operator is needed (x~=y).
As an ex philosophy major, immutable state and its implications on identity interest me greatly. I feel like this, and other ideas from FP, could be considered a step toward a so-called Subject-Object Programming paradigm.
"This is the basis of Zen itself — that all life and existence is based on a kind of dynamic emptiness (a view now supported by modern science, which sees phenomena at a subatomic level popping in and out of existence in a ‘quantum froth’)."
It can also be a weasel-y way of avoiding mentioning that there is plenty of scientific evidence favouring the null hypothesis when tested against that something. E.g. mind-reading.
A: If an observation has no evidence, then the evidence is yet to come.
B: If an observation now has evidence, it validates the observation.
It's circular.
--- While it is refreshing that Zen philosophy is supported in many ways by present scientific knowledge, it is also a critique of scientific thought. The scientific tradition requires things up to be cut up — both mentally and physically — into smaller and small pieces to investigate them. It suggests that the only kind of knowledge is empirical and that the rigid laws of scientific method are the only kind that are valid.
Zen implies that this is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater — scientific thinking might be immensely useful, but it also does violence to a meaningful conception of life. It tends to screen out the essential connectedness of things. We live in an imprecise world. Nature is extraordinarily vague. Science promotes the idea of hard, clear ‘brute facts’ — but some facts are soft. A ‘cutting-up’ attitude to life gives us dead knowledge, not live knowledge.---
In truth, dynamic emptiness has absolutely nothing to do with quantum froth, which could be described using any objects and still make sense. This concept of some unseen physical manifestation of the model arises because of the terms a theoretician chose to identify elements of his mathematical model. They're essentially undefined terms, given meaning by their context in the larger physical system.
A lot of people get lost in the undefined terms, thinking that because we use a familiar word for the term, that the item in the model which the term identifies somehow actually exists. Actually there's no proof that the quantum froth exists as physical object, any more than that light is somehow both a wave and a particle. Rather, wave/particle "duality" is a consequence of different mathematical models which happen to generate results which are consistent with observation.
The "duality" doesn't actually exist, and the way light behaves is so incredibly nuanced that people dedicate their lives to modeling and testing it. Waveness and Particleness are models which produce mathematics consistent with the natural world.
In the cases where more than one mathematical model fits the same set of observations, scientific controversies arise. A Physical theory is accepted when the mathematical model produces results which are consistent with observation, and sufficient experimental work has been done to rule out other mathematical models with overlapping explanatory power.
My thermodynamics professor opened all of his classes by saying "Everything I am about to tell you is a carefully constructed series of lies."
That's just one of the definitions of truth, and a quite naive one at that. Not just philosophy, even epistemology have not been using this for ages.
As someone interested in mindfulness for its own pursuits, I want to learn what's in my teacher's head, rather than listen to them try unsuccessfully to tie that to what's firmly in mine. I'm sorry to say it's distracting :)
I'm curious, have you actually studied quantum mechanics? Because the impression I get from people who have is that the "light is a particle and a wave" thing is pretty much bullshit. (Which isn't the same thing as false, but more like "not actually a thing that you tell people if you want them to have a better understanding of the nature of reality".) But I haven't studied it myself.
Yes, the wave/particle duality is a nice abstraction we can apply to QM so that we can extract some results from it intuitively (or with just a few calculations). Besides, it's a concept with deep historical significance. Even if it wasn't a good abstraction, it would still be important.
But the duality is also something you can wave in front of people that didn't study QM to make sure they don't question your arguments. Doing that will make the arguments harder for them to understand, but sound like an explanation (that means, something that makes it easier to understand).
"Bullshit" is a common name for that second kind of usage.
The crucial idea behind all of this is "quantization", physicists have worked out a way of obtaining quantum systems from classical system and in particular a mapping of familiar observables to quantum mechanical observables.
One insight of Feynman was that this can be done via the so Lagrangian formulation of classical physics. It postulates that the future state of a system can be predicted from the current state of the system by assigning to each possible state a so called Lagrange density. Given two possible states of the system and a path in state space between them, integrating the Lagrange density along that path gives an "action" for that possibility, the theory postulates that the path with the minimal action is chosen. With appropriate choices of Lagrange density this correctly predicts the behavior of all classical mechanical systems, and also Maxwells equations. Feynman instead postulated that to obtain the probability amplitude for a system to transition between two states one had to sum over all possible paths in the classical state space weighted with exp(iS/2πh) where the action S is the result of integrating the Lagrangian density along that path and h is Planck's constant. Then by analogy with a result of 19th century analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_steepest_descent) the sum will be dominated by contributions close to the critical (classical) path, so that for S much larger than h (which is true for classical mechanics) we recover the original Lagrangian formulation.
So to summarize Physicists use the intuition gained from classical physical systems to study quantum mechanical systems, but not in the naive way of "light is both a particle and wave", which at best is misleading. What constitutes a quantum system is largely a question of length or energy scales. The method of path integral quantization suggests a very concrete way of how to quantize a classical physical system.
It actually feels un-Zen like for him to obsess over that. It sort of illustrates his example of dukkha. On one hand he tells us that Zen rejects the need for logical consistency. On the other hand, he keeps using science as validation. Even if there are paradoxes or contradictions in science, scientists are constantly working to resolve them because they don't accept the idea of an inconsistent world. His constant return to science is an example of dukkha. Just let it go man...
> I don't understand the need for constantly interspersing
> an otherwise flowing article with references to science.
Many Zen practitioners have received their first contact with zen trough Alan Watts. He was really good writer. But eventually you must realize that he was philosopher, alcoholic and religions scholar who looked Zen from the outside. Talking and thinking about Zen is like talking and thinking about physical exercise. Philosophical thinking about koan is like treating bench press as a philosophical problem. You can't lift it with your toughs.
(That is a serious question!)
The point is this. You can say that practice is Zen but in that perspective everything is Zen because everything is practice.
I'm myself a Zen Buddhist, I train with a teacher and have spend time zen training in a zen temple and attend sesshins regularly. I'm also very secular and atheist person who don't like organized religion. It's miracle that I can coexist with religious setting, but I do it because I see Buddhsit Zen teachers as experienced coaches and temple as training facility. I also know that he is not going to indoctrinate me for anything superstitions despite his own beliefs that are different from mine (there are number of rotten zen teachers though).
If I were to describe what zazen meditation[1] is using as scientific terms as possible, I would say that it's developing and directing your attention towards higher temporal resolution and developing the ability of keeping it there (always below 1s and it can go as low as ~40 Hz). You can put your poet hat on and call it "living in this moment", "looking at the reality", "awakening to reality", "seeing the world as it really is", "impermanence" or "looking into yourself/mind", but that's what it really is in my opinion. You can't have complex philosophical toughs in such a short time. You can only see 'thoughtlets' (small incomplete toughs) forming and fading away in fractions of second. It's like using low level debugger into the functioning of yor mind (debugger being directed attention).
---
[1] Same thing with most other awareness style Buddhist meditation traditions. You learn to see similarities with other traditions when you practice. Zazen is often more spartan and simplified and vital (not for everyone).
Nice description of the differences between Zen and Vipassana styles by Shinzen Young http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WiM-w5qqmE
Its fantastic that it works for you. For me, This is exactly why I couldn't handle Zen. It feels too much like the hierarchical church patriarchy.
Due to this I've gravitated towards the Pragmatic Dharma crowd which tends to be a mix of Theravada and Advaita practices (though rejecting Advaita view).
Some resources for the looks-like-religion allergic:
http://kennethfolkdharma.com/quick-start-guide/ http://www.dharmaoverground.org http://awakenetwork.org
Why should I be doing zen or any other form of meditation?
In my own words you should meditate because with practice one builds a refuge within stillness. Knowledge of this refuge changes the way you feel about circumstances and mental phenomena (motion). The change just feels right, like a lessening of burden, but it takes practice, that's the thing. The rituals and calligraphy are not the thing.
I eventually discovered a way to approach this state without drugs, it has to do with studying the Buddha Dhamma and practicing based on the teachings preserved in the Pali cannon, safeguarded by the Theravada lineage.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.22.0.than.html ^ if you ctrl-f and search this text for the string "And what is right mindfulness?" then you will be onto something.
I realize that the description above may sound too general, or even like I'm describing a panacea, and perhaps I am, that's the thing.
I ditch all the rituals. You can get a lot from just sitting in a chair and meditating.
I think the author was that Osho guy...
the smart thing about buddha is he kept the discourse always on the root ("dukkha" , look it up). It's very easy to loose one's way, which osho did, if you see his life's progression.
For people who are put off by ceremony and do not find long periods of sitting meditation (40 minutes or more) particularly useful, check out the Rinzai school of Zen. Shorter periods of sitting meditation, more emphasis on thinking critically about koans and "dharma combat" -- critical discussion. Rinzai abhorred ritual and ceremony for its own sake, so less emphasis on that.
For those who don't know, Zen is Buddhist philosophy without the religion. That's my explanation, anyway!
Alan Watts' explanations and historical notes on philosophy and religion are, to use an appropriate term, highly enlightening. They're also entertaining and often very amusing.
I highly recommend subscribing to the Alan Watts Podcast.
If someone teaches the 'art of living' then they also must teach the principle of how a certain kind of result in life turns out according to what kind of causes lie on what kind of ways of life. But meditation is not the way to solve problems in yourself and it is therefore not a way to learn the art of living. The proof is that there is no clear definition of what life is through anyone who teaches meditation. And I think it will be important for you to know that Gautama Buddha did not teach that meditation is the way to attain an Enlightenment.
If we discuss the matter of Zen, we need to admit the fact that a teaching cannot be helpful to living people if it doesn't contain any ways. The way means the process to get from the problem to the answer. There might be some answers in Zen but, like in the scriptures, there are no clear questions therein of how to distinguish between good teaching and bad teaching. As a result, many monks and lay people have placed their own words and thoughts into books and scriptures, and they contribute considerably to misguiding others. Despite the monks' and lay people's ability to convince others with words, there is a huge gap between their level of consciousness and that of a Tathagata.
That's not a proof of anything. You do not need a clear definition of the goal for a method to help you approach the goal; you need a method that helps you approach the goal.
I am also curious as why you believe meditation is not a way to solve problems in yourself. My personal, direct experience is that it does, so I have to conclude that your claim is false based on that alone, and to me this is also direct confirmation that your "proof" is nonsensical.
> And I think it will be important for you to know that Gautama Buddha did not teach that meditation is the way to attain an Enlightenment.
What is your basis for this claim? And what are you saying?
This is from the Nagara Sutta [1] (the last two paragraphs, describing the Noble Eightfold Path):
> "In the same way I saw an ancient path, an ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. That is the ancient path, the ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times. I followed that path. Following it, I came to direct knowledge of aging & death, direct knowledge of the origination of aging & death, direct knowledge of the cessation of aging & death, direct knowledge of the path leading to the cessation of aging & death. I followed that path. Following it, I came to direct knowledge of birth... becoming... clinging... craving... feeling... contact... the six sense media... name-&-form... consciousness, direct knowledge of the origination of consciousness, direct knowledge of the cessation of consciousness, direct knowledge of the path leading to the cessation of consciousness. I followed that path.
> "Following it, I came to direct knowledge of fabrications, direct knowledge of the origination of fabrications, direct knowledge of the cessation of fabrications, direct knowledge of the path leading to the cessation of fabrications. Knowing that directly, I have revealed it to monks, nuns, male lay followers & female lay followers, so that this holy life has become powerful, rich, detailed, well-populated, wide-spread, proclaimed among celestial & human beings."
Are you claiming this did not come from Gautama Buddha? Or are you claiming what it describes is not enlightenment? Or are you claiming it does not include meditation as one of the means? ("right mindfulness, right concentration" is what most people would consider to refer to meditation practice, and as far as I can tell it is well supported by other parts of the Pali canon that meditation is what this refers to). Or something else?
If you mean that he did not describe it as sufficient by itself to attain enlightenment, then I believe you are right about what he said. Then again, I think a substantial proportion of people who find buddhist philosophy interesting does not believe in nirvana. When I meditation, it is not with that as a goal.
[1] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.065.tha...
Suppose you say you're practicing and teaching mathematics but you cannot tell me what mathematics is. How can I trust that you know anything about what you are teaching?
> I am also curious as why you believe meditation is not a way to solve problems in yourself. My personal, direct experience is that it does, so I have to conclude that your claim is false based on that alone, and to me this is also direct confirmation that your "proof" is nonsensical.
The burden of proof is on the person who says that something exists, not the person who says that they have not yet found evidence of the thing's existence. If you have some evidence in your life quality that meditation has helped you, we should confirm what the concrete benefit is. No one can speak about what they do not know, and only those who do not know are silent in the face of a fair question. Over time, as I get to know you and see how you live, I get to confirm that if you cannot show proof of what you claim is inside you then it means you are telling untruth.
> Are you claiming this did not come from Gautama Buddha? Or are you claiming what it describes is not enlightenment? Or are you claiming it does not include meditation as one of the means? ("right mindfulness, right concentration" is what most people would consider to refer to meditation practice, and as far as I can tell it is well supported by other parts of the Pali canon that meditation is what this refers to). Or something else?
What I claim here is that there is a huge difference between the practice of meditation that people are learning and teaching in modern times, and the specifics of the method of self-reflection that Gautama Buddha guided his disciples to make efforts to undergo. However, I don't know you yet, and it would be a mistake of mine to share his real teaching with you if I don't confirm how genuine you are.
> If you mean that he did not describe it as sufficient by itself to attain enlightenment, then I believe you are right about what he said. Then again, I think a substantial proportion of people who find buddhist philosophy interesting does not believe in nirvana. When I meditation, it is not with that as a goal.
To be clear, no, I do not mean that meditation is not sufficient by itself. I mean that meditation is not something that makes you closer to Enlightenment. Enlightenment has very strict preconditions and meditation is not a teaching that you can practice which helps you fulfill those conditions.
Your usage of the term 'nirvana' is interesting. I would like to mention to you that the term 'nirvana' is only misunderstood by modern Buddhists to mean 'cessation of rebirth'. If Buddha taught 'cessation of rebirth' then he was teaching the way that people can die forever. However, that is not what a Buddha teaches people. He taught people to save themselves and to live well. He taught how to bless your endless future lives through what exists in reality. That's why there's a big difference between the upward socioeconomic mobility of someone who learned Buddha's teachings correctly versus someone who didn't. However, a big problem is the fact that it's impossible for people who are untruthful to understand Buddha's teaching. They cannot recognize it due to their lack of virtue and they discard it easily. So I would like to see how you respond before telling you more.
What a crock of horse shit. For other people's sake I really hope you don't have any students.
That is perfectly fine. But it does not prove anything remotely close to what you stated.
> The burden of proof is on the person who says that something exists, not the person who says that they have not yet found evidence of the thing's existence.
Now you are just being difficult. I did not ask you to prove anything. I said I was curious as to why you believe it is not way to solve problems, in the face of a huge number of people who have practical experience saying it is.
> If you have some evidence in your life quality that meditation has helped you, we should confirm what the concrete benefit is.
A concrete benefit is reduced stress levels. And this is a concrete benefit that has had plenty of research to confirm it.
> What I claim here is that there is a huge difference between the practice of meditation that people are learning and teaching in modern times, and the specifics of the method of self-reflection that Gautama Buddha guided his disciples to make efforts to undergo.
This is a very different claim from what you made earlier.
> However, I don't know you yet, and it would be a mistake of mine to share his real teaching with you if I don't confirm how genuine you are.
This is just pure, utter bullshit.
> To be clear, no, I do not mean that meditation is not sufficient by itself. I mean that meditation is not something that makes you closer to Enlightenment. Enlightenment has very strict preconditions and meditation is not a teaching that you can practice which helps you fulfill those conditions.
This was not the claim I was responding to. I was responding to your specific claim that Gautama Buddha did not teach that meditation is the way to enlightenment. This was also the entirety of the context for my use of the term "nirvana". If you have other beliefs with respect to what enlightenment and nirvana means, that's an entirely different subject. While I practice meditation, my interest in Buddhism beyond that is one of a general interest in philosophy - I'm not a Buddhist.
> So I would like to see how you respond before telling you more.
I did not ask you to tell me more, I questioned specific claims you made that to me directly disagree with facts, and you avoided answering the questions as best you can. That to me tells me I'd waste my time listening to anything more.
I can recommend exploring one of the lesser known "strains" of zen buddhism Madhyamaka.
Isn't this simply objective analysis of our social structures. Why do I need a strange religion from the east in my quest for truth?
Watts, Huxley, McKenna and Bateson are to me the most important readings a live could have.
If I was a digital consciousness, struggling to make sense of things, like Samantha, I'd be thrilled to find Alan Watts ;)
If Alan Watt's enlightenment didn't prevent him from being an alcoholic who couldn't take care of his family, then I don't think that is an enlightenment worth pursuing.
The Buddha was adamant about this fact: anything that depends on conditions (for it's appearance or maintenance) is not enlightenment.
This leads me to believe that the author's experience, however delightful, was not enlightenment.
I wish the author well, but I don't think he understands Zen or Buddhism.
I have to agree on this one.
An "enlightened" person is supposed to have a happy, reliable state of mind that serves as a mirror to the true potential of all beings.
Only then practitioners can meditate on this person's state of mind. This is how meditation works in Vajrayana-Buddhism.
A definition of enlightenment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCotuy5Y8u8
I'm curious of where in Confucius or Mencius critical thinking is discarded?
Though, ironically, Alan Watts actually has a number criticisms of critical thinking as well (in both article and recorded lectures). Zen (from it's daoist roots) isn't discarding critical thinking, it is pointing out its limitations.
is a useful guided 11minute meditation for both beginners and intermediate practitioners. Meditation requires that we first calm our body, then make breath serene and then we can focus on mind and go inward. I've found http://swamij.com a very useful resource in understanding the breadth and depth of real menaing and practices of Yoga meditation.
I used to work in the enlightenment industry.
Intuitively changing techniques (for example, to Advaita) can be a good strategy.
If you're aware of the states of mind associated with higher concentration, you can recognize negative feelings as a sign of progress and push through.
Meditation is essentially about seeing reality as it is, and if you have a sucky life, then it may seem that meditation is making your life worse and causing you to be depressed. It's not that meditation is making it worse, but that you are simply becoming more aware of the things that are making you unhappy. So it seems to get worse before it gets better, as they say.
Also, I should say that I don't want to oversell meditation -- I think meditation can sometimes cause real problems for people (especially if you tend to have an addictive personality, and you have no teacher or a teacher who isn't very experienced).
Objects are merely objects. The soul and meaning, the creative act is what gives essence and significance to life. I have never meditated but perhaps is something related to this feeling. Just my 2 cents.
The introverts, they are the ones that go within and cut themselves off from the world. They are the ones getting "enlightened".
The extroverts, talking all the time and sounding important, barely know what is what.
These are two remarkably different ways of coping with the same problem: fear.
Seriously, the introverts need to find a way to talk, and the extroverts need to calm down and feel more.
On the other hand, there are awakened beings like J. Krishnamurti who prattle on endlessly (eloquently so, mind you) about the no-path to awakening.
Also, in the Zen tradition it's pretty common for the master to give Dharma talks, which of course entails lots of talking (Eihei Dogen comes to mind here, saying a lot and revealing little for the rational mind to latch onto).
Probably the best example of "Those who know don't say" in recent times was Ramana Maharshi.
If you find the "theoretical/analytical" side of Zen interesting, look into Seung Sahn's teachings. I recommend the book Dropping Ashes on the Buddha. I've yet to come across more direct pointing that's in the form of text.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Zen-Alan-Watts/dp/0375705104# [2] http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Japanese-Culture-Bollingen-Series/... [3] http://www.amazon.com/Zen-English-Literature-Oriental-Classi...
It manages well to steer clear of all cultural trappings and mysticism and just gives an introduction into the core ideas of Buddhism (which as Hagen points out isn't even an -ism).
I studied religious history as an undergrad and one conversation specifically comes to mind. I asked my Japanese humanities professor what most eastern Zen practitioners thought of western Zen practitioners. She responded by saying that most western practitioners were well respected by their eastern counterparts, with the exception of Alan Watts. She called him out by name.
Over the years I've encountered Watt's speeches and writings and never really gotten much out of them. He just comes across as someone who doesn't understand Zen Buddhism. He's also a prosletyzer, which as a concept, derives explicitly from the west.
Most westerners who were talking about Zen in the 1960's and early 70's didn't understand it. For example, the beat writers terribly understood many concepts of Zen. So it shouldn't be surprising that Alan Watts didn't get it either.
None of this is meant to detract from people who have read Alan Watts and exxperienced some increase in well being as a consequence. It's just that increased well being should not be central in ones' desire to pursue Zen. So if reading Alan Watts makes you feel good, then by all means keep reading Alan Watts. Just understand that you're receiving something which is packaged incorrectly. It has the wrong label on the package.
If, like me, you're interested in learning about Zen from a scholarly perspective than I recommend you start with reading stories of celebrated monks first. Then move on to more philosophical tomes later.
This book is fun to read and will give you an idea of Zen's history. http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Clouds-Radicals-Rebels-Reformers...
This book provides a good introductory text about Zen. Be careful though, because Wong Kiew Kit believes that Taoism had no influence on Chinese Buddhism. This view contradicts what most historians think, but is in line with what a Zen practitioner would say. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Zen-Wong-Kiew/dp/0974995...
You can approach Zen as a practitioner, a religious scholar, a philosopher, or a historian. The important thing is you approach it knowing where you come from, and be clear to yourself about your intentions.
It's turtles all the way down.
If you take this viewpoint, then you might say that Zen and what Siddhartha Gautama achieved were not the same thing.
However, most practitioners of Zen refute this and say that what Zen is, and what Siddhartha Gautama achieved are the same thing. This is the view that Wong Kiew Kit states in The Encyclopedia of Zen(referenced above).
People like Kit believe that Siddhartha Gautama discovered enlightenment on their own, and that enlightenment is the exact same kind of enlightenment as what modern Zen masters discover.
To quote myself now, "With only very rare exceptions, it requires an authority to transmit." It is not unheard of for students of Zen Buddhism to achieve enlightenment on their own.
Bankei, a famous 17th century Japanese Zen master, is recorded as having achieved enlightenment while watching a bloodied ball of phlegm slide down a paper wall. The story goes that he was so frustrated with the fake Zen masters in Japan at the time, that he sat on a mountain top until he first achieved tuberculosis and almost achieved starvation. Zen was so debased in Japan at the time that this was the only way for him to achieve it. All the other masters were fakes.
Among modern Zen masters it is understood that what Gautama Buddha achieved and what Bankei achieved are the exact same thing. That it was not transmitted to them is irrelevant, but it should be noted that this type of self-realization is extremely rare in Zen history.
How can a new practitioner know if the instructor is actually enlightened or is only saying they are enlightened?
When Zen was associated with swordsmanship and Bushido in Japanese culture they simply used to wait until the battle was over. Who ever was left standing was clearly a master. Those who got stabbed obviously didn't know Zen.
But not all Zen masters know how to fight. My recommendation to anyone interested in studying Zen is to track down and read biographies of celebrated Zen masters. When you're reading them look at how these celebrated masters challenged their teachers to prove they were worthy. These people are constantly messing with each other.
A part of what fascinates me about studying Zen is its ability to impart useful knowledge via anecdote and narrative. History probably added some embellishments, but that's part of the fun.
Citation needed please.
Watts certainly has his flaws, one of which was that he simply wrote and spoke so much that I think some of the material suffers and becomes repetitive. He always took more of a wide view of religions (east and west) than just focusing narrowly on zen. Watts wrote about Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, and materialism in addition and often in contrast to Buddhism. I'm not sure even he would lay claim to being an expert on Zen, but when he certainly was responsibly to turning on a lot of westerners to it. Many of those who then went on into deeper study with more "true" Zen teachers (whatever that means).
This is not my opinion per se. It is the opinion of many Zen masters. Just look at the criticisms section in Alan Watt's Wikipedia article. D. T. Suzuki being one of them.
However, having said all that, I still think the world is a better place because Alan Watts existed. Even if misinformed about many Zen concepts, he has brought joy to many people, and interested many people in Zen.
I fairly consistently meditate. I don't spend more than five or ten minutes in any given setting, so you might not consider me a hard core meditator, but I do feel that it's provided me with some positive mental tools. I'm going to focus on the ones that aren't necessarily related to long term average increases in objective health and wellbeing and more on a subjective perception that I have new cognitive strategies to deal with certain situations.
As an example, I used to be pretty anxious about falling asleep, and I think it caused it to be more difficult to fall asleep. Some of the insight meditation practices helped me deal with the anxiety feedback loop. It wasn't something crazy or mystical; I mostly just learned how to effectively stop thinking about something, or at least stop focussing on something. Ordinarily trying to stop thinking about something had led to a nasty loop. I can't sleep, so I get anxious, the anxiety makes it harder to sleep, which makes me more anxious.
The meditation got me more comfortable with just sitting, for one, and secondly it helped me learn to acknowledge a thought, and "let go" of it. Eventually I got to a point where I wouldn't be able to sleep, but whenever a thought that would provoke anxiety popped up, it would just sort of pass by, and I never actually felt the emotional reaction.
Honestly, I don't think I fall asleep any faster (again none of this is quantitative data), but I do find that I just don't care anymore because the anxiety isn't there. It's not the effect I expected when I started meditating, but it's just as, if not more effective.
I continue with it because it's pretty easy to carve out five or ten minutes here and there. I have no idea if it's causing any long term health benefits, nor does it really matter to me. Subjectively I feel more relaxed right after I meditate, but that's about it. Honestly, I'd keep doing it just because it feels nice. I don't do any crazy postures or full lotus, or anything like that; maybe there's something I'm missing out on, but I do plan on continuing the practice as I perform it. I try to keep my reasons for that as subjectively tangible and non religious/spiritual as possible.
Side Note: The book "The Wisdom of Insecurity" is an interesting Alan Watts book. I like Watts work but like anything, I have a tendency to read things looking for what's wrong with what the author is saying. Eventually I learned to more actively look for what's useful instead, which I think is helpful with that kind of book, otherwise I end up in this endless cycle of critique, which is fun but doesn't really get me anywhere. (I'm not saying don't do critical analysis; more just be aware that there can be value in imperfect works)
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What an idiotic attitude. Empiricism ("picking everything to pieces") is one of the few ways to find truth. Attempting to discredit it by comparing it to a "childish" activity speaks to the lack of arguments against it.
All of the Zen/Buddhist blog posts I've seen on HN have been intellectually lazy and/or dishonest, relying on pseudo-science/quantum mysticism ("light, for instance, acts as both a particle and a wave", as some sort of poorly thought out attack on the PEM) and misleading analogy.
Anyway, I got the impression the attack was against analytical thinking, and not empiricism. The people that do that kind of attack are completely oblivious from the amount of systemic thinking science does today, they are fighting ideas that are almost a century out of fashion.
The key to all esoteric teachings of the East is an approach from the premises of cognitive psychology and 'systemic view' of modern humqn physiology, discarding volumes by self-proclaimed western 'gurus'.
Then Yoga or Tai Chi Chuan or Zen will be as clear an ancient insights to our own nature (as a complex system made out of several subsystems of multitudes of semiindependent processes).