Disassembling the Zen vs. Buddhism debate

It's everyone's favorite, another meta-post! At times, it isn't clear what we're arguing about, and I think this is because we're talking past one another by using different sets of definitions. Furthermore, a lot of (possibly unintentional) fallacious thinking is going on. I think that we should be able to get past strawmen and semantics, and with that in mind I think it's important to disassemble what's going on.

For one, there are not two positions on this issue. In truth, there are innumerable positions on this issue, when one accounts for all the variables one might include to adjust or add nuance to their position. But the framing of the debate as "Zen vs. Buddhism" makes it seem like there are two camps who all believe the same thing within their own ranks, and I think we can all agree that this is false. Although this not by any means an exhaustive list of positions the one could take on the issue, here are the most obvious ones:

1. Zen is religion, and Buddhism is religion. My religion is Zen Buddhism. (Zr = Br)

2. Zen emerged from Buddhism. Buddhism is a religion, and although Zen transcends religion, it is nested in the context of Buddhism. (Za ~ Br)

3. Zen is not religion, Buddhism is religion. Zen and Buddhism are unrelated. (Za =/= Br)

4. Zen is not religion, Buddhism is not religion. Although some people practice religions that they identify as both of these categories, the most fundamental claims of both categories are not religious claims. (Za = Ba)

5. Zen is a cult that believed in mystical transmission of teachings. Buddhism is not a religion and simply reflects psychological and/or metaphysical truths; therefore Zen is a perversion or heresy. (Zr =/= Ba)

6. Zen is religion, and Buddhism is religion. I am not religious, however, there is truth to be found in Zen and/or Buddhism. They may or may not be related. (Zr ~ Br)

7. Zen is not a religion, and Buddhism is not a religion. However, they have nothing to do with one another. (Za =/= Ba)

8. Zen is a cult that believed in mystical transmission of teachings. Buddhism is not a religion and simply reflects psychological and/or metaphysical truths; however, Zen expressed these truths in a powerful, distinctive way (Zr ~ Ba)

[Key for my mini-equations: Z = Zen; B = Buddhism; r= religion; a= not religion; ~ means an approximate relationship]

Now, the point of this post is not to take any one of these positions or argue for them. You can guess at which one I fall under based on my posting here (but you'll probably be wrong). And, by all means, if you think your position doesn't fit with any one of these, leave a comment giving your position because I'd be very interested in your perspective. In any case, what we likely have is people who are all over the map in terms of the positions that one can take, and we are all debating about it. You might think at this point that the problem is the framing of the debate as two-sided, but that's only a facet of the current situation (and most people are using the terminology somewhat satirically anyway). There is never 'one problem' at the root of everything to pinpoint, in my opinion; but I have noticed certain behaviors appear over and over again in this debate, and I think they've culminated in a lot of confusion as to what exactly is being argued.

There are four of them:

1. Suppression: favoring one position to the point of wanting to censor other positions; ignoring even the possibility of other positions. In this type of thinking, the differences between the other positions are not important because none of them are worth exploring or considering. This kind of behavior represents a religious inclination to close-mindedness. However, common claims made of this type will construe 'religious thinking' as something delineated by the commonplace use of the term 'religious' as used above, while failing to recognize that ideological thinking is, psychologically speaking, the same as religious thinking (one value to which all the others are sublimated or in service of). This is the failure to recognize that mob mentality, groupthink, dogmatism, sacred values, heresy, apostasy and orthodoxy can exist in ideologies with no supernatural claims.

2. Reductionism: conflating or collapsing multiple positions. While the first type of behavior is the most common, reductionism is by far the most insidious. It is the natural conclusion of suppressing other viewpoints that all the opposing views must be collapsed into one another, in order to show the uniqueness of your 'true' viewpoint. Also, some of these viewpoints are much harder to defend, or carry more baggage with them that one must prove. By collapsing one view into a more radical viewpoint with a greater burden of proof and more far-reaching claims, one can undermine their opponent's credibility from the start. We all know what a strawman argument is, but it is important to remember that we get strawman arguments when false dichotomies are set up, or when actual dichotomies aren't recognized.

3. Proselyte Fallacy: conflating one or more positions with proselytizing in and of itself. This is sometimes manifest in the assertion that only the religious positions can be proselytes; but this behavior in its broadest form is the accusation that positions other than your own are proselytizing whereas you are simply defending the truth. This does not mean that there isn't proselytizing - but we have to distinguish simply holding one of the positions above to proselytizing for it. This fallacy is the conflation of the two, or the accusation that merely to express one such position makes one's behavior inappropriate.

4. Obscurantism: Selective engagement with texts/historians to favor one position. While I think the previous behaviors are bad conduct when it comes to reasoning, obscurantism is unique in that it is bad conduct when it comes to evidence gathering. This position is commonly expressed in the form of dismissing a scholar or even the scholarly consensus. This kind of thinking places the opinion of a layperson above that of the expert (which is something that we wouldn't do when it came to a medical opinion about how to proceed with surgery, for example). Sometimes, however, it is as simple as ignoring or refusing to engage with textual evidence that contradicts one's chosen position above.

To conclude, I should say a few things. First of all, I know that some of you are immediately going to come in here and make comments asking who all these other people are who are doing these things, where are the examples, why aren't you focusing on yourself instead of others, etc. This would completely miss the point of this post, so please prove me wrong and don't bring that in here because I won't even gratify it with a response. This isn't about 'calling people out' or making claims about others or pointing fingers. If anything, this is in the interest of recognizing that someone's position might not be as neatly understood and you think, and recognizing where our own engagement with someone else can go wrong by making assumptions. If you wish, take every last thing said in this post as strictly academic and theoretical, like a list of potential fallacies that one might make while wading into the Zen vs Buddhism debate. Not saying that any of you in particular have made them, and I know I've had my fair share of confusions due to my own fallacious thinking.

As for the real conclusion, let's hear from some Zen Masters who have some relevant things to say:

Some senior Zen students say they don't rationalize at all, don't calculate and compare at all, don't cling to sound and form, don't rest on defilement and purity. They say the sacred and the profane, delusion and enlightenment, are a single clear emptiness. They say there are no such things in the midst of great light. They are veiled by the light of wisdom, fixated on wisdom. They are incurable.

-Foyan

In Zen, there are no sectarian differences, but when students lack a broad, stable will, and teachers lack a broad, comprehensive teaching, then what they enter into differs. The ultimate point of Zen, however, has no such differences.

-Dahui

Many Zennists cling to personalistic views as ultimate realities or final truths, and do not believe there can be anything better. As soon as they are put to a real Zen test, they are lost. This happens when they finally never meet a real Zen master, so their realization is crude. They sit in a nest of 'win and lose', fearing to be disturbed by anyone, afraid they'll lose Zen.

Some Zennists say their viewpoints are all correct, and when experienced masters tell them it is not so, they say this is just a deliberate ploy to entrap them and turn them around. These paranoid Zennists stop after they have managed to hold still. This is a fatal disease, which is of its own nature incurable. Therefore all Zen seekers can do is to be careful to avoid it.

-Ying-an

Submitted December 04, 2017 at 09:17PM by essentialsalts http://ift.tt/2Ap5QVm