I read something here that made me sad yesterday.
It asked the very basic question of whether "physical health, solid friendships and loving relationships, a meditation practice, and a study of philosophy" can be used as tools, instead of "Zen", to "reduce suffering and create happiness".
u/pohw struck me as someone who genuinely wanted to understand Zen, and he's been here a while. He participated here for over a month, and has been very active, and apparently earnest in his wish to learn about Zen, yet he is still entirely ignorant of the most basic foundation of what Zen is even about.
This forum failed him.
This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where the nihilistic attack on Zen that is dominantly passed off here as "Zen" bears its toxic fruit of ignorance.
So I wrote this post just for you, u/pohw.
No, you won't be happy with "physical health, solid friendships and loving relationships, a meditation practice, and a study of philosophy".
Because these things (let's leave meditation aside for a second) are impermanent, inherently unsatisfactory, and promote an illusion of self.
Your physical health is not guaranteed. Just from the way you refer to it, I am sure you are young and healthy. This will not last, my friend. You will lose your health by old age, if not sooner.
Solid friendships and loving relationships are less solid than they seem. Live long enough, and you will see people repeatedly disappoint you. Maybe because they never really were the person your craving made them out to be. Or maybe because like everything in existence, they are subject to change over time. But fundamentally, because they are not a permanent object forever available for your satisfaction. They are an impermanent, conditioned reality.
Seeing them as such, as permanent satisfying objects, is your delusion. As long as you hang onto it, you will give rise to craving, and this whole desperate process will end in suffering, at the inevitable day of calamity in which this delusion will unravel, and all your craving will come back to your like a vengeful ghost.
On that day, your "study of philosophy" will not avail you.
All these fine observations by Plato, Kant, or even Schopenhauer: what good will they do you when your wife dies, when your friend betrays you, when your health suddenly, violently fails?
That is why we need the dharma. Philosophy can't liberate you from suffering. All these objects of craving you mentioned above will not only ultimately fail to reduce suffering - far from it, they will serve to produce it.
Modern society convinced you that these possessions will help you, but they won't. They are inherently impermanent and unsatisfactory. The delusion that they are otherwise will itself add much to misery when the time comes.
Plato and Kant and most other philosophers were primarily interested in establishing the truth, not alleviating human suffering. If you encountered a particular philosopher who is very good at alleviating your suffering, then by all means, let me know. I've studied many philosophers and never found one.
All of the above is the foundation of Zen Buddhism. It's the basic introductory course.
The type of Zen being promoted here is what you study after you master the basic teachings of Buddhism.
Let's examine this very random quote from "Zen Master" most often (mis)quoted here: Huangbo.
A single moment’s dualistic thought is sufficient to drag you back to the twelvefold chain of causation. It is ignorance which turns the wheel of causation, thereby creating an endless chain of karmic causes and results.
This tiny two-sentence passage contains no less than three major Buddhist concepts that I guarantee you don't know if you haven't studied Buddhism:
The first two can be learned intellectually by studying the fundamentals of Buddhism. The last one requires, in addition to that, a solid meditation practice, grounded in such study.
This is a key fragment in Huangbo's Transmission of Mind (section 44), but it is by no means unique. In the next paragraph, Huangbo casually dives into a deep critical analysis of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. In the one after that, he refers to Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra.
How can he do that? Is he trying to confuse his readers, keep them away from his teachings?
Not at all, because like most texts so often carelessly misquoted here, "The Transmission of Mind" was compiled for trained and educated Buddhist monks.
I repeat: you had to study all the basic Buddhist teachings and have an active Buddhist practice as a prerequisite to attend this course.
What we see in this forum is folks who never took these prerequisites, but jumped right into this advanced post-graduate course. They never mastered addition and subtraction, yet they wandered into a multivariate calculus class. Of course, they understand nothing, but they are all intelligent, proud people. So instead of admitting their lack of understanding, they pretend that this advanced material is all a meaningless joke.
If you want to go down this path, go right ahead and directly read the Mumonkan, Blue Cliff Record, and other advanced Zen Buddhist texts you have no chance to understand.
Otherwise, embark on a serious course of study that will give you the necessary knowledge to ultimately realize what Zen is about.
At the very least, u/pohw, read some basic introduction to Buddhism, like Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. It would have answered your question of yesterday.
Otherwise, if you don't want to make any effort, then yes, you are right: maintaining "physical health, solid friendships, loving relationships, and a study of philosophy" is a far more effective way to grasp happiness than smugly misquoting Zen Buddhist teachers all day and pretending you are enlightened.
Submitted December 31, 2017 at 05:47PM by SilaSamadhi http://ift.tt/2DDTBms
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