Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy

brought to you by Ron Yezzi

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Minnesota State University, Mankato

© Copyright 1986, 1994, 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi

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(Author's Note: The account below, with slight modifications, is taken from Ron Yezzi, Philosophical Problems: The Good Life (Mankato: G. Bruno & Co., 1994), pp. 36-44.)

Topics

Overcoming Excessive Self-Consciousness and Duality

Freedom and Spontaneity

Satori

Zen Practice

Zen and Everyday Life

Zen and The West

Zen and Stoicism

Controversies: Some Objections and Possible Replies

Thought Excursions

Sources

The Good Life:

Zen Buddhism

Overcoming Excessive Self-Consciousness and Duality

Advocates of Zen Buddhism1 usually view their position as a worthwhile alternative to traditional Western philosophical thought, particularly its dualism. They see Zen as a way of escaping the Western tendency to categorize experience and reality through oppositions such as mind-body, self-other, man-nature, subject-object, knower-known, self-experience, good-evil, pleasure-pain, controller-controlled, thought-action. Such oppositions produce illusions about the nature of reality; but they also lead persons into frenzied, unsatisfying activities as they try to separate themselves off from, or overcome, an opposite. People suffer from excessive self-consciousness. So the self or ego is seen as having experiences, but also as being separate from them; human beings try to dominate nature; persons seek the good and try to avoid evil; they try to escape from pain so as to get pleasure; they perceive their self-interest as different from others' interests. Human life becomes a continuous struggle to choose and achieve goals and to overcome obstacles. Yet the end-result is the attainment of neither truth nor tranquility.

Freedom and Spontaneity

By contrast, Zen offers a life of freedom and spontaneity in harmony with nature. The freedom comes in “no longer trying to resist the flow of events,” where we avoid the pattern of continual choices and constant striving. It is not the sort of freedom that exhibits itself in wild behavior following release from tightly confining, external restraints; rather it shows itself in quite ordinary tasks where one no longer feels the external world as an obstacle. Nor is freedom conceived here simply as a power of action that belongs to a person as an individual; rather it is a release from the self-centered, ambitious pursuit of goals.

Associated with the freedom is a spontaneity whereby we no longer have precisely planned intentions or the habit of having “second thoughts” about our actions. These forms of reflective thinking are seen as “blocks” to the expression of our natural selves. Given this freedom and spontaneity, we are able to see ourselves as an integral part of the natural environment and are able to gradually grow with the natural course of events, instead of forcing hurriedly conceived goals upon the natural world.

Satori

Freedom and spontaneity in a life of Zen occur through attainment of Satori, or awakening,2 which occurs in sudden flashes of insight. Satori is not attained as a result of goal-directed activity; and it is not really describable in words. Indeed it is often spoken of as being “nothing special.” According to an often quoted saying,

Before I was enlightened, the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains. When I began to be enlightened, the rivers were not rivers any more, and the mountains were not mountains. Now, since I am enlightened, the rivers are rivers again and the mountains are mountains.3

Awakening (or enlightenment) does not provide us with any particular addition to our knowledge; rather it puts us beyond the need to seek particular bits of knowledge. It is the central focus of the Zen experience.

In Essays in Zen Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki offers this account:

Satori may be defined as an intuitive looking into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. Practically, it means the unfolding of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of a dualistically-trained mind. Or we may say that with satori our entire surroundings are viewed from quite an unexpected angle of perception. Whatever this is, the world for those who have gained a satori is no more the old world as it used to be: even with all its flowing streams and burning fires, it is never the same one again. Logically stated, all its opposites and contradictions are united and harmonized into a consistent organic whole. This is a mystery and a miracle, but according to the Zen masters such is being performed every day. Satori can thus be had only through our once personally experiencing it.4

One does not attain satori by talking about it. “To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to `stink of zen.'”5 One must get beyond the usual barriers of logic and language so that one experiences life directly and exhibits both naturalness and spontaneity. The task is attempted through meditation for long hours (“Zen,” literally, means “meditation”), usually in a sitting position (za-zen). One does not seek satori as a goal but rather tries to remove the barriers to it. Indeed one is most likely to experience satori at the point where the meditation has become so goalless that there is no hope left of finding it.

Zen Practice

In the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, emphasis is placed upon a quiet awareness whereby one is sitting and watching whatever happens, without any particular direction being given to the meditation. (Meditation occurs preferably in a meditation hall where there are no distractions and where the eyes gaze upon the floor a few feet in front of the sitter.)

In the Rinzai school, emphasis is placed upon solving koans, or riddles, presented to a student by a Zen master (roshi). For example, as a simple koan, a student may be directed to meditate upon one's “original face” prior to being conceived by a father and a mother.

Neither school provides students with “answers,” since whatever they gain from the meditation must come from their own direct experience. Yet both schools try to get the student to go beyond the usual conception of self and the usual patterns of thought based upon reasoning and language. In the Soto school, the self and the usual pattern of thought dissolve through a total receptivity to the undifferentiated fullness of experience. In the Rinzai school, they dissolve through the koans, which expose the absurdity of the usual conception of the self and the usual patterns of thought.

There is a certain “flavor,” combining seriousness and the unexpected with a sense of humor, in the interplay that occurs in Zen—as the following two stories show,

One day Tesshu, the famous swordsman and Zen devotee, went to Dokuon and told him triumphantly he believed all that exists is empty, there is no you or me, etc. The master who had listened in silence suddenly snatched up his long tobacco pipe and struck Tesshu's head.

The infuriated swordsman would have killed the master there and then, but Dokuon said calmly, “Emptiness is quick to show anger, isn't it?”

Forcing a smile, Tesshu left the room.6

Note the naturalness and spontaneity that characterizes the actions of the Zen master.

The next story is a bit more perplexing:

Two monks were walking by the stream near their temple, when one spotted a leaf of lettuce floating downstream. “Master Gizan (abbot of a monastery a mile upstream) has become a wastrel, I'm afraid.” The other nodded and sighed. Suddenly Master Gizan burst, panting, from a clump of bushes ahead and plunged into the stream for the lettuce-leaf. The monks bowed low, and walked on.7

We can see how the student of Zen is continually kept off-balance so that the usual patterns of thought are overcome.