Loneliness and Solitude

King of the Road: On Loneliness and Solitude

Written by Chuan Zhi

Thursday, 15 February 2001 00:00

Why should I feel alone? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? - Henry David Thoreau: Walden: Solitude Roger Miller, that lyrical genius from Texas, was propelled to stardom in 1965 when he released King of the Road, an album which showcased his most famous song of the same name. It begins "Trailers for sale or rent, Rooms to let - 50 cents. No phone, no pool, no pets. Ain't got no cigarettes. Ah but two hours of pushing broom buys an 8 by 12 four-bit room. He's a man of means by no means. King of the road." Why should this song, inspired when Miller saw a hobo in an airport gift shop, have endeared itself to so many millions of us? No matter what our economic or religious backgrounds were, we all tuned in to listen to the contented account of this vagabond King of the Road. Was it that we had never before considered what a life of simplicity could do for us? Roger Miller made us think about our lives and that part of us that craves simplicity and the joyful freedom that it brings. But if simplicity is so desirable, why do we strive so hard to lead such complicated lives? What one part of us craves, the other fears. The King of the Road traveled his highway alone. Always we tend to equate being alone with being rejected and alienated. The song intrigued us because it was a testament to solitude - and solitude is the opposite of loneliness. Loneliness doesn't like being alone. Solitude is delighted to be with itself. Why is it that we human beings are so ashamed or afraid to be alone with ourselves? We awake in the morning and the first thing we do is turn on the television whose job it is, we insist, to stay on until we are ready for sleep at the end of the day. Whether we watch it or not, we like to hear the voices and activities of other people. Somehow, even images from a cathode-ray tube comfort us. When we stop to analyze our daily lives, we discover how many of our activities are constructed to assuage this fear of being alone. We wait in lines at restaurants and take several hours to eat a meal that we could quickly have prepared at home. We go out to crowded malls shopping for things we don't even need. We go to a book store to browse the shelves for half an hour and spend two hours in the coffee shop, chatting with strangers. We join clubs, social organizations, and religions for no other reason than to avoid being alone with ourselves and to gain a sense of belonging. Belonging to what? The irony is that spiritual growth, that objective common to all religions, tells us to look inward and not outward … and this mandates that we somehow manage to transform those raging fears of loneliness into the tranquil love of solitude. Zen has a solution for us: it begins with simplifying our lives. When we are incessantly in motion - managing our households, taking care of our families, working at our demanding jobs - when every moment of our waking life is filled with activity there is no time for us to look inward. Something or someone clamors for our attention; and in a very real sense we are relieved to think that we have an excuse or a reason to divert our attention away from our spiritual needs. We begin by examining each of our activities, and with fierce honesty ask ourselves if it’s one we need. If we can omit it, we do. Let’s examine the common example of attending religious services. Do we go to the local Zendo or temple once or twice a week because we feel obliged to go? Or because we might otherwise feel guilty? Are we trying to prove to ourselves or to others that we are good Buddhists? Perhaps we spend an hour preparing ourselves for the occasion, an hour driving to the event in busy traffic, and an hour sitting in attendance - and all the while the chores we have postponed are weighing heavy on us … the laundry must be done, groceries bought, garbage taken out, email checked, phone calls returned, and bills paid. As we sit to meditate or to listen to a sermon, our minds are swirling with thoughts of neglected responsibilities and with those lingering traffic tensions. Stressed out, we're not prepared to meditate or, in any other way, to attend to our inner lives. When the service is over, we drive back home praying only that with a little luck we can still get all our chores done. It doesn't require much analysis to understand that we've wasted too much time and that our efforts have been counter-productive. But usually we don't stop to analyze anything. We continue to delude ourselves, following a program that on the surface appears to satisfy spiritual needs. In fact, our program has succeeded only in taking us farther away from our spiritual goal. Zen requires that we simplify our religious practice as well as our lives. Instead of wasting time acquiring unnecessary material goods or postponing important domestic duties in order to participate in fruitless religious events, we can attend to what is truly important and then, when we do sit down to meditate, we can relax and be free of anxiety. The disciplines of material and social detachment are like any other disciplines. As we strip away the layers of activity in our lives to the bare essentials, a whole new universe unfolds within us -- we become free of the burdens we carry and quickly discover the joys of solitude. We become an Independent Person on our Path, or as Miller put it, a King of the Road. Trailers for sale or rent, Rooms to let - 50 cents, No phone, no pool, no pets, Ain't got no cigarettes, ah but Two hours of pushing broom buys an 8 by 12 four-bit room He's a man of means by no means King of the road. Third box car midnight train Destination Bangor, Maine Old worn-out suits and shoes, Don't pay no union dues. He smokes old stogies he has found Short, but not too big around He's a man of means by no means King of the road (He knows) Every engineer on every train All of their children and all of their names And every hang-out in every town Every lock that ain't locked When no one's around. I say, Trailers for sale or rent, Rooms to let - 50 cents, No phone, no pool, no pets, Ain't got no cigarettes. I've got two hours of pushing broom buys an 8 by 12 four-bit room He's a man of means by no means King of the road. The original scribbling of the "King of the Road" lyrics by Roger Miller now hang in a shadow-box at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Measuring Reality

Measuring Reality

Written by Fa Gong, OHY

Monday, 23 April 2007 00:00

In Chan our task is to discriminate - not between the false and the false, but between the false and the real. Differences in outward appearance do not matter at all. The real world is inside us. It is even inside our mind." -- Hsu Yun In "Western Zen: Transition and Turmoil", our Abbot, Rev. Chuan Zhi, highlights some challenges faced by Chan practitioners as it continues to transition from it's native Asian shores to a modern Western world. For the "dharma wheel" to keep turning, the "face" of Chan must alter its expression in order to be able to communicate effectively to a new audience, one that's accustomed to different ways of thinking, acting and expressing itself. Different histories, different races, different cultures, and different values mean that a wholesale "transplant" of a religious system cannot hope to be effective if clumsily extracted from the soil that created its initial growth and development. Western Chan is already showing distinctive traits. It's showing that it must accommodate itself to our intellectual penchant for science, philosophy, and psychology. It is also accommodating to a "Christian" oriented view of religion, adopting, and adapting to, terminologies, garments, and even methods of practice. Further, our post-modern culture expects modern political and value systems to be reflected in any "new" philosophy or religion. Feminism, same-sex politics and expression, and political egalitarianism are examples evidenced in the vast majority of contemporary Buddhist literature. Yet we do well to query much of the relevance of ancient Indian, Chinese or Japanese cultural accretions in their practice. Asking tough questions of our methodologies is valid, and important. But who says we need to sit on the floor cross-legged? Who says that the teacher should expect to be elevated to the status of an ideal being? Who says that we need to chant the Heart Sutra before meditation? Who says celibacy or vegetarianism are essential ingredients of "the Path?" It's prudent to ask which Chan traditions are relevant or useful. But let's be wary lest we throw out the baby with the bathwater. If our urge to "break away" from the shackles of the past simply disguises an unwillingness to commit to a difficult practice, we should stop ourselves. We must not be led unawares to the false notion that by discriminating between differences in culture and tradition, we are discriminating between what is real and what is false. More often we end up in a game of discriminating between the false and the false: falling into yet another insidious trap fabricated by the ego. When we begin choosing and selecting only those practices/regimens that "suit us" we undermine the essence of Chan practice itself. One of the first things we realize as we embark on a serious practice of ruthless self-examination is that our ego leaps around like a "landed fish" using one of Hsu Yun's often referenced similes. The ego looks to anything, to any excuse, to undermine this hard and demanding process. Consider our first multi-day meditation retreat. After a couple of days of discomfort, both physical and psychological, the rebellious ego begins to question the authority of the "strange Oriental monk" with his odd and inscrutable methods. We begin to search our mental archives and apply some unique application of a "post-modern certainty" to why we're here at all. After all, we reason, we're so much better informed now, can't we afford to be more "self-reliant" in our quest? We don't need to sit here and suffer. We can just be "more mindful" when we go back to our family, friends, work and social life. And anyway, we continue musing, since we are so much more aware of the history of Chan, and we've got all the right writings and dharma talks recorded at home, why not just "up and leave?" We can do our sitting in the comfort of our own homes where we can use a chair ... and a cushion ... with our feet up. And maybe have our favorite relaxation CD on in the background. And maybe take the evening off from our meditation schedule to see a friend. And maybe ... well heck, we may as well pull a beer out of the fridge . . . By juxtaposing our cultural and social values with those of the Buddha's time, or those of the many historical Chan masters, we simply set the false against the false, and the result is subversion of our own practice - of our own lives. Another issue that possibly leads us to attempt to discriminate the false from the false is what we might loosely call our cultural arrogance and the setting up of a measure of relative merit between our values and the values of another. Recently I have been researching the 'net to look for new ways Buddhism is expressing itself and adapting to the West, and a recurring theme keeps coming up. Phrases such as "for Buddhism to be successful in the America, it needs to ...", or "outdated thinking needs to come into the new millennium ...", or "what was appropriate for uneducated Indians is not appropriate for us ...", etc., are plentiful. It strikes me that often we in the West approach the dharma with a critical eye demanding that it justify itself against our more "enlightened" modern Western views. If it's not egalitarian, feminist, "engaged", or psycho-dynamically sound enough, for example, then it obviously doesn't "measure up." A contemporary Buddhist writer recently argued that Buddhism was fundamentally flawed until it came to America, where more "modern and enlightened" values essentially "brought it to completion." One bemusing claim in the article was that if only there had been more American Buddhist influence in Tibet during the late 1950's, the Chinese government would never have been able to occupy that country! Somehow, to this writer, the idea of not resisting and organizing resistance in a "modern civil rights" manner indicated the need for a more Western approach to "engaged Buddhism." A mild case of cultural arrogance? Let's face it, we don't bring a whole lot of humility to the table when we try and see how Buddhism "measures up" in a Western context. Yet not for a moment would I criticize or disregard the value of "engaged Buddhism", where it is considered a social imperative to promote the principles of justice and equality in the world around us. But we need to be attentive to whether our own "engaged Buddhism" is a natural outpouring of spontaneous compassion and loving-kindness, or a Western socio-political prejudice we assume to be axiomatic resulting in actions that seem naturally "the right thing to do." If the latter, then we are approaching the world solely from the perspective of the conditioned ego and its systems of values and beliefs, where we do nothing more than argue and discriminate the false from the false. Our urge to fix the world and save others can often simply reflect the power of the ego and its attachment to opinions and attitudes, and an unquestioning assumption regarding "how the world should work." Our lives become governed by self-righteousness rather than Prajna (Dharma wisdom). For example, I frequently encounter commentaries on how "monastic" Buddhism is inappropriate for the West, hearing arguments like "It cuts one off from the real world and therefore is simply irresponsible escapism." Such an attitude demonstrates only a conditioned response, one determined by a series of modern political and social assumptions, whose ultimate purpose is solely to discount Buddhism. We tend to use our capacity to judge, assess and discriminate to such a degree that we forget that the teachings of Buddha, and the principles of Chan, are really very simple. One of the most immediate and obvious drawbacks with our tendency to discriminate and judge is that to do so we must already have assumed a solid position from which to do so. When we assess the relevance and merit of Chan to our modern life, we do so from the position of having already made a series of value judgments, based on a necessarily ego-dominated mode of viewing the world. Whenever we judge the Buddhadharma, or its expression in various times and places, we do so from a position of conditioned assumptions. It is this conditioning that creates our sense of self, our views and opinions. We owe it to ourselves to make at least a cursory assessment of this conditioning, and to recognize the conditioning's accountability for our perspectives and attitudes. What are some of the conditioned assumptions with which we approach this tendency to discriminate, in Hsu Yun's words, the "false from the false?" There are, of course, innumerable influences that create our own value systems and opinions, but let's take a look at just a couple: post-modernism and consumerism. Post-modernism In the late 19th Century the English mystic and philosopher Aleister Crowley foresaw the rising intellectual uncertainty that later came to characterize the nascent post-modernist view. He wrote: "Every idea has been attacked by thinkers, and none has withstood attack. Hence civilization crumbles. No settled principles remain. Today all constructive statesmanship is empiricism or opportunism. It has been doubted whether there is any real relation between Mother and Child, any real distinction between Male and Female. The human mind, in despair, seeing insanity imminent in the breaking up of these coherent images, has tried to replace them by ideals which are only saved from destruction, at the very moment of their birth, by their vagueness." It's worth noting that Chan has always had quite a strong "post-modernist" flavor of its own. The iconoclasm of both is readily apparent, as is the complete lack of trust in any value system based solely on intellectual and moral assumptions. Indeed, Chan was much criticized when it first arrived in the West due to what was perceived as its "laissez-faire" attitude to morality. However, as a more informed expression of Chan reached Western shores, such a criticism proved unfounded. Chan, separated from Buddhist morality, it's Precepts and sila (morality teachings) is not real Chan, and here it differs considerably from the typical post-modern view of morality at the most essential level. In the West, there is no doubt that as a society we are experiencing on a large scale a reaction to the patriarchal and authoritative institutions that have governed us in the past. To many of us our initial attraction to Chan is its sometimes apparent disregard for rules and regulations. Such an attraction, however, is ill-founded. A strict and committed adherence to moral assumptions is assumed, and no significant advance along the Chan path is possible without due reverence to Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Speech. The "Beat Zen" leaders of early American Chan significantly failed to recognize that their "post-modern Zen" was based on erroneous views of a system of practice that, in reality, vigorously eschewed the intellectual, social and moral libertinism that characterized much of the post-modern perspective of society. When we bring to our practice some of the indulgent attitudes of this temperament, we are destined to misunderstand our practice, and more than likely to self-righteously dismiss it altogether. Consumerism Not only are we a society significantly influenced by post-modernist thought, we are also undeniably influenced by consumerist values. All of us are subject to the codes and assumptions of capitalist and market values. We are well aware of the fact that our economy, both personal and national, is based largely on the premise of personal greed, craving, and material gain. There seems to be no part of the world around us that's not shaped by consumerist assumptions and expressions: billboards, fashion, food, advertising ... it's a long list. Indeed, most consider it completely normal to choose our occupation -- and measure our success -- solely, or at least predominantly, on the basis of earning power and the capacity to buy and consume. But the consumerist ethic is the diametric opposite of the Buddha's path. Where the First Noble Truth teaches the all-pervading reality of suffering, and the Second Noble Truth teaches that craving and greed are paramount in the arising of this suffering, our consumerist society incessantly shouts at us that if only we own this, if only we buy that, will we find release from suffering. This ethic was the essence of Mara's temptations to Gotama as he sat beneath the bodhi tree; it was only as Gotama saw the lies in these offerings that he could attain enlightenment. The consumerist ethic also intrudes on our Western practice in more invidious ways. It undermines our entire commitment to detachment with promises of samsaric "gains". Certainly, we don't need to give away everything we own and wander from house to house in our robe with begging bowl in hand. But our society and its values does make it difficult to find time for meditation when we have to work for money so we can make our mortgage payment, fill the car with gas, buy food for the family and help the kids with their college tuition. Do our unquestioned consumerist values lead us to dismiss the demands required of a consistent and solid Buddhist practice? Specifically, for instance, those related to maintaining a strong sense of detachment from material goods? Do our measurement of Buddhism and its "relevance" to a modern Western practice simply arise from a characteristically Western inability to separate luxury from necessity? Our consumerist world also encourages us to subscribe to a belief in the economic superiority of the market system where all progress is based on trade and barter, supply and demand, and the rules that apply to such "reciprocal relationships." Inevitably, we find that such a philosophy seeps into our personal and even spiritual lives. We barter and we bargain, not only in our financial dealings, but in our personal relationships. We give, but only as long as we get. We face hardship and pain and we pray to our gods like supplicants who can make trade with the Divine, promising improved behaviour if we're given relief. We are encouraged in all areas of our life to enter into reciprocal relationships, where the same principles that run our economy run all areas of our lives. Like marionettes, we pray that our operator pulls the right strings - for we have abandoned our will to societies' binding forces.

Chan's Trailhead

Chan's Trailhead: The Triple Refuge and the Precepts

Written by Chuan Zhi

Tuesday, 25 January 2005 00:00

Photographs by Dimitris Maras The basics in our practice should be first, to be honest and upright; second, to be wary of wrongdoing; and third, to be humble within one's heart, to be aloof and content with little. If we are content with little in regards to speech and in all other things, we will see ourselves, we won't be distracted. The mind will have a foundation of virtue, concentration, and wisdom. "Virtue, concentration, and wisdom together make up the Path. But this Path is not yet the true teaching, not merely the Path that will take you there. For example, say you traveled the road from Bangkok to Wat Pah Pong; the road was necessary for your journey, but you were seeking Wat Pah Pong, the monastery, not the road. In the same way we can say that virtue, concentration, and wisdom are outside the truth of the Buddha but are the road that leads to this truth. When you have developed these three factors, the result is the most wonderful peace." -- No Ajahn Chah Some of us reach a point in our life where we know we can no longer continue as we have - our pains and sufferings are too great. We know something must change -- and we know it is ourselves. We begin seeking: we know not what, or where, but we look in all directions. There must be an end to this terrible suffering, we know, and we will stop nowhere until we find it. If we're lucky, our quest may lead us to Chan's trailhead and, if we're courageous enough, we'll set off on a most remarkable journey. We won't know where we're going, but we'll proceed with the faith that we'll be lead out of the swamp that we're so desperate to leave behind us. As we go, we'll discover that others have treaded this same path before us, leaving footprints that we might follow. Their wisdom will beckon us onward and upward. We'll realize how lucky we are that we don't have to walk alone because we'll see how easy it would be to lose sight of the trail. We'll embrace the wisdom of those who have gone before us realizing that it will help us make rapid progress up the mountain - a shorter journey to he summit. People have suffering in one place, so they go somewhere else. When suffering arises there, they run off again. They think they're running away from suffering, but they're not. Suffering goes with them. They carry suffering around without knowing it. If we don't know suffering then we can't know the cause of suffering. If we don't know the cause of suffering then we can't know the cessation of suffering. There's no way we can escape it." -- No Ajahn Chah How do we begin? We don't start climbing Mt. Everest from the third base station. We start at the very bottom, climb a bit, set up camp, wait for a few days to let ourselves adjust to the altitude, then move on up again, slowly, step by step. This is the same way we proceed in Chan. We start at the bottom, and work our way up, slowly, step by step. To do otherwise will beckon sure failure. A mountain climber, if dropped by helicopter halfway up Everest, would suffer severe hypoxia and could become unconscious or even die from the sudden reduction of oxygen. There are dangers of equal magnitude on the Chan path, but these dangers are predominantly psychological. Our minds and psyches must be prepared for each advance we make as we ascend if we're going to get to the summit safely. If we don't prepare for our journey before we begin we'll likely never arrive at the destination. And this is where the wisdom of our Chan ancestors offers invaluable guidance. Chan begins with an understanding of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths. These contain the Eightfold Path, which, in turn, contains the Precepts. We have already discussed the Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, so if our views and understanding are aligned with these fundamental teachings, we may be inspired to take the Triple Refuge and receive Precepts. If our motives are for other reasons: if we're lonely and want a social group with commensurate interests to ours; if we want a situation where we can be become "important" and gain prestige or power over others; or if we want an organization to affiliate with in order to help us make money, then we are not yet ready for a spiritual path that requires, at its core, solitude, humility, detachment, and self-reflection. Only we can know our true motives for wanting to become Buddhists. If our motives are externally rather than internally derived, membership in a congregation of any kind will not help us in a quest for spiritual transformation. Becoming a Chan Buddhist does not require of us any specific number of years of study, memorization of canonical texts, or recitation of religious creeds, but it is helpful to have knowledge of some of Chan's important historical texts (see Related Reading at the bottom of this page). "Is it necessary to take precepts?" we may ask ourselves. When we first learn to drive a car we do so with enthusiasm because of a strong desire to attain the freedom and independence that driving symbolizes. This is, in a way, like taking the Triple Refuge. We have faith that if we follow the rules and become good "drivers" we will have a new sort of freedom that we didn't have previously. Driving rules are like the precepts - to attain our goal we must work within the rules. The rules protect us -- keep us from crashing -- and keep us going in the right direction. At first they may be difficult to follow, but with practice and perseverance they become automatic and help us gain the rewards we're seeking. There's an ancient Chan proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the teacher is ready, the student will appear." Accepting the precepts and triple refuge from a priest can be a way of more firmly grounding us to Chan's path. When precepts are given and received, the priest becomes a committed resource for the disciple. How the voluntary relationship between priest and disciple evolves after precepts are given will be determined by the needs and spiritual development of both the disciple and the priest. The Triple Refuge Buddham saranam gacchami, I take refuge in the Buddha Dhammam saranam gacchami, I take refuge in the Dharma Sangham saranam gacchami, I take refuge in the Sangha Taking refuge is a way to help shift our minds away from their attachments. It is a way of committing ourselves to the path, of encouraging ourselves to put our own ideas and opinions aside to be guided by something greater. The nature of the human psyche is to attach itself somewhere and this may seem, initially, at odds with the Buddha's Four Noble Truths that proclaimdetachment as the key to success. But it is exactly because of the psyche's nature to attach that we must, first and foremost, have a safe place for it to attach; that is, we must have a refuge for it. In taking refuge in the Buddha we embrace our own Buddha Nature, we embrace the teachings of the Buddha and the Buddha's path of enlightenment; in taking refuge in the Dharma, we acknowledge the Universal Nature of all things, the perfection of all beings, and recognize the illusionary nature of mental images and attachments; in taking refuge in the Sangha, we join with all the others who, like us, seek enlightenment on the Chan path. Taking refuge is like laying the foundation for a house that we are building - a house where we intend to live out the rest of our lives. If the foundation is weak, we may end up with a structure that falls down with the first rain or high wind. If our faith in the Chan path is weak, we may find that our ability to follow the path vanishes the first time we encounter difficulties with our practice or come upon hard times. Our motivation must be high, and our eagerness to succeed must be great enough to endure inevitable obstacles and failures. If we approach the triple refuge with an attitude of trying it out to see if we like it, the doubt with which we approach it will ultimately sabotage our effort. Such an approach is like laying the foundation for a house before we know where we want to live. Ultimately, whether taken in a public or private setting, taking refuge is a commitment we make to ourselves. If we are not committed in our own hearts and minds, the words we speak in taking refuge will be meaningless. The Precepts The collection of five precepts is to us what a trail map is to a hiker: if we follow it, we're likely to arrive at our destination. Shakyamuni Buddha summarized, the general objective of Buddhist morality: "To do no evil, to cultivate good, and to purify one's mind: this is the teaching of the Buddhas." We want to understand the precepts in relation to this intent. The precepts aren't an end in and of themselves: we will not succeed in Chan if we are merely dogmatic followers of a religious creed. The precepts are contained in the fourth step of the Eightfold Path as a set of five vows: Precept 1) We vow to be non-violent This means we avoid initiating violent acts against ourselves or others; that is, we may not be an initiating cause of harm. We include physical acts of violence as well as abusive verbal acts, hostility or anger toward another person, and even thoughts of violence or anger toward one's self or another person. This may seem an impossible precept to keep. There are so many things that can make us angry that to completely eliminate anger from our lives may seem insurmountably difficult. And there are countless ways to harm another, without even intending to. For example, we may choose to help someone only to discover that we have harmed them instead. There are times that a person must find his or her own way, independently. Allowing them to make their own mistakes can be a way of indirectly helping them. Interference from a "kind and helping hand" can sometimes generate more problems than it solves. The precept of non-violence is taken to extreme by some across religious traditions: for fear of killing microbes in the air by breathing them, they wear facemasks; for fear of saying something to someone that harms them, they will not speak. There are others who will go to the opposite extreme, killing another person without hesitation simply because they have convinced themselves that their cause is Right, Good, and Just: that their actions are "approved by God" and therefore representative of Supreme Righteousness. Clearly, neither extreme is representative of the intent of this precept. But can a Chan Buddhist fight in a war? If we recognize that we exist as a species because of our ability throughout history to defend ourselves, the answer to this question may no longer seem black and white. We find we can neither condemn fighting nor condone it in any universally objective way. Wars and battles are the reason for our continued existence as well as the reason for much of the suffering we have endured over the millennia. There are some wars that must be fought: we need only consider World War II and the global battle against Hitler and his armies. To have taken a pacifist attitude toward the Nazis would have been tantamount to accepting, and condoning, the mass-slaughter of over a million Jews and others he found unfit to live in his future "Aryan Nation". But obviously not all wars are worthy of violent participation; the line of demarcation can only be drawn from our own moral conscience. When a question arises about the right thing to do, we remember that Chan, as the "Middle Way", encourages us to avoid extremes and choose a course of action based on its merit after having considered all "sides" of the situation. But this is not foolproof either. It is helpful to recognize that the nature of the psyche yet to complete the process of individuation, will project anger, violence, and hate, upon others when it feels threatened or confronted with a situation that generates fear. The result is dehumanizing treatment, torture, or even death of others. When acted upon collectively, this projection can result in the devastation of war. When our actions are reactions to this "dark force" - the enemy shadow -- within us, we need to recognize it and stop ourselves from reactive action. The student of Chan seeks complete integration of all the many components of the psyche (see Integrating the Archetypes on this website and Process of Individuation). Only a fully enlightened person can be freed from uncontrolled projections of the Enemy Shadow. We can study Chan's famous Ox herding Series Or Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching or The Secret of the Golden Flower(translation by Richard Wilhelm) to help understand Individuation in the Chinese context, or, in the Western context, we can study Carl Jung's and D. T. Suzuki's works (e.g., Carl Jung's "Alchemical Studies" and "Symbols of Transformation" and D.T. Suzuki's "Essays in Zen Buddhism. Until the unconscious forces buried deep in our psyche become conscious, we are at their mercy. When we get angry we may lash out with venom. Anger may consume us. But anger is always eliminated with understanding; that is, conscious integration of its emotional origins. A person of Chan may still get angry, but will quickly identify the source of the anger, making the cause conscious, and be able to avoid acting on the emotion it elicits. Thus the emotions erupt and vanish with equal ease. We must be especially careful not to bury anger or resentment or any form of hostility inside us. This form of repression is especially harmful. Of equal importance in this first precept is that we do no harm to ourselves. This means we avoid excessive behaviour that might harm us, and pursue beneficial, moderate, behavior such as eating a healthy diet, meditating, and exercising (tai chi, yoga, swimming, hiking, running are all excellent forms of exercise). We must also be gentle on ourselves and remember that we are human beings, not archetypal projections, and that, as human beings, perfection in thought and action is agoal to aspire to rather than something to expect from ourselves: guilt is not helpful, but recognition of our own fallibility brings humility which is an essential quality for spiritual growth. Precept 2) We vow to be truthful The importance of truthfulness is universal to all World Religions. "Be truthful, for truthfulness leads to righteousness and righteousness leads to Paradise" said Muhammad. Psalm 15 from the Old Testament (Ezra, Haggai, James) says: "LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour." The Buddha stated: "One should conquer anger through kindness, wickedness through goodness, selfishness through charity, and falsehood through truthfulness." (Dhammapada, XVII, 3) Being untruthful caries with it a huge price. Once we tell a lie or deceive someone we must follow a path of ever-deepening deception to maintain the lie. Our stories get more and more elaborate until it becomes clear to everyone that we're fabricating the entire scenario -- and then we're no longer trusted: our credibility is destroyed. Even worse, we loose our own self-respect, our sense that we are worthy human beings. Not only do we bring others down when we lie, cheat, steal, coerce, or deceive; we, ourselves, are sullied and suffer the result. Precept 3) We vow not to steal A man once told me that during a visit to a local gym he noticed someone had failed to lock the locker where he had put his clothes. He saw that there was a wallet in the pants pocket and decided that it was his duty to take the money out of it. "It taught him a lesson, I hope." He told me. "Maybe next time he won't be foolish enough to leave his locker unlocked." The degree to which we will rationalize an action when we feel we have something to gain from it is unlimited if we are negligent of this important precept. Nothing justifies the taking of another person's property. In the same vein, if we borrow something from someone, it is our obligation to return it, and if we damage that thing, it is our obligation to repair it, or compensate the owner in some appropriate way for the damage we caused. Likewise, this precept goes beyond simple theft in that it disallows our using guile and deceit to cause others to unwillingly give that which they do not have, or to gain some profit or advantage we are not legitimately due. Precept 4) We vow to be sexually moral Sex is a natural urge for all forms of life and we wouldn't exist without it so there is no basis to consider it to be inherently immoral. But the sexual urge, when combined with selfish desire, can lead us astray. We must be especially vigilant to avoid the pitfalls that come with careless, reckless, sexual conduct. "Sexual morality" means we act responsibly -- that we do not harm another person, or ourselves, because of a desire for sex. This precept emphasizes that we be considerate, compassionate, and thoughtful in our sexual encounters. We must never involve children in sexual acts. And seducing another person through deceit, drugs (such as alcohol), or other means also violates this precept. Any activity that exploits another person in any way - uses them for selfish motives - robs them of their humanity. How can this be helpful to anyone? The important point to remember is that we need to treat people respectfully, compassionately, and as human beings, in all situations. We need to be aware of the consequences of our actions: Do they cause harm to anyone? We consider psychological harm as well as physical and emotional harm. If the answer is "yes", our conscience should tell us to stop. This is a tougher precept to keep than it may seem at a glance. Even the Buddha is said to have acknowledged this in a humorous way when he said: "If I had had another obstacle as difficult to overcome as my sexuality, I never would have made it." Precept 5) We vow to abstain from abuse of alcohol or other intoxicants A man recently confided in me. He told me that he once drank and smoked heavily. It was during a time of his life, he said, that things were very difficult. "My wife was an angry, tyrannical, person and my children were scared of her. She had a mental disorder that she wouldn't get treated and she turned our home into hell. It was a very difficult time for me that didn't end until I divorced her. But I stayed with her until the kids had moved out of the house and went to College. After she and I were no longer together I spontaneously stopped smoking and drinking. I didn't even have to try ... and the odd thing was, it wasn't difficult at all -- I just didn't need alcohol or cigarettes anymore, so I didn't use them. It was the first time I had felt happy in many years. I guess I felt like I didn't need to drown my sorrows in booze anymore because there were no more sorrows to drown." Happiness requires that we put our mind on the task of being happy. Happiness, itself, eliminates the need -- the cause -- to use intoxicating drugs. It takes extreme effort to be happy sometimes, especially if we live with an unhappy spouse, work with a difficult boss or colleague, or are physically or mentally ill in some way. But the greater our effort, the greater our success. Nirvana is in the Heart as well as the Mind. It requires unrelenting effort to re-group and focus on the beauties and joys that life has to offer instead of the sorrows that are always so blatantly obvious. We cannot move forward on a spiritual path if we succumb to our desires to escape from life's hardships through drugs. We must meet those hardships head-on, and this can only be done through the proper focusing of attention with a clear, sober, eye. Chan has no punishment/reward system. Following the precepts is voluntary just as notfollowing the precepts is voluntary. We move ahead on the path with small steps. Trying to do it all at once, perfectly, will result in failure and we'll quickly give up. If we choose to break a precept, it needs to be with the conscious choice that we are breaking it and be prepared to accept any possible consequences. The Samsaric realm of cause and consequence - karma - will determine the direction and results of our actions. If we drink alcohol we may awake the next morning with a headache; if we are recovering alcoholics, we may find ourselves back at the bottle full-time; if we have an extra-marital affair, we may end up in court. If we choose to kill another person, or have an abortion, we will have to live with the inevitable damage to our psyche (it may be conscious or unconscious or both) - and sometimes this damage can be nearly insurmountable to overcome. This is our life and it's our choice how we live it. The precepts are not random and arbitrary, but serve a purpose - to help lift us up out of life's challenges in samsara. A prominent Chan teacher said "It is better to have taken the precepts and to have broken them sometimes, than to not have ever taken them at all." People often ask me how far they must take the precepts. Does abstinence from alcohol, for example, mean that they should never, "share a drink" with a friend? Does it mean they should not use wine in cooking, or ethanol in medicinal preparations? I remind them that Chan is the mystical path of Buddhism and is referred to as the "middle way" for a good reason. As long as we act responsibly and caringly for others and ourselves, we are free to act freely. Unless we are free to act freely, how can we become free? The precepts are not dogmas but dharmas - wisdom in the form of guidelines to help us pursue a spiritual life - a life leading to wisdom, emancipation, and liberation. The precepts are also guidelines that help us in times of indecision. They are for us to use, and not for us to judge others by, or ourselves by. And if we don't find any value in taking the precepts, then we might ask ourselves why we are seeking to follow the Buddhist path, a path whose trailhead begins with moral discipline. Chan Buddhism is not a "philosophy of life" as it is popularly portrayed, but a mystical path of salvation offering freedom from Samsara's eternal suffering. It requires a great deal of commitment, self-discipline, and motivation, as well as humility. Chan is not about how we think about life, but about how we live life. It is about inquiry into our nature as human beings and about making every moment of our lives count. Gratefully, Chan leads to an ever-increasing awareness of Self and a simultaneous elevating of joy in our life. Joan Sutherland, Roshi, of The Open Source Project, says: "The meaning of our vows arises from an exploration of our own sense of integrity, and of our shadow-and we understand that this is a lifetime practice. It's a process that's paradoxical, frustrating, magical, and sometimes messy. Just like life. We accept that we'll make mistakes along the way, but that doesn't stop us from trying. This is the lotus in the fire, and it's a process full of our sweat, our tears, our doubts, our generosities, and sometimes our remorse. "Luckily we have help, because we also take refuge in our practice and our companions. For some people, this happens the first time they walk into a meditation hall, when they feel they've come home. For others, the sense of homecoming grows slowly over time, with deepening practice, as they become more and more intimate with their own true nature, and the true nature of the world. For a Zen person, this is the ultimate homecoming, the one no circumstance can ever take away." Author's note: If you are considering a life of Chan, listen to the teachings of our ancestors and consider taking a leap into the unknown. You'll be lead to unimaginable rewards and a life rich with beauties and joys, sadness and sorrows. It is a life of the Real World, of inner knowledge of ourselves and of what it's like to be fully human, and fully alive. No worldly activity will lead to this place of glorious peace. By turning inward with a fearless leap of faith, you'll find it's all there, waiting for you to arrive.

Suffering

Suffering: Zen and the Four Noble Truths

Written by Chuan Zhi

Thursday, 10 August 2000 00:00

Some years ago I visited a Zen center and got into a discussion with a student about the necessity for suffering. He didn't see that there was a need for it. "I'm happy," he said, "and I've been into Zen for a very long time." I could see that he was young and that what he called a very long time was not a very long time by most standards. "Well," I said, trying not to sound discouraging, "you can be involved with Zen all you want but you won't really need it until you need relief from suffering." Suffering is integral to the Zen path. It is, in fact, a prerequisite. Zen is not an easy path and we must be highly motivated in order to travel it. In physics as in Zen, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. No human being wants to suffer. We all desire an end to pain. It is suffering and its end that supplies us with the necessary impetus to get onto the path. And it's the memory of the suffering along with the desire to avoid creating more suffering that keeps a person on the path; until, of course, he receives the great reward, the enlightened peace and joy, the opposite, counterpart, of anguish and pain. Buddhism begins with suffering. The Four Noble Truths are not footnotes in the archives of Buddhist literature: they are at the very heart of Buddhist thought and practice. We turn to religion, to a spiritual path, because we need to be free of pain. The First Truth acknowledges that we are not alone in our cause: to live in the phenomenal world is to suffer. The Second Truth tells us that it is all our desires -- our ego gratifications -- that cause us so much anguish. And the Third Truth reassures us: there is a solution to our problem. But the young man with whom I argued that day did not agree with this. He insisted that the word "dukkha" had been improperly translated as suffering. Dukkha merely meant "discontented" or "uncomfortable" and that, he said, was a far cry from suffering. "Discontent with your social life can bring you to a sangha," I said. "The discomfort of not having a moral guide can bring you to the precepts and scriptures. We can join religious groups and then enter a kind of moral competition with other members. We can do good deeds, better deeds, or even the best of deeds. But Zen is deeper than study or fellowship or philanthropy. Zen is salvation from suffering." But I didn't convince him. Several years later he called me and I agreed to speak with him again. He was a changed man. He had discovered suffering. Shortly after we spoke the first time, he met a girl and got married. To accommodate her, he had changed his religion to hers. After they had a baby -- a little girl -- his wife suffered post-partum depression. She was unable to care for the baby adequately and she blamed him for everything. He needed to spend more time with her and his daughter than his employment allowed. As a result, he lost his job. His wife, strongly medicated, sought a divorce. He sought consolation from bars and barroom friends. "You cannot imagine the pain I'm in," he told me, openly crying. "I don't know what to do. Whatever I do seems to be the wrong thing. I keep wondering what I did that got me into this trouble. Can it be bad karma? Is all this because I left Zen?" I told him that since he had never really suffered before, he had not really ever done Zen. "You can't leave what you're not inside of," I said. But he was now ready to enter Zen. He had suffered. His pride was gone. He looked to himself for the source of his problems. He looked to himself to blame and this last was very important. It is our desires that cause us pain, not the desires of other people. I told him that he should put first things first. "Don't sit passively watching your breath. Do the Healing Breath and do it with everything you've got. Sit down and examine your daily routine. Consider your habits and the things you do to try to alleviate your problems. They are part of the problem. If you smoke or drink, cry or complain to your relatives or friends, stop doing it. Become solitary. Exercise. Get yourself on a strict vegetarian diet. Focus on your health, your calmness, and your self-control. You can be of no use to anyone while you are strung-out." I told him to get another job, any honest labor, and to put himself on a tight budget. "Pare down your desires to the minimum." He looked at me strangely. He had never heard the Zen path described like this before. "Let's see if I've got this right," he said. "You want me to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop eating fast food, stop talking to my family and friends, and to take any job I can get as long at it's legitimate." He looked at me quizzically. "And that's Zen?" "That's life," I said. "Life according to the Eightfold Path which is the Fourth Noble Truth. Life means Life and that means it is opposed to death. If you want to live in the Spirit, first you have to survive. Zen requires that we re-invent ourselves. I reminded him of Aesop's fable, The Hound and the Hare. Once, when a hungry hound chased a rabbit and the rabbit got away, the hound's friends laughed at him. 'Why was that rabbit able to outdistance you?' they asked. The hound replied: 'I was only running for my supper, but the rabbit was running for his life.' To begin Zen we have to be running for our life." Of course, the rabbit's course of action is easy compared to ours. All it has to do is run fast in whatever direction is away from the single hound. It knows the hound is its death. But our course is not as obvious. When our life falls apart, we often don't know what direction to turn, especially when we're feeling the panic of needing to escape. If it were only a "one hound desire" that was chasing us, it would be a simple matter. But our desires are like many hounds that approach us from many different directions. It is easy to sit on a cushion and dispel thoughts. It's not so easy to quit smoking, or to quit envying someone who has a better paying job, to sit by ourselves and eat vegetables and cottage cheese while our friends down hamburgers and fries, to drink soda instead of beer, to stop lusting after our brother's wife: to say No! Stop!. Hardest of all is to become honest, especially to cease lying to ourselves. If we look at our lives objectively, we can trace our problems back to basic violations of the Precepts. When we correct these problems, one by one, we gain control of ourselves and then we can begin to transform our lives and to strive for enlightenment. This is the true Zen quest. Beginning this quest requires brutal honesty, an honesty of equal and opposite force to the lies we tell ourselves in samsara. "Suffering", Jean Charles Sismondi said, "is the surest means of making us truthful to ourselves." And truthfulness to self is the essential starting point for transformation.