The last couple of posts brought up the misconception that "enlightenment" is something like a blissful drug trip. In the 1960s and 1970s some Zen teachers seemed to be trying to talk expectations down by stressing the "just this" of things. The late Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who established the San Francisco Zen Center back when Haight-Ashbury was ground zero for the counterculture, famously told his students that enlightenment is "nothing special."
But are some factions of western Buddhism taking Roshi's "nothing special" a bit too literally? Soto Zen teacher Dosho Port wrote recently about another Zen teacher, George Bowman --
Recently, in the heart of an extended retreat, a student of Bomun's asked him in dokusan, "Is this really all there is to it?"
Bomun said, "No."
Great dharma presentation!
Just, no?
Now every Zennie knows that "Yes," is also correct, of course. It is always just this. And yet "Yes" can close down the mind, harden the concepts, calcify the heart.
In my view, American Soto Zen is almost choking to death on the efficaciousless idea of "Just this."
It appears to me that western Buddhism is in danger of getting mired in what we might call "Stephen Batchelor Syndrome," which is the attitude that anything in the teachings that can't easily be conceptualized by a properly educated, rational westerner can be dismissed out of hand as superstitious nonsense.� In Batchelor's words, this is seeing Buddhism only as "a set of philosophical doctrines, ethical precepts, and meditation practices."
This attitude may be a particular problem for Soto Zen, since Soto emphasizes a gradual approach to enlightenment -- silent illumination -- that doesn't depend on sudden, brain-blasting enlightenment experiences. Further, we Soto zennies are told that practice is enlightenment, that enlightenment is already manifested, that there is nothing to obtain, etc. Just sit.
In particular if they aren't working with a teacher who is challenging their assumptions, it's easy to see why many might settle into a very limited understanding of dharma that rejects anything but conventional views.
As an antidote, especially for but not limited to Soto zennies -- I recommend a dharma talk by Zoketsu Norman Fischer called "Dogen Great Enlightenment." Dogen is the founder of Zoto Zen in Japan; his teachings continue to illuminate the tradition today. Much of Dogen's work centers on the oneness of practice and enlightenment. Yet while enlightenment is already manifested in practice, we are still challenged to wake up and realize it. Norman Fischer writes,
"So this is the paradox that was Dogen's original spiritual question as a boy - the paradox that he is always talking about and always thinking about. To hold this paradox is our actual practice, our actual human life. It is a radically non-dual view. There is this and that. There is enlightenment and delusion. These are different from each other, and at the same time, there is no this and that, and there is no actual difference between enlightenment and delusion. And it's because Dogen is always explicating this essential paradox that we find Dogen so difficult to read. We are always looking for something definitive that we can hang our hat on. 'Give me something definite here that I can stand on!' And it's unbelievable how the mind is always looking for that and never really finding that in Dogen. It's very frustrating. In a way you could say that the method of Dogen's writing is inherently self-canceling, because to say anything is always to say something dualistic. So Dogen sets up a dualistic proposition, and then he contradicts it, or then he cancels it out."
The problem with "yes," then, is that it gives the student something to stand on; or, at least, the impression that there's something to stand on. But "no" pulls the rug out from under him. With no where to stand, where is he?
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