Tag Archives: zen

The Spirit of Zen

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Last week I read The Spirit of Zen by Alan Watts and one paragraph has stuck with me. It touches on one of the (many) ways religion is viewed differently in the East.

“In the East the effectiveness of a religion is judged by its success in producing a comparatively small number of thoroughly enlightened men, for it is not believed possible fundamentally to alter the lives of vast numbers of people within the span of a thousand years or so. Great social changes are not expected; the religions of the East are more concerned with the enlightenment of some few individuals than of society as a whole, because society is made up of individuals, and will only become enlightened when, after thousands of years, more and more individuals have proved themselves fit for the highest knowledge, until the chosen few have become the whole community.”

Which reminds me of this excerpt from a novel by John Burdett (Bangkok Tattoo).

How the World Can Be the Way It Is

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how-the-worldHow the World Can Be the Way It Is: An Inquiry for the New Millennium into Science, Philosophy, and Perception Zen and Quantum Theory are really hard for me to wrap my head around, and Steve Hagen has big dollops of both in this book. I followed maybe 75 percent of the book. The stuff I highlighted won’t make much sense out of context but this is for my reference, so…

For it is sufficient, I think, to live by experience, and without subscribing to beliefs — Sextus Empiricus

(To believe, to hold an opinion) refers to a state of mind which we are powerless to choose.

His mind was changed because it was overwhelmed by a new awareness. In the moment in which he became aware of something new, his mind was different.

We must learn to rely solely on what we see rather than upon what we think.

We proselytize others because it makes us feel better. And the reason it makes us feel better is because we’re unsure of what we believe ourselves.

(Being fully awake is) Seeing without any mental bias — without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations.

You can’t choose to doubt.

We should always be prepared to take another look at what we believe and begin to doubt it. […] We should doubt until we no longer hold fast to any thing at all.

Whatever you think, is delusion.

“The world is not objectively real but depends on the mind of an observer.” — John von Neumann

The mind is what the brain does.

Apart from their functions, relationships, and components, we do not seem to know what things are at all. […] A thing receives its identity as much from what it is not as it does from what it is. […] When an object appears in the mind, we conceive it as a solitary thing unto itself. […] It is only as singular entities that our objects of consciousness can form in our mind. […] All things receive their identity as much from what they are not as from what they are. […] Spring can only be spring if we account for what it is not (e.g., summer) as an intrinsic part of its identity.

“How can one be ‘wrong’ about what one actually perceives?” — Roger Penrose

We simply have no direct experience of anything outside the mind. And to assume the existence (or, for that matter, he nonexistence) of anything outside the mind simply contradicts direct experience.

Three types of “recognition”
1) Naming a thing (labeling and categorizing. Purely conceptual)
2) What the thing does (function and utility)
3) Just seeing (pure perception, no conceptual overlay)

The more we learn about quantum physics, the more the universe appears like a thought rather than a thing. (Pointed out by Sir Arthur Edington)

Consciousness

It’s because we can easily conceive of (but never perceive) a time or place outside of our consciousness that we persist in holding this belief (that matter precedes consciousness) […] We never directly experience a time (or anything else) which precedes consciousness.

We don’t actually experience Consciousness Itself “originating” anywhere, or anywhen. Consciousness — the awareness that “something’s” happening — is ever-present and immediate. We never directly experience Nothing.

Consciousness (is) the originator, instead of the product, of place and time.

No one is ever conscious of not being (or not having been) conscious.

Consciousness is the conceiving (the making) of parts, or mind-objects, from the Whole. […] The “parts” — the physical and mental objects of consciousness, i.e., concepts — are merely appearances resulting from the working of Consciousness.

Consciousness splits the Whole, immediately creating an ego — an identity — which then sees all other things in opposition to it.

To gain information is merely to sink deeper into conceptual reality. […] We gain information at the expense of wisdom.

What you or I do right here, right now affects everything that ever was, is, or will be. Whatever you do is constantly affecting everything that has ever happened or will happen.

We “exist” not in being but in becoming — and in fading away.

We do not experience an I — we assume it. We only experience perception, thought, and consciousness.

Take time to empty ourselves

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“For the first two hundred thousand years of human history, we were only exposed to the news (and the suffering) of those immediately around us in our tribes and villages. We saw birth, sickness, death, and wars, but on a limited scale. Only in the last forty years or so has the news media poured the suffering of the entire world—wars, natural disasters, torture, starvation—into our ears and eyes every day, day after day. This suffering that we are helpless to fix accumulates in our mind and heart, and makes us suffer in turn. When the mind and heart become too full of pictures of violence, destruction, and pain, we must take time to empty ourselves.”

— How to Train A Wild Elephant by Jan Chozen Bays, MD

Ten Zen Questions by Susan Blackmore

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tenSusan Blackmore describes her fascinating book as “my own attempt to combine science and personal practice in the investigation of consciousness.”

“Learning to meditate means nothing more than learning to sit still and pay attention, staying relaxed and alert, without getting tangled up in trains of thoughts, emotions or inner conversations.”

“Now I understood the need for a calm mind. We were told that calming the mind is the starting point of all meditation, but that it can also take you all the way. We were told even scarier things; that what you are searching for is here right now, that there is really nothing to strive for and that once you arrive you will realise there was nowhere to go in the first płace; that however hard you work, and you must work hard, in the end you will know that there is nothing to be done.”

“Being in the present moment […] meant that I was not to think about the next moment, not to dwell on what I had just done, not to think about what I might have said instead, not to imagine a conversaton that I might have later, not to look forward to lunch, not to look forward to weekends, or holidays or… anything.”

“The present moment is always all right. All my troubles lay in the thoughts I was letting go of. […] The body seemed to keep on doing relevant and sensible things, apparently without all the agonising I had assumed was essential.”

“Idealism: The idea that there is no separate physical world, and everything in the universe is made up of thoughts, or ideas or consciousness.”

“Materialism: The idea that there is no separate mental world, and everything in the universe is mad of matter.”

“Actions exist, and also their consequences, but the person that acts does not. — Buddhist saying

“Am I conscious now? It troubles me that I seem so often to be unconscious. I wonder what this unconsciousness is. I cannot believe I spend most of my life in a kind of darkness. Surely that cannot be so. Yet every time I ask the question it feels as though I am waking up, or that a light is switching on.”

“How can I look into the darkness, when looking makes it light?”

“The words aren’t really necessary anymore. Rather, there just seems to be a questioning attitude, an openness of mind. Am I conscious now? Yes, I am, keep on that way, and now, and now, and gently now. […] Awareness does become more continuous with practice — it can just take a very long time.”

“I can grab a now. I can grasp out with my attention. This and this. They happened at once, didn’t they. It was a now, I am sure, even though it was gone by the time I can have that certanty. […] I cannot work out what it would mean for there to be no now. And yet there does not seem to be a now. […] When I sit quietly, doing nothing, there is no obvious choice of what is now. Stuff just happens.”

“I was looking for the me that was looking and I found only the world. I am, it seems, the world I see.”

“There is not a separate me as well as the experience. It is hard to accept that I am all those people walking down the street.”

“I see and hear and feel but name nothing. […] It is something like paying attention equally to everything.”

“How can I tell the clouds have moved? Because from one moment to the next I can remember what came before.”

“There are multiple brain processes going on, some of which take up more of the brain’s capacity than others, but there is no me who experiences them, and no time at which they become conscious.”

“The world we think we see or hear — is always a memory. and what is a memory?”

“Do past and future look different? […] They’re all just the same stuff — memory stuff; imagination stuff. Past and future can be held in mind as equivalent.”

“Mindfullness is being fully here in the present moment. But now I know that there is no such moment. So what is mindfullness?” [What I understand as ‘now’ is really just a memory of just-past moment]

“What was I conscious of a moment ago? I found whole streams of experience that seemed to have already been going on, for someone, before I noticed them.”

“There is no thinker other than the thoughts. […] I’ve always treated thoughts as a problem, or something to be dealt with. Now, instead of either fighting them or watching them, I am simply to be them.”

“The universe seems to be causlly closed. That is, everything that happens is caused by something else. Nothing happens by magical forces intervening from outside the web of causes and effects, for everything is interconnected with everything else. […] Yet I feel as though I can act freely. Indeed this magical view is probably how most people in most cultures have always thought about themselves, imagining a non-physical mental entity that has wishes and desires, can think and plan, and carry out those plans by acting on the world.”

“Decision are made because of countless interacting events, and afterwards a little voice inside says, ‘I did that’, ‘I decided to do that.’ […] I am not separate from the perceptions, thoughts and actions that make up my world. And if I am what seems to be the world, the we are in this together. Me and the world, world/me are doing all these actions that now just seem to act of their own accord.”

“The world had summed up the options, chose one, carried it out, and moved on. This action was a result of everything I had learned and done before. […] Could I just trust the world and this body to woirk all by itself without me doing anything?”

“I am not a continuous conscious being at all. What seems to be me just arises along with whatever is being experienced. […] Every time some experience comes along, the me is allowed to go, along with the ending of the experience, as though experience and experiencer arise and then snuff out together. […] There never was a continuous I. […] The ‘same me’ was never recreated. […] Will I be snuffed out like a candle? Yes, just as I have been a thousand, million times before.” #

“Consciousness is an illusion; an enticing and convincing illusion that lures us into believing that our minds are separate from our bodies.”

“(My selves) arise along with the sensations, perceptions and thoughts that they seem to be having, and die along with them. With every new ‘this’ there is a new ‘me’ who was looking into it.”

There is nothing it is like to be me.
I am not a persisting conscious entity.
I do not consciously cause sthe actions of my body.
Consciousness is not a stream of experiences.
Seeing entails no vivid mental pictures or movie in the brain.
There is no unity of consciousness either in a given moment or through time.
Brain activity is neither conscious no unconscious.
There are no contents of consciousness.
There is no now.

“At any time in a human brain there are multiple parallel processes going on, conjuring up perceptions, thoughts, opinions, sensations and volitions. None of these is either in or out of consciousness for there is no such place. Most of the time there is no observer: if consciousness is involved at all it is an attribudon made later, on the basis of remembering events and assuming that someone must have been experiencing them in the past, when in fact no one was.”

No rest of life

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“There is no rest of life. Life is one. Without beginning, without middle, without ending. The concept: beginning middle and meaning comes from a sense of self which separates itself from what it considers to be the rest of life. But this attitude is untenable unless one insists on stopping life and bringing it to an end. That thought is in itself an attempt to stop life, for life goes on, indifferent to the deaths that are part of its no beginning, no middle, no meaning. How much better to simply get behind and push!” — John Cage

More at BrainPickings.org

“Unpredictable Freedom and Sweetness of Chaos”

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“Embrace not knowing what will happen. This is the ultimate freedom. You don’t know what you’re going to do today, nor what will come up. You are locked into nothing. You are completely free to do anything, to pursue any creative pursuit, to try new things as they come up, to be open to meeting new people. It can be scary at first, but if you smile when you think of not knowing, you’ll soon realize it’s a joyous thing.”

“When you’re not focused on one outcome, you open the possibility for many outcomes. Most people are focused on specific goals (outcomes), and relentlessly pursue that outcome. They then dismiss other possibilities as distractions. But what if you have no predetermined outcome? What if you say that anywhere you end up could be good? You now open an infinite amount of possibilities, and you’re much more likely to learn something than if you only try to do the things and learn the things that support your predetermined outcome.”

From a post at Zen Habits

38 Life Lessons

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From Leo Babauta. There are a few of my favorites. The entire list is worth a read.

“You can’t motivate people. The best you can hope for is to inspire them with your actions. People who think they can use behavioral “science” or management techniques have not spent enough time on the receiving end of either.”

“Let go of expectations. When you have expectations of something — a person, an experience, a vacation, a job, a book — you put it in a predetermined box that has little to do with reality. You set up an idealized version of the thing (or person) and then try to fit the reality into this ideal, and are often disappointed. Instead, try to experience reality as it is, appreciate it for what it is, and be happy that it is.”

“Do less. Most people try to do too much. They fill life with checklists, and try to crank out tasks as if they were widget machines. Throw out the checklists and just figure out what’s important. Stop being a machine and focus on what you love. Do it lovingly.”

via 38 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 38 Years | zen habits