My previous post was “The first three of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths are obvious. The fourth is unappealing.” True. But I should have made it more clear that in addition to being unappealing, the fourth truth also is unnecessary.
That’s why I said that Zen is more appealing than traditional Buddhism, because it doesn’t buy into the whole Right View, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration stuff. Or at least nowhere near as assiduously as traditional Buddhism does.
Since in that post I’d quoted James Ishmael Ford as saying that he’s a fan of Barry Magid, a Zen teacher and psychotherapist, today I dug out a book by Magid that I’ve read several times, liking it a lot: Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide. Some earlier posts about the book are here, here, and here.
Looking over Magid’s introductory chapter, “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It,” I realized that Magid was expressing pretty much the same view that I was trying to get across in my critique of the Fourth Noble Truth. There’s no need for all that Right Stuff if there’s nothing wrong that needs fixing. Regarding the title of the introduction, Magid says:
Not only does it caution us not to meddle with things that are already running perfectly smoothly without our help, it challenges us to take a closer look at what we assume is broken and at what we assume needs fixing in ourselves. The surprising answer may just turn out to be that nothing whatsoever is broken and that we don’t need fixing after all.
…We may say a lot of different things about what we hope to get from meditation, but in the back of our minds there usually lurks the fantasy that something will fix us once and for all. That fix goes by many names, one of which, “enlightenment,” can become a way of imagining a life once and for all free of problems. Enlightenment is real, more real than we can imagine, but we will never know what it means as long as we entangle it with all our fantasies and dreams.
…If at some fundamental level we don’t need fixing, then the life we’re already leading, this ordinary day-to-day life of ours, is not the problem but, somehow, already the solution we’re looking for. In that case, our everyday definition of “problems” and “solutions” will have to undergo drastic revision.
A venerable Zen verse, the Sandokai (“The Identity of Relative and Absolute”) indeed tells us that “ordinary life fits the absolute like a box and its lid.”
The absolute stands for what we usually take to be the opposite of our ordinary life: something that is eternal, perfect, and indivisible into our usual dichotomies of good and bad, perfect and imperfect. The problem is that we are deeply conditioned to see the ordinary and the spiritual as polar opposites. And yet, rather than the ordinary and the absolute canceling each other out, we are told they are a perfect fit.
…Unfortunately, we think we already know all about what it means to be ordinary, and we don’t like it one bit. The psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan once remarked that in the end “we are more human than otherwise.” Sounds obvious, but somehow most of us end up preoccupied with being “otherwise.”
…Zen offers us a counterbalancing insight into our essential wholeness, a wholeness to which nothing need be added or subtracted — or indeed could be. We are like water which can’t — and doesn’t need to — get any wetter.
And in his next section, “Our Secret Practice,” Magid writes:
After all our futile efforts to transform our ordinary minds into idealized, spiritual minds, we discover the fundamental paradox of practice is that leaving everything alone is itself what is ultimately transformative. We’re not here to fix or improve ourselves — I like to say practice actually puts an end to self-improvement.
But it’s ver hard to stay with that sense of not needing to do anything, not to turn the zendo [Zen meditation hall] into a spiritual gymnasium where we get ourselves mentally in shape. It’s hard to really do nothing at all.
Over and over, we watch our mind trying to avoid or fix, fix or avoid; to either not look at it or change it. Leaving that mind just as it is [is] the hardest thing to do.
Discover more from Church of the Churchless
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Brian: – “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It,” I realized that Magid was expressing pretty much the same view that I was trying to get across in my critique of the Fourth Noble Truth. There’s no need for all that Right Stuff if there’s nothing wrong that needs fixing.
I’d agree entirely with “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It,” yet the whole movement of religious/spiritual thinking is that (referring to people) it is broke, so folk spend their lives chasing around looking for something that only exists in minds that have been conditioned to feel incomplete.
Regarding the Eightfold Path, I understand that the word ’right’ is mis-translated from ‘Samma’, which can also mean ‘appropriate’ or ‘being in sync with reality’. Using the word ‘right’ is an extreme view which assumes the opposite ‘wrong’ and introduces duality, which goes against the Buddha’s teaching of ‘The middle way’ or avoiding extremes.
Using just one example, ‘Right View’ suggests not freezing reality to conform to one’s view or opinion – the object being to see ‘just this’ as it is in the moment. And yes, no doubt at all that folk tend to understand the ‘Eightfold path’ as being a set of fixed prescriptions of how to behave and think.
After saying that, for those who have seen through the tricks that years of the mind being conditioned to think in terms of ‘I’m not complete’ or ‘something is missing’, whether it’s Zen or any of the current religious/spiritual belief systems, then reality (truth, enlightenment or whatever term is used) is simply here now, as it is in this moment.
All mainstream Buddhist schools, including Zen, regard the Four Noble Truths as foundational to the Buddha’s awakening and to the path of practice. It’s just that Zen teachers often say that even when these truths are not discussed explicitly in talks, Zen practice unfolds entirely within their framework: seeing suffering clearly, seeing its causes in craving and clinging, realising the possibility of its cessation, and walking the path (ethics, meditation, wisdom).
But I get where you’re going with this. Comparing the Zen way to Theravada Buddhism’s take on the 4th, Zen seems more reasonable. That’s because the Theravada has taken the 4th to an extreme. As I heard one monk explain it, there are not merely 200 + rules of practice and conduct in the monastic code. There are literally thousands. That’s because the traditional Vinaya is supplemented by 3 other scriptures of rules, many of which conflict with each other. Thus, to follow all these rules is practically impossible. As a young monk, Ajahn Cha had to come to terms with this and decided that his own sense of right intention should be his guide. One could say that Ajahn Chah came full circle to the Zen approach to the 4th noble truth — that the realisations of practice guide the 4th, rather than the other way around.
Then again, that’s not entirely true either. The ethical structure of the 4th is there for a reason. Maybe transcendental, but surely practical and humanitarian. The proof of that is all those Buddhist teachers we know of from the past 50 years who took no heed of the 4th noble truth in letter or spirit. It only led to heavy drinking and/or sexual exploitation. Perhaps that radical freedom led to the enlightenment of their students, but if so, that’s not evident to me.
I further get it that paths can become a problem. We spiritual seekers have all experienced the pathology of paths.
Pare the paths down to their barest essentials, and we get Zen. But even Zen is too pathy, so pare Zen down ever more. No supernatural aspects, no sitting, no karma, jettisoning a noble truth, etc. But, dessicating our Zen to the nth degree, aren’t we still left with a path?
Supposedly, we can have a path-less path. Like Krishnamurti talked about. And talked and talked about. Still, hard to say Krishnamurti’s way and all of its 2nd cousins aren’t a path. Still, a strategy to remember and employ during our waking moments, where we have moments of pride and moments of success and inevitable moments of failure.
Same as any religion.
Yet, we all have the right to choose what path works for us. Some paths have just way too many moving parts. Some of their scriptures and doctrines are contrived, but given divine imprimatur. Some of their theology is muddled and contradictory, e.g., you need the sound and also the light and also must go through the inner path to meet the inner guru to get to a place called “Sach Khand” where, although you have no body or senses, everything will somehow be totally awesome and fulfilling.
These things present little problem to us in our spiritual salad days, but are harder to stomach as we grow older. Chief among them is the worship of the Guru.
Not long ago I spoke with an RSSB satsangi who told me of an encounter he witnessed between Jasdeep and a teen boy, I guess on stage. Jasdeep fist bumps the young lad and tells him, “You will remember this moment for the rest of your life!”
The satsang who told me this story thought it was sublimely wonderful and delightful. Frankly, it depressed me.
If we want a Perfect Master, we have to create him.
@ Sant
It is my understanding that those that act.. no matter what action …, do so for selfish reasons, be it material, mental or spiritual.
In any school class there might be just one or to children that come to learn for the pleasure of learning itself …most of the time, de do attent being forced to do so by motives that have noting to do with that what has to be learned.
Just have a look at the faces in the morning Metro, train, bus and traffic .. or the reactions of the children when asked to do even the smallest chores in or around the house.
Have a look at that ongoing … AVERSION..24/7 and just wonder.
Why would walking any spiritual practice be excluded?
There is nothing wrong with chores in and around the house, nor with any spiritual practice … they all can be done with joy, devotion etc. …delve in the books written by the late Sawaki Roshi and his successor Uchiyama, both Abbotts of the Antaiji soto Zen Monastery an d you will come to understand … not about zen .. but the mental set up, the pshology of the practicioner
The late MCS used to say:
We are not born to eat
but eat to live
and…..
IF we eat
we do it with PLEASURE
We are not born th climb the mnt everest, walk a spiritual path, but if we chose to do so or are called to do so we are well advised to do it with PLEASURE
And yes ..if that capacity is not there, it is just not there and you have to suffer the consequences of living against your own hearts desires. …becomming stressed and otherwise diseased.
And .. while making coffee, I am reminded of a word beautiful in the books of Castaneda, related to how and warrior had to live after having gone through the process ….
IMPECCABILTY
Is that not what we fin in monasteries?! ..Zen too>>
A spiritual path is …A WAY OF LIFE
To live the life of a drunkard is also a way of life.
It is a matter of choice …the path, the way of life is just an INSTRUMENT .. the consequences are for the user, the practitioner.
Don’t blame anybody or anything outside yourself for the consequences of your own actions …how can a criminal priest be blamed for you to turn your back upon religion.
How can the financial affairs of an Guru be the cause of your choices to give up an practice you once started for your oqwn good.
From the post:
“Not only does it caution us not to meddle with things that are already running perfectly smoothly without our help, it challenges us to take a closer look at what we assume is broken and at what we assume needs fixing in ourselves. The surprising answer may just turn out to be that nothing whatsoever is broken and that we don’t need fixing after all.”
What is this “It”…is it Buddhism? Or just the brand of Buddhism that the author finds appealing? Everything is in motion, so what doesn’t need fixing is indeed changing. And what we thought was or wasn’t broken, won’t be there soon enough, and replaced with something else.
The very title speaks to this failing point, that we project what we want, a false stability, and that any system of religion or belief, including Atheism, is really a personal statement. Referring to “It says this…It says that” even when denying the four tenets of Buddhism is really attempting to objectify what is a personal proclivity for doing nothing, when in fact we are always doing, and should and can at least do so with intention and agency.
It is the person who cries “I didn’t do anything” that generally is ignorant of who they are in space and time and what they are doing.
Take the title of this post: “Buddhism’s fourth noble truth can be ignored, because there’s no need to follow a path of liberation”
Really, says who? It’s part of Buddhism dude. But no, it doesn’t have to be part of your take on Buddhism. Everyone creates their own religion, regardless of the label they try to authorize it with.
And as far as not needing liberation, what do we really know about that? Is this a universal statement for all humanity?
Maybe some folks really DO need liberation, while others may find they do not.
Personally, I believe we are all or should all be on a path of growth and development. In fact, a case could be made that we are all on one and don’t realize it. Being ignorant slobs, how the hell would we know?
And when we start to understand that in fact we are moving, like all things, and try to find the meaning for our own growth in things, then we see there is no staying motionless for anyone. Not even “No change is necessary”. Especially when change is already unavoidable.
Therefore we should definitely look back at last year and see it differently than we did then, than we did even a month ago, if our consciousness is really on the rise. Our interest and participation in change may not be a choice, however. As UM likes to write, the crow be the crow.
But that’s also a personal choice. Some folks are quite happy where they are.
But not everyone. However, whatever you find yourself happy with or unhappy with isn’t going to stay the same, and your tolerance for it may also not stay the same. So, why not own it?
A path of discovery doesn’t really say much of anything.
And as for right conduct, whatever rules you live by are your rules of right conduct. They are the rules you have invented or borrowed that you like. They may not be the actual rules that run your existence. But I think most folks want them to be. There is a cost to that however, and that is the cost of willing to be WRONG.
To paraphrase Alice in Wonderland: “I’m wrong several times a day, and often as much as five times before breakfast!”
And in re-reading what I wrote, make that six.
@ Spence
This is a complicated one …
>> Personally, I believe we are all or should all be on a path of growth and development. In fact, a case could be made that we are all on one and don’t realize it. Being ignorant slobs, how the hell would we know?<<
The fact that this is your personal believe does not make it complicated nor what follows as that is part of the believe. Nor that having that believe makes you use the word "slobs"
The complication is in "the human condition" [ reminded me of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin] . Let me try to explain what I pointing at.
The late MCS said that for a human being to say "I eat" there were two conditions to be fulfilled namely there has to be food on the table and hunger in the body and BOTH are GIVEN. Given is just a verb to stated that both conditions are not in the hand of the one that eats..
These two conditions are related to the inborn instinct of survival of the individual and its kind. Living creatures are FORCED from within to keep themselves alive and in order to be able there has to be a surrounding that makes it possible.
Next an amerikan Psychiatrist Arthur Deikman discovered something of interest that is related to the above and the next step. He found that people long enough deprived op sensory input would start to "hallucinante" or …the brain HAS to proces information and if there is nothing to process the brain / mind will CREATE something to process …IN ORDER TO STAY ALIVE.
Humans are made to stay alive, whatever they are and have in ttheir material and metal makeup, is geared towards survival and survival means observation etc iof and be active in the surrounding. So people that are directly involved, and doing what they meant to do wil not have much of thoughts OUTSIDE the situation they find themselves in … and .. if that is not there …. they will create it in the form of culture and everything that culture contains.
Hi Um
You wrote
“So people that are directly involved, and doing what they meant to do wil not have much of thoughts OUTSIDE the situation they find themselves in … and .. if that is not there …. they will create it in the form of culture and everything that culture contains.”
Our general inability to have thoughts outside of our situation is actually a very strong argument for Zen practice. To value looking and seeing above thinking and speaking, and wall-papering the world over with our interpretations.
As I wrote above
” A path of discovery doesn’t really say much of anything.”
Too busy seeing, and enjoying the show. And learning.
Now, what we see will affect us, does change us. When we learn anything new our environment is now different, and like the person eating food, their meal changes, their nutrients change. Simply eating changes them, when their food is different. And that comes from seeing and digesting what we are given, just as MCS taught.
Then of course we are different. And when we speak we are speaking from a different place.
From the original post
“Over and over, we watch our mind trying to avoid or fix, fix or avoid; to either not look at it or change it. Leaving that mind just as it is [is] the hardest thing to do.”
To Fix IS a form of Avoidance. And to Avoid IS a form of Fixing. And both Avoiding and Fixing ARE forms of Acceptance.
And these forms of Acceptance are actually forms of Denial.
To leave the mind as it is is to withdraw from mind. It is to Accept, and to Fix and not Avoid by moving our attention beyond. And that is a spiritual journey. Not a mind thing.
What mind created can’t be fixed with more mind.
@ Spence
Maybe my english did not convey what I intended with my words, maybe it allowed you to see it in a different way.
Of course, those that are caught up in what they are thinking and feeling in relation to what they are doing, might benefit from Zen.
But THAT was not what I was pointing at …imagine a person being alone on an isolated island. Such a person would like any other creature being immersed in staying alive. What benefit could he possible have from whatever culture has to over? Words like democracy for example have no meaning or value ..just to name one.
If a person in such state of mind comes into a situation that he no longer HAS to live a NATUAL and SIMPLE life, he will create, following Prof Deikman’s suggestion, an imaginary need to survive.
If this does not help .. I will have to wait and drink more coffee in order to find the right words …it is an understanding that I try to grasp.
In the Netherlands we have an “translation” of the TAO TE CHING for children and other grown ups.
The translation of chap. 59 says:
ENJOY EVERYTHING
Everyone wants a happy life. But how do you achieve that?
Live healthy, be happy.
Don’t waste anything and save some money for a rainy day.
Play outside as much as possible and do what makes you happy.
When you do things with joy, they go well and easily.
They happen naturally, peacefully.
So, if you do everything with joy, everything will work out.
Even when it’s difficult and stressful.
That’s how you achieve a happy life.
If you truly understand that everything only goes well when you’re content,
and you always take care of this, you’ll be happy your whole life.
The people around you will be happy too.
Translation by Google
Loved this thread! The post itself, absolutely. And many of the comments as well. Made for a sparkling discussion overall, that I absolutely loved. Just like old days, when the comments would often be just as much fun, and just as instructive, as the posts themselves!
And agreed, obviously, with the larger thrust of the post. That one doesn’t need the whole rigmarole of detailed Theravadin observance, or any other kind of traditional nonsense.
That said: the clear unequivocal agreement with the larger message of the post notwithstanding: there’s some important details that I find myself not quite agreeing with. I think it’s important to the discussion to spell those out. …But I’m afraid I’m much too rushed, I’ll post this just as soon as I’m able to sit down and properly formulate my thoughts and my critique. In fact, I’m really looking forward to doing that, and to any meaningful substantive engagement with such that might hopefully follow, like I said I’m completely loving this discussion!
Like I was saying, agreed with the larger message, that there’s zero reason to favor the elaborate rigmarole of Theravadin practice. That said, I find myself disagreeing with a whole bunch of the small details here. Small, but nevertheless not unimportant, I believe. I’ll just go through them here, in no particular order except as they occur to me, but I’ll enumerate them to make for some structure and clarity in my somewhat rushed comment:
———-
1. ‘Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke’, that sounds cool, and at one level it’s true enough, in as much as, unlike in Christian theology say, there’s nothing wrong with us, we “ain’t fundamentally broken” in that sense. However, in a psychological sense, we are indeed broken, and we do need fixing. The fact is, in the de facto world as it is, most all of us come programmed with dysfunctional notions of self, that at the very least; and oftentimes even more dysfunctional notions of soul and religion and God and the rest of it, overlaid on top of our dysfunctional notions of self. That is fact.
I mean, just look around our little group of regulars here. Many of us here still harbor those dysfunctional notions. And most of those of us who don’t, started out doing that. And this, in a group of folks who’ve been exposed to a great deal of this kind of thought, and therefore an atypically enlightened group when compared to the world at large.
Nope. We are indeed, in this psychological sense, “broken”. With all of the angst, and/or the whole lot of direct and indirect dysfunctionality that that brings in its wake. Very much including all of those folks who’ve never thought about these things, but nevertheless take this dysfunctional notion of self as granted, implicitly.
———-
2. No, “ordinary life” most emphatically does not fit us like a glove fits the hand. Most emphatically not.
That fact is that “ordinary life” — both in the larger sphere, as well as the smaller intimate personal sphere — is designed around a dysfunctional idea of self. To that extent, how “ordinary life” is structured, is itself profoundly dysfunctional.
Religions are a glaring example of this dysfunctionality. But even leaving religion aside, how generally our world is structured, and our small personal lives as well, no sane person with a clear idea of self would live that way.
That, it occurs to me, is the personal discomfort I’d spoken of myself, and that some of you here had been kind enough to help me figure out, over the years.
The fact is that the glove has been designed for a misshapen, mangled, dysfunctional hand. And when we are able to get rid of our dysfunctionality, and arrive at correct understanding, then we generally tend to find that the glove no longer fits, at all.
———-
3. I go back now, in this #3, to what I’d said in my last comment, in the earlier thread.
There’s this theme, repeated here again, that Zen somehow leads to this clear understanding that “traditional Buddhism” doesn’t. But that’s …simply nonsense.
It’s all “traditional Buddhism”, all of it. They’re all traditions. There are a whole host of traditions within Buddhism: broadly, Theravada, and Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Zen is a tradition going back around a millennium or so, and I suppose a millennium and half if we trace this form of enquiry back to China, and via Bodhidharma back to India. That much, certainly: and maybe, arguably, via the Lotus Sutra, directly back to the Buddha himself.
I’m saying, it’s absurd to imagine Zen is any less of a tradition than any other. Or that this branch, this particular tradition, leads to any clearer understanding of the central core of Buddhism, than any other branch does.
Where we — we moderns, with the full advantage of the general enlightenment of the zeitgeist, and of science particularly — do things differently, is that, first, we validate the results of the praxis of traditional systems (regardless of which specific tradition, be it Mahayanic including Zen, or be it Vajrayanic including Dzogchen say, or be it Theravadin), using the rigor of the scientific method. That’s one key thing we do that no one prior did, not even the Buddha himself, because this avenue was simply not open to them then.
That, above, is sufficient, in and of itself, that intellectual understanding. But we might, in addition, choose to bolster our understanding with first-hand experience of how thoughts arise and fade out, and emotions as well, how our very sense of self is chimerical, illusory, all of that. And we might do that using the praxis suggested by these different traditions, as well as our own MMA-style amalgamation of such specific techniques.
And we do this sans the mumbo jumbo accompanying these traditions. That’s what “secular Buddhism” amounts to, in my understanding. The conceptual understanding of Buddhistic traditions, which is the whole no abiding self deal, and the understanding that dependent origination and flux are all there is to existence, as well as the aversion-desire-suffering chain/circle; that, as well as praxis of Buddhistic traditions, the specific techniques, sans the dross of tradition and culture and superstition.
And Zen is just one of this whole host of traditions, that fall under the three broad “vehicles” of Buddhism. It does not contribute to the conceptual understanding I referred to in the above paragraph, beyond what Buddhism generally does. And what it gives us, that is distinct from other traditions, is one kind of praxis, one set of techniques, koan primarily, and I suppose Zazen as well, that are subtly different than other traditions. But so does every other tradition of Buddhism, whether Theravadin, or Mahayanic, or Vajrayanic, that is precisely what sets them apart.
Which is why I go back to asking, What on earth is “secular Zen”, as distinct from secular Buddhism generally? If the former is taken as shorthand for the latter, then fair enough: but it makes no sense to somehow position the former as something distinct from the latter.
(That is, I can see how it might have made sense in the time and place where Zen arose. There, you could picture Bodhidharma in India, or some Chan sage in China, or some Zen master in Japan, rejecting the “tradition” of Buddhism, the dross, that they see all around themselves, and to go straight for the jugular of direct understanding. But that makes sense only in that very limited reference point in some time and space. But when we see all of these traditions today, from our vantage point here and now, then they’re all of traditions, each with a core of praxis, and each covered in dross of externalities, each leading to the core understanding of no-abiding-self and dependent-origination-and-flux, and the desire-aversion-suffering cycle, and each with distinct flavors of praxis and specific techniques. And we take what is best of them, and what appeals to us, and such as is validated by science; and we leave out the dross. And that’s all there is to secular Buddhism.)
(And I can also see how someone that might themselves have arrived at this via some specific route refers to it in reference of their own route. So that someone that’s rooted in Theravada can refer to secular Buddhism as secular Theravada, if they like, instead of calling it secular Buddhism. Or Sam Harris, who has a background in Dzogchen, might conceivable talk of secular Vajrayana, or maybe secular Dzogchen, when what he means is secular Buddhism. Likewise secular Mahayana, or, in this case, secular Zen. …But to us who see this and study this from the vantage point of getting a view of all of these traditions, then it makes no sense for us to echo them and talk of secular Zen vis-à-vis the tradition of traditional Buddhism, isn’t it?
As I understand it, and as I’ve discussed at some length, there is no “secular Zen” that is in any degree different than secular Buddhism generally, or what someone else might refer to as secular Theravada or secular Dzogchen. Which is what I was asking in the last thread: if there is any such difference, that I’ve missed in the discussion in my #3 here, then I’m very interested in knowing what that might be.
———-
So, yeah, like I was saying. The larger message here seems perfectly reasonable, that we can safely reject the whole rigmarole of traditional overlay and the hundred and one rules of conduct and whatnot. But there’s much that’s not quite right in the small details, as presented in these quotes and this post.