Thoughts on Zen
There are many ways man can attain at least some degree of enlightenment.
Some reach it through grace. This is the religious or theological route, where people reach enlightenment either through their faith or their devotion to their god.
Others, and this is probably where I belong, reach it through daily experience. This can be though of as the philosophical route, where people reach enlightenment through the intellectual processing of their daily experiences.
Of the two routes, the philosophical is a more dangerous route. In the theological route, things are very clean. Things are either good or evil, and when they seem to be in the middle, people have two escapes. Either they do not understand the goodness in it (because it seems so wrong), so they leave it to their god, or they wish to go with what they think and feel is right, but should they regret it later on, they can always cleanse themselves with some ritual of forgiveness from their god. In the end, you can always end up in a good place. You simply have to suck your pride in when you have regrets so that you can go back to the good side by admitting to yourself and to others that you were wrong.
In the philosophical route, however, since teachings come from life, choices are also much like life - there is no turning back. Therefore, at every moment, you must be making the right choices of what to think, say, and do, lest you make a mistake and end up bringing your life to a very bad place. And in life, there is nobody with enough power to tell you the right choice all the time. Ultimately, it all rests on you. Some people of the philosophical route may believe in a god, but they do not rely on their god. In the philosophical route, you take all the burden, and possibly much more (in cases when you help others). In the end, it's very murky, and quite risky, and very permanent. However, that being what it may be, I think it's a much more fun way of living.
In the philosophical route, there are infinitely many ways of processing your experiences, because you can sum up the total possible ways of thought by a simple function of the number of people in the world (meaning you have at least 1 possibly unique way per mind in the world), and due to the mind's power, for each person can suddenly change their mind, each mind by itself yields an infinite number of possible ways to process experiences. However, there have been many popular ways of thought, possibly because so many people have gone through those routes, and quite possibly because they work.
You have eastern and western thought. Westerners like keeping things certain, so their method is usually based on facts and repeatable phenomena, so in learning they usually like to have standard ways and standard things. Eastern peoples, and this makes it hard for me because I'm an Eastern fellow, usually don't care much for these strict, standard ways and standard things. Usually, we are result-oriented. Meaning, we don't really care how you get there, just as long as you got there. Your process may help me show the way, but I can't do that because I'm not you. We are different. Therefore, the wisdom you have is merely part of the whole thing, and whatever you don't have, it is up to me to find out. We are like this. This is why a lot of our cultural heritage includes knowledge that can be deemed as "exotic" or "esoteric". This is because we really consider knowledge as "somewhere out there." It's in our psyche. We always think we can do better. That means we think that there are things about what we do that we don't necessarily know, still.
Look at our martial arts, or our medical practices, for example. Really, when you think about it, there's no solid standard for accupuncture or herbal teas. The character of our martial arts change slowly every generation. The world is always in a flux, and so the knowledge is always in a flux as well.
In the East, there are some popular routes. Daoism is one. Confucianism is another. Zen or Chan Buddhism is also quite popular.
Daoism is very fluid. It favors nothing, yet you can't say that it doesn't detest either. Nor can you say that it doesn't have guides. And yet, the minute you follow these guides, you've been led astray.
Confucianism, I find, is quite strict. It is very interested in the human being as a social being, and society being the very complex animal that it is, you're always walking a fine line with Confucianism.
Zen Buddhism is quite difficult. It's not for those who wish to stay in their comfort zone.
The method of Zen, I realize, is to introduce into your lifestyle all sorts of hardship to benefit your way of life. In Shaolin, they do this by the physical means of training. In Bushido, everything is restrained. Look at the tea ceremony. Look at how they sit in the kneeling position (called seiza). Or look at vegetarian diets. These are all very hard. They are very imposing for two reasons: one is the sheer requirement that the method demands on the person, and two is fact that you're going to have to push yourself through it in the end.
However, invariably, the idea is simple. Suffer hardship so much that one day, you just feel yourself breaking apart, yet finding a unity and coherence within you that was never so strong and tight. And then the hardship is no longer the suffering you once thought it was. Rather, the hardship now serves to strengthen that resolve you have inside of you. And in the end, you require less from others, less from nature, less from yourself, yet compared to others, you can give much much more (due to that inner strength). This, to me, is the spirit of Zen. Grab on tight, so that you can let go. Let go, so that you won't have to grab on. Lose much, so you end up with only what you need most. Do all this, so you will never lose even when you don't grab on.
It's a very remarkable method. With this method, you will find things in yourself, cherishable things that you never thought you had or could have. You can gain strength, discipline, and control, yet with the carefree disposition of a vagabond that has nothing to lose.
Hardship strengthens you by weakening parts of yourself that hold you back and you don't need.
Some reach it through grace. This is the religious or theological route, where people reach enlightenment either through their faith or their devotion to their god.
Others, and this is probably where I belong, reach it through daily experience. This can be though of as the philosophical route, where people reach enlightenment through the intellectual processing of their daily experiences.
Of the two routes, the philosophical is a more dangerous route. In the theological route, things are very clean. Things are either good or evil, and when they seem to be in the middle, people have two escapes. Either they do not understand the goodness in it (because it seems so wrong), so they leave it to their god, or they wish to go with what they think and feel is right, but should they regret it later on, they can always cleanse themselves with some ritual of forgiveness from their god. In the end, you can always end up in a good place. You simply have to suck your pride in when you have regrets so that you can go back to the good side by admitting to yourself and to others that you were wrong.
In the philosophical route, however, since teachings come from life, choices are also much like life - there is no turning back. Therefore, at every moment, you must be making the right choices of what to think, say, and do, lest you make a mistake and end up bringing your life to a very bad place. And in life, there is nobody with enough power to tell you the right choice all the time. Ultimately, it all rests on you. Some people of the philosophical route may believe in a god, but they do not rely on their god. In the philosophical route, you take all the burden, and possibly much more (in cases when you help others). In the end, it's very murky, and quite risky, and very permanent. However, that being what it may be, I think it's a much more fun way of living.
In the philosophical route, there are infinitely many ways of processing your experiences, because you can sum up the total possible ways of thought by a simple function of the number of people in the world (meaning you have at least 1 possibly unique way per mind in the world), and due to the mind's power, for each person can suddenly change their mind, each mind by itself yields an infinite number of possible ways to process experiences. However, there have been many popular ways of thought, possibly because so many people have gone through those routes, and quite possibly because they work.
You have eastern and western thought. Westerners like keeping things certain, so their method is usually based on facts and repeatable phenomena, so in learning they usually like to have standard ways and standard things. Eastern peoples, and this makes it hard for me because I'm an Eastern fellow, usually don't care much for these strict, standard ways and standard things. Usually, we are result-oriented. Meaning, we don't really care how you get there, just as long as you got there. Your process may help me show the way, but I can't do that because I'm not you. We are different. Therefore, the wisdom you have is merely part of the whole thing, and whatever you don't have, it is up to me to find out. We are like this. This is why a lot of our cultural heritage includes knowledge that can be deemed as "exotic" or "esoteric". This is because we really consider knowledge as "somewhere out there." It's in our psyche. We always think we can do better. That means we think that there are things about what we do that we don't necessarily know, still.
Look at our martial arts, or our medical practices, for example. Really, when you think about it, there's no solid standard for accupuncture or herbal teas. The character of our martial arts change slowly every generation. The world is always in a flux, and so the knowledge is always in a flux as well.
In the East, there are some popular routes. Daoism is one. Confucianism is another. Zen or Chan Buddhism is also quite popular.
Daoism is very fluid. It favors nothing, yet you can't say that it doesn't detest either. Nor can you say that it doesn't have guides. And yet, the minute you follow these guides, you've been led astray.
Confucianism, I find, is quite strict. It is very interested in the human being as a social being, and society being the very complex animal that it is, you're always walking a fine line with Confucianism.
Zen Buddhism is quite difficult. It's not for those who wish to stay in their comfort zone.
The method of Zen, I realize, is to introduce into your lifestyle all sorts of hardship to benefit your way of life. In Shaolin, they do this by the physical means of training. In Bushido, everything is restrained. Look at the tea ceremony. Look at how they sit in the kneeling position (called seiza). Or look at vegetarian diets. These are all very hard. They are very imposing for two reasons: one is the sheer requirement that the method demands on the person, and two is fact that you're going to have to push yourself through it in the end.
However, invariably, the idea is simple. Suffer hardship so much that one day, you just feel yourself breaking apart, yet finding a unity and coherence within you that was never so strong and tight. And then the hardship is no longer the suffering you once thought it was. Rather, the hardship now serves to strengthen that resolve you have inside of you. And in the end, you require less from others, less from nature, less from yourself, yet compared to others, you can give much much more (due to that inner strength). This, to me, is the spirit of Zen. Grab on tight, so that you can let go. Let go, so that you won't have to grab on. Lose much, so you end up with only what you need most. Do all this, so you will never lose even when you don't grab on.
It's a very remarkable method. With this method, you will find things in yourself, cherishable things that you never thought you had or could have. You can gain strength, discipline, and control, yet with the carefree disposition of a vagabond that has nothing to lose.
Hardship strengthens you by weakening parts of yourself that hold you back and you don't need.