1998: Back when I considered Zen Buddhism - Part 3
In which Teófilo's probing took him to the edge of an abyss.
Buddhism in a jiffy.
I'll attempt the briefest explanation of Buddhism as I came to know it.
I accept that Buddhism by itself is a robust religious and philosophical system. Despite popular depictions in the media, Buddhist practical morality is tough and demanding. In fact, at the level of practice, it approaches the Gospel's. In some instances which I won't mention here, they are identical. In fact, it's fascinating to me when I see those who mock celibacy in the Church but cheer it in Buddhism. Bad ex-Christians will never be good Buddhists, I'm convinced.
Buddhism's principal finding pertains to suffering (dukkha). The Buddha surmised that everyone suffers. That'll appear to be like an obvious finding to any observer with eyes on their faces. But what he meant was that every stress and dissatisfaction is dukkha. It's the constant feeling that everything in life is not quite right. All joys are fleeting, happiness is happenstance. Everything changes all the time, enroute to its inexorable decay and oblivion. The Buddha reduced all human suffering to one's attachment to all decaying things. To heal this suffering, the Buddha prescribed The Noble Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is Buddhism's core teaching.
The Way of Zen
Zen Buddhism is a tradition of Buddhism that came to Japan by way of China. In China, Buddhism encountered a native Chinese religious philosophy known as Taoism. This latter philosophy stood by itself, with its own tenets, rituals, and holy people. The encounter with Taoism transformed Buddhism. It led to the formation of many Buddhist schools, the Chang school being the best known among them.
Chang Buddhists integrated the Taoist teaching of flow with their Buddhist experience. This gave rise to the best-known schools of Chinese martial arts. Those of us of a certain age remember a TV show titled Kung Fu. The show, with David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, was about a Shaolin monk who fled to the Old American West. The Shaolin Monastery itself is the first Chan Buddhist monastery in China. Founded in AD 527, it remains active to this day.
Chan Buddhism became Zen Buddhism in Japan. Chan Buddhism underwent its own cultural transformation in Japan. Zen harmonized well with the native Japanese religion that would evolve into Shintoism. Today, Zen Buddhism is an integral part of the Japanese national character.
If you would recall, I've said before that Zen Buddhism is distinctive among other schools. Zen teachers say their tradition is about directly understanding the essence of reality. A practitioner sits (Zazen) in meditation to gain this understanding. They can and do study Buddhist scriptures, but they emphasize meditation above all.
Zen Buddhism, as all schools of Buddhism, have their own "apostolic succession" of sorts. They hold on to lineages of transmission from masters to disciples. The transmission of Buddhist tradition grants legitimacy and authority to those receiving it. Zen masters prefer an intuitive way of transmission, unlike other Buddhist traditions. This is difficult to explain without recurring to the term telepathy in our lingo. But that term falls short. In Zen, the dualist barriers between master and disciple dissolve. The disciples see with the master because they're one. That oneness can only be experienced, not described in scientific detail.
To the brash, inquisitive, and dubitative young man that I was, Zen proved very attractive. It appealed to my sense of mysticism, of morality, and intellectual formation. In fact, Zen appealed to my intellectual, and also to my spiritual pride.
"Buddhism without Beliefs"
Still, a lot of the religious basis of Zen bothered me. Like all Buddhist schools, Zen didn't object to the popular worship of various deities. These could be Hindu devas, Chinese xian, or the Japanese kami. If deities are irrelevant in Buddhism, why even acknowledge them? This and other questions are the ones Secular Buddhists asked themselves. They eschew all the deities Buddhism allows for. They reject anything paranormal or supernatural or at least, emphasize their optionality. They social justice minded and, to no one's surprise, they meditate.
It was right about that time that I read Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor. He grandfathered this movement, but not without living the standard Buddhist life before. He studied Tibetan and Zen Buddhism and became a monk for a time.
I found his book eloquent and much to my state of mind at that time. It was this reading that made me face atheism as a philosophical option for the first time in my life. I stood at the edge of the precipice and looked down into the darkness. "Is it worth it? Should I jump?" - I asked myself.
(To be continued…)