(This is a reworked artikal from my old blog, reworked in the sense that I ended up discarding the entire thing and replacing it with this. Some sections are best digested slowly so I don’t have to argue with your misinterpretations. I contemplated releasing a section each week - more so out of laziness than anything else - but have decided to present it in several sections at once given you’re all spectacular geniuses. Prease enjoy)
“A German friend of Heidegger told me that one day when he visited Heidegger he found him reading one of (D.T.) Suzuki’s books; ‘If I understand this man correctly,’ Heidegger remarked, ‘this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings’” — Anthony Bartlett
To many in the West, Zen remains enigmatic, despite its growing popularity and sprawling ecosystems of various schools and lineages.
Due to its enigmatic nature, like many other forms of Buddhism, it is regularly poorly understood and practised.
Most of what I say here, will not even be about Zen.
It's already difficult for prospective students since, like any spiritual practice, it is sold as a "path for a seeker". This falsehood obfuscates its very essence (if there is such a thing) and, to a large degree, this seeking is the very same thing the student must overcome.
The process of the truth of mental processes being made evident to themselves.
Of noticing noticing noticing.
This is rendered extremely challenging by the rich complexity of our current time, in which powerful stimuli ceaselessly push us into being more-so detached from reality than ever before.
One way of looking at this is through the framework of the split brain hypothesis, and it's worth looking at that Bio-individual episode where we talk through such ideas.
Recently, Zen has become associated with Marxism, Wokeism and Leftism in general. Even in schools or groups in Australia, uniquely American identitarian causes such as BLM have been recognised and fetishised.
One conclusion we can draw from this is that the transcendent is always shrouded by human culture. Perhaps deliberately obfuscated.
Even a cursory analysis reveals the often hilarious and absurd incongruences between transcendent principles and the ancillary cultures. That something like Buddhism could be used to further the aims of various shades of vulgar Leftism really beggars comprehension.
Is it "no self, no problem", Rōshi?
"My identity, your problem" Seems to be the revised understanding.
A teacher with whom I once spoke about the transfer of Zen to the West told me of the optimism many Japanese monks brought when initially grafting this tradition into new soils.
They generally believed this would lead to a renewal of a tradition that had become rigid and fibrotic in its homeland. Yet, the worst excesses of post-modern Western culture have left question marks against such assumptions.
It is easy to see how good intentions left space for significant error within this potentially fertile ground of renewal. A kind of well-intentioned miscalculation about what the West was rapidly becoming.
It is also plainly the case that our native traditions have collapsed entirely. Anyone who is completely earnest with themselves, who has tried to follow a path diligently, can tell you this; for whatever reason, there is a gulf between what is now and whatever that was purported to be.
No amount of squealing, tweeting, arguing, referring to old texts for authority, and general conflict-stirring will bring it back from the dead.
In the case of Zen, it is indeed true such a collapse of tradition has occurred.
I want to make the case that not only doesn't this matter, but it's a happy and necessary event.
Because at its core whatever that was then was never what it was to begin with, anyway. No amount of subversive Western culture can desecrate what is always there and what is always available to us.
Our path forward reveals itself when we understand and accept this as the circumstance in which we are to play our parts.
Tradition and Stasis
I should clarify that my understanding of tradition is the antithesis of dusty books, anti-life attitudes, and appeals to morality.
I reject this and work daily at a radical acceptance of what is.
Tradition is a dynamic force, ever-renewing and vibrant, embodying reality's immutable, natural, and impermanent state. Only the few have ever desired to comprehend this in its totality. Only rare types have any inkling it may be the case to begin with. Such insights seem not meant for the masses, in a world geared towards petty bureaucratisation, safety for all, consumption, nesting and reproduction.
It is true to say, however, that institutions and hierarchies did exist to offer this to the commoner, albeit in small bites. Small tastes only, the occasional allowance of the populace to engage in the image of the divine through ritual and festivity. In this day and age of rampant reductionism, no such outlet exists for the common man any longer.
A drive to seek truth, and a real functional method to seek truth, has perhaps always been kept under wraps. It would reveal things about the world no one wishes to face. Or is equipped to face. I suspect there was a recognition at various times that only a few people had enough of "the stuff" to go the distance, and beyond that, there would be diminishing returns.
so more than ever, no counterbalance exists towards the drive for buckets of chicken and sportsball. Things that may interrupt and shot-circuit proliferation and consumption.
It has always fascinated me that exoteric rules and regulations that keep the mass of mankind in check are downstream of this same transcendent knowledge that can completely upend common-sense order.
Such knowledge is potentially subversive to the species' current drives for ceaseless unconsidered reproduction. Yet small doses seem to ameliorate the worst excesses of the fear and anxiety the masses feel towards life. Any explanation is better than no explanation at all. It is also interesting to note, anyone who has tried to inject the populace with heavier doses has tended come to a rather terrible end (Not only that, but to really rub salt in the wound, the same type of bastard that tortured them to death turns around afterwards and defies them whilst missing the point afterwards, as well).
The question I have pondered for many years is, why should such drives and potential towards transcendence exist in anyone?
It wasn't apparent why this trait would evolve if the sole aim, as most models of nature and civilisation would have it, is to drain resources to facilitate endless procreation and simian squabbling.
While I like appeals to the future evolution of this species, and work to that end myself, I remain uncertain we matter that much. Particularly given the severe and debilitating shortcomings seen in the common man.
but I do agree with Alan Watts when he says that god or reality, or will, is a gambler. Playing a great cosmic game. In this great game of probabilities, nature always holds a wildcard.
Potential futures are a game of probability. In this way, I believe such higher types are designed to carry the weight of possible futures on their shoulders.
We know the emergence of higher types is followed by great revelations and new ways of doing things. New structures.
These great new streams fan the flames of authentic tradition and its emergence.
In some way, and not without significant pain, it's almost as if these men lift collective humanity up - if only temporarily, and despite a long protracted period of decline arising shortly thereafter, as base habits reassert themselves.
Could it be the case then, that the great men of the past were flare-ups? Flare-ups of what’s to come? Do they therefore provide us with insights and a stepping stone as to what will be?
I think it’s clear the higher man to come will have one foot in the past and his other firmly planted in the future. He will recognise himself as the bridge to the future, and sees clearly that current forms will be, and need to be left behind.
As the current system reaches a point of maximum saturation & and stability is sought after to very great degrees, in the ensuing complexity and confusion, I believe such types will find opportunities to come into their own.
It is also true that all future expressions and divergences are built on the foundations of heaps of bones. Cataclysm is a feature, not a bug. There is no doubt in my mind it will occur as a happy necessity.
We don't believe in utopias at this Newsletter.
So what does a practice like Zen have to do with all of this?
Zen as Nihilism: Wrongful, Baseless Accusations
Buddhism, notably Zen Buddhism, is often accused of nihilism. I agree with D.T. Suzuki when he rejects the perspective that identifies Buddhism with Nihilism.
In particular, Suzku was critical of Zen Buddhism's identification with the popular conception of the Schopenhauerian denial of will. At a cursory glance, it may seem the same. However, there are subtle and significant differences. I argue these differences practically drive different outcomes.
We are often exposed to this perspective on platforms like Twitter. Typically a particular type of Christian or serious type, serious thinkers with serious phd hats on. What they have in common is an incurable penchant for autistic language usage, and a preference for living in their imaginations. Consistently supplanting primordial empirical organic understandings of life for concepts and statements that feel good to them. For this reason, they keep misunderstanding Buddhism.
This is convenient for them, since these vies suit their peculiar brain-wiring and physiologies. For this reason, opinions are often more revealing about the person than the thing they’re commenting on.
I take note such views are often driven by hysteria, fear, and compulsion - traits I despise more than anything. Alas, characteristics that are all too common in us as animals. Traits that should be managed and overcome.
To summarise, this strain of thought refers to the theory-based conclusion that Buddhism exists as a denial of will and is, therefore, nihilistic or life-denying (despite the Buddha resolutely making it clear that his was a middle way). The standard view of Schopenhauer is that the worst excesses of the blind-will should be denied through art, asceticism, and such pursuits as a way to relative peace. The little peace you can etch out in the horrific maelstrom of suffering.
It is easy to see why, from a perspective of theory and logic, you could make the mistake of associating Zen Buddhism with this conclusion. buddhism is outwardly ascetic, afterall.
Let us be clear on this: when reading the important early texts, the Buddha refers to the illusory nature of the self or id. as being the source of human ignorance, auto-biographical destiny and all the the dissatisfactions and occrences associated with it. He painted humans as self-fulfilling prophecies, the prophecies driven by ignorance.
As far as I'm aware, there is no mention of a blind will (that is not self-inflicted or karmic) in any of the Suttas. Nor is there any mention of negating a blind will by turning your back on it or ignoring it.
The Buddha makes testable empirical observations and claims. The test you're asked to run is to notice the illusory nature of the experience of self.
In this noticing, the wrongful self-identity with phenomena that arise is loosened up, and the psychological effect includes varying degrees of cessation of dissatisfaction, since self-involvement was always illusory anyway.
Some would understandably claim that the realisation of the non-self nature of what happens is noticing the blind will experientially. The critical difference here is that experience is not blind. Ignorance or pain arises because of self-delusion.
This is an entirely life-affirming realisation - it is the epitome of the solution to the worst excesses of nihilism. The heaviness of life becomes a lightness. It doesn't require you to turn away in negation; it simply requires you to see what is the case.
Importantly, this experience and way of being does not require belief. It is at once a radical acceptance of life as it is that does not require any belief super structure, other than acknowledgement of the process of self-overcoming.
Ignorance is self-arising in the most fundamental way. It is not totally impersonal as such. Because it is something that is, it is not something that isn’t. it’s somewhere in the middle. Functionally, it is a process of simply seeing what the case is and transcending its worst excesses. for this reason, I believe it is important to discard comparisons overall, since in a way that’s all that needs to be said.
This process is the very definition of the self-overcoming of nihilism.
As you can see, these two perspectives are functionally different.
They are not the same outlook and don't lead to the same prescription.
The doctrine of non-self is not purely intellectual; it is an empirical fact. Part of the challenge we have with the Buddha's claims is that they are practical and empirical and don't lend themselves easily to language and concept structures. Neurologically, it is obvious why experience can’t be lassoed by concepts very well, or at least in the way we’ve traditionally sought to do so.
As he says, you shouldn't just believe him but test it out.
All this said, I like Schopenhauer, and I like what he has to say. With the literature he had available, his insights were and remain genuinely intimidating. I don't view popular conceptions of his outlook as fair treatment, but I chose to use them here for sake of clarification.
The truth is, the realisation of selflessness as such does not then immediately imply that you need to go and live in a cave, reject society, and eat nettles for the rest of your life. It doesn't mean you need to grow dreadlocks and adopt spiritual accoutrements. It doesn't imply you need to turn your back on what happens.
There is nothing within this experience that says that.
Regardless of what people say, although the realisation of selflessness is a part of Buddhism, Buddhism is not the feature of the experience of selflessness.
It is a universal experience, a truth of consciousness and its implications go far beyond "resting in a cave" - unless you really enjoy that. That is one possible way of handling it.
If I may be so bold, the realisation of selflessness can be and should be adopted for a Western frame of being for marginal types - it is, in a way, a technology. It is a technology in self-overcoming.
It is a method for overcoming and de-energising ancient and self-defeating neurological structures and patterns imposed upon us by our archaic natures. We are increasing evidence and data that this is what is physiologically occurring whilst engaging in the practices that induce this frame of consciousness, the same prescribed by the Buddha himself...and who knows before that.
In fact, it is only within the process of ironically realising there is no self - and no free will - that we become free-er to cultivate any will whatsoever.
"One foot in the fast, and one planted firmly in the future."
The Case for a Western Physiological Reinterpretation of Zen & the Unimportance of Belief
"All of Zen's outward manifestations or demonstrations must never be regarded as final. They just indicate the way to look for facts. Therefore, these indicators are important. We cannot do well without them. But once caught in them, which are like entangling meshes, we are doomed; for Zen can never be comprehended."
- D.T. Suzuki
As we know, believing something is really just thinking something without any factual basis for doing so. Yet, in acting out in binary opposition to forces we all dislike who on the surface believe in non-belief, it is something that has become fetishised as a form of opposition.
Colleagues and friends often ask why I promote Zazen. One of its most outstanding features is its deliberate lack of cultural baggage and requirement for belief.
I like to view it (cognisant the shortcomings of this view) as a neurological technology that presents itself well for Faustian Western Repurposing (The FWR Movement). I see new schools arising within this movement and new traditions of the future forming forming, re-appropriating, or better - reframing such technologies.
Practices are being repurposed to meet the needs of the emerging host culture, resulting in new forms and techniques that will carry forward the experience for the few.
The few that choose to reject the ways of the herd. To keep the flame of the authentic tradition alive so those in the future can take it in whatever direction they require.
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As I discussed with Kevin on bio-individual podcast, one of the significant problems Westerners face with such practices is that they rarely state what they are seeking, the purported "end goal" of their work and investigations.
They jump from system to system, trying on practices like jackets because they have no fundamental conception of why they are doing something. Decades or entire lifetimes are wasted in such ways.
Some have penchants for the exotic, some are driven by extreme pain, self-loathing and no self-discipline, and some just want to feel special when they say "I'm a thing" to their friends. The Western character is one of restlessness, afterall.
Another issue is how such such systems are sold to people. Egocentricity or extreme self-contractedness (ESC) is the order of the day for us all. This makes us particularly susceptible to missing the point and wasting our time.
Many on the right say, "all we need to do is go back to communities and church".
This won't work because ESC will still exist in that scenario. ESC and its associated behaviours of the ceaseless unthinking pursuit of material gain as absolution, and all knowledge being commoditised intellectual production are now deeply, deeply rooted - as are we. We are totally rooted.
I attempt to point this out on Twitter poorly, but no one really groks it.
Why should I not have ongoing discussions? There's real knowledge here, man!
Downstream values of these drives are universally recognised as "valuable" by all people as default. All of us are driven unconsciously in this way. The mindset and functioning are hardwired: if you're in church, arguing over flickering images of roman towel boys, or taking a dump.
As a result, the pursuit of transcendence is widely maligned because, to everyone, it seems utopian or “airy fairy”. And those who do pursue it, pursue it because it is sold as Utopian. Both end up missing the point.
Whatever it is, it seems to the majority of us as not practical. It is all just too far away to be helpful to those driven in the ways I discuss above. In a way, this is a problem with religion and how it expresses and describes its aims.
Nevertheless, no one would disagree that the average person who isn’t completely aomebic is in a constant state of dilemma and is seeking something, anything, to end this. Evidence could be the average reading list of an AWFL for example.
Thus, for us, defining terms and outcomes is the key. Our culture does not have the same outlook or desired results as the Eastern type. But this doesn't mean the technology is useless.
We must acknowledge that our aims and destinies as a people are not to live in underpants in a cave on the side of the Ganges or in the longhouse being henpecked by squawking priestesses, as it is fashionable to say.
Science and its special materialism are our esotericism, practice, and inherent spirituality of the Western type. Our love of material, delving into its secrets, and energetically pushing further out, seeking horizons - is our way. And it is not adversarial to certain spiritual technologies that exist, like Zen.
In fact, they are MADE for one another.
Western Zen as Physiological Rebellion Against Nature: the Universality of Zen
“The concept of the creative world as a self-transforming matrix involves neither an emanationistic nor a merely generative, emergently evolutionary world. Nor again is it a world of intellectual intuition, as people say who misunderstand me. It is always the existential world of dynamic individual expression, moving from the created to the creating - the world of the personal self, and of absolutely individual will”
- Nishida, Last Writings
Karl Jaspers was the first Westerner to describe and consider Zen meditation within a medical and physiological paradigm. In his book "General Psychopathology" (Allgemeine Psychopathologie), Jaspers claims that wherever meditation was practised, there was always a commonality in terms of the distinct mental action that the adherent was undergoing: trying to change consciousness (or inducing a "relaxation of consciousness") to consciously and deliberately generate a change in it.
Jaspers considered that, regardless of the religious elements, Zazen (seated meditation) would exert a physiological response that is universally valid since it deals with the point of intersection between the mental and the physical. Although this doesn't capture the whole truth, I like this explanation.
Zen has an undeniable universality that transcends both Buddhism and religious affiliation, although it does include these things. The universal element is the practice of Zazen itself, accessible by its intrinsic freedom from cultural and spiritual speculations and conclusions.
Zazen must be practised consistently and often. Zen training is physiological training. There isn't any mysticism-as-such involved in this process. Whether or not this is its initially stated purpose, the reconstruction of physiological underpinnings of posture and breath and bringing them into awareness is (measurably) what occurs.
Such awareness induces a non-innate fusion of mind and body, something we are not born with and the masses rarely attain in a helpful way.
Part of this process or fusion is combat conducted by the individual against himself, which is neither mystical, nor intellectual.
This work unburdens the adherent of the neuro-muscular and cognitive contractions of selfdom. Freeing up reservoirs of energy.
We've all seen scans of monks' brains, so we know that this practice causes the growth of new brain tissue and connections. It offers humans the ability to act in ways they never thought possible. It offers degrees of control over reactions and physiology. The work expands individual potential and reflexivity.
I steadfastly believe that this is what will be required in the future. In fact, it is necessary now.
Zazen is the practice of resting in this immutable, constant state of flux and renewal, riding these winds of experience like a kite surfer - in as much as that's possible for us.
We all have different levels of inbuilt potential. They are baked in to no small degree. However, the main thing we should focus on is self-actualising and letting the chips fall where they may. Life is usually better for marginal types when they do this work.
"That is hot stuff."
I think some will be great men and reach great heights. Others, like me, not so much.
I know how much of the stuff I possess, and I'm okay with this and maximising it as much as I can. Nevertheless, every marginal can benefit and participate in this great work and mission.
Let's also remember that the other element of this work is learning to thoroughly enjoy life. Lots in these spaces fetishise suffering, pain, and being miserable.
For sure, it's how you frame things, and pain is essential, but there also needs to be plenty of mental space for enjoyment, fun, humour, and pleasure. Many neo-masculinity accounts need to get a grip.
And it doesn't stop there - a great foment and integration of many such streams is occurring. Not just Zazen, but movement, breathing, posture - you name it, they're all birds of the same feather. I sincerely hope that's what we can make happen in this community - a community that leaves a great legacy for the future.
Updates:
New Youtube/podcast of bio-individual channel out on the subject above, links in bio and links also in post yesterday.
I have officially opened a subscription service on this. It’s about 3 bucks a month. Each week I’ll release a recoding on a very specific practice that can help you realise some of the things above. If you subscribe, you also get access to me and my e-mail should you have questions of emphasis. Although it will be released weekly, each lessons could potentially be looked at for months. So you can view it as a repository of work. In July when I hope to have my 100 lesson breath re-wiring course out, you’ll get that for half price is the ideas.
I questioned starting a sub service. One of my teachers insisted that his students pay him. He didn’t need to money, although it was good to have more, but he said he primarily insisted on it because humans have this weird quirk that they won’t do something for themselves if it’s free. It’s weird, but it’s true. And even then, people still have trouble. Go figure.
As always appreciate comments on my channels and any contact. This is after all, about building a community, not of gurus and experts, but of experimenters with their own unique insights.
unit next week,
Cheerio
"A teacher with whom I once spoke about the transfer of Zen to the West told me of the optimism many Japanese monks brought when initially grafting this tradition into new soils."
Sounds like Vivekananda. I suspect for a universal effort the 'west must marry the east', alchemical marriage, but the christians insist it's satanic. While judeo-catholicism survives the west will continue to dig its own grave. Hermeticism is too buried.
"A drive to seek truth, and a real functional method to seek truth, has perhaps always been kept under wraps. It would reveal things about the world no one wishes to face. Or is equipped to face. I suspect there was a recognition at various times that only a few people had enough of "the stuff" to go the distance, and beyond that, there would be diminishing returns."
I cried a few tears when I read the first page of Secret Teachings of All Ages I was so happy to have found something that made sense. That was about 6years back. I'd spent my life searching that knowledge out and the methods I used were basically making myself disappear. The auld Monastery Method. Work relentlessly for others, not ask for anything, sacrifice 6pounds of flesh, starve to pay bills on time, whatever. I just wanted the freaking truth ffs. It shouldn't have been so hard. Realisation made it all worthwhile but the whole satchitananda business means it's all a cosmic joke anyway.
"The question I have pondered for many years is, why should such drives and potential towards transcendence exist in anyone?"
I can't speak for others of course but for my pov, I was born with a short visual memory of (pure consciousness) what it was like just before birth (of a real, external scene from a height- a friend said it was akin to the metaphysic 'Two Nights' chapter in Guénon's 'Initiation and Spiritual Degeneration'); because of it death never held any fear. I would goad God in church (before I abandoned religion) to show His face. He didn't which freed me to do literally anything except kill myself to prove God existed. "God" is an energy source. Religion is really annoying in how it describes it as a He. It's just annoying full stop. Annoying is a euphemism...
"If I may be so bold, the realisation of selflessness can be and should be adopted for a Western frame of being for marginal types - it is, in a way, a technology. It is a technology in self-overcoming. [...]
As a result, the pursuit of transcendence is widely maligned because, to everyone, it seems utopian or “airy fairy”. "
This is what I've recently started writing about. Religion isn't fit for purpose. The East is the closest to a metaphysic pathway, all due respect to Zen - I haven't finished Guénon's Great Triad yet - I'm only aware of the details of the Vedanta, and it really blew my mind because the Electric Universe plasma physics is the physical medium that is described in Vedanta. The good physicists 100 years ago knew of the parallels too.
I'm talking my head off to my husband most of the time about this- I had to get some writing down before I started banging on about it to others, but if one has a metaphysic bent then forgive me- I'll go on about it.
It's true- there is a connection, which means it is a SOLID, scientifically proven METAPHYSIC PATHWAY to Realisation. Rise and Shine is the introduction to this idea on my page.
Righto, cheerio.