Two books, a half century apart: old Zen, new Zen

I readily admit that I'm addicted to books. It's both a genetic and learned addiction. I blame, or credit, my mother. She was an avid reader and intellectual who, like me now, had books piled up around her home and made notes about them in blank ending pages.

My addiction could help explain why I find myself attracted to books I've owned for a long time, in the example below, over a half century, even though my philosophical tastes have changed quite a bit over the years.

Like a literary archaeologist, I can estimate when I first read a book by the markings I left in it. The Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis book on the left has pencil markings in the margins. Haven't done that since my college days. (Back then psychoanalysis still was a thing; not true anymore, basically.)

A few days ago I started to re-read a piece by D.T. Suzuki in the book, "Lectures in Zen Buddhism." I correctly figured that Suzuki would speak more clearly in his talks to western audiences than in his books that were written from the get-go. 

Here's a sample where Suzuki speaks of the Self.

Scientific knowledge of the Self is not real knowledge as long as it objectifies the Self. The scientific direction of study is to be reversed, and the Self is to be taken hold of from within and not from the outside. This means that the Self is to know itself without going out of itself.

Some may ask, "How can that be possible? Knowledge always implies a dichotomy, the knower and the object known." 

I answer: "Self-knowledge is possible only when the identification of subject and object takes place, that is, where scientific studies come to an end, and lay down all their gadgets of experimentation, and confess that they cannot continue their researches any further unless they transcend themselves by performing a miraculous leap over into a realm of absolute subjectivity. 

The realm of absolute subjectivity is where the Self abides.

Good stuff. My Psychology-major-Self pencilled in a couple of lines in the margin, indicating that I agreed with what Suzuki said. My current Self is less enthusiastic, but I still consider that Suzuki makes a sound argument that fits with Zen Buddhist philosophy.

On the whole, though, this sort of classic Zen writing -- 20th century, yet traditional -- doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to. The Zen stories, the Zen parables, the Zen koans, the Zen tales of what master said what hundred of years ago -- I understand that this indirectness is in line with Zen's dislike of pinning things down in a rational, analytical fashion.

And yet. 

When Joan Tollifson's book arrived from Amazon yesterday, purchased because I enjoyed her Nothing to Grasp book so much, and wanted a fresh Tollifson fix to feed my addiction, just reading a few pages felt like a breath of fresh spiritual and philosophical air, compared to the staleness Suzuki's writing left me with.

Painting the Sidewalk with Water is an appealing title. This book, like Suzuki's contribution to Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, is based on transcripts of talks. In case, talks Tollifson gave at meetings between 20o4 and 2006, mostly in Chicago.

(As of January 2023, Tollifson was living in Ashland, Oregon, a charming small town known for its theatre offerings about four hours south of where I live in Salem, Oregon.)

The back cover says, "Joan Tollifson has an affinity with Buddhism, Advaita and other forms of spirituality, but she belongs to no tradition." Great. That describes me also. I like her approach, though I admit that a skeptic could reasonably say, she talks gibberish, with all this emphasis on Here/Now.

Here's some excerpts from the first chapter, "The Simplicity of What Is." To me, she speaks the language of Zen, just without the Buddhist baggage.

This wholeness or emptiness is not some abstract idea or mystical state of consciousness, but simply the undeniable actuality of this moment -- the sounds of traffic, the hum of machinery, the song of a bird, the knowingness that this is and that you are here. 

This bare being, this aware presence, this present experiencing requires no belief and cannot be doubted. It is undeniable and unavoidable. What can be doubted are all the ideas, interpretations, and stories about this. 

All our confusion and suffering is in this conceptual overlay, never in Reality itself. This book is about seeing through the imaginary problem.

...There is no way to achieve this boundlessness because it is all there is. Here/Now is ever-present in spite of whatever happens in the movie of waking life, never because of what happens. Here/Now is not any particular experience, but rather, it is the experiencing that is present in every experience. 

Boundlessness includes everything and depends on nothing. It is what remains when the whole universe dissolves -- your face before your parents were born.

...The mind typically imagines enlightenment to be some special state that a person attains. It is sometimes said that there is no coming back from enlightenment, and the mind interprets this to mean that a person one day crosses an imaginary finish line and enters a special "enlightened state" of infinite duration.

This "enlightened person" is then imagined to be forever after permanently established in something called "unicity" or "oneness" or "the Now," and this is conceived of as a perpetual experience, a permanent state, or a final understanding that never again lapses or disappears for that person.

But actually, the word enlightenment points to recognizing the mirage-like nature of the separate person who would enter some special state and then stay there forever after.

Comments

[7]

I lost a book
Langston Day and Bob de Lamare
"The new discoveries behind the atom"
where he did some Quantum Entanglement

Sprayed fertiliser on a map of a village in Africa , a special farm, included an image and the result was excellent
Blended the book
might happen to U app sometimes ?

[Ron E.]

I would say that Suzuki was a man of his time when he introduced Zen to the west. Very useful to people who were just hearing about Zen philosophy and practice. Another disseminator around that time was Alan Watts – someone I read more than Suzuki. Anyway, they and a few others piqued my interest in the Eastern approach.

Joan Tollifson, continues the Buddha’s message yet from a present-day perspective, yet although the basic Buddha’s message is alive in some of the traditional Zen teachings and teachers, it can escape western sensibilities. Tollifson writes in similar vein to Tony Packer and Charlotte Joko Beck (two of her previous teachers) expounding the zen – or more broadly – the whole non-duality package.

I’m just reading Tollifson’s book ‘Death’ in which she brings in her approach to death, impermanence and suffering in the light of her mother’s and various friends’ gradual demise. Traditional Zen and Chan writings forever expound the fact of impermanence, emptiness and suffering. I see the work of writers like Tollifson as helping to de-mystify traditional Buddhist teachings making them more accessible to the ever-evolving human psyche – just as Hui-Neng and others did in their time.

[sant64]

I think zazen is everything. "What's the need for sitting meditation?" is the saddest thing Jack Kerouac wrote.

Zazen offers a universal system of practice. Results come no matter what one believes or doesn't believe. And the results of zazan are comprehensive and practical. Zazan cues the mind to revere each person, thing and moment. Zazen puts everything in order, and after leaving the cushion one spends their day doing zazen of their daily events.

There are no moving parts to zazen. It doesn't have the complications inherent to Sant Mat meditation. There is no getting to somewhere, no levels, no shabda guru intermediary. And yet, zazen is a prayer, or has the same effect of prayer if done earnestly. Everything becomes a prayer, everything is reverence, everything is bowed to and bows back in return.

[S+]

🥰 I’m a book lover too.

I got some good tings from my time at RSSB that have really stuck with me over the years. The most important one being a remark the guru said: “Never, NEVER compare yourself with anyone else.”

All the things we learn from experiences and from books are our own. Other people can’t possibly see the world exactly as we do and that’s perfectly OK. But most people tend to get more rigid in their thinking as they get older. It’s very important to try and stay flexible and open to new ways of seeing the world.

I love that you have this amazing library of other peoples’ experiences to learn from!

[Appreciative Reader]

Yep, I'm a huge fan of Brian's; and specifically, and in this context, of his amazing appetite for books.

I love reading, myself, and indeed have built up a sizeable personal library (built on an already large collection, priceless books from a sentimental POV, from across a few generations); but, although I'm much younger, even then Brian's sheer capacity to read far, far outclasses mine. (And, heh, I confess to having a thing for fiction. Easily a full half of my reading is fiction.)

Yeah, Brian's prodigious reading, and his lovely reviews here, and the discussions that sometimes grow on around those articles, just love them. Respect.