March, 2009

I observe in myself two types of math skills. I'll call them intuitive and cognitive. I can see either operate when doing simple sums or products. Other than that, cognitive seems to only be available to me.

My experience of intuitive math, particularly addition, is that I glance at the number and the answer appears to me as knowledge instantly. Trying to capture this in words is something like;

3,5 sums to 8.

It is an instant conclusion. There is no "thought" or consideration.

My experience of cognitive math is some reference to other information, some process pursued, lots of consideration. It feels more like;

3 plus 5 is 8. or 3 plus 5 equals 8.

Notice the objects appear (3 and 5), there is a process between them (plus) there is consideration of an outcome via a rule ("is" or "equals"). There is much consideration in this.

Why is this important to me? Because, as I said, there are circumstances where I seem to have a choice over which method I use to get my answer. I have literally been faced with addition I needed to do, found the intuitive method at play but getting nervous at the lack of "checking" and so switching to cognitive. And sometimes visa versa.

This speaks to me about the role of intuition in general. There can be, I believe, a way of responding to events that is direct and intuitive, instant and spontaneous and without reference to rules or relationships guidelines. Often I think our intuition always speaks first to us and then we try and "back it up" with a cognitive solution. A solution that has been thought out in reference to rules and guidelines. That is all well and good until there is a disjoint between our intuition and "the rules" method.

I experience a choice of intuitive or cognitive for sums. The rest of the time, I think I spend in consideration, idealism. I believe zazen will help me learn to choose living in intuition more frequently.

ZEN WRAPPED IN KARMA DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE is number five this week in the San Francisco Chronicle's Best Seller list under "Quality Paperbacks." Wooooo-hoooooo!!

I guess maybe this touring thing is good for something. I'm at my sister's place in Knoxville, TN recuperating from the first leg of the tour and hoping I survive the next onslaught. The Deep South leg should be a little better because two of the major stops are 3-day Zen retreats, which are usually pretty chill and don't involve hauling ass from one place to another each day like I've been doing for the past two weeks.

A couple things, while I'm here. As I've said a bunch of times I basically no longer read the comments on this blog. On the rare occasions I do peek in it's clear that a lot of folks who post in there don't believe that. But it's true. I know there's some intelligent discussion going on. But the way some of the haters dominate the place just makes me lose interest very quickly.

Anyhow, I looked in there the other day and some guy was going on about how he used to think what I wrote was a breath of fresh air in the Zen world but now he's seen that what I write is just creating a mass of people who don't give a shit about anything. I'd just like to say that in my observation in traveling around the country meeting the people who've read my books, that is definitely not the case at all.

These are people who, to extend the metaphor of the guy who posted, deeply give a shit about everything. I am constantly amazed by the kind of people I'm meeting as I travel. These are not people whose attitude is "fuck everything I do what I want." They are profoundly committed to something greater than themselves.

Maybe they don't look the way we've been conditioned to believe Zen people should look and maybe they don't use the same vocabulary. Hell, I find some of the people who show up to my talks pretty scary myself! But that stuff is just superficial. There's something happening here and it's pretty amazing.

I can't take credit for this at all. Sometimes I wonder what these folks have been reading! It can't be the crap I write.

Anyway, back to the comments. I've found that the Internet is sometimes like a weird alternate universe that doesn't interact with the real world very much at all. I use the Internet, obviously. But I don't really participate in the bizarre artificial social stuff that goes on there a whole lot. People on the Internet don't act or respond like they do in the real world. When Tassajara caught fire and had to be evacuated some of the people who'd lived there started a blog so they could keep in contact. The comments section of that blog quickly turned nasty in ways that could never have happened in the actual physical community.

This is why I have very little interest in so-called "cyber-sanghas." They really are not in any way shape or form the same as real face-to-face communities. Even with the most up to date technology they don't work in the same way. I know it's tough for people who feel isolated from any kind of like-minded Buddhists. But I don't believe the Internet can ever be a substitute for real life personal interaction.

ANYWAY, while I was in DC, Shawn Cartwright, who hosted me there, gave me a copy of D.T. Suzuki's paperback "Zen Buddhism," published in 1956. I've never read much of D.T. Suzuki's writings. But I'm pleasantly surprised to see that most of it isn't too bad at all. He's a very good source for the historical stuff I've kind of neglected.

But the thing that bugs me is his insistence that Zen is illogical, or beyond mere logic. On page 19 of the paperback he gives an example. He quotes a conversation in which a monk asks Master Shin of Chosa, "Where has Nansen (an ancient Buddhist master) gone after his death?" Master Shin answers, "When Sekito was still in the order of young novitiates he saw the sixth patriarch." The monk says, "I didn't ask about the young novitiate. What I want to know is where Nansen went after his death." Master Shin replied, "As to that question, it makes one think."

Suzuki says about this, "What does 'it makes one think' explain? From this it is apparent that Zen is one thing and logic another. When we fail to make this distinction and expect Zen to give us something logically consistent and intellectually illuminating, we altogether misinterpret the signification of Zen."

Reading that I was just baffled. Because to me the conversation is perfectly logically consistent and even intellectually illuminating. The monk asks the master an abstract question and the master, not wanting to discuss abstractions, answers with a concrete fact. The monk persists and the master explains the true significance of the monk's question very clearly. It is the type of question that "makes one think." And that's all it does.

Speculation on what happens after people die simply makes you think. All anyone can do in response to such a question is indulge in abstractions and fantasies. This is what turned me away from religion a long time ago. I wanted to know the answer to what happened after people died and all I got was stories and fantasies. I found the Zen answer to be perfectly logical when it said that all you can ever get from such answers is a peek into someone else's world of fantasy. And I wasn't interested in other people's fantasies.

I don't really understand how anyone can miss this, especially a guy like D.T. Suzuki who otherwise seems to have a pretty good grasp of what's real and true.

Anyway, that's my little sermon on that for today.

Keep buying them books and sending them rocketing up the charts!

Check the list to your left <<<<< to see where I'll be next (Malaprop's in Asheville, NC as it turns out).

The quote for today's title is from a talk in Dogen's Shobogenzo-zuimonki, in which he implores his students to remember that death could come at any time, so you better get moving on letting go of worldly ideas and pursuits. I've been thinking a lot about death recently. My grandfather died about 6 weeks ago, so I was faced with the end of life in this body once again a little more personally.

But I'm not just talking about bodily death, but the small deaths we experience every day, every moment. Each breath is a death in a way. You can't go back to what you were before taking it.

Writing this blog, with honesty and a questioning spirit, could potentially kill the positive reputation I have with some people. Or maybe not, if few end up reading these posts :)

Even though there are threats of snow today and tomorrow, another winter is gone, past, finished.

There is probably at least one person in my life I will never see again, even though I don't know it right now.

Sitting in zazen, watching thoughts arise and die. Even the thoughts that are repetitive aren't completely the same each time around. You never step in the same river twice, as the old saying goes.

Reflecting on this line from Dogen, there is yet another death he is speaking of: the death of attachment to the things and people of this life. Even though Dogen is from a different time, speaking to a select group of monastics, his words are still of value to us living in the middle of the world today. "Just make up your mind to learn the way" is about setting down all the wild thoughts and games in your life, and truly aspiring to learn to be wholly, completely who you are. I don't think this has to be some awful task of sacrifice, although even in my not too many years of practice, I have surely given up some things. This isn't some call to dourness, joyless experience either. In fact, it's really a call to the deepest joy of all. And I don't believe it's about being Buddhist or not either. One can discover this deepest joy in their life in many ways, on many paths - but I think Dogen's words remind us that without deep aspiration and commitment, none of this will probably happen.

Personally, I still often have anxiety about death, not only the end of my bodily life, but also about some of these "smaller" deaths, which are everyday visitors. This is not unique. Most of us, even if we have years of devotion to a spiritual path, still experience these anxieties. And in a way, knowing this is a step towards letting go of it. Anxiety about death is a human condition, a shared bit of suffering that we need not each have to carry alone. Belief in a separate self not at all connected to life around it seems to begin in this view that we are carrying something alone.

Who is dying today in Dogen's quote? It could be the one that believes in carrying alone. That's a possibility for all of us, if we just aspire and make a commitment to, as Dogen put it, "learn the Way."