No Mysticism, Please!
Incept date: 10 August 2002
Last revised: 26 September 2005
In "Part I: The Psychohistorians" of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, one of the characters, Linge Chen, said, "I do not wish to take the trouble
to understand mysticism."
According to Asimov, "Chen, lean and hard, older in looks than in fact, was
the actual Emperor of all the Galaxy. The child who bore the title itself was
only a symbol manufactured by Chen, and not the first such, either."
Well, I am NOT the Emperor of anything, much less the Galaxy, and have no
desire/attachment whatsoever to be any emperor. Such a desire is so "Zen-less",
if you know what I mean. Such a desire is very much like the intense cravings
-- bordering on madness -- of many control freaks, power junkies and other
authoritarians and dictators, past and present, of this planet.
The point I am making here is that I, too, have no wish to take the trouble to
understand any form of mysticism.
Yet the more I read of Zen, the more I realize that -- while Zen's present
form has its roots in India's "Buddhism" (the term is a Western concoction) --
Zen actually existed long before the Buddha, or any followers of "the Way", as
the "movement" started by the Buddha was then referred to.
[Digression: Five hundred years after the Buddha, another "movement", this time
started by Jesus 'The Christ' ('The Messiah') -- his followers were initially
regarded by some as a (troublesome) sect within Judaism -- was regarded as
"the Way", which later became to be called Christianity, first by the Roman
authorities and later by the followers of Jesus' Way themselves.]
What's more, I am forced to conclude that the Buddha's original message has
become "corrupted" into some form of mysticism, which is unfortunate.
I mean, come on!
Zen is about as mystical as white bread and "kaya" (coconut-egg jam)!
Zen is about everyday, ordinary activities! No mysticism whatsoever.
And learning about Zen -- which is not a religion since it doesn't deal with questions about God or the Afterlife --
does not and will not contradict whatever faith you already have (for me, it's
Christianity, via our Living Faith Church in Singapore).
Now, I am, of course, not a scholar, academic, or researcher -- of Zen, Buddhism
or of anything else (come to think of it), and have no desire/attachment to be
any of those.
But, perhaps, a "popular" (as in non-scholarly) book, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening, by Stephen Batchelor -- an interesting name, there -- says it best for me,
as follows:
... the Buddha's first discourse ... [was] delivered to his five former ascetic
companions in the Deer Park at Sarnath, near Benares. It was here, several
weeks after the awakening [enlightenment; nirvana; Japanese (Zen): "satori"] and
his ensuing ambivalence about saying anything at all, that compassion moved him
to embrace the anguish of others. Plunging into the treacherous sea of words,
he "set in motion the wheel of the dharma."
... The Buddha declares how he has found the central path [i.e., "Middle Way"]
through avoiding [the two excesses of] indulgence [i.e., cravings; desires;
lust; greed; and the converse -- aversion; hatred; anger] and mortification
[i.e., asceticism; denials].
He then describes four ennobling truths: those of- anguish,
- its origins,
- its cessation, and
- the path leading to its cessation.
Anguish, he says, is to be understood, its origins to be let go of, its
cessation to be realized, and the path to be cultivated.
And this is precisely what he himself has done: he has understood anguish, let go of its origins, realized its cessation, and cultivated the path.
Only through knowing these [perfect or noble] truths, knowing how to act upon them, and knowing that he has acted upon them can he claim to have found "authentic awakening" [or Enlightenment;
Sanskrit: "nirvana"; Pali: "nibbana"; Zen: "satori" or "dai-kensho", with
"kensho" being just "little insight"].
Despite the Buddha's own succinct account of his awakening, it has come to be
represented (even by Buddhists) as something quite different. Awakening has
become a mystical experience, a moment of transcendent revelation of the Truth.
...
... four ennobling truths to be acted upon [have been] neatly turned into four propositions of fact to be "believed". The
first truth becomes: "Life is Suffering"; the second: "The Cause of Suffering
is Craving" -- and so on. At precisely this juncture, Buddhism becomes a
religion. A Buddhist is someone who "believes" these four propositions.
In leveling out these truths into propositions that claim to be true, Buddhists
are distinguished from Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, who believe different
sets of propositions. The four ennobling truths become principal dogmas of the
belief system known as "Buddhism."
The Buddha was not a mystic. His awakening was not a shattering insight into a
transcendent Truth that revealed to him the mysteries of God. He did not claim
to have had an experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of
how the universe ticks. Only as Buddhism became more and more of a religion
were such grandiose claims imputed to his awakening. In describing to the five
ascetics what his awakening meant, he spoke of having discovered complete
freedom of heart and mind from the compulsions of craving. He called such
freedom the taste of the dharma.
The Buddha awoke from the sleep of existential confusion. So shocking and
unexpected was this experience that he initially assumed that were he to speak
of it no one would understand him. ...
The Buddha woke up to the nature of the human dilemma and a way to its
resolution. ...
The Buddha experienced these truths as ennobling. Awakening was not just the acquisition of a more enlightened viewpoint. It
granted a natural integrity, dignity, and authority to his life. Although the five ascetics have vowed not to acknowledge their apostate former
companion, as he entered the Deer Park in Sarnath and came toward them, they
found themselves standing up to offer him respect. In spite of themselves, they
were unable to resist the authority of Gautama's presence.
An unawakened existence, in which we drift unaware on a surge of habitual
impulses, is both ignoble and undignified. Instead of a natural and noncoercive authority, we impose our will on others
either through manipulation and intimidation or by appealing to the opinions of
those more powerful than ourselves. Authority becomes a question of force
rather than integrity.
-- Stephen Batchelor (1997) [adapted]
This book is extremely highly recommended! There is no mysticism in it -- and
it shows that there is no mysticism in the Buddha's awakening experience. I
wish it was published earlier.
Check this out:"From Buddha to Buddha"
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