T'san: The Mind of Absolute Trust

Originally posted by Nordlys
I'll try to reply properly to your post later, but meanwhile you might be interested in reading this - a description of a certain type of non-verbal thought: http://www.autistics.org/library/spatial.html

I'm not saying all language is verbal... I believe that there are many other forms of language other than verbal, but they all require dichotomy (code/decode).

Even if there is necessarily dichotomy in coding, note that non-dichotomy can be expressed through context, i.e. by affecting the decoding.

Originally posted by Palynka
Thanks for chipping in, Noodles. I agree with many of the things you say, but let me concentrate in the fundamental differences.

As much as I hate it when people who have a faith I don't share start using their "Secret Decoder Ring", it may not always be avoidable.
All I'm saying is that these are not particularly enlightening to me, I'm not d ...[text shortened]... must be if they are to be part of any rational spirituality/philosophy views.[/b]

I'd like to posit that I believe this to be false. If you can't decode what's on your mind, are these really thoughts? At best, they are perceptions that you don't really understand. Rationality requires language (in the sense of code/decode).

First of all, my thinking mind does work this way (like yours). I’m not sure everyone’s does, and I don’t know the psychological literature.

Second, we are talking about two different things ( 😉 ). There is perceiving, and then thinking about what you perceive. If I can offer another analogy for the second: map-making. As I keep saying, the map is not the territory. We should not imagine that the grid-lines that we lay out in our conceptualizations are really there in the territory.

Third, as Robert Ornstein pointed out (The Origins of Consciousness) the kind of conceptual thinking we’re talking about is slow. If you first have to think about every move you make in basketball—or, as scottishinnz can affirm, in karate—you will not play well. People give a lot of names to this ability to perceive and respond coherently and effectively, and I’m not wedded to any particular one.

Fourth, there is a non-religious, non-new-age literature on this stuff. The Hungarian guy that Nordlys mentions was, I think at the time he wrote his book Flow a psychologist on faculty at the University of Chicago. James Austin (Zen and the Brain) is a neurologist specializing in brain study (also a Zennist). At a more anecdotal level, there is Michael Murphy and Rhea White’s In the Zone, a collection and collation of a broad range of experiences in sports. And I’m not sure that these athletes do understand what goes on in the zone. I’m not sure I do. On the one hand, I do not bring any kind of supernatural category into it; on the other hand, I don’t simply deny what does not jibe with dualistic language.

Then, there is my own experience of this stuff, which I try to translate as rationally as possible. I find the Zen language useful in that regard; you do not. But when you impose the dualism of language (conceptualizing) on reality, you are simply making an error. Ironically, it is the same error that the (dualist) theists make.

At bottom, either my language examples in the foregoing posts are illustrative, or they are not.

Originally posted by Palynka
I agree with everything, I just don't see simply this in Zen texts.

Perhaps due to not having experienced something that I can truly call a non-dualist experience, I don't read Zen texts like that at all. I see mostly a strong denial of dichotomy.

Things like:
The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth.
or
[i] ot agree with the denial of thought itself, implicit or explicit in so many other passages...

[/i]I understand. There is also a certain cultural “coding” in Zen texts (remember, Seng T’san is an early Chinese Zennist).

But Zen practice is to get before thinking. That is why no Zen master is going to say, “Just think about this a lot.” Zen is aimed at (the existential) experience.

I guess I’m just acting here as an interpreter. You agree with me; I agree with Seng T’san. Now, I could cop out and just say that I’ve studied this stuff a lot, and so what you find mystifying, I don’t. But that is a cop-out. It was the Zen approach that knocked me out of my conventional, conditioned habits of thinking—admittedly, first in another interpreter, a western philosopher named Paul Wienpahl in a book called Zen Diary. Then Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki, etc., etc. But, eventually, I had to taste the bourbon for myself. Zen is also empirical.

I really could care less whether “Zen Buddhism” is your meat (or bourbon) or not. If you understand what I tried to present with my examples of subject-predicate language, then you understand enough of “philosophical Zen”. (And I am far more verbose, and less focused in how I present this stuff, than Seng T’san is!)

Are you able to observe how your thoughts arise, associate, form complexes, etc. in the same way, with the same basic awareness with which you can observe, say, a flock of birds? If you can, you are close to the realization that allows you to treat thinking just like any other useful activity in your life—eating, getting dressed, playing ball, making love—without confusion.

And you can focus your attention where you will. I have spent that last 36 hours or so with a fever, chills, etc. etc. That’s just a physical condition—what the Buddha called suffering is something that I would add to that condition. I’ve had some moments of suffering—but then I remembered that I could refocus my attention where I choose. There you have it: awareness and focus (and practice: remembering to do it). All of Zen, all of zone. 🙂 Except for doing it, of course.

For those of us who are thinkers, who like thinking about such things, dualism/non-dualism is part of it. So, we discuss it here. Just another activity, like basketball.

EDIT:

Although I truly appreciate the idea of letting go of opinions in the sense of preconceptions, I cannot agree with the denial of thought itself, implicit or explicit in so many other passages...

Such things ought not to be taken out of context. And the context is therapeutic. If one does not have a specific illness/injury, one does not need a specific medicine/therapy. People get lost in their maps: to them, Seng T’san says: “If you keep making more maps, you’ll just get further from the territory.” Put the maps (the Bible, the Upanishads, the Sutras, Seng T’san’s words) down, and look!

Your immediate reaction is to defend the map. Now, however, imagine Seng T’san’s words being addressed to the typical Biblical Christian that you argue with—who just keeps quoting more Biblical passages at you.

It’s not denial of thought itself—it is the need to stop thinking, in order to see what it is that one is thinking about. Until one does that, one’s continued thinking is no different from continued Bible-quoting.

Originally posted by vistesd
[/i]I understand. There is also a certain cultural “coding” in Zen texts (remember, Seng T’san is an early Chinese Zennist).

But Zen practice is to get before thinking. That is why no Zen master is going to say, “Just think about this a lot.” Zen is aimed at (the existential) experience.

I guess I’m just acting here as an interpreter. You agree w ...[text shortened]... ut. Until one does that, one’s continued thinking is no different from continued Bible-quoting.

Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

You may be more verbose and less focused than Seng T'san but, for me personally, you make for a much more interesting read. 🙂

From what I do understand of Zen Buddhism it is truly not my meat. I still have to read Bosse's link regarding Wittgenstein as it looks particularly interesting.

Originally posted by Palynka
Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

You may be more verbose and less focused than Seng T'san but, for me personally, you make for a much more interesting read. 🙂

From what I do understand of Zen Buddhism it is truly not my meat. I still have to read Bosse's link regarding Wittgenstein as it looks particularly interesting.

Thanks for the kind remark!

I have just skimmed Bosse’s article, and just pulled out these quotes of interest...

____________________________________

Buddhism has been described as a set of methods and techniques rather than as a set of doctrines, for even though it is customary to speak of "doctrines," they are only conceptual constructions and their test is their utility. Accordingly they are best regarded methodologically rather than as statements of absolute and fundamental truths. Wittgenstein too, denied that he taught any philosophical theses or doctrines but only methods which function as kinds of therapy. For philosophical perplexities are like different kinds of illness, and so different methods are to be used according to the circumstances. Whether Buddhism and Wittgenstein are or are not concerned basically with the same thing, their attitudes toward dogmatism in philosophy are surprisingly similar.

. . .

Zen methods enable us to reach down or out through thought and language, as normally used, to quite a different level or kind of experience. Language can still be used here, of course, but not as it is normally used in everyday life and science; for example, as any reading of Zen literature quickly shows, and certainly not in a way appropriate to a more linguistic type of therapy of the users of language in a philosophical context. In order to help us reach out through thought and language and appreciate the different type of task or problem with which we are faced, certain more intellectual and philosophical moves are sometimes made as preliminary steps. It is here that Fann's remark about the well-known ability of Zen masters to show the nonsensical character of metaphysical questions and assertions applies. The swift ironic and sometimes humorous demolition of such questions and assertions serves to remind us that thinking of this type is out of place. The use of more philosophical comments as reminders calls to mind one of Wittgenstein's characterizations of philosophy as "assembling reminders for a certain purpose.”

. . .

So far as Zen is concerned, there is an unfortunate and rather prevalent misconception that enlightenment or satori is the end and culmination of Zen practice; whereas it is the beginning of it.

Originally posted by vistesd
Thanks for the kind remark!

I have just skimmed Bosse’s article, and just pulled out these quotes of interest...

____________________________________

Buddhism has been described as a set of methods and techniques rather than as a set of doctrines, for even though it is customary to speak of "doctrines," they are only conceptual constructions and the ...[text shortened]... nt or satori is the end and culmination of Zen practice; whereas it is the beginning of it.

I read the whole thing.

If anything, I think that the author highlights very well the similarities and differences between Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism. I don't agree with his final conclusions (in which he actually contradicts himself with what he said previously) and I found myself much more "Wittgensteinian" than ZB.

I also have the feeling that you also would... This paragraph is particularly striking:

Again, it is doubtful, to say the least, whether Zen has anything even approaching the same view of the dispersal of doubt and perplexity that Wittgenstein has. In Rinzai Zen for instance, one does not try to clear up and resolve doubts and worries about the meaning of life, the world, and so on, by linguistic analysis or any other kind of analysis. One simply doubts and doubts until, as it has been said, one becomes one with the doubt. Indeed it is doubtful whether "doubt" is even quite the right word, for there is wonder and faith involved as well. Wittgenstein's procedure with his students is certainly surprisingly like that of a Zen master with his pupils. But their aim is different. The former wants to get his students to feel the doubt for themselves as a preliminary to exploring and probing it. The latter wants to help his pupils to dispose of anything that will distract them from just letting their doubt alone and becoming one with it. This, of course, applies, among other things, to the demonstrations of the absurdity of metaphysical types of questions and assertions. In other words he uses his supporting procedures to discourage the very kind of activities that Wittgenstein uses his to encourage.

Originally posted by Palynka
I read the whole thing.

If anything, I think that the author highlights very well the similarities and differences between Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism. I don't agree with his final conclusions (in which he actually contradicts himself with what he said previously) and I found myself much more "Wittgensteinian" than ZB.

I also have the feeling that res to discourage the very kind of activities that Wittgenstein uses his to encourage.[/i]

I thought there seemed to be some contradiction as well. Basically, I just think that Wittgenstein and the ZMs are operating at different levels. I have appreciated both.

Do you recall our discussion of quite a long time ago about the difference between understanding about music and experiencing music? As I recall, we thought we were disagreeing, only to discover that we in fact agreed, but had been talking past one another a bit. Anyway, I am very vulnerable to music (am talking about music sans lyrics here): it strikes the emotional chords in a way that no other art form seems to, and that may be partly because I have no intervening representational structure—metaphorically, it is almost entirely right-brain for me.

It really impacts me “savagely”. I drum, I clap, I dance till I can’t stand, I “direct” along with the music (waving my arms hopefully in rhythm, but without any idea of what I’m doing), I laugh, I cry out, I cry... There are some pieces that I cannot play if I’m not first sitting on the floor...

That’s, by way of analogy, the Zen side of things. Again, for me, that is also the Zorba side of things. (I am a bit more Rinzai than Soto when it comes to Zen, a bit wilder.)

I suspect that Nemesio, who is a musicologist, does not—because of his greater understanding—have any diminished capacity for that raw experience. He can likely choose whether or not to think about the music as he experiences it (and hence appreciates it via his understanding), or just to let it take him over (as it does for me).

That is more the Wittgensteinian side of things.

My wife, however, who also has some musical background, seems to have some “protection” that I so not have in her ability to choose to analyze the music as it’s happening. I cannot: once I start, the drumming or the dancing go until I am physically exhausted. My only real choice is at the beginning....