An introduction to Zen Buddhism... and Heidegger!

~or~Two accounts of AUTHENTIC BEING (Because it’s not difficult enough introducing just one

scratch-head philosophical world view)

The Buddha• Siddhartha Gautama, aka the Buddha, lived

about 500BCE, in North East India or Nepal.• A prince, shielded from the outside world, at

29 left his palace and saw poverty, age, sickness and death and had a bit of a crisis.

• Realised suffering is everywhere, left his family, renounced his wealth, took up the life of an ascetic, travelling, hanging out with yogic hermits and begging on the streets in search of an answer.

• Unsatisfied, he pushed his asceticism further and further, starving himself to the point he collapsed while bathing and almost drowned.

• Fed up and still no closer to finding an answer, he ate a decent meal, sat under a tree and vowed not to get up until he had found enlightenment.

• After 49 days under the tree, at the age of 35, Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.

• He realised The Four Noble Truths, which say that life is suffering, but there are steps we can take to free ourselves from it.

• Mastering the noble truths leads to Nirvana, a liberated state of peace free from fear, ignorance, greed and hatred, in which you cast off the boundaries of the mind – and also personal ego/identity.

Important Buddhist themes

• Balance – Buddhism is the “Middle Way”.• Non-attachment – everything is transitory.• No desire – desire is the cause of suffering.• No ego – you are transitory too. Much of our

suffering comes from clinging on to ego. The mind creates it.

• Oneness – we are all part of everything and everything is part of us.

Zen Buddhism

• When Buddhism reached China it merged with the native Taoist philosophy and the result was Zen Buddhism, which also flourished in Vietnam, Korea and Japan.

• “Zen” derives from “Chan”, which literally means meditation.

• Zen is one of the most extreme forms of Buddhism in rejecting the authority of dogma and scripture – that is a form of attachment.

• The stress is on meditation – and mindfulness, paying attention to the moment, the act of being, being-through-doing.

• Teaching is passed directly, personally, from master to student.

• The true nature of things cannot be explained in writings or grasped logically.

• Everything is ultimately nothing, and cannot be expressed in words.

Zen koans

• Zen koans are little stories or quotes designed to confuse, to shock the listener/reader out of everyday thinking.

• They allude to/point towards enlightenment rather than stating it directly, as that’s impossible.

• Hence why they often appear surreal or nonsensical.• Eg...

Taoism• Taoism predates Zen, and is a native

Chinese philosophy.• Key themes include removing oneself

from everyday society and politics and living in harmony with nature.

• The principle of “non-action” – or “letting be”

• Tao = The “Way”

• “The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way/The name that can be named is not the constant name”

Heidegger

• Martin Heidegger (1899-1976) was a modern German philosopher.

• Not a household name, but hugely influential, especially on Existentialism.

• Most famous work: Being and Time – sought to answer “What is the question of the meaning of Being?”

Phenomenology• A school of philosophy that sought to a return to first-hand experience –

the “phenomena” themselves – to explain the world.• To chuck out tried old traditional philosophical/metaphysical concepts

(mind/body, reason/experience, free will/determinism) and start again.• Heidegger’s mentor Edmund Husserl thought philosophy had hit a dead

end and proposed we go back to basics – “bracket out” what we think we know, go back to first-hand experience, and build up an explanation of the world from there.

• Heidegger took on this emphasis on analysing first-hand experience. But where Husserl focussed on what we can know, Heidegger focussed on what we are.

• He said western philosophy since the Greeks had been so concerned with knowledge and ethics and so on, it had ignored the question of being – what IS being, what is it to BE?

• He was an iconoclast – he wanted nothing more than “a destruction of the history of ontology (philosophical ideas about what is)” – a clean break with traditional metaphysics and its traditional pitfalls.

• But he wrote like this:“The projection of its (Dasein’s) ownmost-potentiality-for-Being

has been delivered over to the Fact of its thrownness into the ‘there’. Has not Dasein’s Being become more enigmatical now that we have explicated the existential constitution of the Being of the ‘there’ in the sense of the thrown projection?

It has indeed.”

• Key term: Dasein = The ‘there-being’ or the ‘being that is there’ – describes us, or a consciousness in the world: “The being for whom its own Being is an issue”

Common Themes• Why do some think Heidegger is Western

philosophy’s best bet at establishing a dialogue with Eastern philosopy?

1! Fallenness and ego/self

HDGR: FallennessIn everyday life Dasein becomes one of, and

interchangeable with, people ‘there’, hence turning away from the ownmost-ness of its being.

Dasein disowns the full extent of its possibilities, moves away from itself, becomes alienated from itself. It lets the ‘them’ convince it ‘they’ hold the secret to life, and the fullest and most genuine possibilities of being-in-the-world.

Falling is not a state of rest. It is a ‘turbulent motion’ in which Dasien becomes entangled in itself. It is still a way of being, but a way alienated from Dasein’s true ‘ownmost possibility of being in the world’.

1! Fallenness and ego/selfZEN: Ego/SelfIn attachment to objects, beliefs and ambitions, vanity and desires, one can never be

at peace and attain true understanding: “After birth… people learn bad habits from others in the course of their seeing and

hearing them… Getting fixated on what others say they turn the all-important unique Buddha mind into a monster, mulling over useless things, repeating the same thoughts over and over again… Going from one hellish state to another, from one animalistic state to another, from one ghostly state to another, from darkness to darkness in an endless vicious cycle, you go on experiencing infinite misery for the bad things you have done, with never a break… As soon as a single thought gets fixated on something, you become ordinary mortals. All delusion is like this. You pick up on something confronting you, turn the Buddha mind into a monster because of your own self-importance, and go astray on account of your own ego…” (17th century master Bankei in Cleary, 2001, pp.4-5)

1! Fallenness and ego/self

For both Heidegger and Zen/Taosim our everyday mode of being is a tranquillised state, a mode in which we live our lives blind to, or fleeing from, the true nature of our being.

We are tempted into this state not so much by conscious choice but by an understandable response to the world we find ourselves in, and the beings we find ourselves with (our ‘thrownness’ in Heidegger). However, this is not our primordial and authentic state. It is the opposite of authentic being, the opposite of enlightenment, a trap into which we fall and must struggle out of as best we can if we wish to grasp our true nature and potential.

2! Nothing and emptiness, uncanniness and bliss

HDGR: The nothing and uncanninessIn Heidegger ‘notness’ defines what is. Without nothing, there is no definite

‘here’ or ‘there’. Nothing ‘founds’ the world:“Far from being a negation of all things, the nothing is the possibility of

things: This possibility, in Heidegger’s interpretation, is the world itself.” (King, 2001, pp. 94)

In face of this void, oblivion, infinity, Dasein feels ‘uncanniness’ (unheimlich) – and ‘angst’ in the face of the truth of its own being-in-the-world and possibilities - because the accompanying sense of insignificance is crushing. Dasein flees to the familiar and self-assured company of the ‘them’, where it can “dwell in tranquillised familiarity”.

2! Nothing and emptiness, uncanniness and bliss

Zen: Emptiness and blissIn Zen, as well as Taoism, the ultimate reality is nothingness, or ‘emptiness’ -

the world is empty; the ‘nothing’ is implicit in everything.We are born with a pure ‘Buddha mind’ that is already at one with this

ultimate nothingness, but through everyday living retreat into a limited, circular, habitual way of being that is hard to break out of.

When we glimpse the infinite emptiness of the world from this state it is scary and daunting. We feel insignificant because we realise that our own being is essentially empty, and our ego groundless. But it is in this empty state that we find authentic enlightened bliss. The uncanniness we feel in the face of the fundamental impermanence and emptiness of the world, in Zen, may be transcended and transformed into bliss when we grasp our freedom and the true nature of our being.

3! Impermanence and being-towards-death

HDGR: Being-towards-deathOur death is always with us, as part of our existence, but we

ignore it, run away from it and forget it. Our death is our limit, the thing that makes our being and our possibilities finite. If it were not for this limit, we would have no impetus to do anything, no reason to stop procrastinating and get things done. Indeed, if our being were infinite, it is debatable that we would have consciousness at all.

Without the possibility of negation (notness) our Being would not be an issue for us. Our death is absolutely our own, and the realisation of this points to the insurmountable gulf between ourselves and others. Our being is unique and isolated, no matter how much we lose ourselves in the they-self. This points us towards our own Being, and hence authenticity.

3! Impermanence and being-towards-death

ZEN: ImpermanenceIt was the realisation of the universality of disease, suffering

and death that first set the Buddha on ‘the path’. The realisation of our own impermanence is a pointer towards enlightenment.

But in Zen the concept of impermanence is wider and not only personal – everything is transitory, everything is in constant flux.

Though we may experience everything as multitudinous and finite, the ultimate reality is the infinite. Everything is one, and everything is nothing. Since everything is essentially infinite and empty, ultimately we are “not born” and do not die.

4! Action, tools and useHDGR: The ready-to-handIn our everyday existence we do not passively view our environment,

we interact with it. Everything ultimately relates back to Dasein – it is impossible for Dasein to comprehend something that is not in relation to itself. Everything is defined by this context.

A hammer exists because Dasein has created it in order to manipulate its environment to shelter and comfort itself. But, through its use, the hammer disappears for Dasein. We do not contemplate our tools while we use them. It is only when these tools break down, or are not to hand, that they become an issue for Dasein, and Dasein really appreciates what they are and what they do. One may thoughtlessly drive back and forth to work every day of the week, yet when the car breaks down, it, or a suitable substitute, is suddenly the focus of concentrated attention. Again notness defines what is.

4! Action, tools and useZen: Archery and One Hand ClappingIn Zen, tools also disappear with use – it’s said a good archer, for

example, must be his bow and arrow. In Zen this is transcending the ego and traversing the void between the self and the world.

The essential nature of notness in utility is also a familiar theme in both Taoism and Zen. Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching reads:

“Knead the clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have use of the vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make a room. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand , and you will have use of the room.” (Lau, 1963, pp.15)

The nonsense of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is one of the most famous Zen problems (or koans) in the western world. Things are what they are only in relation to other things – again everything is defined by context.

5! Enlightenment and Authenticity

HDGR: AuthenticityAuthenticity in Heidegger can be summed up as the recognition and

unification of all of Dasein’s constituent parts. Dasein recognises its being as a whole - how we find ourselves in the world (past), our everyday ‘now’ and our possibilities (future). This is one unified structure and when Dasein realises this to its full extent, then Dasein is authentic. What makes this possible is “Being towards one’s ownmost, distinctive potentiality-for-Being.” (Heidegger, 1962, pp.372)

Being authentically cannot be reduced to particular opinions or behaviour patterns - It is not that one is either authentic or fallen, because being is not static. One is always moving between the two.

5! Enlightenment and Authenticity

Zen: EnlightenmentWhile Zen and Taoist enlightenment certainly involves a grasping

of one’s being as a whole, it is not just this.The concept of enlightenment would seem to go beyond

unifying of the elements of ones being and involves the unifying of everything, the grasping of the totality of being in general.

5! Enlightenment and Authenticity

Is the Zen concept of “enlightenment” the same as Heidegger’s “authentic being”?

In Heidegger there still exists a void between one’s own Being and that of others. In enlightenment one is said to transcend the self and become one with everything, including the void.

Furthermore, Zen enlightenment is said to be contented bliss. For better or worse, authentic being does not come with such an unambiguously enthusiastic recommendation.

5! Enlightenment and Authenticity

Being and Time was only the first part of Heidegger’s project to clarify the “question of the meaning of being”.

He only got as far as ‘clarifying’ Dasein’s being.No second part was ever written because the questions raised by

Being and Time were too many and too problematic for a simple ‘second half’. Instead Heidegger began to turn towards art and poetry as possible candidates for a ‘language of Being’ - He had found the language of everyday things was simply not adequate to talk about Being.

It is almost certainly no co-incidence that in the Zen tradition it is said that enlightenment, the true nature of things, the Buddha mind, the essence of Zen and so on, cannot be adequately explained in words.