Roshi Ignatius

Planting Buddhism in the West

The early Jesuit model might be something to explore because it matches the scale of our project--creating a new cultural model, even a revolutionary one, for Buddhism in the West. It captures the enthusiasm for change, along with the scholarship and spiritual discipline required for creating new forms.

With due respect to Ignatius who inspired the Jesuits’ operation, some other dynamic kicked in that created a genuine spiritual movement, one that would be derailed at various points by the normative Roman ecclesial culture of the day, but still persisted. I am not suggesting that we should expand the list of Jesuit Roshis, much less appoint a Father General Roshi to spearhead the endeavor, but I do want to at least examine the foundational tasks the Jesuits undertook. 

There is a saying among Catholic religious, “Our founders had visions. Their disciples built hospitals.” Creating a vibrant, sustainable Buddhist culture will take time, money, and a lot of organization, but most of all it will take talent and inspiration, the kind of religious pride that the Irish used to build Saint Patrick's or the spiritual and intellectual discipline that the Jesuits used to found Georgetown, the first Catholic University in America. 

The Catholic, mostly Irish experience of planting the Roman Church in the New World was a European tradition arriving in the New World along with European immigrants. It is different from an Asian practice taking root in foreign soil among people who do not share any cultural or family ties. Saint Ignatius parish may not easily translate into a small local Buddhist temple, but the Jesuits did far more than just lend their founder’s name to a parish church.

The Jesuits based their success on a few simple operating principles. I have outlined the ones that I think were important, but I am certainly open to hear other points of view.

Service based on need 

This may be a bit of a stretch to get “service based on need” from the Jesuits’ organizational principle that they would go wherever the Pope wanted them to go, and do whatever he directed (commanded), but bear with me. This was not always done by fiat, but with dialogue, needs assessment, manpower, as well as securing the money. Less than a year after the Jesuit Constitutions were approved by Paul the Third in 1540, Francis Xavier, one of the first companions of Ignatius, boarded the Portuguese warship Santiago bound for Goa. This unleashed a series of important historical firsts in the history of religion. More Jesuits quickly followed Xavier into Asia with their particular skill sets. In a relatively short time there were the first Indo-European dictionaries for several Indian languages, Tibetan, and Japanese; the first translations of the Gospels; the first encounter between Christians and Zen Buddhist monks; the first attempt at crafting Christian rituals in Chinese; the first seminaries in Asia; the first Christian congregations in Japan and China. 

Dictionaries, check. Translations, check. Rituals, check. Contact with local religions, check. All within a generation. Enlisting the assistance of the US or a European navy, No. Churches, check. Seminaries, partial check, after a fashion. These efforts are ongoing, but substantial progress has been made, all within the first generation of Western Buddhists.

Scholarship & Inquisitiveness

Back in Europe, the Jesuits began to marshal their considerable intellectual force to combat the Protestant Reformation (a dubious initiative in the eyes of some, but a response to the times). With their openness to the new humanistic scholarship, they attracted some of the best minds from universities, but not so much from existing monastic colleges. As a matter of fact, they started to develop an alternative “ratio studiorum*.” Although heavily doctrinaire, mostly as a formulation for the Counter Reformation that they would lead, it still laid the foundation for Jesuit scholarship and universities that would help shape the intellectual backbone of the Enlightenment. 

Their scholarship forged institutions and a line of inquiry that yielded profound results.

A crop of bright intelligent Buddhist scholars, thoroughly trained in Buddhist philosophy, linguistics, epistemology and hermeneutics, check. Again within a generation. This scholarship is not limited to Zen Buddhism. A huge area of inquiry has been the Tibetan practices. Sometimes Zen scholars and Tibetans scholars do talk to one another--when they have to. But the parochialism remains parochial. I will have more to say about Zen “our wayism,” when I draw my tentative conclusions.

Seeking common ground & Communication

Francis Xavier began a famous conversation with a Zen Roshi, whom he calls “Ninxit,” (whom I've traced to an actual Roshi, Ninjitsu, the abbot of the Zen Temple, Kinryu-zan Fukushoji). We can read about the encounter in Xavier’s letters to Ignatius; he describes Zen meditation practice in some recognizable detail, at first with admiration and then, when he put on his missionary hat, with an eye to finding the weak points for polemical debate. 

Beginning with Father Enomiya-LaSalle, S.J, followed by several more Jesuits and religious sisters, an Episcopal priest, Unitarian and Church of Christ ministers, there are fully trained Zen teachers with feet firmly in both Buddhist and Christian religious traditions. 

 

The hallmark of this unprecedented exploration, coupled with a zealous missionary effort, was communication. Given the technology of the day, there were problems. Delivery of Xavier’s letters to Ignatius took at least 6 months even aboard the fastest Portuguese caravel. Brother Tom Marshall, a great Zen adept as well and the archivist for the Jesuit California Province, told me about his discovery exploring the archives at the Gesù in Rome. Father Nobili had decided to follow the 49’s to California; the letter from Father General ordering him to establish a mission for indigenous tribes in the Northwest arrived after he had accepted the invitation of the Bishop of Monterey to establish a college at the old mission of Mission Santa Clara de Asís. If the internet had been around in 1851, Santa Clara University would not be. 

The communication also involved careful observation of the people with whom they interacted. A whole new field of ethnography from places as far afield as Tibet and the cultures of central America flourished in the 17th century.

Friends who have worked with teachers in Japan tell me that there are Rinzai priests who have never had a serious conversation with a Soto monk. If that is the baseline, the communication between the various schools in the West is revolutionary. There are students with experience in all the major schools of schools in Zen, plus some training with Tibetan and vipassana teachers even if our leadership remains somewhat parochial given the amount of time and effort to become fluent in the particular practice.

Seeking common ground, check. Without for the most part any polemical, doctrinal conversion motivations. Check plus+!

Mobility & adaptability

The early Jesuits, pledged to poverty, chastity and obedience which helped their mobility, and with the generous support of European colonial powers to be sure, traveled to the ends of the earth. Within the first generation, Jesuits had traveled, and settled in Japan, China, India, Tibet, Africa, North and South America. Siberia would have to wait until 1814, and Australia until 1848. Even with a fair amount of philanthropic support, Zen teachers and their relatively small communities have been restricted to the major university hubs in the West as well as several well-heeled retirement communities where aging Buddhist boomers go to watch the setting sun. The mobility of our mostly middle class senior teachers is restricted by the economic realities of middle class life. The few attempts to foster meditation practice in marginal communities have fizzled out. I have personal experience with two. 

No pass. I don’t know how or if this situation will change. Buddhists cannot print their own money. The real costs in establishing and funding practice centers is a luxury item for people struggling to put food on the table.

Education, including Developing Spiritual Leadership 

The Jesuits created and staffed their new Colleges to educate the sons of the elite class. They also founded a series of houses of formation for the spiritual education of their own leadership. They also changed the system for educating the ordinary clergy. In the current Zen model, again coming from the Japanese teachers who founded the first practice centers, and the resources available to them, any formal Buddhist education, sutra study, ethics, philosophy comes mixed in with meditation practice. 

We don’t have the numbers to support institutions such as the Rinzai Hanazono or the Soto Komazawa Universities. Western students cannot go to Japan without fluency in Japanese language. There are more than a few Western Zen students who have done serious work in Buddhist studies, but their numbers haven’t reached the critical mass required to staff a university even if the other necessary support systems were in place. Here where I live in northern India, all Buddhist education takes place in monastic colleges. There are a few auxiliary programs for Westerners, some taught in English but for the most part, advanced training require proficiency in Tibetan; one I am familiar with, The Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program, focuses on training translators for the geshes who teach in Europe, the US, and South America.

There are excellent Buddhist Study Programs at Emory, the University of Virginia, Harvard and Stanford just for starters. But it is a huge commitment of time and money to undertake this level of academic training as well as, for example, mastering the koan curriculum. I know of only one or two people who have done both and lived to tell the tale. Most people I know on the academic scholarship side perhaps have a sitting practice, but they’re not on a Zen teacher track. Because university teaching positions for Buddhist scholars are limited and highly competitive, practitioners who opt for an academic degree are more likely to slip into a mindfulness based psychology program such as California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) where “right livelihood” career opportunities have a higher pay scale. One of the few Buddhist Universities in the United States, Naropa in Boulder, has adopted a similar program as one of the main economic engines of their enterprise.

The Institute of Buddhist Studies, a Jodo Shinshu Seminary, is the only non-Christian graduate school in Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. The ethnic Buddhist Churches of America have been in decline, and face a shortage of priests. The enrollment at IBS must be low also as they have only a dean and 4 core faculty on staff, one of whom heads a chaplaincy program, non-denominational chaplains becoming a career opportunity for serious practitioners. I went to IBS as a special student, hoping to fill in the gaps in my understanding of Buddhist texts, philosophy and epistemology. Although modest, it became an expense that I could not manage struggling with my career in a small non-profit. 

In our examination of the core operating principles for aiding and abetting a spiritual revolution, Education and Development of Spiritual Leadership gets non-passing marks. I think most serious Buddhist practitioners are aware of the problem, but good solutions have not yet appeared. Part of the reason is that it takes time, energy and money. Most centers are independent, small operations that struggle financially to begin with. Systematic careful analysis of the texts, and their commentaries, as well the history of the spread of the teaching is not seen as critical. Offer a Tuesday night class reading the latest book promoted in Tricycle. Handled. The Zen emphasis on immediate experience also leaves the troublesome side effect of an anti-intellectual bias which is not helpful. And finally there is a “Our Way” parochialism and rivalry, not just for example, between Tibetan and Pureland schools, or Zen schools that include koan study and those that emphasize sitting practice, but also between teachers whose teachers were Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai or Burmese. 

If we are to make progress on this front, the New Buddhist Universal University has to cut through these barriers and be non-sectarian in the broadest sense; it has to develop innovative programs that are affordable and available to people who work, practice and perhaps even have family obligations; the programs have to be basically in English or Spanish, with as little academic jargon as possible; the courses have to be developed and taught by Buddhist practitioners who have the highest level of academic professional training. I know that the elements for a solution exist. They just haven’t been assembled in the workable form.

Forgive me for mixing Francis Xavier and the Jesuits into the recipe. I don’t think that the title Roshi comes with a Ph.d or vice versa. Roshi also doesn't mean Saint. Not even in the lose usage.

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 *The Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu, often abbreviated as Ratio Studiorum, was a document that standardized the globally influential system of Jesuit education in 1599. It was a collection of regulations for school officials and teachers.

The Myth of the Zen Roshi

Myths, Super Heroes and Real People

The issue is making something new available in our multi-dimensional, weirdly disconnected world. Buddhist practice predates Christianity by several hundred years, but really it’s little more than a generation old in the West. If it were a product like the iPhone, proponents might apply Apple’s high tech marketing tools though I fear we might misfire the synapses and get a ham radio set instead of a shiny device with the cool logo. What we expect and what can be delivered--will they match up? It might be helpful to cut through some of the zigzags that are already visible in the landscape.

James Ford recently posted a fairly detailed précis of the various conventions and forms that have been handed to us for labeling our Zen teachers, and perhaps identifying their skill set, Holders of Lineage: A Small Meditation on Leadership in Contemporary Western Zen Buddhist Sanghas. If you’re in the market for a Zen teacher, you will quickly learn about Roshi and Sensei, but as with any title there are hidden meanings, nuances and misunderstandings attached. I suppose that we could call Roshis Bishops, and from a certain perspective it makes sense. The crossover from East to West has been littered with misunderstandings at both ends. In the Western Jodo Shinshu, the presiding priest in a jurisdiction is in fact called Bishop, but is Pure Land Buddhism some version of Methodism? Where does that leave Zen? In the Pennsylvania wilderness?

Stuart Lachs has written persuasively about the role of the Roshi, and this blurry area where East meets West. (Cf the provocative title "When the Saints Go Marching In: Modern Day Zen Hagiography"). I hesitate to blur the edges of his argument. I concur that making any Roshi into some kind of irrefutable font of wisdom is a sure way of setting up for disappointment, but my thesis is that we in the West have set up our own set of expectations that can be equally debilitating.

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With many westerners interested in Buddhism, committed to self-inquiry and practicing meditation in the various forms that have been carried to these shores by our Asian teachers, we have already seen new forms of practice and support for the teaching as well as senior practice leaders. And more will continue to emerge. Our communities, our teachers and practice centers will be distinctly Western. It’s inevitable. We have to create our own practice places and support our teachers.

As James points out, different skills and talents may or may not be present in all teachers; or they may be available to varying degrees which may or may not overlap. Let me add a footnote to James’s piece: time, place and circumstance call forth a particular skill set. In our brief history, we have so far relied on the genius of a few pioneering teachers who were, and are, to varying degrees charismatic, skilled in directing people in meditation practice, and very resourceful in using the materials at hand, building out zendos in their garages.

The first generation of teachers, both Asian and Western, have left us a legacy. We’re already a generation away from our Asian teachers; a whole new generation of homegrown American and European teachers have authorized a new crop of dharma heirs, and although I think for the most part that they’ve served the dharma well, there have been a few who would give a bathtub full of bodhisattvas pause.

From my reading Suzuki Roshi was a fairly ordinary temple priest from Japan who blossomed in America and became the stuff of legend. His successor, Richard Baker, is a particular kind of entrepreneurial genius. If he’d left Harvard a few years later and hit the golden shores of California when the Silicon Valley was being born, he might have become a Gates or an Ellison. He’s certainly much smarter than Zuckerberg. Instead we had the luck of his finding his way to the Sotoshu in Japantown. His personality, charisma and skill set created the San Francisco Zen Center as a platform for Suzuki. He matched the role Suzuki Roshi entrusted to him. Acknowledging this, old time students still call Baker “Roshi'' instead of the familiar first name basis adopted by the second wave.

Lachs deconstructs the enlightenment myth of transmission in terms of something added, and misunderstood, during the dharma’s transport to the Western shores. There is a lot to consider in his analysis, but I am equally interested in Richard Baker’s seemingly endless creativity for adapting traditional forms. Old wine in new skin. I don’t think that there is any Westerner who is more careful of traditional Japanese priestly rituals while at the same time being extremely resourceful, creating innovative ways of combining livelihood and practice. Some ventures were more successful than others, but Baker built a large, successful center with several campuses, and he opened the first secluded Zen monastery in the West. Maezumi and Glassman also created large and important institutions, but, at least from my reading, they relied more on some very creative people who were attracted to the practice. Not that Suzuki and Richard didn’t attract bright and creative people, but they were always in Baker’s shadow which, in my view, was as much the source of the upheaval at Zen Center as any alleged sexual impropriety.

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I’ve had direct experience in many different American Zen Centers with several authorized teachers; some felt a bit tangential while others quite settled and profound (again this is subjective for sure). While each was distinct, there were always certain features that held constant which was in a way reassuring. They are all led by American or Australian second and third generation teachers. None of the centers were even close to the San Francisco Zen Center in terms of wealth, number of students, or notoriety, but each reflects the personality of their leadership. Hartford Street Zen Center was a small tight knit family, very much dependent on the charisma of Issan Dorsey. Issan relied on many people to do the work of paying the water bill, keeping food in the refrigerator, and taking care of young men dying from HIV disease, while he did the heavy lifting of directing and inspiring us. Mel Wietzman’s Berkeley Center was more formal, focused on sitting practice. Though certainly not unfriendly; I got the sense that there was a definite inner and outer circle. It was Mel's center. It fit him. It really fit Maylie Scott who maintained a separate residence with her mother and several students, me among them, and at that point in my practice being separate from the day to day hubbub of a practice center was what I felt I needed.

I practiced with Bob Aitken on Oahu. Aitken Roshi had the most diverse international crowd though nowhere near the size of San Francisco Zen Center. Besides the Manoa zendo. I sat in the Palolo Valley Temple before construction was complete, and in a way that was perfect--my work with Bob never felt really finished. Officially he was the most scholarly of all the teachers I worked with. He could be uncomfortably rigid when lecturing; then in the blink of an eye, he became very personal, even vulnerable, but the feeling was not disconcerting. I always felt that if I were a good student I'd be part of his next chapter. His students were dedicated; everybody had their job, did their work, and seemed to maintain their own autonomy. People were building the temple around him. By contrast, I also sat several sesshins at Crestone Mountain Zen Center when it was in its infancy. It was clear the minute you took your seat that it was Baker Roshi’s project.

John Tarrant’s California Diamond Sangha and then the Pacific Zen Institute was very dependent on Tarrant Roshi’s inspiration. Like many of the early Diamond sangha, we depended on rented halls or members’ living rooms for a floating zendo with sesshin conducted in a ramshackle, drafty Episcopal retreat campus. One of my tasks when I was president of PZI was to find a site for a retreat center in the north country. I failed. I learned that the teaching is not dependent on the convenience of a fancy temple, but having a comfortable, reliable place to put down a zafu. In a very real sense, John more than any other teacher allowed me to disconnect from whatever ties to a cultural Japanese religion remained.

A marginal note, not meant to disparage any particular teacher, it seems that when I hold impermanence close and real, not becoming obsessed with real estate or dependent on income from student housing fees, my practice becomes more free and expansive. That might be just my experience. As I age, schlepping cushions up and down country roads has lost its Dharma Bums romanticism. However, holing up in cheap rooms in a gentrifying ghetto might even lead Roshi to becoming a Grumpy Old Man. Some facts of life are inescapable.

I am grateful to the many Buddhist teachers who have done everything they’ve done to plant dharma seeds here in the West. In my estimation all the teachers I mentioned above deserve the revered title of Roshi. Each very willingly shared their meditation experience. Each was unique, some even quirky truth be told, but I revere their teaching. They helped me in ways I didn't expect. They made a difference in my life, and I don’t know if they were enlightened.

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No one is perfect. Richard Baker with his knack for envisioning and accomplishing huge projects could have done things better. He admits it, and it is even possible that had he the chance to redo a few things, he might entertain the prospect. But owing to the nature of karma, that is not going to happen. And so there are stories and conversations that saddle us on the one hand with the myth of “Super Roshi,” he who can keep the coffers full, invent delicious yet simple foods for the sangha’s table, procure awesome religious art for the zendo, interest important and influential people in the possibility of Zen, deliver talks that inspire as well as calm emotional storms and say the perfect turning word at the exact moment required. For contrast or in opposition is the “Teacher of No Rank.” There are several versions of this I’ve heard over the years, but the one I chose to poke gentle fun at here is the “Lady in Sneakers,” a Miss Marple Roshi who lets the path take whatever twists and turns are in the cards, all the while quietly and stealthily watching out for Truth, Justice and the Buddha Way. (And of course never getting involved in any sexual intrigue).

Although I had to pick and choose from my heap of memories to create this SNL Zen sketch, each of the characteristics I highlight I’ve overheard in Zen centers. I confess to making up the character of the “Super Roshi,” but the “Lady in Sneakers” comes from a dharma talk by a woman who has received transmission. I intended for them to be funny, but blog posts don't allow for hearing feedback chuckles. These myths are also the stuff that fuels expectations. We’ve all heard some variations of these myths, and I submit that they stand in our way as much as “Transmitted Enlightenment Roshi.”

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One renowned teacher described the task of planting Buddhism in the West like “holding a lotus to a rock” (also the title of another piece by James). I hold that it ain’t necessarily so. Even if disguised as a koan or a fragment of poetry, what does the feigned impossibility of a project do other than inflate the person doing the work? To be fair, it might point to the difficulty of the task, but I’ve done the work, not perfectly by any means but it got done. I’m just an ordinary guy, and my mistakes will keep me in that category, but I know that it’s not impossible. It’s not heroic. It’s just a task that the dharma requires, a task the world sets in our path.

Buddhism is Buddhism, and Zen is a particular flavor. It is as Bodhidharma pointed to, a transmission outside the scriptures. We trust our practice to guide us, but first it directs us to go deeper and dig for real solutions to all the problems that we didn’t even realize we had. Maybe they are problems that we only imagine that we have. Maybe the solution is there already and will find us. It all began for me when I started to contrast Super-Roshi with the Buddhist Lady in Sneakers, but I made those up.

I also know that we can do this. With apologies to Bobby McFerrin, I will close with a tune that Issan used to hum with a little sing along ,“Don’t worry. Be happy. Do the best that you can.” He sang while he was creating a way for Buddhists to continue to practice until they took their last breath...He did that while he was taking his last breaths. Remarkable.

Response to a homophobic book--Don't even open it.

My friend David Chadwick sent me a pdf of the draft of a book by a Buddhist practitioner filled with homophobic rantings. He was distressed and didn't know what to tell his friend and didn't even want to ask other gay friends for fear of being associated with it. We've known each other a long time so he came to me. I will not cite the author, or quote the book for reasons that will become obvious.

David, I tried to read a bit of your friend’s book as you requested to see if there were something that I might be able to say to diffuse the homophobia in the "gay" poems. Sadly I can only tell you of my personal reaction. I am filled with sadness. There was a time in my life when I would have felt anger, and my reaction would have been to protest, even burning the damn thing. But I am almost 80 now. I was a Jesuit for 11 years, I have been practicing Buddhism diligently for almost 40 years. I have heard some version of the your friend’s argument since I was very young, certainly since the time I started to realize that I was gay. It is a script. It doesn’t change. I am not sure of its origins, whether sexual taboo, or repressed homophile feelings, but I do know that control and power play a role. Gay people make an easy scape goat which makes publishing, reading and promoting this garbage sinful. It foments violence and hatred.

Every gay person I know has heard this rant. Believe me we have taken it to heart, listened to it, considered it, reacted to it. We’ve been forced to. It is painful. Some protest, some hide in a closet, some try to change creating more pain and suffering, some commit suicide, but most of us simply come to a level of acceptance with who we are and try as best we can to create a way to live our lives with dignity, compassion and service to others, and yes, even love.

I have nothing to say about the actual substance of your friend’s argument other than it has no place in Buddhist practice. It is a hindrance. It clouds the mind and seeds hatred, the very things that we are trying to mollify, to clear away the debris of our karmic actions. This is the only way I can deal with it--to set aside and go on with my life. But there are also times when I have to comment and this is one.

I have two stories that I would like to share. I now live in Dharamsala, India. This is a community of as many as 14,000 monks and nuns with HH the Dalai Lama in residence about 200 meters from my rooms. We are a very conservative community. I practice Zen and follow some classes with Tibetan geshes. There was a monk here who took off his robes and began living as a woman. She is now known as Tenzin Mariko. She is not in hiding, nor has she withdrawn from spiritual practice. She goes to teachings and initiations. And like some men who discover the trans-nature of their sexuality, she is quite stylish. She stands out, and, after a good deal of rejection, she is accepted, even admired. I attend class with one of HH's translators, Kelsang Wangmo, a ground breaker herself as the first woman to attain the degree of geshe. At some point when discussing karmic imprints, Geshe-la used Mariko as an example of a person who discovered their true nature and has the sheer gumption to live it out. I invite your friend to be inspired by Mariko's (she/her) courage.

Then there is the story of Tommy Dorsey, whom you know David, but whom your friend may not know. Tommy, or Issan as he became known, was a very much a gay man. He could not pass as straight so he never tried. And he did face vicious homophobia, and suffered some side effects, drug addiction, poverty, ostracization. Then he discovered the Buddha Way and totally dedicated himself. He did not stop being gay. That was impossible. When circumstances gave him the opportunity to live out his life heroically, he did not shy away. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, when hundreds of men were suffering and dying in his neighborhood, he used all his energy, every bit of what he learned in practice to take care of them with compassion and love, plus a few chocolate bars and drag shows. I had the honor and the blessing of working with him, helping him, learning from him, serving him. It changed my life. There are people now who honor him as a Bodhisattva. For those of us who knew him, of course he was, there is no question, but he will never fit into the straightjacket myth of a heavenly being. Perhaps we just have to change our view and allow him to take his rightful place.

I hope your friend can at least find the courage to use a big red pencil on his draft even if he cannot personally give up his preconceived notions. It is a stain on our practice.

Krishnamurti Redux

How much can we really know, especially when it comes to the difficult task of knowing ourselves?

A proposition: The world is not as it appears to be.

In most spiritual practice there is a notion that the world we see and experience is an illusion. It is called māyā in both Hindu and Buddhist world views, a blindness that prevents humans from having a complete experience of life. The word māyā in Sanskrit points to a mental condition of pretense or deceit that’s a hindrance on the path to realization. Its Hindu roots also carry some notion of magic that the gods use to create illusion unless they are appeased. In Buddhist and Hindu theology, samsara indicates the perpetual cycle of enslavement to birth and death and the pain of being caught up in the grip of illusion. Samsara simply means “world” in Sanskrit, but has been extrapolated out to include an endless cycle of birth and rebirth, spelling out continuous suffering.

The monotheistic religious traditions attribute our alienation from God and ourselves as the result of sin. In Christianity, particularly after Augustine, Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden, and Adam’s complicity, cursed all mankind to Original Sin until the sacrifice of Jesus. While any broad statement is of course misleading, it is enough here to point to the role of sin and alienation from God that traps us in misfortune’s clutches.

Religious and spiritual teachings have proposed various ways of digging ourselves out of this hole. Christianity and other monotheistic traditions advocate “conversion,” repentance, prayer and good works; Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism veer towards the meditation/introspection end of the spectrum, coupled with an analysis of the condition itself. 

Gurdjieff (I mention him because he is the subject of other posts on Buddha, S.J.) as well as various disciplines that have emerged more recently attempt this analysis in the more neutral terms of being asleep. Gurdjieff said, "Man is immersed in dreams... He lives in sleep… He is a machine. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention... He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination." 

These characterizations are simplistic at best and miss a lot of nuance, a fault for which I will be criticized, but my purpose is to simply point to the predicament, not necessarily to argue the merits of any particular solution. 

A conundrum

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”― George Orwell

I know that I cannot know the entire universe as it is. If I need proof I just need to log onto the cameras of the Webb Space Telescope. I am in awe of the universe’s vast expanse, and in 14 days, 8 hrs, 11 mins, and 3 secs, I will be able to see the first images Webb transmits from the deep reaches of space, but I need a 10 billion dollar delicate instrument rotating at 1.5 million miles from earth. I don't even know my immediate world as it is. I am limited, for example, by the range of my hearing. I am sitting in the same room with a friend when he or she begins talking about a car coming up on the road, but I haven’t even heard the rumble of tires on the stony path. I cannot even fully know myself. If I were completely aware, I would not have been stunned by an “ah ha” moment that shed light on some personal behaviors that were troubling for years on end.

When I see and admit that this is so, including the extent of my blindness, I’m presented with a conundrum. Whether I simply observe that I feel frustrated or unfulfilled in some existential sense, or undertake the practice of observing myself, let me explore some of the ramifications of the philosophical argument behind my dilemma to see what, if anything, holds water and where there are holes in the bucket.

 

The first part of this argument I would like to examine is that, as humans, our perception of the universe is limited, but we believe that the information at our disposal portrays a complete representation of the world as it is. Even if we admit that the world is not as it appears, we imagine that with some investigation, we can discern more accurate information and, like a sleuth, uncover the culprit and save ourselves. This is of course simply hubris.

Self-observation is at least partially what the language points to: we investigate ourselves. But there are limits to our claims about the reliability of our human experience. What part of the “self” comes into play is not altogether clear, but this is true: it is “subjective.” How do we examine the data? Is it real, can it be verified? Is it useful for understanding the events of past personal history as well as predicting the results of present and future actions?

Common sense demands--correctly I think--that I can only believe that what’s in front of my nose is in fact what’s in front of my nose if and only if I limit what I assert about the way I see my world to what’s actually under my nose. I only know the immediate world I can directly perceive. Unless I can verify it, all the rest is assumption. If I allow my mind to stray into the world of made-up stories, half-remembered or repressed memories, heavenly illusions or sexual fantasy, I can no longer legitimately assert that I am seeing the world as it is. I want to believe that I can be as stone cold sober as a hanging judge whether or not I really can wield judgments best left to God. I will convince myself that I won’t stray into the forbidden territory of false opinions or prejudice by taking the moral high ground, but in fact I am deluded into believing that the world I see is objectively real when in fact it is almost entirely subjective, buttressed with the few agreements that I’ve managed to wrestle into my corner from family and lovers, political allies or friends from church. 

Some would argue more strongly that common sense doesn't just advise, as in “take aspirin if you’re feeling a bit woozy.” Normative logic prescribes limits for my world, as in drawing boundaries for the experience I can assert as true and reasonably trust. The process of expanding my world requires another level of investigation. I am obliged to account for the way I want to see the world. This demands that I undertake a careful, critical examination of subjective factors, from yearning and dissatisfaction to remembering with Proust the smell of my mother’s cookies, the elation of catching my first fly ball, or the humiliation of being punched in the nose by the class bully. 

This simple observation may point us in the right direction. We begin to see and understand the mechanisms of the apparatus of our perceptions, the thoughts, feelings, sensations, visual perceptions and the registration of this experience in our memories. Our worldview is very limited unless we are willing to admit other factors, including, for example, our conversations with other people, our reading of history, and, importantly, empirical scientific evidence which, along with an understanding of the instruments of observation (including both physical sciences and psychology), allows us to test and verify our assumptions. This is also common sense.

I don’t want to let my argument devolve into complete solipsism. Surmising that what’s in front of my nose is also what’s in front of my friend’s nose is possible only if I have an agreement with my friend that he describes what’s in front of his nose with similar identifiable characteristics, mass, color, along with the collection of data from my other sensations, at least within a range of probable predictors. This will include an agreement to use a common descriptive language. Digging through this complex web of linguistic and psychological machinations tests the limits of human intelligence, but it does seem to be a worthwhile project. It can lead to freedom, but it can also verge on the preposterous.

I have drawn this picture as extensively as I could in order to describe a gap in our understanding. What we know empirically we neglect both in the way we conduct our lives and what we allow ourselves to believe. However, we would like to believe that our understanding can get us out of trouble, and when it doesn’t, we look elsewhere to fill in the gap.

The Lacunae. The Unknown is simply unknown. The rest is just shit we make up. Enter the Guru!

There’s a natural lacunae in our experience where we just don’t have any reliable information. In my view it is unknown because it is unknowable. We as humans do not have the access to the data required or our physical bodies and minds simply do not have the capacity to experience or know what remains hidden. There is no ontological reason; there are no secrets. 

It’s a normal human instinct to seek certainty. We all want peace of mind, but because we are afraid, or lazy, or greedy, or insecure or arrogant, this creates an opening for the guru’s stealthy entrance. This ignorance becomes the playground for superstition, magic, wizards (sorry Harry Potter), myth, and deception. Any appeal to a supernatural or unseen world that uses our inability to know creates a loophole, and opens a vast playground for all kinds of mischief, from the taboo against walking under a ladder to believing your daily horoscope supplied of course for a fee.

Even after we’ve observed and accepted that we as human beings have a limited range of perception due to physiological constraints, the limited capacity of our sense organs, as well as the physiology of our brains, our mind plays a trick; we tend to forget and set this aside. We still experience dissatisfaction with not getting all the things we think we want or imagine we need. Plus there are psychological consequences that come from the firing and misfiring of synapses that distribute endorphins to our pleasure centers. It makes no difference whether or not these actions and reactions are random or follow some predictable pattern; we experience an imbalance coupled with limited data to account for it. Voilá, from chemistry set to ontological predicament!

As a matter of fact, our suffering always seems to get the upper hand. When our unhappiness or dissatisfaction reaches a tipping point, we reach out for an answer even if it means grasping for straws. Enter the person, or book, practice, or belief system with an answer.

It doesn't even have to be a good answer. But keep in mind that at least some of the grasping answers to an existential question require suspension of belief; perhaps the answer imposes an alternative set of beliefs, and demands submission to its authority. In some sense it operates quite a bit like a narcotic or psychological addiction--the high it produces needs to be repeated in order for it to be effective. 

Over many centuries, our answers have taken the form of the tribal ritual the Nepali woman I know used when she called on a village priest to solve a problem. I saw with my own eyes the bloody sacrifice of a young goat to create favorable circumstances for increased guest house revenue--and sanitary plumbing. In my view the solution should have been to hire a competent plumber, but the magic formula for gaining wealth was left to a witch doctor.

The other end of the spectrum of tapping into the unknown is Bob Hoffman sitting in a Berkeley coffee bar, glancing off into space and delivering a prediction about a life choice or personal problem, allegedly from his spiritual guide, Dr. Fisher. I can hear the certainty in the psychic’s tone of voice when he or she divines the root of your predicament, and says “Doors will open.” The door actually remains shut until we see for ourselves what is posing as an answer. Snake oil doesn’t even loosen the hinges.

Let’s take a trip to Ojai California

There was a famous Indian teacher who lived in Ojai for the greater part of his long life. Jiddu Krishnamurti was born into an upper caste but struggling family in Southern India. When his dad took a job at the Theosophical Society headquarters in Madras, he was discovered by the occultist Charles Webster Leadbeater. In 1909, Leadbeater, who had just emerged from a scandal where he recommended masturbation to his young students, much to the dismay of his Anglican superiors, spotted Krishna on the Theosophical Society’s beach. Pictures show a very handsome young man, whom his tutors called dimwitted.  Leadbeater claimed extrasensory, clairvoyant abilities, and said Krishna had an extraordinary aura. I can legitimately entertain other inspirations for the homosexual Leadbeater’s psychic insight, and really it cannot go unsaid. 

This unleashed a series of events that would transform Krishnamurti’s life--Annie Besant and Leadbeater claimed that they had discovered the heralded World Teacher; they took the young man under their wing, even legally adopting him, and carefully indoctrinated him in the doctrines of Theosophy. Eventually Krishna would rebel against The Order of the Star in the East, the organization that had created and encouraged the myths surrounding his role in the Enlightenment of Man and Womankind. Rejecting the role of spiritual teacher, he set out for the rest of his life to lecture about the ruse of surrendering to the guru. 

Since I first learned about him in the 70’s and 80’s, Krishnamurti always left an odd, unbalanced taste in my mouth. It was not his argument or his eloquence. On the surface I could find no fault in that. It was the way people used him. Most of these followers, if pressed, could thread their way to the end of an argument, but It was just too easy to say, in a slightly superior tone, “Read Krishnamurti. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” and walk away. They weren’t blatantly stupid and arrogant. For the most part, they just wanted to have sex with whomever they wanted or eat whatever their tastes dictated, except for the strict vegetarian who ruined his marriage to a lovely Italian woman who couldn’t give up sausages. She told me she tried, but her husband wouldn’t tolerate a mixed-cuisine marriage. (By the time of their divorce she also had a Green Card.)

It was impossible to convince this anti-authoritarian faction that the statement, “The guru says that you can’t trust the guru” is an argument from authority that should be rigorously applied equally across all the guru’s statements. When you rely on the guru to tell you that you can’t trust the guru, your decision not to trust the guru still relies on basic trust. The skepticism may have real teeth (and I think it does), but I will insist on other avenues of verification which of course merits me the label of materialist. 

Why is this Krishnamurti so persuasive and appealing? First of all, what is his argument? I just did a thought experiment, not entirely rigorous but still revealing. I picked up Krishna's First and Last Freedom, and began to read. After three paragraphs, enough to catch the thread of his argument in its context, I randomly turned ahead some pages, and continued to read from the top of the first paragraph that caught my eye. I was shocked. It made perfect sense. I wasn't jarred by any abrupt shift in the argument; the tone, even the sentences maintained a conversational flow. 

I might conclude that Krishna used an argument that can be succinctly stated in the three paragraphs which he repeated and riffed over and over, but that would not do justice to his rigorous self-examination or his eloquence. I went back to First and Last Freedom, and read through the chapters carefully and was moved by the intelligent, even forceful way he invites each of us into his analysis which included a thorough examination of our belief systems*, our prejudices, our sensory experience, and our past memories. 

He was exhaustively thorough and doggedly insistent. He could be compassionate as well as angry or dismissive without apology. But in my view the analysis is always kept at arm’s length, or perhaps I have not read him as carefully and thoroughly as I should. He does emphasize over and over that our immediate experience has to be seen and evaluated within the context of our relationships, with ourselves, with our past, with our environment, as well as with our family and friends. He was obviously a man who investigated the prison of his own delusion, Leadbeater and Besant grooming him for the unique role as avatar for the Coming Age, but he never gets very personal or vulnerable about his own experience. 

It is ironic that the man who preached that the guru is untrustworthy, himself became a guru. As much as Krishna might protest, the path to a normal life must have been difficult when he uncovered the sham that his karma had singled him out. I think he actually tried to be normal, but circumstances created a pampered life. To bolster my case that he was nothing more than a real human, he had a long term lover, the wife of a close associate. Of course he lied about it, claiming to be celibate--which leads me back to my initial problem with his analysis. “Trust me to tell you not to trust me” is the brick wall you hear in the conversation of an abusive lover.

I still haven’t really answered my own question about knowing ourselves. I’ve just pointed to some of the false claims. Knowing that there are limits to what we can know, doesn’t invalidate what direct experience teaches us or weaken those experiences. It simply rejects their infallibility. I can be satisfied with my own experience. In the words of Jack Kerouac, “One day I will find the right words, ... then it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.” 

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*"Belief is the central problem in the analysis of mind. Believing seems the most "mental" thing we do, the thing most remote from what is done by mere matter. The whole intellectual life consists of beliefs, and of the passage from one belief to another by what is called "reasoning." Beliefs give knowledge and error; they are the vehicles of truth and falsehood. Psychology, theory of knowledge and metaphysics revolve about belief, and on the view we take of belief our philosophical outlook largely depends.”

Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture. XII: Belief, p. 295