No deliberate efforts
Following up on my comment about how the universe (the Tao) makes your decisions for you - here is a passage from The Ring of the Way by Taisen Deshimaru (a soto zen master)
When you follow Buddha you do not need to use up your own strength, you do not need to make deliberate efforts with your own willpower. You can become Buddha unconsciously, naturally, automatically, detached from life and death.
I will add that the above makes no sense whatsoever if one maintains a distinct sense of self and thinks that one can 'use buddha power' to make your life better. Your sense of self, it seems, must be replaced by an identification with the universe, the tao, with everything... as long as you feel that you need to control things you are grasping & being lost in thought of right vs wrong. Or not?
I do wonder though - if all your decisions are already being made by the Tao (because your brain is a physical thing, obeying the laws of physics and thus mechanical, like the sun) then how can you interfere with yourself and feel like you are going against the tao? Where does that frustration of trying to control the uncontrollable come from if your every thought and action is the Tao (Buddha/the universe) already?
posted by Derek (formerly 'me') @ Friday, March 31, 2006
9 comments
9 Comments:
PS - and Alan Watts points out that you know about as much about how you open and close your hand as you do about how you make the sun shine. You're doing both - and you have no idea how you're doing it. Why is this? It's because your conscious mind is not really doing anything, it can't. All it does is observe - be aware of what your body (an extension of the universe) is doing.
Just try to explain to someone how you open and close your hand... or turn your eyes to see something or grow your hair... etc.
It is exactly this issue that I had a problem with in my reading of Taoism. If the aim of Taoism is to be in harmony with the cosmos/Yao - and everything I am is just an expression of the Tao - then how is it possible ultimately to be out of harmony with the cosmos? I never worked out an answer to that, although I may have been misunderstanding Taoism.
Buddhism avoids this problem, because in Buddhism we are already enlightened - we are already at one with the Tao. The union or harmonisation between 'self' and 'cosmos' is not a metaphysical event it is simply a loss of the delusion of being separate of out of harmony. 'Buddhahood' is not something you gain but something you uncover, something you realise is already there - emptiness.
On the no evil post I made this comment near the end that might have been missed but is relevant to Justin's question about disharmony with the Tao;
Alan Watts has described the Tao as like being in a river - those who are with the Tao swim in the direction of the current and they have the entire force of the river behind their every action. Those who don't get it are constantly fighting the current and expending enormous energy unecessarily.
So.. nothing is 'outside' the Tao, but some things are more in harmony with it than others.
I like Karen's comments about trusting - but again, and this is so complicated, we can go too far the other way. You wouldn't want to walk off into the woods naked expecting nature to take care of you. You'd be dead pretty quick most likely. Thus the middle-way?
And mikedoe... I don't know the answer. Sorry. You bring up excellent points that are all related to this issue of being out of harmony with the Tao. If one feels they choose to alter their thinking patterns and behavior to 'get with the Tao / Buddha' have they really done that, or did the Tao do that?
Those who don't get it are constantly fighting the current and expending enormous energy unecessarily.
So.. nothing is 'outside' the Tao, but some things are more in harmony with it than others.
Well that's the sort of picture I also got from Watts, but in this case being 'out of harmony' with the Tao is really just seeing things from a limited perspective. Every bit of strife and struggle is an expression of the Tao and being in harmony with the Tao should mean seeing that and 'going with the flow' of our stuggle and the motivations driving it. Every river has eddies and back-currents that from a limited perspective appear to 'go against the flow'. But at a cosmic level there is no going with or against the flow - there is only a demanding or an easy life.
I don't think that 'going with the flow' (ie. passivity) is a path to happiness or wisdom particularly.
And people who are 'fighting' and 'expending energy' are not doing so generally because they 'just don't get' the 'wisdom' of doing nothing, but because they have made a conscious choice to try to achieve something for themselves or for others.
Most worthwhile endeavors take a certain amount of effort. And it is often wise to make efforts now in order to find an easy life in the long term.
Excellent points, Justin. What I am hearing in your post is the idea that it is about an attitude toward the 'struggle'. Doing the weeding, tending, and feeding is plenty of work on its own, and leaving the outcome to be what it may is where the real work happens.
I completely agree with Karen's thoughts on the wonder, gift, hardship, pain, etc of everyday life. For me, it is the very practical simplicity of zen that draws me in.
Justin - going with the Tao is not laziness, passivity or anything of the sort. Watts again describes: Sailing using the wind for motion is an example of going with the Tao while someone who rows a boat using their own energy, or perhaps uses a motor that runs off fuel they've bought, is struggling and not in as much harmony.
A master of any craft, art or other activity has reached a point of harmony with the Tao - where their accomplishments seem effortless, not forced, not contrived. They don't have to deliberately think about what they're doing - they simply feel what to do next and do it. Great photographers, musicians, cooks, gardeners, etc. are like this. Their work seems effortless. Beginners struggle with everything - including life itself. I see zen as an extension of this - not just focusing on some craft like cooking, but focusing on every moment of every day. Cleaning the litter box, rather than being a chore, becomes an effortless activity because you aren't really doing it all. The Tao is.
going with the Tao is not laziness, passivity or anything of the sort. Watts again describes: Sailing using the wind for motion is an example of going with the Tao while someone who rows a boat using their own energy, or perhaps uses a motor that runs off fuel they've bought, is struggling and not in as much harmony.
Thanks me - I think I understand better now. 'Harmony with the Tao' is not a cosmic or metaphysical relationship or event, since the Tao is all there is, ultimately.
The effortlessness of an accomplished master of any art is only achieved through his or her willful, clumsy struggles as a novice. Acts which are initially under the awkward direct control of the conscious mind are increasingly sublimated as subconscious sub-routines with the conscious, intellectual mind freed up for more executive functions.
Any advice for beginners not to struggle and strive is misguided - if indeed Taoism is saying that. However, there are times where such advice could be an useful tool for getting rid of counter-productive interference by the mind.
The use of existing forces with a sailing boat is only 'better' than a rowing boat in the context of efficiency at reaching some particular goal and in valuing less over more effort. Doesn't that goal come from 'personal mind'? Without the conscious 'executive functions' of the mind, there would be no longer terms goals and no need to do anything at all.
I like the Watts quote, me. I read a lot of Watts years ago.
I came across this like in "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind" the other day:
"Not grasping or rejecting."
And I think the second half of that line is important. It is easy to understnd the "not grasping" part... but we have to remember about the "not rejecting" part too. Sometimes we might think we are "letting go", but are actually "rejecting"... which takes effort.
Eardrum, very good point. Watts also points out that some people who start following Zen think it means some kind of freedom from responsibility - they then simply stop following the rules of society (this was more common in the 1950s + 60s) - but they actually were, as you say, rejecting the rules of society - doing the opposite of the rules, and thus still being controlled by those rules!
True Zen freedom is not so easy to understand.
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