Expert: Joe McSorley - 4/15/2009

Question
QUESTION: I've been reading through some of the questions and your answers.  I understand what you are saying and am familiar with Buddhism but this understanding never goes beyond an intellectual level.  I agree with everything but then what?

The problem is that I don't think someone can be "in the zone" like the athlete metaphor you use all the time.  Everything you say is just total abstraction.  How can you hold down a 9 to 5 job without any means-end thinking transpiring? Like some sort of 'awakened' person behaving 'in the moment' all the time?

The reality is that unless we are born wealthy, we have to make certain life plans, which requires a certain cause-effect mindset.  This in turn has implications. My bills don't get paid by the 'mind-body' operating in an awakened state.  The fact is that we're not animals, but conscious, thinking beings and find it hard buying into the fact that the ideal goal is to be attain this unattainable enlightened state that can't be properly described outside of philosophical abstraction.

How should one live their life? If you realize that having a wife and kids is part of the impermanance then what's the point of getting married or having kids and leading a normal life?  What's an ideal life? What technique should I practice at all cost only to then eventually abandon that technique?

All I know is that if you have a mortgage and kids then one is forever locked into being a provider and paying bills, which requires a certain cause-effect, rational way of thinking.  If it took the Buddha 13 years of unfettered meditation to reach enlightenment how can this be expected of a normal man?  This is all too frustrating.





ANSWER:  Dear …
   I understand that this is frustrating and confusing and I really don’t know that what I write now will not be just as unsatisfying for you.  I do not sell Zen to anyone, people come to me to ask questions, I do not seek them out, so I am not asking that you or anyone else buy into anything. I think buying into Zen, any other ideal or teacher is a huge mistake. If you think there is something of merit here that will enhance your life, fine take it, if not, discard it.  I do not expect people to leave their lives and study Zen and have never implied that in anyway nor did my teachers.  I think that the idea of pursuing something called Zen is itself is a problem.
    I do not use mean-end terminology. In the Eightfold Path of Buddhism  ‘right thought’ and ‘right understanding’ are stated.  It does not state ‘no thought’.   I have heard Buddhist teachers say that ‘correct thinking is no thinking’ but I completely disagree with this mindless idiocy they preach and have stated so on many occasions.  Rinzai has criticized those who practice this as “shave pate shit sticks’.  I don’t think I can state it any more bluntly than he did. One of things I have stated over and over in regards to practicing Zen is ‘not ignoring causation’.  Anyone who thinks they can live outside of cause and effect are in for a rude awakening.
  I think you are confusing dualistic thought with means-ends. Dualistic thought is the process of separating something from the mind to know it.  You can know deeply and rationally without this separation.  If an athlete is in the zone he is still making judgments, still using intellect and yet is in the moment doing so, he is not separated from the action.  Thought and action are simultaneous and not a dualistic process.  If an accomplished athlete explains to a neophyte that he should practice to the point he loses himself I am sure the novice would view that as a complete abstraction. How can he do it without knowing that he’s doing it?  Isn’t this a complete contradiction?  He can only know the reality of it by practicing till he reaches that point.  I once yelled at my teacher while in an extremely frustrated state, “ if I can’t know awakening how will I know if I am enlightened” and he replied “your wanting to know is what is creating the barrier”. My kung fu master used to shout at me “stop punching and punch”.  Abstract and irrational, yes, but also correct.  If a piano teacher tells his student he must practice till he loses sight of the instrument and becomes one with it that would appear to be an abstraction and irrational yet truly great players do lose the separation between themselves and their instrument. I think it was Yehudi Menuhin who once stated he does not play the violin, it is himself that is played. This is a common theme among virtuosos and they often explain that they cannot express what happens to them.  It not abstract to them but an existential fact that they cannot communicate with words.  They practice till they’ve lost the practice, the instrument and their self.  They did not abandon practice as a conscious effort but somehow that happened, they were overcome.  Great horsemen describe this as ‘no rider above the saddle and no horse below’.  This is a common theme throughout human history and the arts.
   You make the statement that you don’t think someone can live in the moment all the time. Why can’t someone be in the moment all the time?  We normally live in our minds flitting between thoughts of the past and wondering about the future. This is rarely productive thought while living in the present allows you to see what is in front of you here and now and you are able to be clear minded about your decisions. This does not preclude rational thought it actually allows it to happen unfettered and more objectively.  By objective I mean free of the subjective myopic view of what the individual desires to a more holistic view.  D.T. Suzuki and Masao Abe both held down jobs at universities and raised families.  It is not the goal of awakening to escape from life but to live fully in the moment. This does not imply any sort of hedonistic self -centered world.  We see the world as an abstraction, as that world outside of us, but in fact this separates us from being in the world.  While we are working, myself included, to support our family, pay the bills and everything else to takes to survive in today’s world, we are also full expressions of nature. Rather you were working with a fulfilled mind free of self-illusion to pay the bills then working otherwise. The person who excludes himself from society to be a hermit may be far less connected to nature than the person who is actually involved in everyday life.  In the ox-herding pictures that depict the Zen quest the last picture is “Returning to the Market’ or returning to everyday life.  It is not removing yourself from society but fully engaging in society.  Your ideal life is what fulfills your nature and cannot be dictated by an outside philosophy or religion.  If it is raising a family then so be it, if it is to do otherwise, then so be it.  I don’t know what your idea of a normal life is because I don’t see too many people satisfied with their lives as they are.  Maybe that is what normal is. Realizing the impermanence of your life and family should motivate you to enjoy it more and value it. What is ‘your life’?  Who is it that owns this life and carries it?

  You say that we are not animals but conscious, do you think animals are unconscious?  All life shows signs of consciousness.  All life in nature does what is best for it to survive instinctually yet man does not.  Man has to learn everything because he does not know what to do.  Animals are conscious but not self- conscious; they do not see themselves as living in nature but separate from nature as man does.  They do what is best for their survival in nature and know instinctively how to survive without the self-reflective process.  Animals do not reflect on their mortality and fear death.  Men cripple themselves with their anxieties.  Why is it that man with all his great intelligence is so unaware of himself?  How is it that we eat the wrong foods, smoke and drink ourselves to death when we are supposedly above nature?  It is our going against nature that causes so many of our problems, particularly health wise.  You may disagree with all of this and that’s fine.  Find what truly fulfills you and disregard this.
  The story of the historical Buddha is that he tried both hedonism and asceticism and neither solved the problem.  It was not 13 years of unfettered mediation but him giving up on himself in a sense and sitting under the tree refusing to move till he overcame his problem.  He stated that he was starving himself to death with his practices and that would do him no good.  So he found that he must do something other than what he had been doing.  It was at this time he awakened.  You don’t need to meditate to face the moment; you just need to do it.  If that means while you are paying bills, picking up the kids and fixing a flat, that’s what you do, you do it fully in the moment and not with your head full of a thousand thoughts.  There have been many masters who awakened in everyday life far from the walls of any monastery.  My teachers have often said that many people go to the temple to escape and not to awaken.  D.T. Suzuki, Masao Abe, Richard DeMartino and Shin ichi Hisamatsu were all laymen.
  I understand that this may be completely unappealing to you and to the mass of people and that is fine.  If it does not resonate with you or help you I would not burden myself with it, there are other paths for you to follow.   I have often stated that I never had any desire to study “Zen” and still don’t. I came to my teachers not to have anything to do with Buddhism but to overcome my own existential plight.  I searched many places for answers and found none. When I finally met my teacher I did not ask him about Zen but about my personal dilemma.  He did not ask me to study Zen or Buddhism or anything else.  What he did say to me was “I understand your problem and I cannot help you. It’s your problem.” From there he challenged everything I presented to him and handed it back to me. It wasn’t his goal to feed me some solution but to get me to understand how my mind worked and to fully realize the problem with my own thinking.  That the very mind I was using to seek the solution was creating the problem.  This sounds like a horrible abstraction and it is how I took it for years.  For years I thought my teacher was a heartless bastard whose goal in life was to frustrate me.  It was actually his compassion that made him drive me onward. It wasn’t until I finally realized that I, myself, was the problem that things changed for me. It became my problem to settle, it was something I was completely unhappy with and my plight.  I fully and profoundly realized the problem with my mind and it became untenable for me to continue on this way.  Being my problem it was not a Zen thing but my thing that I had to contend with. It was something that I could not put down or walk away from so it became me. When working, sleeping or whatever, it occupied my mind.  This is real practice, real zazen, when the problem grips you from the heels.  It was by reading about Zen and some other Eastern philosophies that I realized they were talking about what I was going through.  Some resonated with me and some did not.  By the way, one of the greatest Zen teachers of all times writings do not appeal to me at all. I have read them over and over for decades and still don’t get it. If he were my only introduction to Zen I most likely would not have continued on that path. Perhaps I am that writer to you.  I hope you find someone who does resonate with you.
   I am not sure but I am of the impression that you might be asking me for a technique or techniques or is it that you just find this all nonsense? I don’t know.  I am sorry, I need you to clarify this if you choose to do so.
    I hope this didn’t frustrate and confuse you further.
        Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Joe,

Thanks for taking the time to write your detailed reply.  It was definitely helpful and elucidating.

In the end, yes, I think that all I am seeking is a way to overcome my dilemma or technique.  For a long time now, I've had a feeling that 'something needs to be done' but don't know how to proceed.  My dilemma is, a general sense of there's 'no point' to life has come over me.  

What is to be done and why? I really have no desire to do anything.  I don't aspire for great wealth and have no big ambitions.  To raise a family. My personal requirements are not much.  I have a well-paying job but one that I find mundane and uninteresting.  With everything I do, it feels like I'm forcing myself to do it--that it does not come naturally.

I'm not unhappy or depressed, enjoy spending time with family and friends and am usually joking around etc. However, it seems everyone is going about their busy lives, making plans they believe in, pursuing their interests, developing passions etc. I just can't take anything seriously...

I feel hopelessly trapped and can't see the way out...What do I do with my life? I try to think positive and say relatively speaking, I'm fortunate not be living in poverty etc. but it doesn't help...What am I doing here? What is this all about? I don't know...

Do I do a self-inventory of sorts? Try finding some natural interests and choosing a profession I may find fulfilling based on that? I don't even know what I would do on a day-to-day basis if I had $20 million in the bank to my name...

I feel that time continues to pass yet I can't find anything meaningful 'to do'...Do I just keep grinding it out? Enjoy the good times when they, tolerate the harsh times...just keep seeing what happens? Should I proceed with more a sense of urgency? Life is passing and something important needs to be done?

I don't know...I seek guidance and am willing to listen and keep trying...

ANSWER: Dear ...,
Basically what you are saying is that you’ve reached an existential dilemma.  You realized that in one sense life is futile but you are going to live it out anyway.  You can create meaning in your life by setting some goal but if you reach it then what?  There is an old curse that goes ‘may you get everything you want’.  Many people who have not gotten what they think will fulfill them continue on in the hope or under the illusion that when they get it all will be fulfilled.  Then there are those like yourself that have realized that it doesn’t work that way.  This is why people driven to fulfillment by excess die by the excess because it never fulfills them.
 People go on through their lives with a basic assumption of who they are but never really look at that person.  When you ask who a person is they give a name or what they do but that is not who they are.  They say they are what they believe but if their belief changes they are still a self that was untouched.  In the movie ‘Awakenings” there were people in comas for decades. They did not change, they just were but when they looked in the mirror after reviving they were shocked to see an old person.  Does consciousness age?  So we have to look at fundamentally who it is that says ‘I am’.
 The question is, what are you trying to fulfill.  I have a series of mental inquiries I’ve developed to help people face this dilemma, to dig deeper into who they are.  These are ways of self-inquiry that might get you going on another track.  Here are some of them:

  You awaken on a hospital bed not realizing you’ve been in an accident. You feel no pain and can only see straight up.  A doctor stands over you and says “ are you wholly you”?  From your perspective nothing has changed so what do you reply?  Probably, yes, I am I, whole and intact.  The doctor then says “I am sorry to tell you but you lost your legs”, are you wholly you?  Not knowing your legs were lost you said yes but what of now?  If you say no, then what changed and if yes, then what is the ‘you’ that is diminished?  Now the doctor says, actually it’s worse than that, you are just a head.  Are you wholly you?  If not, why not?  Moments ago before your perspective changed you said yes and now why not?  And now the terrible ending, you were burnt and have no face, are you wholly you?  If you are then what is the you that has been untouched? If not wholly you what of you is less?

This you that stands behind all of that above, can it be added to? Subtracted from?  If you cannot add to it or subtract from it then how can you fulfill it?  How can you touch it?


 Where you there at your birth?  When did you come into being?

You can only know what you are not by your perception.  You look around and know that you are not everything you observe but you do not know who you are doing the observing.  Those looking at you do the same thing, each is seeing who they are not.  So who is anything then?
You cannot be anything you perceive.  Think about that deeply and where that puts you in trying to find yourself.

If you have no memory are you still you?  If so, what is that you that is not contingent upon self-history?  People who have no memory through brain trauma still want to live. What is it that wants to live?  Given no memory, historical or self-knowledge about things you’ve been taught is the one who says “I” now any different than the one that said “I” when you were a child?

What stands between you and the world?

Can there be self without other? How do you know who you are without other?

  I had a fellow call me after not seeing him for about 20 years.  I had forgotten but I had evidently introduced him to Masao Abe.  He called me because he was in a self-dilemma and wanted to discuss it. When doing so he mentioned Abe.  He said he didn’t know what to do with his life and I asked him what Abe said and he replied, “Abe (ah-bay) said “ How do you know you are alive”?  I let out a laugh and said, “Well, what did you come up with”?  My friend said, “Nothing, I didn’t deal with it”.  I said, “He gave you the inquiry to go after it, it was/is perfect, I can’t add to it”.   Abe wasn’t trying to con him, confuse him or to just make an absurd statement, he was trying to get this guy to face his very existence, how do you know you are alive?  To say you are not dead is doing it from the outside and just positing an opposite and just an intellectual response.  It’s how do you know, not how do you understand, to know makes you face it deeply.
 To face your birth, the you that you know as your self-identity, is not the birth of a baby.  When did the self appear?  When you deeply and directly face any one of these questions they can drive you to a resolution.  You have to find the one that drives you, that burrows into you and becomes you.
  You have reached a classic Zen dilemma.  Anything you do will not help and anything you do not do won’t help, so what do you do?

 I hope this has helped.  Good luck.
         Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION:
I find these metaphysical ontological issues and questions to have no real solutions or answers.  For instance, I can totally agree and be fully convinced that there can be no-self without other and that the notion of self is totally constructed from the point of birth and thereafter but exploring these questions and others like it, don't seem to help me resolve my issue.  

All the great philosophers have tackled these ontological questions concerning the nature of 'reality' to no end with the only thing emerging being 'schools of thought' (e.g. positivist, pragmatist, post-modern etc.). Paradigm shifts will continue over time.  My internal assessment of whether there can be self without other or master without slave doesn't accomplish anything in my own mind.

Whatever the solution may be--e.g. locating your 'soul' or 'atman' within yourself--the real you, that was always there, that can't be added to or subtracted from is ever elusive...

At the end of the day..."here I am" and I have decisions/choices to make in the circumstance I find myself in and a life to plan...How can I know what this is all about? It feels like there is no way out and that there is an incredible burden on my shoulders...Would the answers come quicker in a monastic setting with less distractions?

Am I suppose to 'wake up' one day with the answer to my dilemma and then feel okay and live happily as 9 to 5 banker for the rest of my life? How does this work?

Answer
Dear ...
 The difference between Eastern and Western philosophy is that Western philosophy loves these great matrixes of thought, complex and convoluted and does not ever posit a solution.  In the Zen tradition, as well as some other Eastern traditions, the idea is to realize the problem of dualistic thought, to jam it upon the person and demand a real answer and not some conceptualization.  So it is not about a school of thought at all and the paradigm of self does not change over time.  From the time the first self arose in nature it is the same as today.  It is the profundity of the Adam and Eve myth that when they fell, they knew they were naked.  In Dr. DeMartino’s words, “they knew they were and consequently would one day not be”.  Zen constantly wants to slice through the concepts that we create be it of atman or of self, they are still concepts.  A musician might say that he understands the ideal of losing oneself but he’s practiced a bit and it doesn’t work for him and besides, that’s a school of thought anyway.  All of that is true to some extent but to the musician who has already achieved this state there is nothing he can do to convey it.  He may be living proof but that means nothing to the student.  So the student discards what the teacher is saying because ‘from his experience’ it’s not the right way or is unachievable or doesn’t make sense.  What can the teacher do with that and besides, it might not be the right way for that student.  For the teacher it’s selling water by the river and for the student there is no river that he can see. This can be extremely frustrating for the student particularly if he wants to see the river.  In time he might get a glimpse and then that will drive him onward. (See the ox herding pictures) My kung fu teacher yelling at me ‘stop punching and punch’ was never meant to be an intellectual exercise. He did not want me to ponder it for hours and write a treatise on it.  He wanted me to do it but to me it made no sense at the time.  The problem was that I was punching and he wanted me to stop punching but punch and I could not see the difference.  Him demanding me to do something paradoxical forced me into a dilemma and a solution.  Exploring, really exploring deeply, these questions can lead you to an existential standstill that might facilitate a radical and thoroughgoing transformation of yourself.  Were you in the presence of a Zen master he would block your every attempt to wriggle away from facing the moment.  Just saying ‘here I am’ presumes the I and the ‘here’.  Who is it that is here?  Who says there are no real solutions to these questions?  From the Zen standpoint there is a solution but not one you can arrive at through your normal dualistic consciousness.  You cannot maintain the you that you have and arrive at a solution.  You have to commit to overcoming your viewpoint, from protecting your worldview and going after it but first you have to realize that you are what is creating this entire problem.
  I understand how horribly frustrating this is.  I often had huge arguments with my teachers much along the lines as you have.  Masao Abe, in his frustration, choked his teacher, Shin ichi Hisamatsu.  When my teacher kept demanding me to face the moment, not retreat into conjecture and ideology, I couldn’t stand it.  For years he kept pounding the same thing back, often couched in ‘how do you know that”?   You don’t face,’ there is no self without other’, as an intellectual inquiry but as an existential quest.  If you cannot ‘be’ without other, what are you, here and now?  My teacher often said ‘It’s not that we have an ego, we are the ego, the act of separating’.  I understood this very well and could spew it back without hesitation.  I had chewed on it but never really ingested it.  A decade or so later I was at a philosophical seminar with DeMartino, Abe and a host of PhD’s and during it DeMartino said to the group,’It’s not that we have an ego, we are the ego, the act of separating”.  Another way he stated it was “It’s not that we have a problem, we ARE the problem.”  Thought I had heard this many, many times over the years at that moment it sank, deeply and entirely into me.  I actually gasped out loud and remember him looking across the conference table with a slight grin that said to me ‘finally he gets what I am saying’.  I was at once astounded and at the same time actually said to myself, why didn’t he say that before?  Well, he had, the question is, why was I so unable to hear it for so long?
  Asking if you were there at your birth or when you were born is asking when you, yourself, come into being, not the baby.  When do you come into being now?  You lose your sense of self now and then through sleep or other means but then you regain your sense of self.  What is it that comes into being then?
   The bottom line is, what choice do you have?  You have a dilemma, if you ignore it that won’t make it go away.  You don’t know how to tackle it because it doesn’t have a substance you can grasp.  You’ve acknowledged that material things won’t abate it and that you haven’t found a spiritual solution.  So you’re stuck.  You can’t move forward or back and on top of it you have a mortgage and family to support.  What do you do?  That’s the tough one because you haven’t found something that resonates with you to drive you into your stuck ness.  Zen teachers hand out koans, seemingly unanswerable questions that have to be answered but they are artificial contrivances.  Unless they become personal existential problems they just live in the brain.  Zen also teaches mindfulness and zazen, both good techniques if you know what you are going after or have a plight that forces you to take them on.  It’s like getting medicine when you don’t feel sick doing these Zen techniques, they’re ok and calm you but they aren’t really necessary for you to survive.  When you approach them because you’ve got the damn poison arrow in you, then you really use them to their fullest means.  It’s dynamic and desperate.  My teachers often commented that going to a monastery is more often an escape then a solution.  However, they did state that when a layman, pressed for time because of his daily obligations, goes in he tends to make the most of it.  The other monks can sit around for years and practice but he’s got a week to overcome his dilemma so he’s at it hell bent.
 It is the bane of Zen that over the years it has handled people’s inquiries and plights with finger waving, shouting ‘mu’, putting a shoe on their head and other seemingly absurdities.  For someone with a great existential dilemma this not only doesn’t do any good but it also lacks compassion.  There are those who are so driven when they have come to Zen that these ploys have helped but what it has more commonly done is create this circus of the absurd that people now see as Zen.  Most of what I see today is a form of Dadaism and never ending ‘aha’ moments that are remnants of the past.  If you don’t understand what your problem is it is very hard to work on it. If you feel sick and don’t know what is causing it how do you cure it?  Zen masters today parody the masters of the past but they are just parodies with no root.  My teachers and theirs before them have done their best to try to formulate a way for us to see the matrix and problem of human thought.  This is in no way an attempt to intellectualize Zen but to make it somewhat understandable at the basic level.  It is correct thought or understanding so that one may overcome the intellectualization process.  It is true intelligence realizing its limitations and then collapsing beyond cognition, like the musician overcomes technique.  The solution must be actualized.
  You need to find what takes hold in you to end your dilemma. I think deep inquiry is a great way to do it but clearly there are other ways.  It’s not easy but either is everyday life now so you are forced to do something.

  Is what you are a nine to five banker or is that what you do? One day you awaken and go to work happily, how does that work?  Ask a flower how it works.  It is not you that awakens one day, you are the problem, face the problem.
 I hope this helps you, take care,
         Joe