In this episode, I share with you questions and answers from my 2020 written interview for Eastern Horizon, a tri-annual magazine of the Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM). There are some basic questions about Zen, and then some questions about what Buddhism has to offer with respect to understanding and coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Thought you might enjoy hearing a different kind of presentation, where I have kept my answers very succinct.
Quicklinks to Questions:
8. What would be your advice to someone who has just lost a loved one to this pandemic?
1. You’re ordained as a Zen priest after many years practicing Zen as a lay person. What brought you to Buddhism and specifically to Zen?
I become a Buddhist when I was 25 years old. I had been raised mostly without religion, although I attended Catholic school. When I realized as a teenager that I didn’t believe in God, I figured religion wasn’t for me.
However, in preparation for a tourist trip to India, I learned about the Buddhist Four Noble Truths in a guidebook which discussed some Indian history. The fact that Buddhism started from the premise that life was marked by dukkha – dissatisfactoriness, stress, or suffering – resonated deeply with my personal experience. Like Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha, I lived in very fortunate circumstances but was existentially miserable anyway. No other religion or spiritual tradition I encountered addressed or explained this situation.
Not only did Buddhism identify my experience of suffering, it promised it was possible to become free of that suffering, as well as offered a concrete path of action for achieving that liberation. And every Buddhist teaching or practice I subsequently tried out led to positive results in my life. I knew very early on that I would spend my whole life walking the Buddhist path.
I also quickly became attracted to Zen. Able to explore quite a number of different Buddhist schools, I chose Zen because I found I loved meditation and Zen writings, and because the Zen approach to radical nonduality was the only thing that made sense to me. That is: Ultimately nirvana is not separate from samsara, it’s only our own minds which create the problem.
2. The word Zen itself is derived from the Sanskrit word Dhyāna for meditation. How is meditation in Zen different from Vipassanā, which is the other popular form of meditation?
I don’t do Vipassana meditation, so I hesitate to say too much about it. However, my best explanation of the difference between Vipassana and Zen meditation, or zazen – specifically my Soto Zen school’s form of zazen, referred to as silent illumination, shikantaza, or “just sitting” – is that Vipassana is systematic exploration of the Dharma using the power of concentration, while zazen is diligently letting go of everything except sitting in an upright posture, thereby allowing our true nature to manifest. One of our most famous ancestors, Zen master Dogen, actually emphasized that zazen is not meditation practice! We’re meant to let go even of trying to make anything special happen in our sitting.
It’s likely Shakyamuni Buddha himself wouldn’t even recognize zazen as Buddhist meditation. However, the essence of Buddhism is that we test teachings and practices for ourselves. If they are consistent with the moral precepts and lead to freedom from suffering, greater wisdom and compassion, then they are legitimate. I personally believe zazen is like another pathway up the same mountain, and that mountain is samadhi, or a calm state of nondual experience. Vipassana involves discipling the mind until it becomes calm and concentrated, while zazen involves allowing the mind to settle like a pool of water. When it comes to what you might call meditative concentration, I think the results are ultimately the same.
3. Zen, like all schools of Buddhism, is about understanding reality. So what is reality in Zen Buddhism?
From the point of view of Zen, reality cannot be grasped. That’s the nature of reality – it’s an endless unfolding of causes and conditions. Any time we think, “Oh, now I see reality!” we are wrong a millisecond later. Ultimately, reality is empty of anything that can be grasped, or anything we identify as inherently existing, independent, or enduring. This is also true of our self.
Anything we perceive as a human being will be limited by our bodies and minds, so even if there was some ultimate “Reality” to be observed, we couldn’t claim to have perceived it “directly.” However, that’s not a problem. We are part of reality, and we can observe our own direct experience, and thereby awaken to the empty or boundless nature of reality, including self. This is profoundly liberating, because it relieves us of the preoccupation of “I, me, and mine” that drives so much of our suffering.
To awaken to reality, we need to let go of the mental map we’ve created of it. Usually, we aren’t perceiving openly, we’re perceiving through the filter and preconceptions of our mental map. We immediately think, “How does this thing I’m encountering relate to me, and to all the other fixed objects and beings in my personal universe?” By practicing meditation, we learn to let go of our attachment to our mental map. It’s not easy, and when we let go it isn’t permanent, but even a little loosening of our grasp relieves some of our dukkha and helps us relax into more natural and beneficial way of being.
4. If the main focus of Zen is meditation, why are there elaborate liturgies such as bowing and chanting, and extensive writings in the form of numerous sutras?
The Zen school originated in China as the Ch’an school, which differentiated itself from other schools by emphasizing meditation and idea that you could achieve Buddhist liberation without dependence on any of the other traditional components of Buddhism, including sutras, study, chanting, ceremonies, or devotional practices. However, the Ch’an school never actually got rid of any of those practices; an occasional teacher might have taught without them, but the lineage as a whole kept all of the traditional practices around.
All practices in Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is a part, are seen as skillful means. This means they intended to produce a certain kind of benefit, but that certain practices work for some people and not for others, or they work for you at certain times but not at other times. This is like medicine – what medicine you use depends on the illness you are trying to cure, and on the constitution of the patient. In Zen we recommend zazen for almost everyone (although it may not be the best practice for people suffering from certain kinds of mental illness), but we willingly acknowledge the benefits you may receive from liturgy, bowing, chanting, and studying sutras. Such benefits include the cultivation of humility, compassion, and gratitude, and the challenging of certain fixed ideas and assumptions.
5. The reality of change and suffering is easily seen today with the never-ending spread of the Covid-19 virus, which has killed thousands of people. Is there an explanation from Zen Buddhism for the rise of this global pandemic?
In Zen Buddhism we understand that much of the suffering in the world is caused by humans. Because of the three poisons of greed, hate, and delusion, we destroy the natural world and make pandemics like Covid-19 more likely. Our appetite for travel and global trade means pandemics can spread around the entire planet in months. The three poisons have caused unimaginable inequities in terms of resources between countries and within societies, causing much more suffering and death than necessary. Delusions and attachment obstruct our communal cooperation to remedy our situation.
At the same time, in Zen we understand that karma – the results of our willful actions – only accounts for part of the situation in our lives and in the greater world. Everything is the result of causes and conditions, but some of those causes and conditions are biological, genetic, chemical, etc. Some things are due to chance, such as the earth ending up a particular distance from the sun, a basic prerequisite for everything on this planet, including the Covid-19 virus. So not everything is due to human choices. Not everything can be blamed on willful choices or controlled by us.
That said, our responsibility is to relieve as much suffering as we can, and refrain from actions based in the three poisons. Why are human beings subject to the three poisons to begin with? The Buddha would say that is a question that does not “tend to edification,” meaning it’s really not helpful to spend your time contemplating it. This is the world we live in; the important question is, “How are we going to conduct ourselves from here on out?”
6. The Covid-19 pandemic has created much uncertainty in life. If one already has fear, anxiety and worry in one’s mind, how can one still meditate to overcome them?
I would say that, in Zen, we don’t meditate to overcome troubling emotions such as fear, anxiety, or worry. Certainly, there are Buddhist practices – such as mindfulness of breathing, metta practice, or chanting – that can help you break free, momentarily, from a distressing and repetitive series of negative thoughts or images.
Ultimately, though, once our emotions are even a little bit manageable, we want to simply shine the light of awareness on our experience. As soon as we do this – as soon as we shift from dwelling on the subject or object of our fear, for example, and notice, “Ah, fear has arisen in me” – we are already somewhat free of being tyrannized by the negative mind state. This is what is done in classic Buddhist mindfulness practice, and it’s also what we do in zazen.
Then we need to refrain from trying to immediately get “rid” of the negative feelings or experiences, because that almost never works. Instead, we patiently work on becoming more and more familiar with our experience. It’s almost like making friends with our fear, anxiety, or worry. With gentleness and goodwill, we learn gradually what is going and what is needed, like a parent holding a crying baby. So, meditation is rarely an instant cure for our troubling emotions, but if you’re willing to engage the practice over time you may find more lasting relief from them.
7. This pandemic has humbled us and reminded us how we cannot guarantee our own future. Yet, we instinctively yearn for a way to assure and secure that future for ourselves and for our children. Can Zen Buddhism show us where should we turn for safety?
Zen, like many Mahayana traditions, emphasizes that reality has two aspects, absolute and relative. Lately I have been calling these the independent and dependent dimensions of reality: One reality, two dimensions. Along the dependent dimension – the dimension of time and space, differentiation and causality – we go about our individual lives, encountering pain versus pleasure, success versus failure, justice versus injustice, etc. Along the independent dimension of reality – the dimensionless dimension of right here, right now – every last being, thing, and phenomenon is empty of any inherent, independent, enduring self-nature. Any discrimination as to self and other, good and bad, up and down, just and unjust, is ultimately a categorization applied by our mind. There is one, seamless reality in which we all play an integral and interdependent part.
The independent and dependent dimensions of reality are simultaneously true and do not contradict each other all, even though they may seem to. Just as my finger is a separate entity at the same time it is only one part a hand, the concepts of absolute and relative describe reality viewed at different levels.
Why does this teaching matter? Relatively speaking, we care deeply about ourselves and our children, and out of compassion and goodwill wish for safety, comfort, and happiness. This is natural and not a problem… until, of course, we get so caught up in our self-centered concerns that we lose perspective and come under the influence of greed, hate, and delusion. Becoming more familiar with the independent dimension of reality is a medicine for this ill. Even as we put forth our best efforts to take care of our loved ones and make our world a better place, we can ground ourselves in gratitude. If you relinquish all of your discriminations and expectations about the world and simply engage with it directly, it’s a mind-boggling miracle we’re alive at all. And at the same time, we care for living beings. Both absolute and relative apply equally.
8. What would be your advice to someone who has just lost a loved one to this pandemic?
First and foremost, I wouldn’t give such a person Buddhist advice, I would give them advice based in modern psychology, which has added a great deal to our understanding of the emotional experience of individuals: Don’t let anyone tell you how you should grieve, or how long it should take. Everyone’s experience is different, and none of us can predict how we ourselves are going to react to a given situation of loss. Be patient and gentle with yourself.
If someone wanted to hear something more, and they wanted to know specifically how to relate their loss and grief to Zen, I would encourage them to see the pain of their loss as a simultaneous manifestation of interdependence and no-self. Instead of being truly separate individuals with some kind of inherent, independent, enduring self-essence, we are dependently co-arisen with all beings and things and phenomena. Your loved one was part of you, whether your relationship with them was joyful or difficult. You were shaped in part by their presence, and you are forever changed by their loss. But also, they live on through you, in a very real way. The emptiness of self ends up being not an abstract and philosophical proclamation but an intensely personal, disorienting, but ultimately liberating experience.
9. [This was not part of the Eastern Horizon interview, I just figured I’d add it because people have been asking this lately] When we see people in the world acting in harmful ways out of self-centered greed, hatred, and willful ignorance, how do we fulfill and our Buddhist aspiration to have compassion for them?
First, it’s helpful to remember that Buddhist aspirations are not the same thing as the “shoulds” that appear in many other religious or even secular moral traditions. We don’t try to cultivate compassion because some deity will negatively judge us if we don’t, or because we’re trying to fulfill some ideal of a “good” person so people will approve of us, or so we’ll know our life is worthwhile.
Buddhist aspirations are very pragmatic. In the case of cultivating compassion for people, the gist is: Compassion is what we naturally feel when we have goodwill for someone and we see them suffering. We feel goodwill when we are in accord with the reality of interdependence – the reality that we are not fundamentally separate from or different from other beings. We feel ill will when we are attached to our sense of self and we feel threatened by another being in some way. Ill will is based in delusion, and therefore causes further suffering for both self and other. Therefore, cultivating a sense of goodwill toward beings is not only something we do for them, it’s something we do for ourselves. It’s not easy, but we have to try if we want be of any benefit in the world.
It’s like we’re all in a boat together. We have to cooperate in order to stay afloat and survive until we reach our destination. Every person is needed. If there are a couple people on that boat who are acting absolutely atrociously, it will be annoying, and we will naturally feel ill will toward them. However, if we get angry and judgmental and start to fight with the selfish, hateful, unreasonable folks, we will feel miserable and just make everything worse. The buddha famously said that ill will ends through non-ill will alone. We think we should fight ill will with ill will but then the problems never end. It may be extremely difficult, but if we can manage to summon some goodwill and compassion, we may be able to see how the hateful folks are acting out their fears. We may be able to find a skillful way to get their cooperation. Maybe not, but simply festering in ill will isn’t going to get any results.
It’s essential to realize, however, that just because we cultivate goodwill and compassion toward people, that doesn’t mean we have to accept what they do. We can stand up for what we know is right, even if that means standing in opposition to others. If we can take our stand with fundamental goodwill and compassion, ironically we will be even more effective in whatever we do.
