Confessions of a Terrible Buddhist: If You Want to Learn About Zen Don’t Read This Blog, a.k.a The Zennest Shit Ever

One of the best things about living in Portland is day trips to Powell’s City of Books. For the uninitiated, calling Powell’s a pretty-big-book-store is like calling “Confession of  Buddhist Atheist” a pretty good book; in other words, an utterly fail-tastic understatement. This biblio-behemoth spans an entire city block. It’s a veritable literary labyrinth, and practically impossible for a neophyte to navigate without a map and compass. But here’s a tip: If you walk in the front entrance, past the registers, down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and then take a hard left followed by a soft right, you might bump into me. This is the Buddhism aisle.

It seems fitting that this was where I learned an important lesson about Zen. It may be less than fitting, however, that the lesson didn’t come from one of the thousands of tomes of collected Buddhist knowledge throughout the centuries. Nah. My teacher in this instance was just some horned-rim-glassed hipster trying to impress his date.

The two of them casually pretended to look at books while I casually pretended not to be interested in their flirting.

“What do you think about Buddhism?” the girl asked. I nearly snapped my own neck jerking my head to hear the boy’s response. Portland is full of pretentious hipsters who have expert opinions on everything. This kid was about to spew some sophomoric bullshit to save face, rather than admit that he didn’t know the first thing about dharma, karma, anatman, and all the other fancy Sanskrit words I’ve memorized. I couldn’t wait to pounce on him, me a fierce Zen tiger, as he hung dangling from a proverbial vine. I purred. I growled. I listened.

The kid flashed a goofy smile. “I don’t really care for it,” he said.

Hm. Yes. If you can’t say you did it first, deny that it has any value. Go on, tell us more.

“One time I read this book on Zen. Well, I started to read it,” he said. Ah-ha! So he began his studies but just couldn’t wrap his tiny brain around such deep concepts. I patted myself on the back with my mighty tiger claws. He continued.

“One of the first sentences in the book said something like `If you want to learn about Zen then don’t read books about it.’”

Yes, yes… That checks out. I’ve read that. Now go ahead and spout your nonsense interpretation of this complex idea.

Chuck says “Fifty shades of what? Put down that sparkly vampire shit and read these AnattaPunk approved books if you want to live.”
• Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Stephen Batchelor.
• Buddha For Beginners. Steven T. Asma.
• Sit Down and Shut Up. Brad Warner.
• Dharma Punx. Noah Levine.
• Rebel Buddha. Dzogchen Ponlop.

“The first chapter said if you want to learn about Zen don’t read about it. So I didn’t. I took the book back to the library the next day.”

My indignation burst through the roof. How dare this young dumb idiot deny the majesty of Buddhist ideas and just smugly return a book without even reading it? You think you know better than 2,000 years of evolving Buddhist wisdom, kid? Good luck with that. Why don’t you and your girl pants go pay $17 for a venti goat-milk-caramel-macchiato with nutritional yeast sprinkles and soy curls, and get the fuck out of my aisle.

The couple giggled and went on their way, leaving me behind to fume. I couldn’t even enjoy reading at this point. I went outside and stomped down the sidewalk. And then suddenly I realized…

…I wasn’t a tiger. I was a quivering mouse making a tiger shadow puppet and fooling no one.

Anger. Indignation. Pride. These are the things you learn to avoid on day one of Buddhist kindergarten. Fail. Epic fail.

I packed my mousey tiger tail between my legs and crept back home. I thought back on this guy at the bookstore over the next few days. His sentiment echoed back and forth in my skull until I was ready to bash it against the wall. “If you want to learn about Zen, don’t read about Zen. So I didn’t.” Why had this triggered so many harsh feelings in me? Why was I still torturing myself over it? Why am I currently writing about it?

If he was factually wrong in his interpretation or expressed lack of value in Buddhist teachings then it wouldn’t make sense for me to be offended. If I had overheard a child telling another child that two plus two equals five I wouldn’t have reacted with so much venom. I would have laughed it off. I wouldn’t have been upset and I certainly wouldn’t have praised myself for knowing that two plus two is really four.

Fast forward a bit, and here’s me realizing that the dude wasn’t wrong at all. In fact, his statement, his instant returning of the book, was, in that moment, the Zennest shit I could have heard, and a lesson I badly needed. I mentally promoted him from hipster to zenster, the new honorific title I made up.

“If you want to learn about Zen, don’t read about Zen.”

I know I’d read that sentiment before, and more than once at that. I’d always taken it to mean that Zen was supposed to be something ineffable, something that transcended our languages’ ability to pin down its essence no matter how much we talk about it. I thought it was a cute paradoxical hook for Buddhist writers.

No, stupid. That’s what I get for thinking too hard. One of my first Eastern philosophy professors once told me about the time that he had been laughed out of a Zen monastery after telling the boss that he was a philosopher. Now I get it.

“If you want to learn about Zen, don’t read about Zen.” If you want to learn about baseball, don’t read about it. If you want to learn about the view from Mount Hood, don’t read about it. If you want to learn about writing a poem or riding a horse or tasting a pickle don’t fucking read about it. Don’t think about it, don’t tell your Aunt Sally about it, don’t deliberate plans for it. Go do it. The simplicity was a kick in the teeth. The kick delivered via being punked by some hipster made it a Chuck Norris roundhouse.

So I read too much and practice too little. That, I confess, makes me a terrible Buddhist. But I’m working on it. Now put down the blog, Poindexter, and go do something.

AnattaPunk hipster pins, coming soon to a store near you! Which store? It’s pretty obscure. You probably haven’t heard of it.

[AnattaBlog] Zombies. Buddhism. Zombuddhism.

Death (and Undeath)

Despite modern doctors’ best efforts it seems this condition is here to stay. We’re all infected. It’s a 100% fatal condition. Yet dying remains a taboo subject. Sure, we jibber-jab about heaven and hell and other faith-based scenarios. But we generally don’t like talking, or even thinking, about death here and now in the world we inhabit. The result of this denial is increased suffering when confronted with this reality.

No Delusions

Mindfulness? No thanks, our bellies are already full of minds.

Our cultural treatment of corpses smacks of unapologetic denial. We dress them in fancy clothes, do their makeup, and use toxic chemicals to preserve a life-like appearance. We adorn them in flowers and spend excessive amounts on coffins with extra features, as if they are some kind of luxury vehicle. Here’s the thing. Looking alive doesn’t make them less dead. And they’re not driving funeral Cadillacs to heaven. They’re going in the ground. The components that make up the body are breaking down and being recycled back into the universe. The sooner we can accept this fact, the sooner we can stop torturing ourselves with delusions of immortality. Nothing is permanent, and few things are as temporary and fragile as we are.

The Zombie Within

Buddhist monks have been meditating on corpses for centuries. They’d sit and watch the dead bloat and putrefy in the sun. Were they morbid weirdos or what? I don’t know. [Side note: TSOL fans might laugh at the amount of writing spent discouraging monks from looking at corpses of the opposite sex.] Maybe. But that’s beside the point. Watching those bodies rot, stink, and decompose must have changed the way those monks thought about their own bodies. Maybe the experience was jarring enough to instill an emotional separation between their sense of body and their composite sense of self.  If you understand that YOU are not your body, then you’re on your way to understanding anatta.

Anatta Creepin’… Corpse Peepin’

Rejected TSOL lyrics: “I’m better able to understand the nature of existence if she smells of formaldehyde!”

Like a lot of other things that were appropriate for early Buddhist monastics, corpse-sitting just doesn’t have a place in contemporary western culture. Or does it? Submitted for your approval: Exhibit A, 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead” (On Youtube or Hulu). Corpses abound. Death ensues. Many people hate zombie movies because they put you in touch with the 500 lb. gorilla in the room named “No-Matter-How-Pretty-You-Look-Now-You’re-Going-to-End-Up-as-a-Slimy-Bloated-Bag-of-Worm-Food.” Odd name for a gorilla, right? Facing our fears is always an uncomfortable prospect, but growth and comfort rarely come as a pair. NotLD is relatively light on gore and shock value (it was extremely low-budget, even by 1968 standards) but heavy on mood. And that’s what you want – to immerse yourself in the heaviness of impending doom.

Embrace Death. Appreciate Life.

That thing you call “myself” is just a grab bag of spare parts loaned out by the universe. And the universe reserves the right to recall that loan at any moment.  An increasing understanding of these facts make THIS moment – right now – reveal that much more specialness. And hey, if the abstract idea of impending death doesn’t help you stay mindful, few activities ground you in the present moment like being chased by the undead.

Happy Halloween

[AnattaBlog] We Can Haz teh Ghey Boodizum?

Das fairy Lolcat and his Boodizt boyfriend.

An announcement earlier this month proclaimed that Taiwan will soon hold its first Buddhist wedding ceremony for a gay couple, prompting the world to end, people to start marrying animals, gays to start giving away free toasters for new Taiwanese recruits, well, nothing at all. But surely the concept of gay marriage must be controversial in the Buddhist world. Why else would his be news?

The Dalai Lama, (mistakenly) considered by many Westerners to be a pope-like figurehead of all things Buddhist, opened a can of worms in 2004 when he said that gay sex is sexual misconduct. The concept of avoiding sexual misconduct comes from precept #3 traditionally observed by Buddhists. When Buddha gave the third precept was he condemning homosexuality?

“Is it weird that I violate precept number three with these three fingers?”

To make sense out this Westerners first need to rid themselves of the knee-jerk attempt to compare the 10 Buddhists precepts to the 10 commandments of Abrahamic religion. The 10 precepts (which differ to a certain extent based on sect, translation, etc., here reported as listed in Wikipedia) are:

1. Refrain from killing living things.
2. Refrain from stealing.
3. Refrain from unchastity (sensuality, sexuality, lust).
4. Refrain from lying.
5. Refrain from taking intoxicants.
6. Refrain from taking food at inappropriate times (after noon).
7. Refrain from singing, dancing, playing music or attending entertainment programs (performances).
8. Refrain from wearing perfume, cosmetics and garland (decorative accessories).
9. Refrain from sitting on high chairs and sleeping on luxurious, soft beds.
10. Refrain from accepting money.

The first five precepts are for all Buddhists. The second five are additions for bhikkhu, i.e. monks. Unlike Moses’ 10 commandments, Buddha’s 10 precepts don’t define sins or acts punishable by God. God’s will is not the driving factor that mandates these precepts. In fact, the precepts are more like helpful advice than mandates (except, maybe for some hardline traditional bhikku). They are not rules imposed externally to protect the universe from the devotee. They are guidelines for the devotee to internalize as a way to minimize or eliminate his/her own suffering.

The third precept is a reminder that physical pleasure (whether gay, straight, fetish, bdsm, skin flute playing, rusty trombones, hot carls, Turkish pancakes, cosplay, furries, Dutch rudders, et al.) can give rise to cravings and attachments. Cravings and attachments are precisely what Buddhists seek to minimize in their lives. There is no moral judgment attached to these precepts. They’re more like a warning label on a happy meal toy –  “This is meant to be played with, but know in advance that there are potential safety hazards when it is used improperly.”

See what I did there?

The only other applicable guideline concerning sexuality is compassion. Any act which is hurtful or harmful to another is to be avoided. Irrelevantly, there are people out there like this poor guy who will misconstrue statistics (in the article he suggests, for example, that a higher rate of suicide in the gay community is evidence) to argue that homosexuality is harmful. There are groups who refuse to draw a distinction between being gay and being a pedophile. Many have suggested that AIDS in God’s punishment for “the queers.”

Let’s be clear. Being a pedophile = Not cool. Being a rapist = Not cool. Spreading AIDS = Not cool. Suicide = Not cool. But only the truly bigoted believe that any of these things is the result, exclusive domain, or logical conclusion of homosexuality. Period.

Given this context it seems incredibly irresponsible to suggest that homosexuality has a lower place on the (non-existing-)totem-pole-of-Buddhist-sexual-orientation than heterosexuality. The Dali Lama has taken a well-deserved licking over his anti-gay statements and has clarified that the teachings he references may have only been appropriate in a certain historical context. He also says that consensual homosexual relationships between adults are fine, and that he fully supports the human rights of everyone regardless of orientation. But the damage has already been done. Hopefully “His Holiness” will be more careful when he opens his fat dumb mouth in the future. In a society where horrible anti-gay violence like this is happening, and this, and this, and a thousand others, not to mention buckets of denied rights for gays that act as a de facto cultural endorsement of second-class citizenry, any comment that suggests gays are lesser members of society is not in-line with the heart of Buddhist teachings.

The bottom line is that there is no conflict between Buddhism and gays. Anything other than kindness and compassion for everyone, including gays, straights, choking chickens, and Kirk Cameron, is not the Buddhist way.