Hardcore Zen : punk rock, monster movies and the truth about reality Part 8

Wilber then tells of how he trained himself to be conscious even during deep sleep. He brags that he spent some eleven days straight eleven days straight in this condition during a retreat at a monastery. in this condition during a retreat at a monastery.

If you do zazen long enough, this kind of stuff can happen. It's a kind of sickness. And one of the good effects of getting sick is that when you recover you see just how nice your regular condition is. Good teachers can help you get over this illness; bad teachers will just let you get sicker and sicker. Some of the most dangerous ones even encourage it, writing books with their handsome mug on the cover filled with twisted explanations that being sick is really the only true way to be healthy.

Being conscious during sleep states isn't anything to get too excited about. Delusions that exist during the day don't disappear when you shut your eyes. In fact, they often get far worse.

The problem with Wilber was that the poor guy mistook this special condition, this sickness, for enlightenment. Any kind of enlightenment that requires some mystical state is worse than useless. It just reinforces the belief that your "self" has some kind of objective reality. Who's going to have this exalted state of "heightened consciousness"? Who's going to float in the formless state of "no up, no down, no over and no there" Wilber claims to have discovered? Who's going to become enlightened? Why it's "you" of course!-your self-important self-existent selfish self!

I'LL TELL YOU, THOUGH, when I read this piece I was initially suckered by it. Wilber is a very persuasive writer-hypnotic and positively seductive. When you find yourself getting sucked in by something like that, you've got to take a step back, breathe a little, and see what your intuitions tell you. Does reading these things make you notice your own real life here and now? Or does it reinforce a fantasy about going off to exotic places to experience mysterious and wonderful altered states of consciousness-so very much higher than the mundane consciousness you've actually got? Does that kind of writing clarify your own inherent perfection or just draw attention the specialness of the author's insights and experiences?

You've been deceiving yourself for millions of years; it's what your brain evolved to do. But once you catch sight of balance and learn where the center is, you can use your brain differently and always find that center, that balance, and that true reality again in any moment.

Those eleven days of whacked-out uber- uber-consciousness must have been quite an adventure for Wilber. And adventures are fun. But after any adventure you've always got to come back home, back to the drab, dull, ordinary work-a-day world.

Why is that? This is a very important question: Why is your lame-a.s.s, ordinary work-a-day life the one you keep coming back to? Why is your lame-a.s.s, ordinary work-a-day life the one you keep coming back to? Why is it you always, always, always end up right back here no matter how far out or how high up you get? Why is it you always, always, always end up right back here no matter how far out or how high up you get?

The fact is, the universe has chosen you as the vehicle through which to experience the uncanny thrill of cutting up cabbage for dinner, the wonder that is inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, the fabulous spectacle of watching your clothes dry at a coin-op Laundromat where the radio is stuck on an EZ-listening station and an old lady keeps staring at you for no discernible reason. The universe has demanded that you be you. Ain't no avoidin' it.

What is true during dreamless sleep is true no matter whether you can recall the experience and write about it or not. What is true in a wh.o.r.ehouse in Bangkok is true whether you visit it and take Polaroids or not. What is true for six-legged aliens on the fifth planet circling Epsilon Centauri is true whether you go there and talk to them or not. You may never know the life your toothbrush leads when you're not around but it's certainly real.

There's a personal reason this particular piece of Wilber's writing had such an effect on me and why I'm spending all this ink writing about it now: It mirrors an experience of my own that was very important in clarifying for me one of the most vital points of Buddhist teaching.

ABOUT A YEAR AFTER my experience by the Sengawa River, I started to have some weird experiences in my sleep, a lot like Wilber's (though this was years before I read his piece). I wrote down the first one of mine a few hours after it happened: I woke up this morning around 3 or 4. It was raining hard and the sound must have woken me. There was this strange feeling then, like a gigantic open s.p.a.ce. I had the feeling that there was no one at all in the room, just the sound of the rain and some kind of movement. No personality at all. I couldn't understand the feeling, so I sat up to be sure I was really awake. After a while I went back to sleep. When I woke up again with the 6:30 alarm, the feeling had ended.

Very cool, huh? Very mystical and far out. But it didn't stop there...

I'm not sure how many nights later The Big One hit. Maybe a couple weeks. Maybe a month. It started off with coming to full awareness while deeply asleep. It wasn't a lucid dream. I've had so many of those I'm used to them by now. This was something entirely different. I was actually aware of that open formless state of deep dreamless sleep.

Real trippy, doncha think? And it gets even better. Soon I found myself surveying the entire universe much as G.o.d himself might do. I could perceive the whole of all creation all at once. I don't say I "saw" it because I didn't seem to have any eyes or any body. Or rather, the universe itself itself was my body and mind. I perceived galactic cl.u.s.ters and ma.s.sive star formations the way I normally perceive my own arms and legs. Or something. It's impossible to describe. was my body and mind. I perceived galactic cl.u.s.ters and ma.s.sive star formations the way I normally perceive my own arms and legs. Or something. It's impossible to describe.

The universe was evolving before me. I was aware that millions of years were pa.s.sing, yet I was experiencing them as mere moments. Again, description is impossible. Whatever. I saw the universe coming together. First one planet became unified into a single being. Not just the intelligent species but all life-forms on the planet and ultimately the planet itself. This spread through the planet's solar system and then on to other solar systems nearby. Meanwhile the same thing was happening in other parts of the universe millions of lightyears away. The unified sections gradually met each other and became bigger and bigger. Finally the entire universe consisted of just two "beings" composed of the combined matter and s.p.a.ce of a billion, trillion, G.o.dzillian galaxies. I was aware that millions of years were pa.s.sing, yet I was experiencing them as mere moments. Again, description is impossible. Whatever. I saw the universe coming together. First one planet became unified into a single being. Not just the intelligent species but all life-forms on the planet and ultimately the planet itself. This spread through the planet's solar system and then on to other solar systems nearby. Meanwhile the same thing was happening in other parts of the universe millions of lightyears away. The unified sections gradually met each other and became bigger and bigger. Finally the entire universe consisted of just two "beings" composed of the combined matter and s.p.a.ce of a billion, trillion, G.o.dzillian galaxies.

The two beings faced each other, and I, now one of those beings, felt exactly as I do when I face my wife. And we melted into each other. The whole universe, stretching on into infinite time and infinite s.p.a.ce, was now one single unified being. No tension. No fear. No compet.i.tion.

But the universe was lonely. There was no one to talk to. No one to share its experience with. No other. other. And with no other to contrast to, no self. To cure its loneliness it split into two again, then four, six, eight, and on and on until, over a period of billions upon billions of millennia it was back to being countless individual beings. At that point I felt myself swept back into my own body once more. I opened my eyes and I was in my bed. And with no other to contrast to, no self. To cure its loneliness it split into two again, then four, six, eight, and on and on until, over a period of billions upon billions of millennia it was back to being countless individual beings. At that point I felt myself swept back into my own body once more. I opened my eyes and I was in my bed.

IT'S DIFFICULT TO CONVEY the sheer power of this vision. Reading it back now, it just sounds like a really weird dream or a fair-to-middling science fiction story. But it was utterly real to me. As real as any experience I've ever had in my life. Realer.

Unlike what happened after my Sengawa River experience, I was in a daze following this one. It was difficult to concentrate on such trivia as work when I'd seen the whole history of the universe from the point of view of G.o.d.

I wasn't sure what to make of what had happened. In all the time I'd spent listening to lectures by Nishijima and Tim they'd never described anything like merging with the mind of G.o.d and watching the beginning and end of the universe unfold. Dogen never wrote about anything like that in the Shobogenzo Shobogenzo. Buddha himself never spoke of such things. Yet I was certain the experience had been real.

Finally I screwed up my nerve and decided to tell Nishijima about it. There were some things going on that prevented me from seeing him face-to-face just then, so I wrote him a long e-mail describing everything in minute detail. I don't know what I expected to hear back from him. Perhaps a fatherly, "Yes, my son, you have glimpsed the secret truth. But you must never speak of it to others, for only when they are ready shall they learn of such things."

But that wasn't what he said.

He sent me back an e-mail the next day saying that what I experienced was just a fantasy. It would "never come true even in the future." Furthermore, he said that someone like me who worked "in the animation business"10 needs to be more realistic. needs to be more realistic.

I was devastated.

Why couldn't he understand? This wasn't a fantasy! This was true! It had nothing to do with my working in "the animation business." This was serious and deeply profound. Come on! Merging With The Mind Of G.o.d! Merging With The Mind Of G.o.d! How can you get any deeper and more profound? How can you get any deeper and more profound?

I nearly cried as I read his e-mail to me. I'm sure I would have broken down if he'd said that to me in person. I spent the whole morning just feeling sorry and confused. It was a huge come-down. There could be none more huge.

BUT AS THE DAY WORE ON, I began to notice a few things that I'd been too stupid to suss out for the past few weeks. For one thing, if your experience of enlightenment is real, no one can ever take it from you or deny it. Enlightenment means manifesting truly what you really are at every moment. No amount of criticism from anyone can ever take that away any more than someone's critical words could somehow magically make your nose disappear.11 No one can take you away from you. No one can take you away from you.

But my big experience of merging with G.o.d, however profound and moving it was at the time, was in the past. It wasn't here and it wasn't now. In fact, the memory was so powerful it was standing in the way of my real experience of here and now. I was sacrificing my real, everyday existence for a dream. Whether I really experienced the beginning and end of the universe or not was entirely beside the point. It didn't matter right now because right now that was not what I was experiencing. I was experiencing being a formerly elated guy sitting at his desk in an office in Tokyo feeling sorry for himself. What happened that night was gone. Gone like the day I received the Buddhist precepts, gone like the day I first heard the Heart Sutra, gone like every gig Zero Defex ever played, gone like my first kiss was gone, gone like my childhood in Nairobi was gone. Gone, gone, gone, never to return no matter how much I wished, grieved, or fantasized.

This kind of thing is a common problem among zazen pract.i.tioners. They have these really cool experiences, or really cutting insights, and then they latch onto them forever, like a pitbull onto a postman's a.s.s-effectively missing ........... out on the rest of their lives. It's a game the ego plays: if it can't keep you believing in it through all the usual methods, it tosses something that feels just like what you always imagined enlightenment ought to feel like. Once you start believing in that stuff your ego's got you right where it wants you. You'll never be able to look at your day-to-day life honestly again.

But you've got to forget all of that stuff and get back to where you are.

BY LUNCHTIME I'd been mulling over Nishijima's e-mail for a couple hours and I just felt kind of doomed to trudge through the rest of my dumb, sad, sorry little life.

But there was something else twinkling at the edge of my mind. I knew my life wasn't really bad at all. It was a lovely thing. It was a precious, fragile, and very valuable thing. There are many diamonds in the world and if you lose your favorite, you can work hard, earn a lot of money and get another one to replace it. But the moments of your life aren't like that. Once they're gone, they'll never return. Each and every one is the most precious thing in existence. You can never meaningfully compare one moment with any other. You can never meaningfully compare your life with anyone else's. No matter how rich someone else may be, no matter how happy they look, no matter how enlightened they seem, they can never be you. Never, ever, ever.

Only you can live your life.

My wife had given me a mikan mikan, a kind of j.a.panese tangerine, for lunch that day-and I sat at my desk and started to peel it. As I watched the peel come free from the fruit, I was struck by how beautiful it was. It was one tangerine, perfect in its own way. The orange color leapt out at me, as if it was glowing from the inside, brighter than a neon light. The intensity of its beauty was almost painful to me. I've seen some beautiful sights in my life: sunset over the Pacific from the western sh.o.r.e of Maui, Mount Kilimanjaro rising above the plain as elephants and giraffes saunter by in the foreground, the tranquil dignity of ancient Buddhist temples. But at that moment nothing could compare to that little tangerine in my hands. I felt so grateful just to be me, just to be sitting at my desk, just to be able to peel and taste and eat that tangerine. No one else would ever taste that tangerine.

When I got back home I sent Nishijima another e-mail telling him about the tangerine and thanking him for setting me straight. The next day I got his reply: "Eating a tangerine is real enlightenment." It was something he really didn't need to say. Still, I was glad he did.

I FEEL SORRY FOR KEN WILBER and other folk like him. I really do. Maybe I shouldn't-since Ken's far richer and way more famous than I'll ever be. But either he never had a teacher who told him the truth, or if he did he missed it and chose to dwell in his own fantasies instead. At the same time, I understand his situation. I could easily have gone down that same road: Had Nishijima confirmed my experience of Oneness With G.o.d as "real enlightenment," I would've been sucked right in. I could've stayed that way for years, I'm sure, possibly forever. Or I could have followed my initial feeling upon reading Nishijima's e-mail and rejected what he said. I could have decided Nishijima was obviously less enlightened than I believed him to be, and less enlightened than I clearly now was. It would've been no trouble at all to find another teacher who'd have confirmed my experience. Or I could've dispensed with teachers altogether and just decided to start building up my own cult of personal hero-worshipers, all striving to have the same supercool experience I had had.

But I couldn't really do any of those things because I knew better and I had to be honest with myself about it. It's a frightening thing to be truly honest with yourself. It means you have no one left to turn to anymore, no one to blame, and to one to look to for salvation. You have to give up any possibility that there will ever be any refuge for you. You have to accept the reality that you are truly and finally on your own. The best thing you can hope for in life is to meet a teacher who will smash all of your dreams, dash all of your hopes, tear your teddy-bear beliefs out of your arms and fling them over a cliff.

WHY IS IT that we prefer fantasies to what our life really is? If some great "enlightened being" tells us what his life is like, why shouldn't we aspire to that instead? What's the difference between Wilber telling us that he floats forever free in the sea of "no up and no down," and me telling you about my experience by Sengawa River or my a.s.sertion that there really is no "self"?

If you really want to know the answers to these questions, you have to examine your own life very closely and with complete honesty. And you have to find out for yourself.

People are very much alike. Our brains are all similar in a very deep way. What appeals to one person will pretty much appeal at some level to just about anyone else. Certain fantasies are universal and very compelling-like the Coca-Cola of our minds, flavors that tap something so basic it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like them at least a little. of our minds, flavors that tap something so basic it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like them at least a little.

These basic human fantasies have been with us since our species first arose. Stories that tap into these fantasies have tremendous power to appeal to huge numbers of people. But the truth is more powerful. Always.

So the question becomes this: How do we know what is true and what is fantasy?

And the answer: Take a look at where you are, at who you are, right here and right now. That's it. That's the truth.

HARDCORE ZEN.

You ain't no punk, you punk.

You wanna talk about the real junk?

"GARBAGEMAN" BY THE CRAMPS FROM THE ALb.u.m BAD MUSIC FOR BAD PEOPLE

ZEN IS A PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION. That means it isn't just a philosophy you read about and think about. It's a philosophy you do. do. You can't possibly truly understand Zen Buddhism without practicing zazen. You can't possibly truly understand Zen Buddhism without practicing zazen.

It's not enough to read about it. It's not even enough to understand it. You have to live it.

So why don't more people do it? The scholars, the armchair masters, the people who love the idea idea of meditation, but who just can't commit to actually doing it-why don't they sit zazen? In of meditation, but who just can't commit to actually doing it-why don't they sit zazen? In Zig Zag Zen, Zig Zag Zen, psychologist Charles Tart says, "It's clear that many of us Westerners have such hyperactive minds and complex psychological dynamics that it is very difficult to quiet and discipline our minds enough to make any real progress along the meditative path." psychologist Charles Tart says, "It's clear that many of us Westerners have such hyperactive minds and complex psychological dynamics that it is very difficult to quiet and discipline our minds enough to make any real progress along the meditative path."

"Westerners can't meditate" is a favorite excuse for not doing zazen-but man, I hate racism especially when it pretends to be rational and philosophical. In j.a.pan, where they obviously can't use this excuse, folks like to believe that only priests can do zazen, that other folks are somehow unqualified.

Another excuse I hear is that modern people just "don't have the time" for it. Why would you want to waste time sitting on a cushion staring at a wall when there are so many "important" things you could be doing, like watching a rerun of The Simpsons, The Simpsons, logging on to the internet to see if anything crucial has been added since this morning, or hanging out getting into a condition you'll regret the next day? logging on to the internet to see if anything crucial has been added since this morning, or hanging out getting into a condition you'll regret the next day?

You may be busy with work and family and responsibilities and all that, I sure am, but I'll bet you also waste a h.e.l.l of a lot of time every day. You devote hours and hours each week to "relaxing" in ways that aren't relaxing in the least. You kill time. You steal a nap. You screw off.

If you were bound and gagged inside a wooden barrel just about to head over Niagara Falls, you'd pray for just one minute more to live. And yet, while you're alive, what do you do? You get bored. You wish to be elsewhere. You wish to get whatever you're doing now over with. You want to speed by those boring minutes like your life is a video where you can fast-forward through the commercials. When the end comes you'll be wishing you could have back all those boring moments you zipped through. But you killed them. Dead and gone. Try putting some of that time to good use and see what happens.

The fact is, the great Eastern masters of times gone-by are no different from you. Their minds were just as hyperactive as yours and their psychological dynamics every bit as complex. The heights of enlightenment they reached are absolutely accessible to you. This stuff is tough work for anybody, regardless of where they were born or when. Cut out just a bit of those empty distractions and see how much time you create.

TIM ONCE TOLD ME A STORY about Kobun Chino leading a zazen practice. Kobun showed up late and everyone else in the room was already doing zazen. Kobun came in, sat down, looked around at everyone diligently practicing, chuckled and said, "What a stupid thing to do." Then he rang the bell signaling the start of the zazen period.

No doubt about it, though, zazen is a stupid thing to do. Zazen is also boring. You couldn't possibly find a duller practice.

And you don't have to do it at all, but if you decide you want to try it, here's how.

It couldn't be simpler, actually. Go to a quiet place. It doesn't need to be completely silent, but quieter is often better, at least in the beginning. A fairly bright room is good, because it tends to prevent dozing off. Find yourself a cushion to sit on. Take one off your couch or use your bed pillow. Rolled up blankets do nicely, too. Fold or fluff or do whatever you need to make your cushion a few inches high, just enough to lift your b.u.t.t off the ground and tilt your pelvis downward a little. Sit on it facing a blank undecorated wall. Cross your legs in front of you. If you know how to do the full-lotus or half-lotus positions, and you really feel like it, you can twist your legs up like that.

Modified Cross-Legged Position If you can manage the full-lotus, this is the most "stable" position. If these positions don't feel comfortable, don't do them. Just sit in a modified version of what we used to call Indian-style with your legs loosely crossed and your ankles flat on the floor. The most important thing is to make your spine straight. It should feel as if your vertebrae are balanced on top of each other. Find a position where you are using as little energy as possible to maintain your erect spine. You want to balance all your meat and bones on top of your pelvis. Now tilt your head down slightly, tucking your chin in a bit.

The Complete Posture The traditional hand-position is what's called the universal mudra universal mudra.

The Universal Mudra You put your hands together facing palms-up at about belly-b.u.t.ton level, then make a little circle with your thumbs together on top. The advantage of the full- or half-lotus posture here is that you can use your feet like a little table to rest your hands on when doing the mudra. Rest your wrists on the tops of your thighs.

Now sit there and breathe normally, not real deep, not real shallow. Not fast, not slow. Just let it go on, in and out. Don't make any effort to stop your thoughts. But if you find yourself drifting off into some reverie, straighten your spine. In all my years of sitting, I've never found myself drifting off without my spine going correspondingly slack or out of alignment. When your posture is right, thoughts slow by themselves. Or they don't. And if they don't, don't worry too much. Just keep on sitting.

You may find that your legs fall asleep. No big deal. If that happens you can do one of two things: not worry about it and just take your time standing up after zazen, so you don't fall over, or you can shift your legs a little. Personally, I shift my legs and get back to zazen. Just be careful you don't spend your entire time shifting around.

If you've absolutely gotta scratch, scratch. If you've absolutely gotta fix your legs cuz you're just in excruciating pain or something, fix your legs. Whatever stuff like that needs doing, do it with as little fuss as possible and return to the position. But also experiment with not worrying about all that so much. Do this for as long as you can stand it, but no more than forty-five minutes at a stretch. And consistency on a day-to-day basis is far more important than duration at any one time.

Morning is the best time for zazen but evenings are also good. Twenty minutes in the morning and twenty before bed is good for starters. I try to put in an hour a day, but I'm a gung-ho kinda guy.

This style of zazen is traditionally called shikantaza shikantaza, or "just sitting." This is the real deal, sisters and brothers. This is hardcore Zen. There are other forms of meditation where you're given objects to concentrate on, mantras to recite, special ways of breathing and so on. There are practices that grade certain levels of concentration, leading students from the lowest levels up to the most exalted. There are temples where they come around and whack you with a stick if they think you're not sitting right. Hardcore Zen isn't like that. Everything non-essential has been stripped away. That other stuff is like swimming with Water-Wings or riding a bike with training wheels. You won't really learn to balance on your bike until you take the training wheels off, and you'll never learn how to keep yourself afloat if you don't you ditch the Water-Wings or riding a bike with training wheels. You won't really learn to balance on your bike until you take the training wheels off, and you'll never learn how to keep yourself afloat if you don't you ditch the Water-Wings. When you're ready for the real thing, you've gotta lose the props. No two ways about it.

The practice of zazen has to be approached with care. Remember those demons I told you about? You've got 'em too. And if you're not careful they can do real damage. If things start getting a little too heavy, back off for a while. Stop doing zazen if it really starts to bug you. Or seek out a good teacher or even a therapist if that's your thing.

Probably, though, zazen will just be boring.

But as simple as zazen is, it's best to have a teacher. Your teacher is a friend who can help you deal with the things that come up during the practice. Good ones aren't that hard to find. The best Zen teachers don't go making fools of themselves by writing books, like me. They're mostly quiet, una.s.suming folks with little groups. Don't worry whether the teacher you find is going to be the Best In The World or not. Go and see what he or she is all about. If it's not right, you'll work that out soon enough.

Sit zazen.

And rest a.s.sured, by sitting staring at blank walls you can transform everything. Everything. Everything. This is not a metaphor. This is not exaggeration. This is the simple fact of the matter. This is not a metaphor. This is not exaggeration. This is the simple fact of the matter.

ZEN REPLACES ALL OBJECTS OF BELIEF with one single thing: reality itself. We believe only in this universe. We don't believe in the afterlife. We don't believe in the sovereignty of nations. We don't believe in money or power or fame. We don't believe in our idols. We don't believe in our positions or our possessions. We don't believe we can be insulted, or that our honor or the honor of our family, our nation or our faith can be offended. We don't believe in Buddha.

We just believe in reality. Just this.

Zen doesn't ask you to believe in anything you cannot confirm for yourself. It does not ask you to memorize any sacred words. It doesn't require you to worship any particular thing or revere any particular person. It doesn't offer any rules to obey. It doesn't give you any hierarchy of learned men whose profound teachings you must follow to the letter. It doesn't ask you to conform to any code of dress. It doesn't ask you to allow anyone else to choose what is right for you and what is wrong.

Zen is the complete absence of belief. Zen is the complete lack of authority. Zen tears away every false refuge in which you might hide from the truth and forces you to sit naked before what is real. That's real refuge.

Reality will announce itself to you in utterly unmistakable ways once you learn to listen. Learning to listen to reality, though, ain't so easy. You're so used to shouting reality down, drowning it out completely with your own opinions and views, that you might not even be able to recognize reality's voice anymore. It's a funny thing, though, because reality is the single most glaringly obvious thing there is. As the woman said in those old Palmolive commercials, "You're soaking in it!" Yet we've forgotten how to recognize it. commercials, "You're soaking in it!" Yet we've forgotten how to recognize it.

All your life you learned to deal with reality by excluding certain things, dividing things up into categories, differentiating between this and that. But reality includes all those things we call "wrong," all those things we call "evil," all those things we hate because we know in our hearts they are bad things. We can only know what's "bad" when we discover it within ourselves and label it as such. But what happens is that we establish psychological blinders that prevent us from even seeing that what we consider bad is part of our own psychological makeup. To face reality as it is means we must face even the bad things about ourselves, the things we desperately want to believe are not there because we so desperately want to cling to the idea that we are "good."