Seth and Zen

[Dreamer]

Hi!

I may say that Buddhism does indeed come closer in essence to reality than other religions. However, the Buddhists either have not gone far enough, or have gone too far, according to your viewpoint.

- TES4 Session 177.   

Seth told us a few things about Buddhism. But why did he differentiate between Buddhism and Zen?

TES7 Session 304:

There are some shortcomings in Zen philosophies that we shall discuss at another time. The system is basically a good one but the flaw, one in particular, is a tragic one. And within your system such flaws can lead many astray.

Did Seth specify this statement about Zen (again: not about Buddhism!) in another session? Zen is bascially good but there's one flaw. One!

I am wondering why Seth talked about the few negative factors of Buddhism (Karma doctrine, abstinence and so on), but saw only one problem with Zen.   

[inavalan]

@Dreamer

It doesn't seem, to me, that Seth makes the important distinction between Zen and non-Japanese Buddhism that you observed. He doesn't say that Zen has only one flaw; he says that "one particular" flaw is tragic ("one particular" means, to me, one of at least two, but could be more).


I guess you did a search for "Zen" and found the following two quotes from Rob, and from Jane:

"In the Seth books we've deliberately refrained from commenting upon the similarities that exist between Seth's ideas and those of various religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines from the Near, Middle, or Far East. This approach fits our natures, of course. Jane and I know that such correlations exist — indeed, we'd only be surprised if they didn't. Others have often mentioned them to us, and we've done a little reading on Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, and Taoism, for example, not to mention subjects like shamanism, voodooism, and obeah. It's obvious, we think, that a book could be written comparing the Seth material with other systems of thought, whether religious or not, but Jane and I, being individualists, have chosen not to concentrate upon those areas. Nor is what I'm writing here meant to be taken as an attempt to put down other approaches to "basic" reality."
—UR1 Introductory Notes by Robert F. Butts

""But as I think the word is interpreted, I'm not a mystic. In usual terms the state implies a far greater compassion and goodness than I possess; an inner graciousness that I sense but rarely achieve; and a patience with people that I lack. A piousness that I dislike, too. These are the Christian versions; but a certain fanaticism often goes with them that I would find most distasteful. Some forms of Zen extoll the virtues of good rambunctious humor, which I favor, but then ideas of renunciation clutter up both Eastern and Western mystic philosophies, as far as I know ..."
—UR1 Appendix 1: (For Session 679) Seth on Jane's "Deeply Mystical Nature," and Her Own Comments.

I also think that the preceding sentence to your Zen quote is important:

"You may of course realize its nature, and this is a step forward. The teacher who gives you the book is reading another book, and acting another part. There are some shortcomings in Zen philosophies that we shall discuss at another time. The system is basically a good one but the flaw, one in particular, is a tragic one. And within your system such flaws can lead many astray."
—TES7 Session 304 November 28, 1966

It is related to everyone creating their own reality. There is no "fact" ...


Wiki says (my underline):

Zen emphasizes rigorous self-restraint, meditation-practice, insight into the nature of mind (見性, Ch. jiànxìng, Jp. kensho, "perceiving the true nature") and nature of things (without arrogance or egotism), and the personal expression of this insight in daily life, especially for the benefit of others. As such, it de-emphasizes knowledge alone of sutras and doctrine, and favors direct understanding through spiritual practice and interaction with an accomplished teacher or Master.

From the little I know about Buddhism and Zen, they don't emphasize "you create your own reality", or at least not close to the way the Seth material does.

To me, the "tragic flaw" is that it points to "nothing". It is like getting in front of a closed door to "knowledge", and falsely "realizing" that that is the "true nature", instead of opening that door and facing the infinite knowledge of an infinitely diverse reality, encompassing an infinite number of identities, in an infinite hierarchy (gestalt over gestalt). This is tragic: to stop in front of the door to knowledge and not open it.

I also think that following any guru / teacher or dogma is a tragic mistake. The only way is turning inwards, and tapping your own source of knowledge and guidance: your own Seth-like guide, who just waits for your permission to help you (with knowledge and guidance).

https://speakingofseth.com/index.php/topic,2830.msg23257.html#msg23257

https://speakingofseth.com/index.php/topic,2825.msg23235.html#msg23235

... I will help each of you according to the extent to which you allow me to help you—and therein, indeed, lies a mighty tale. There are others ready to help you—again, when you are ready to permit their aid.

... The days are finished when you can just listen.

https://speakingofseth.com/index.php?msg=23143

There are as I have told you no limitations to the self. It grows by growing, and by constant use of its abilities. It can be said that all consciousnesses and all identities are but one. This in no way negates the existence of any given identity however. All identities are more dependent upon each other, and yet more independent, than you imagine.

[inavalan]

I would also point to this quote (regarding the "tragic flaw" of Zen):

https://speakingofseth.com/index.php/topic,2831.msg23262.html#msg23262

... you must learn first of all what a clear focus is.

You will not learn it by trying to escape your own reality, or by attempting to dull your senses. This can only teach you what it means not to focus, and in whatever reality you visit the ability to focus clearly and well is a prerequisite. Once you learn how to really tune in, then you will understand what it means to change the direction of your focus.

[inavalan]

This talk about then reminds of an instructional story:

Bobbie-san

When Jan lived in Maine, he got a visit from a Zen monk. At first, Jan thought his visitor was Japanese because he dressed like one and behaved like one. As it turned out, he was actually an American who spent many years in a Zen temple in Nagasaki and somehow managed to totally blend in with the Japanese culture. Jan writes:

Bobbie-san stayed in my studio for a while. I was elated. Here was what I had longed to become long ago, a fully trained, fully enlightened, bilingual, bicultured Western Zen monk. My hero. Maitreya himself, the legendary future Buddha.

Bobbie-san had completed his koan study, had done his umpteen years in sodo and zendo training, had weathered all upheavals the tough Nagasaki zendo had devised to test his endurance, insight, egolessness, so why doubt any of this magnificent status?

It took a few days of chopping wood in my backyard, fertilizing the broccoli patch, harvesting mussels on the shore of the cove my land overlooks, discussing the finer points of Maitreya's mission, before Bobbie-san jumped up from his cushion, one quiet evening in front of the fireplace where three sticks of "summer wood" (which is what Mainers call alder) burned spectacularly, shook me by the shoulders, looked into my eyes, and whispered fiercely, "It's all bullshit, you fool!"

"These days," Bobbie said, "any self-respecting Zen teacher has to have his white disciple. Americans are particularly popular [...] The Japanese contemporary point was that only Japanese masters know the meaning of nonmeaning, the sound of silence, and the location of the mustard jar that Abraham found. However, these masters were willing to share. They were passing their enlightenment to Bobbies. It was a Buddhist new-age thing, this insistence on having a white disciple. It was a fad, Bobbie claimed. He, Bobbie, had been declared to be the most perfect white disciple around, which gave his teacher a lot of face.

Bobbie, Harvard graduate, who came with an IQ in the high hundreds, had picked up Japanese so well that Nagasaki folks thought he was one of them and summoned their protective spirits when they were told he was a green-eyed demon. "You know how many kanji, Japanese characters, I know" Bobbie-san asked me. "No? All of them. You know how many sutras, Buddhist scripture, I can chant in formalized classic Chinese? All of them, too. You know how much lay folks pay to have me perform the rites at their home altars? Up to a thousand dollars."

He made me think of the man at the top of the pole, another koan that Sensei had me break my brain on. Top of the pole, but I hadn't got there yet. Bobbie-san evidently had. His teacher kept telling him "You're there, you've done it, but you're too young. You have to be my private attendant, hang out with me, learn the practice now that you have the theory—soon I'll launch you on your career." Top of the pole? Some famous commentary says, "Take the next step." That's what I finally came up with too.

Janwillem van de Wetering, Afterzen, Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear, Chapter 4

His teacher insisted that Bobbie-san had found the real thing. Fifty-nine other Zen teachers backed up the verdict. Sixty Zen masters have got to be right. They had all walked the way themselves. Finish koan study and the pupil is done and only needs to be confirmed as a master. A mere formality that Bobbie-san's teacher would perform in due time. What was this sudden doubting? So Bobbie-san had a bit of an upset in the Tokyo hotel— happens to the best of saints. Listen to your betters. Stick with tradition. Wear your Zen bib and shave your skull. Chant the sutras.

"So what are you doing now?" I asked my guest.

Bobbie-san had been asked to leave the temple when he'd refused to be confirmed as a teacher to be sent into the world with the blessing of his master. He was traveling now. Checking things out. Looking at options.

Bobbie-san said he might grow his hair and dress in jeans and a jacket for a while. Zen priests can do that when they feel they need a different experience "to flesh out their insights." Zen priests aren't sworn to celibacy, either. Bobbie planned to rent a Toyota Land Cruiser for his sabbatical, tour Japan, stay at inns, look around, meet some women.

"Get away from Manjusri, the disciplinary deity, embrace Kwannon, goddess of compassion. Take the next step. Get off my hundred-foot pole."

Janwillem van de Wetering, Afterzen, Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear, Chapter 4

Death of a Zen Master

Jan and Bobbie-san met again in Maine, at Jan's house, some 20 years later. After Bobbie-san had been on his own for a while, he was suddenly invited back to Japan again. Jan writes:

Bobbie-san had been literally pushed out of the monastic gate for refusing to be his master's spiritual heir, but time heals even Zen-inflicted wounds and after ten years there had been a reconciliation. The old abbot was about to celebrate forty years as a teacher. His heirs and students, including Bobbie-san, came to the mother temple. The buildings had been cleaned and redecorated. Choirs chanted sutras. Dancing priests performed elaborate rituals. Incense smoldered everywhere. The current class of monks had pulled every last weed from the moss gardens. Giant golden carp swam between the water lilies in cleaned ponds. Windows and doors were repapered. Paths were raked. All the lay supporters of the temple came with their families, most of the women in colorful clothes to suit the occasion. There were lots of little kids. Dignitaries, both clerics and government officials, delivered congratulatory speeches. The cooks had prepared the vegetarian foods that are the fame of Zen kitchens. There was plenty of sake.

Most priests were aware that the master had a drinking problem, which had been getting worse over the years, but because of all the revelry no one was paying attention. Suddenly, the master's quavering voice, amplified by a powerful sound system donated by one of the great electronic corporations, reached every corner of all the Zen buildings, gardens, and yards. "I want to get m-a-a-a-a-a-r-rrried," the master was chanting. After that he sobbed loudly.

"No!" I tried to cover my ears and eyes simultaneously.

Yes. The old drunk felt lonely, Bobbie-san told me. Zen masters can marry, but those who choose to become monastic teachers usually do not. The sex drive, Bobbie assured me, does not get sublimated spiritually, as religious textbooks claim. Sexual longing is programmed into human genes; frustrate it and it becomes demonic. Twisted devils bide their chance to get out in the open. The master's demons kicked down the door of their cell at the great jubilee party. There was the party-pig sage; clutching his microphone, keeping up his wailing and sobbing while his monks rushed about trying to switch off the loudspeakers.

No! I was still covering my eyes. This was as bad as the Zen archer I had seen on Dutch TV, a Japanese archery-adept in robes, bowing, kneeling, dancing, praying before he pulled his bow's string and had his arrow miss the target completely. Colleagues in the Amsterdam constabulary saw that show. "Wasn't that what you studied in Japan? Zen? Is that why you are bad at pistol practice?"

Bobbie-san's low voice kept extending the plot line of the Nagasaki jubilee party. The master was taken to his quarters and kept there, supervised by strong monks, until he sobered up. A committee of high priests faced him a few days later. "No more drinking." The master slipped a few times and was institutionalized for a while. Declared sane and sound, he returned. Monastic training started up again.

Janwillem van de Wetering, Afterzen, Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear, Chapter 15

As usual, after early morning meditation, at 4 AM, the monks started lining up to see the master in the sanzen room. Waiting for the sound of the masters little bell. But nothing happened. The monks were patiently kneeling on the hard floor. Their legs began to hurt. They thought the master was trying to teach them a lesson, testing them, probably trying to break their egos. No one dared to move or make a sound. Finally, the cook got suspicious. Something wasn't right. He asks the head monk to take a look. The head monk doesn't dare to break protocol. The cook insists. The head monk hesitates, but eventually gets up and walks to the sanzen room, kneels down and faces the little platform where the master sits. But the cushion on the little platform is empty. As he starts looking around, he sees the master hanging on a rope above him, naked. After they cut down the master's body from the ceiling, they found a calligraphy, that only showed one single Chinese character - dreams. That was the master's farewell message.

This
             "once he got out into the streets and into the market place, where his 'accomplishments' are put to a reality test, he failed"

raises an interesting question: should an accomplished Zen master be ready to deal with any environment unfamiliar to him, as well as those who regularly deal with that environment? I don't know what a Zen Master is supposed to know, what he prepares for.

This question expands further into: should spiritual practice prepare one for the life here in the physical, or for the beyond in the non-physical?

Are we here to make the best of here, or to prepare for our return to where we came from?

Why are we here?

Jan's testing of Bobbie-san's ingenuity comes from his expectations of what a Zen Master should be capable of.

Jan's reasoning in his own words, when Bobbie-san and Jan met again several years later, as to why he did what he did when they met for the first time:

[...] I had "checked him out" in various ways, thinking I shouldn't miss the chance to figure out a saint, sage, or whatever term applies to a human in the selfless state. Sensei had done extensive Zen training too, but as a layman, and had never received a seal of final approval. Bobbie-san had successfully completed first monkish, then priestly, sodo and zendo training. To me, in those earlier days, that would equate with having learned all, ergo, there you are. No more koans. So then what happens? (I knew better by now—nothing much happens, except some people go crazy, like a lady disciple of Sensei's who, released after solving all koans in Sensei's book, found freedom too much to cope with and needed serious treatment for the rest of her life.) During that first meeting I was sure I couldn't compare my spiritual insights with Bobbie's, but I had thought of another way to analyze his status. I had always been led to believe that "realized" Zen men are superbly practical. The egoless being cannot be beaten. No matter what comes up, they spread their spiritual arms and sail gracefully across the hurdle.
Zen-Rambo.
I called Bobbie-san that now and he laughed, "I boasted, didn't I? Zen-Rambos don't do that. You found me lacking."
The lacking was mutual. What kind of a host uses a guest for a spiritual guinea pig, but that's what happened. During that first encounter I used my own habitat to test the allegedly enlightened visitor...

Janwillem van de Wetering, The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, Chapter 15

[Mark M]

"Did Seth specify this statement about Zen (again: not about Buddhism!) in another session?"

In my reading, I never encountered that he did.

There seems there were some occasions, maybe only a small handful, where he'd make a remark, mention an intent to elaborate later, but it didn't happen.

I think in NoPR, he said one of the gospels was a counterfeit but said something like he didn't want at that time to say which one. I think Jane detected it was Matthew if I am not mistaken.

Then again, early on, he made a remark that there'd be 40 years of Jane's channeling, but that got "cut short."