Exploring Enlightenment

  I was reading a fair amount on Zen when I came across Dr. Bolte Taylor's TED talk.  Anybody out there ever heard of Symphony of Science, by the way?  Essentially, they are a series of mash-ups, employing auto-tunes for a more educational purpose than it was perhaps designed to deliver choice quotes from a host of eminent scientists on topics ranging from human exploration of Mars, to The Big Bang, to Quantum Theory.  There is also one on the human brain, which is where I was first introduced to the good doctor Bolte Taylor.  (As an aside, I was also drawn to Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, here is this mass of jelly, and highly recommend this book if you want to look at ruminations on the neural underpinnings of art appreciation (among other things))

     From auto-tunes it was to TED talks, as I mentioned previously, and I rewatched the twenty minute clip earlier this morning in an attempt to refresh my memory and/or lift some usable quotes.  There was about twenty minutes worth of them, but for a moment let's put that aside.

  I was reading a fair amount of zen, and while most of the books don't really spend a ton of time talking about it (and for good reason, as we will see late), like an overeager disciple clamoring at the feet of the great masters, I found myself drawn to the discussions of enlightenment.  What the hell is it?   In general the mind loves a good mystery, and as far as I was concerned enlightenment was a jewel of shifting smoke and cobwebs that I needed to get my hands on.  I feel like everybody has kind of heard the story before, especially if they've done the typical investigations into traditional East Asian culture.  A monk sits quietly under a tree for a long time and all of a sudden, POW, he figures it out.  Another monk is quietly scrubbing floor boards in a monastery when scritch, scritch, scritch, and BING, the lights go on.  Then they return to the temple grounds and hold forth in front of the other as-of-yet-unenlightened monks, offering unintelligible hints and what seem like fully-veiled clues as to how they can reach enlightenment too.  This gives rise to the tradition of ... what's the best way to describe them... riddles-that-are-not, called koan, perhaps the most well-known of which amongst Western people is the infamous sound of one hand clapping.  Here is another common one, called Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two:

Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. 

He seized the cat and told the monks: `If any of you say a good word, 

you can save the cat.'  No one answered. So Nansen boldly cut the cat in two pieces.

That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him about this. 

Joshu removed his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked out.

Nansen said: `If you had been there, you could have saved the cat.'

What, exactly, is the sound of one hand clapping?  Exactly what wisdom is Joshu displaying by putting his sandals on his head?  The problem with these things is that if you approach them armed with logic, well, then the cat gets cut in two.  They're not really logic problems.  What they are, I believe, is an injunction to use your brain in a drastically different way.  Hearkening back to our previous discussion, you'll recall that logic is largely a product of the left hemisphere of your brain, and if you try to reason out the sound of one hand clapping or decode the message in Joshu's sandal-hats then you're working from the left and in the context of the koan you're just making a lot of purposeless mental noise.  What these koan (and again, I'm not an expert so this is only slightly substantiated opinion) are often designed to do is get you to STOP thinking logically.  To get you to stop thinking at all.  What is the sound of one hand clapping?  Silence.  What was wrong with the warring monks reactions to Nansen's question that was right about Joshu's?  The problem is that they were trying to think of a good word, whereas Joshu realized that there were no good words and just said, fuck it, whatever, I'ma wear my shoes on my head and get out of here.  In essence, that's a stupid question, so here's the appropriate response.  Nansen, as we see, approves.

   But what's the big deal?  What's so wrong with words and logic problems and linear thinking?  This brings me to my ultimate thesis (if you could prop it up on such a pedestal) that Enlightenment (at least in the Zen tradition) requires a shift from left-brain dominant modes of thinking to a more right-brain oriented type of intuitive interaction with the world.  The thing is, all the historical figures who achieved Enlightenment in the past lived in times that were unlikely to have enough knowledge of the structural workings of the brain to know what was going on in there.  Which isn't to say that their empirical reports are off or do not align with a theory of an asymmetrical, hemispherically divergent mind.  道元禅師, Dogen-Zenshi, a man who lived (apparently) in the early 13th century and a big name (which literally means, Founder Zen Master) in the industry says a lot of things about meditation and its connection with enlightenment.  He is credited with writing a primer on za-zen (seated meditation in the zen tradition) called the 座禅用心記 (Za-zen Yo Shin-ki (maybe jin-ki)), which I suppose you could translate as A Primer on Za-Zen, and while I am by no means capable of reading and understanding that I did come across a modern interpretation of it called 「座禅用心記」に参ずる (Za-zen Yo Shin-ki ni Zan-zuru (Reading the Primer on Za-Zen)), from which, with a great struggle (that I gave up a third of the way through), I was nevertheless able to glean a few telling quotes.

  According to tradition, at one point in his career Dogen-Zenshi went to China to study under some other famous monk guy.  I don't really know who or where or whatever, I skipped names and stuff because they were too hard to understand.  The names don't matter.   What matters is 心身脱落.  Shin-shin Datsu-raku.  What is za-zen? the Chinese master asks Dogen-Zenshi.  Shin-Shin Datsu-Raku.  What does that mean?  Shin-shin datsu-raku.

  Ok, cool.  What does that mean for us?  The first two characters, 心身, in this instance essentially mean body and mind.  There's the old duality once again, but don't worry, in this context we can safely define the body and mind as a) physical sensations and b) thoughts.   脱落.  You can think of datsu-raku as shedding something, kind of like molting, more like taking off a robe and throwing it aside.  What does Dogen-Zenshi have to say about proper Zen meditation?  With what realization is he said to have achieved enlightenment?  We're simplifying here, but basically it's the sloughing off of all thoughts and definitions of self as described in bodily space.  Your mind is quiet, your self isn't bound by the limits of your skin, and you partake in a vast and indescribable peace or bliss or something along those lines.  Why can't you describe the way to enlightenment in plain words?  Because the only way to get there is by throwing words away.  If you can do that, then you will find you are actually one with the universe, you have reached Nirvana.

  Sounds like bullshit, right?  Wrong.  I would be a terrible architect because I can't plan worth shit, but I think the foundation is finally right and next time we will, I promise, discuss Jill Bolte Taylor and use her first hand experience of a left-brain-less life to give physical, scientific names to the esoteric experience of enlightened Buddhist monks of the ages.