Some months ago I had a refreshing conversation on Zen ethics with a fellow hermit on Mastodon. We're equally sceptical of quietism – the religious posture by which forms are judged sufficient to practice and action anathema – and our discussion helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on a matter that's critically pressing.
The quietist temptation pervades contemplative religions: this notion that real Zenners sit serenely with a satisfied smirk on their faces while injustice gallops unchallenged and others suffer.
It's easy to mistake that for dharma.
Quietism is the opposite of theological activism: the idea that true practice means doing good outside in the Red Dust World. Western Zenners most commonly encounter its ad absurdum form in those Christians who are called to sing, exhort, and engage in public "praise" (an archaic word for advertising) by way of filibustering hesitant believers and driving converts to the fold, where they too will presumably join in such questionable practice.
We non-Christians and former Christians tend to lean hard on this demographic when the topic of activism comes up, since this sort of exercise is easily criticised. But let us note also the Christians who care for the poor and imprisoned; assist the stranger and the foreigner; educate the illiterate; raise the downtrodden; and actively enhance the levels of hope and opportunity in their community.
A rare few publicly oppose deliberate evil, often at significant personal risk, while others – Quakers, for example – go so far as to confront passive evil. While a minuscule fraction of the whole, these last still trounce the percentage of Buddhists doing it.
Which brings me back to the exchange with my brother. We began on common ground, agreeing that the popular Zen position that practice excuses us from protest is erroneous. That, said I, is an illogical conclusion; ethical people act, and as I've written before, if practice doesn't result in an ethical person, there's no need of it. (I, for example, am already a fully-transmitted Self-Absorbed Jackass. No need for cushions, candles, or things that go ding to attain that.)
In the end, my brother summed up this entire meditation in words he'd come to several years ago:
"If you don't sometimes sit down and shut up, you'll never be enlightened.
"If you don't sometimes stand up and shout, there's no reason to be enlightened."
He also offered an alternative phrasing (another translation, what) that I call "the Rinzai version":
"If you never get your ass on the cushion, you can never become enlightened.
"If you never get your ass off the cushion, there is no point to becoming enlightened."
Regular readers will comprehend which of these I'm most given to.
(Photograph of police arresting a Buddhist sitting lotus during the Clayoquot Sound protests courtesy of Aldo de Moor and Wikimedia Commons.)
Enlightenment is the stated goal of Buddhism, possibly the only doctrine all denominations share, though variously defined.
As far as I know, all Zen lineages, diverse though we are, uphold the conviction that enlightenment is possible in this life; that it comes irrespective of social and material distinctions; and that meditation is the fundamental discipline of enlightenment practice.
In theory, we also hold our leaders to a "maximum illumination" standard; that is, the teacher must be the most enlightened person in the zendo. The old Chàn chronicles preserve accounts of itinerant peasants summarily unseating exalted abbots in dharma combat. And if that martial art has now mellowed to ritual sparing between genial sanghamates, in those old Chinese records it's presented as deadly earnest.
All of this goes to the strength with which the Ancestors cleaved to a central principle. To wit: if we're going to dropkick the Buddha's explicit orders for an egalitarian sangha, then the brother or sister monk we perch precariously on that perilous peak must at minimum embody awakening.
And it's at this point that we slam smack into the Christian concept of antinomianism.
For among the many commonalities our two religions share is an insistence on the possibility – nay, obligation – of attaining a superior spiritual state in this life. We call it enlightenment, they call it salvation, but though our understandings of those states differ in important ways, our certainty that they exist prompts coreligionists to announce themselves special and demand extra-scriptural privilege.
Specifically, they declare themselves leaders.
And this is where the antinomianism comes in. Because upon their ascension to secular power, two unproductive phenomena abruptly co-arise:
1. Their conduct becomes demonstrably unenlightened.
2. They insist this unenlightened conduct is in fact the height of enlightenment; it's just that the sangha are too pedestrian to grasp their higher wisdom.
And that second one is antinomianism. You see, it's really very simple: treating others like doormats is the soul of bodhisattva practice. It's just what arhats do, and if you were one, you'd get that
And there-in lies a crisis. Because it's not.
Not that defining enlightenment isn't hard. How can you tell if a person has attained a state that can't be comprehended, or even defined?
As the ancient Zen joke would have it: how do you eff the ineffable?
I've thought about this a lot. I've scrutinised my own experience; what's happened on the cushion, where my heart moves during and after kensho, what's changed in my personality in two decades of mindful practice.
I haven't become enlightened, but I've grown measurably, and the Buddha said that's evidence of nascent awakening.
So becoming a better person than you were pre-zazen is the test. Are you less judgemental now, more empathetic? Less uptight, more patient? Calmer? More loving, less ambitious?
Has your ego diminished, or inflated? Are you supple or brittle? Do you fret more in social contention, or less?
How do you measure up on the 8 Worldly Dharmas Illumination Indicator?
If these lights aren’t green, why waste your life becoming an even bigger ass than you already are by being boss?
In the end, I've gained one practical insight into the quandary of human limitation:
–––> It's what you do with it.
(NB: Not a new concept on these pages, but a new application of it.)
Annoyance, impatience, disappointment, despair, frustration; what do you do when they happen?
Do you use or manipulate others? Do you make cutting remarks or determine to get even?
Do you apologise when you've behaved in an ignorant, superior, or abusive fashion?
These are universal human challenges, but a moral authority must own and publicly grapple with them. And by this standard, you can see the risk you run to your own practice when you set yourself up as a guru.
Which is why my brotherly counsel is not to.
Of one thing I'm sure: selfish, inconsiderate, preëmptory behaviour is not a sign of enlightenment. And refusing to confess, apologise, and atone afterward indicates you're not even on the road.
It's not that I don't yet know enough about enlightenment.
It's that I know too much.
(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)
Some months ago I had a refreshing conversation on Zen ethics with a fellow hermit on Mastodon. We're equally sceptical of quietism – the religious posture by which forms are judged sufficient to practice and action anathema – and our discussion helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on a matter that's critically pressing.
