Mysterious Reality: A Naturalistic Buddhist Meditation

Mysterious Reality: A Naturalistic Buddhist Meditation October 23, 2016

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A friend, someone I like and admire, recently posted one of those motivational quotes asserting all one needs to succeed is hard work, and, maybe loving what you do. I couldn’t help but comment on it, saying yes, all of that. And, also, one needs a large dose of luck. Which I further modified by saying, “luck” can often be defined by the circumstances of your birth.

This set off a cascade of mind bubbles about success and failure, fate and free will, and finally, meaning and meaninglessness. What can I say? I spent a couple of years in a Buddhist monastery, and along the way also formally studied theology – actually several theologies. No doubt all of that directly connected with the fact I’ve obsessed around such issues as far back as I can remember.

In this world, we have to work. If we’re particularly fortunate, we get to love what we do. More likely, we’re lucky just not to hate what we do at least most of the time. All that is guaranteed is that, excepting the tiniest slice of humanity, we all need to work. And if we don’t, or, more the case, if we cannot meet the expectations of employers; we’re pretty much screwed. If we suffer from chronic illness, or, have physical limitations that prevent us from meeting job expectations, we’re pretty much screwed. If we lack the preparations to hold a steady job that pays over minimum wage, preparations for that cost money and time many do not have, well, we’re pretty much screwed. If we belong to a historically marginalized group, and here reference the previous sentence with a vengeance, well, we’re pretty much screwed. That’s the story for the larger majority of us.

And, are there exceptions along the way? Of course. Absolutely. There is the tiny slice that never has to work, and there are people born into adverse circumstances who do indeed rise above and beyond. And, they are exceptions. Otherwise work is a given, while joy in it, and success, well, for that good luck.

I suspect part of why the line that suggests success simply calls for hard work bothers me so much, is the underlying assumptions of a world that’s actually on the side of those who work hard, or even more baldly, a world that’s fair. For me its part of that whole package that can be crammed into the box labeled, “God has a plan for you.” To actually believe this one has to be myopic in the extreme or that the deity with the plan is unimaginably capricious and cruel. I think of this and I realize why people have over time believed in a demiurge as an alternative to the all parent that has evolved in the Jewish-Christian-Muslim family of traditions that are currently favored by a majority of the world’s population.

Now, I am a Buddhist. Although I am a Buddhist of a naturalistic inclination. That is while I find the Buddha and the traditions of Buddhism, particularly Zen, frame the ways to wisdom better than any other tradition, the systems are nonetheless human products and subject to error, lots of errors, and needs to be constantly examined in the light of new knowledge.

So, for me, probably the most significant thing is the shifting in world view from that which sat in the back of Gautama Siddhartha’s mind as he worked out his path, and shifting again from that of early medieval China as the proto-masters of the Zen way began to offer their insights, which are both gone, and not the gestalt of my life, and instead embracing, or, rather assuming, largely, if critically, the modern scientific world view in the back of my head, even as I embrace the practices and the pointing of Zen Buddhism. So, of course that includes assuming the views inherent in biology, particularly evolutionary science, human psychological development, and, yes, the bizarre and largely open ended adventure that is modern physics.

With that, a turn back to the problem at hand. If you want to get ahead, work hard. And with that there is a plan for you. All of which assume there is a meaning to all of this.

I guess, first here’s the bad news.

The world does not have meaning. That is meaning is a human idea relevant to various things probably hardwired into our capacity to order things. It is something we extrapolate from our ability to observe things in motion, to abstract it, and to predict what will happen. It meant our ancestors, and some of us today, can hunt with amazing success. It has allowed us to develop agriculture. And it has made it possible for us to diversify our skill sets, so one person makes pots, another grows corn, and a third can sell them. But, meaning has no meaning outside of our human condition. It is defined by us, for us.

However, here’s some good news. There is no meaninglessness outside of our condition, either. Meaninglessness does not exist without meaning. It’s like a lap that can only exist when someone is sitting down, or, a fist that disappears when someone’s fingers are stretched out.

So…

What does that mean for us? And, in particular, what does it mean for someone hoping to survive and maybe even flourish in this brief time we are alive? What might a naturalistic Buddhist have to say?

What I think this does, or certainly what it can do for us, is open our eyes to what actually is going on. For reasons that we can only guess at we human beings have evolved on this little planet circling a middling star near the edge of one of a hundred zillion galaxies, all racing from unknown to unknown.

There is a Buddhist tradition that it is rare, exceedingly rare to be born as a human being. That seems in fact to be an objective truth. That we exist is astonishing. And, how we exist, evolved as mammals, that are on the one hand predators, and on the other as belonging to families and clans, or, if you like, herds, opens us to a sense of how much we need others.

And so, right down to the bottom we seem to have two contradictory inclinations as human beings. We have a real solid sense of fair, of harmony, of balance. We like it. We aspire to it. And, at the very same time, we cheat. We try to give ourselves an edge. All of human morality flows from these two things.

I believe if we can see how we are all of us in fact related, and that means all of us, each human being, worthy and unworthy and, actually, all of life from the person we love to the AIDS virus, all are related, a stage is set. We find this within the disciplines of Insight and particularly Zen. The practices point us, and many of us, look, and see it. An amazing gift.

And more comes with that seeing. We find we and all things are born into this as part of a great play of connections. And, we notice nothing is particularly special, nothing as an essence beyond the moment where various factors come together and exist for a brief time before conditions shift.

As the cartoon tells us, there is nothing next. This is it.

And, for us, we birth into this moment filled with that the amazing sense of wanting it to be fair, and if we add in as part of it acknowledgment we are inclined to cheat, and, then a whole cornucopia of possibility opens.

Including meaning, and meaninglessness, as things that may not exist outside of our human existence, but drives us within it.

Out of all this, as we open ourselves to the whole thing, something magical happens. Love emerges. I don’t know how, although I see it somehow associated with our knowing we’re connected, our wanting it fair, and, also, as some kind of energy source, including our inclination to cheat.

And with that wondrous things. A hand up for another. A planet that is cared for rather than simply exploited.

Possibility.

Mysterious reality.

I and I…


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