This blog hosts articles contributed by members of the Chicago Zen Center. For news about events at the Center and in Chicago, please visit our (III) losing a voice, finding a voice
by Jonathan Laux
How do you say something with your own voice?
For a brief time in college - just before I began to practice Zen - I was a contributing writer for a monthly campus journal of conservative leanings. I wrote something about a rock album that had just been released and an article decrying what I saw as the basic flaws of Plato's Republic. I still regret writing this latter article. My magnum opus, to follow these 2 preliminary efforts, was to be a piece on Taoism. I had recently found a certain resonance with the Tao Te Ching and had begun practicing Tai Chi, so I felt it important to distill the sophomoric wisdom from these experiences for others who would naturally be eager to hear it.
Then things began to get thorny. After struggling through several drafts of the article, I realized that (a) I lacked any of the experience that would qualify me to write a thoughtful, provocative article on a topic as vast as Taoism, and that (b) even if I could write that article, the exercise would be futile. What would the finished article have accomplished? To whom would I have proven my point? Not even to myself, for I had little sense concerning the truth of my assertions.
I began to see clearly a discomfort that I had long noticed peripherally - the poison of opinions. None of us who were writing had anything to say that hadn't already been said more eloquently and to a larger audience. Perhaps there had been a time when I had taken comfort in this repetition, defined myself by it... but no more. When we become fixed in our beliefs and worldview, we die to the moment. Yet I was no longer fixed; I was fundamentally uncertain. I had beliefs and assumptions, but the closer I looked at them the more I saw what a disordered jumble they were.
When I wrote papers as a student, everything was simply an exercise: you would do the best work you could, you submitted it, you got a grade, then it went away. Neither you nor anyone else ever read it again. You weren't responsible for what you'd produced. This article was different. At that stage of life I was noticing "the world" for the first time - what we initially see as being "out there" - and was taking a stab at discussing something that mattered. To do that, I had to know something, be able to defend it. And I didn't know anything. Everything that had brought me to that point was simply conditioning; there was no internal order, no integrity to the collection of preferences, instincts and memories that was "me." I bailed on the article, on the journal. I resolved not to speak until I found something worth saying, something I knew was true because I had seen it for myself.
I have struggled with this question throughout the last 5 years: Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
The major goal of my youth was to excel in school. Since school came easily for me, I grew up without ever really struggling with anything. It seemed like if you thought hard enough about any problem that crossed you, you could eventually solve it. I was like a boxer who is undefeated but has never been knocked down, and thus has not learned how to stand up again and fight through exhaustion and the prospect of failure.
Since I first encountered Zen, the boxer has hit the floor many many times. Sesshin has a ferocious ability to knock the wind out of you; time and again, the aspiration that I thought I brought to practice has evaporated, leaving me lost and stupefied. I’ve spent a lot of time banging my head (mostly metaphorically) against the wall trying to figure out how to practice, or rather, how my old habits and thought patterns could bail me out. Just question? It can’t be that simple. There must be something I’m missing. But I’m pretty convinced now that there’s no magic technique that can save me. This has been disheartening, but has also helped me reach a point of resolution: There’s nowhere else I can go, no escape from this question. I can only keep working.
Sensei has often said that we have to just allow things to happen without resisting them. I find this advice helpful; often I try to grasp at life, control it, chase after easy answers. Even while preparing this article, I’ve written countless things that sounded good but upon later reflection seemed too easy and too polished to be true. For a long time I suffered from the (mis)conception that Zen would somehow make “my” life better. In school, life was largely a matter of convenience. I only had a limited ability and willingness to commit to people, make plans, mature, grow. The world is broader now. How much am I willing to change?
Slowly, I’ve begun to engage life – and question it – on a deeper, more fundamental level. More is at stake. It’s not only for myself that I do this work. Gradually, the habits and behavior that formerly occupied me have lost appeal. They are still being played, but at a softer volume. I am fascinated by the first several hours after a sesshin, when the intense hours of concentrated effort encounter everyday life again. The habits don't rush in quite as quickly. You start over. Birds chirp. You make tea, sip it slowly, savor the fragrance. You check your e-mail. It's like learning to walk again.
And yet… I mourn these habits as they fade. Much that I once valued now seems to have only marginal significance. I used to love reading books – I still do – but somehow they feel less enriching and more like entertainment. I enjoy music, but my guitar has languished in its case for most of this year. I have devoted much of my life to martial arts, only now to reach a kind of plateau: I can quit, recommit myself, or settle for an uncomfortable half-heartedness, neither committed nor neglected.
Life has changed. The sociologist Max Weber wrote that the world became “disenchanted” when our sense of the holy and mysterious was replaced by rational, scientific explanations of phenomena. Similarly, Zen seems to have disenchanted much that I once valued by stripping it of its apparent importance. I sense that I could spend my time in more constructive and compassionate ways, but those ways remain hidden from me. What now? Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
There’s no easy solution. I’m reminded of a passage from Nietzsche that evokes this sense of personal insignificance:
Perhaps only the Way can show the Way. “Be lamps unto yourselves,” the Buddha taught. I miss the structure of my old life, but if I grasp for such a structure in Zen then practice will become selfish and blind. Instead, I need to trust my gut, risk something and be willing to stumble. To take refuge in uncertainty may be the most honest way to live. In contrast with the above passage from Nietzsche, the following passage from Dogen shows a very different relationship between self and world:
Recently, I’ve discovered that I have unresolved business with my “free of opinions” collegiate self. Many times in practice I’ve told myself, “I know I’m not supposed to know anything.” But do I? There’s another word that we use for not knowing: ignorance. While it was helpful at one time to acknowledge what I did not know, I easily became complacent in a dichotomy between knowing and not-knowing: effectively, I wanted to give Emptiness a reality and hide there, neglecting the world of Form. But as we chant in the Sutra: Form is Emptiness, is no other than Emptiness, and Emptiness is no other than Form. If I am to practice Zen I must not hide from life but engage it directly. Only then will the practice find its voice.
How do you say something with your own voice?
For a brief time in college - just before I began to practice Zen - I was a contributing writer for a monthly campus journal of conservative leanings. I wrote something about a rock album that had just been released and an article decrying what I saw as the basic flaws of Plato's Republic. I still regret writing this latter article. My magnum opus, to follow these 2 preliminary efforts, was to be a piece on Taoism. I had recently found a certain resonance with the Tao Te Ching and had begun practicing Tai Chi, so I felt it important to distill the sophomoric wisdom from these experiences for others who would naturally be eager to hear it.
Then things began to get thorny. After struggling through several drafts of the article, I realized that (a) I lacked any of the experience that would qualify me to write a thoughtful, provocative article on a topic as vast as Taoism, and that (b) even if I could write that article, the exercise would be futile. What would the finished article have accomplished? To whom would I have proven my point? Not even to myself, for I had little sense concerning the truth of my assertions.
I began to see clearly a discomfort that I had long noticed peripherally - the poison of opinions. None of us who were writing had anything to say that hadn't already been said more eloquently and to a larger audience. Perhaps there had been a time when I had taken comfort in this repetition, defined myself by it... but no more. When we become fixed in our beliefs and worldview, we die to the moment. Yet I was no longer fixed; I was fundamentally uncertain. I had beliefs and assumptions, but the closer I looked at them the more I saw what a disordered jumble they were.
When I wrote papers as a student, everything was simply an exercise: you would do the best work you could, you submitted it, you got a grade, then it went away. Neither you nor anyone else ever read it again. You weren't responsible for what you'd produced. This article was different. At that stage of life I was noticing "the world" for the first time - what we initially see as being "out there" - and was taking a stab at discussing something that mattered. To do that, I had to know something, be able to defend it. And I didn't know anything. Everything that had brought me to that point was simply conditioning; there was no internal order, no integrity to the collection of preferences, instincts and memories that was "me." I bailed on the article, on the journal. I resolved not to speak until I found something worth saying, something I knew was true because I had seen it for myself.
I have struggled with this question throughout the last 5 years: Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
The major goal of my youth was to excel in school. Since school came easily for me, I grew up without ever really struggling with anything. It seemed like if you thought hard enough about any problem that crossed you, you could eventually solve it. I was like a boxer who is undefeated but has never been knocked down, and thus has not learned how to stand up again and fight through exhaustion and the prospect of failure.
Since I first encountered Zen, the boxer has hit the floor many many times. Sesshin has a ferocious ability to knock the wind out of you; time and again, the aspiration that I thought I brought to practice has evaporated, leaving me lost and stupefied. I’ve spent a lot of time banging my head (mostly metaphorically) against the wall trying to figure out how to practice, or rather, how my old habits and thought patterns could bail me out. Just question? It can’t be that simple. There must be something I’m missing. But I’m pretty convinced now that there’s no magic technique that can save me. This has been disheartening, but has also helped me reach a point of resolution: There’s nowhere else I can go, no escape from this question. I can only keep working.
Sensei has often said that we have to just allow things to happen without resisting them. I find this advice helpful; often I try to grasp at life, control it, chase after easy answers. Even while preparing this article, I’ve written countless things that sounded good but upon later reflection seemed too easy and too polished to be true. For a long time I suffered from the (mis)conception that Zen would somehow make “my” life better. In school, life was largely a matter of convenience. I only had a limited ability and willingness to commit to people, make plans, mature, grow. The world is broader now. How much am I willing to change?
Slowly, I’ve begun to engage life – and question it – on a deeper, more fundamental level. More is at stake. It’s not only for myself that I do this work. Gradually, the habits and behavior that formerly occupied me have lost appeal. They are still being played, but at a softer volume. I am fascinated by the first several hours after a sesshin, when the intense hours of concentrated effort encounter everyday life again. The habits don't rush in quite as quickly. You start over. Birds chirp. You make tea, sip it slowly, savor the fragrance. You check your e-mail. It's like learning to walk again.
And yet… I mourn these habits as they fade. Much that I once valued now seems to have only marginal significance. I used to love reading books – I still do – but somehow they feel less enriching and more like entertainment. I enjoy music, but my guitar has languished in its case for most of this year. I have devoted much of my life to martial arts, only now to reach a kind of plateau: I can quit, recommit myself, or settle for an uncomfortable half-heartedness, neither committed nor neglected.
Life has changed. The sociologist Max Weber wrote that the world became “disenchanted” when our sense of the holy and mysterious was replaced by rational, scientific explanations of phenomena. Similarly, Zen seems to have disenchanted much that I once valued by stripping it of its apparent importance. I sense that I could spend my time in more constructive and compassionate ways, but those ways remain hidden from me. What now? Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
There’s no easy solution. I’m reminded of a passage from Nietzsche that evokes this sense of personal insignificance:
We have left the land and have embarked. We have burned our bridges behind us---indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us. Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it offered more freedom---and there is no longer any “land.” (The Gay Science 124)There’s a clear sense of “I” in the little ship and the poor bird; they are bound by their smallness and apparent isolation, still seeing the world as an “other.” While it’s natural to feel this way sometimes, I realize that it’s only more delusion that causes me to see my old life as better or more interesting than life now. All these habits and hobbies are at best secondary concerns. But as Nietzsche forces us to ask, when we leave the familiar and safe havens behind us, how do we navigate? What star can illuminate the Way?
Perhaps only the Way can show the Way. “Be lamps unto yourselves,” the Buddha taught. I miss the structure of my old life, but if I grasp for such a structure in Zen then practice will become selfish and blind. Instead, I need to trust my gut, risk something and be willing to stumble. To take refuge in uncertainty may be the most honest way to live. In contrast with the above passage from Nietzsche, the following passage from Dogen shows a very different relationship between self and world:
Fish swim the water and however much they swim, there is no end to the water. Birds fly the skies, and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Yet fish never once leave the water, birds never forsake the sky… If a bird leaves the sky, it will soon die. If a fish leaves the water, it at once perishes. We should grasp that water means life for the fish, and the sky means life for the bird. It must be that the bird means life for the sky, and the fish means life for the water; that life is the bird, life is the fish. (from Genjokoan)Fish and water, bird and sky depend on one another, find life in one another, become one another. They are at home in their boundlessness. Similarly, when we practice the Dharma we are life for the Dharma, and the Dharma is life for us. At the times when I am unsure what to do, I must remember that all activities are simply different voices for practice. Enchanted or disenchanted, I can only keep digging.
Recently, I’ve discovered that I have unresolved business with my “free of opinions” collegiate self. Many times in practice I’ve told myself, “I know I’m not supposed to know anything.” But do I? There’s another word that we use for not knowing: ignorance. While it was helpful at one time to acknowledge what I did not know, I easily became complacent in a dichotomy between knowing and not-knowing: effectively, I wanted to give Emptiness a reality and hide there, neglecting the world of Form. But as we chant in the Sutra: Form is Emptiness, is no other than Emptiness, and Emptiness is no other than Form. If I am to practice Zen I must not hide from life but engage it directly. Only then will the practice find its voice.
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