no such thing as meditation

meditation is extremely fruitful to the unfoldment of consciousness, especially when it becomes a bridge towards the transformation of our daily, "mundane" experience. if, however, we rely on meditational practice as a kind of crutch, believing that simply by virtue of "putting in the hours" we're getting closer to truth-realization, the practice can actually become an obstacle to genuine spiritual development.

in fact, the whole "spiritual game" can become just another trap, and a particularly insidious one at that -- even if we unrealistically took for granted the integrity and efficacy of every spiritual teacher out there. but then again, genuine spiritual teachings, teachers, and practices are absolutely essential to those of us who would never have figured things out without a little help.

so what's needed, then, is a balance that allows us to take productively from the existing spiritual arena and apply its lessons to the subject matter of our daily lives. we need to be able both to learn from the exterior and to trust the interior. this means not creating a rift that separates our practice and spiritual ideals from our actual approach to life at the most fundamental level.

one way to test whether we're actually maturing spiritually is to assess our precognitive response to life. what is our basic response to potentially fearful situations? how pervasively do thorny emotional states like anger and depression -- certainly not problematic in and of themselves -- take hold of us? when we see something good happening to someone else, is our instant response that of jealousy or of sympathetic joy? when we become exposed to the intense suffering of another, do we close down in self-protection and rational justification or compassionately open ourselves to the heart-piercing pain of undeniable tragedy?

if we're honest in our assessment (and that can be a big "if," since we're often so heavily invested in our self-conception as spiritually aware people), these are good ways to test for real spiritual progress as opposed to simply inquiring into our surface beliefs and attitudes. searching the mind for spiritual progress can be tricky because it's so easy to simply change the very surface arrangement of our mental furniture to take on a remodeled spiritual theme. after all, switching our life-theme in this way is nothing new: teenagers craft a rebellious identity that asserts their independence from family and become drawn towards one cultural movement or another; later in life, young adults often become obsessed with reconfiguring their identity to align with career interests. "becoming spiritual" can be just another one of these superficial realignments undertaken for entertainment's sake and, ultimately, to keep ourselves distracted from a truth too threatening to face.

to take it back to the topic addressed at the beginning of this post, meditation -- like all things "spiritual" -- can be tremendously transformative. or, it can bring about spiritual stagnation. it all depends on how we relate to it. if we can learn to both take it seriously ("this is the very purpose of my life") and approach it lightly ("what's the big deal/hurry?"), to both practice meditation and realize that there is no such thing as meditation (or, perhaps more accurately, that there is no such thing as non-meditation), then we're probably well-poised for some natural insight to leak through and actually transform our lives from the inside out.

hardcore zenning it at the SAZ

recently i had the pleasure of meeting Brad Warner (former punk rocker, current zen monk, and author of several books on zen buddhism, including Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma) at the san antonio zen center (SAZ).

i'd read an earlier book of his (Hardcore Zen) a few months back and appreciated the fun and informal style Brad uses to convey truth. his book is both playful and lighthearted (such as when he asks us "[w]ho the hell are you really?" and assures us he's "not talking about your name, your place of birth, or the number of hairs on your butt") and, for me at least, powerfully resonant:

"Truth has to be bigger than theories, bigger than explanations, bigger than symbols. Truth can't just explain everything. It has to include everything. It has to be everything."

Brad's sincere, humorous, and accessible approach to spirituality really spoke to me. so when i heard he'd be paying a visit to the small house in san antonio's humble woodlawn lake neighborhood the SAZ calls home, i figured the pressures of grad school could be put on hold for a morning with the world's leading exponent of hardcore-punk-zen-buddhism.

about twenty of us gather to do a little sitting and walking meditation and hear Brad speak. (if you're interested in listening to the talk, by the way, it was recorded and can be accessed via iTunes here.) all in all, my personal opinion - not that it means anything beyond the fact that it's my opinion - is that Brad speaks from a depth of sincerity that can only emerge from a direct encounter with truth.

i say this based on what he speaks and writes about, but what really convinced me upon meeting him is his perfectly ordinary demeanor. he's just a guy traveling around to discuss what truly moves him with people interested in listening, but he's no superguru, no energy-blasting presence. he doesn't impose his amazingness on you, wear funny clothes to remind you of how special he is, or gut your soul of impurities with his penetrating spiritual gaze.

i think this is an important point, because you see plenty of people trying to use spirituality to make themselves anything but ordinary. if there's one distinguishing characteristic of the ego, it's that it will use any means available to make itself extraordinary and exceptional in some way - to see itself as separate, whether in a good or a bad light. this goes for the average gal or guy off the street, and it also goes for spiritually-identified people.

in spite of the labels the world pins on him ("spiritual teacher," "zen master," "successful author") Brad seems to be a legitimate embodiment of one who's perfectly content to be nothing more than an ordinary human roaming the planet; no better and no worse than the six billion-odd others who are pretty much up to the same thing, give or take a few specifics. and the way i see it, when you meet someone involved in talking about something like ultimate truth and they're truly making no effort to differentiate themselves from you or make you think they're special in any way, you can be pretty sure you're dealing with a high level of sincerity.

here's a quick summary of a few topics discussed during Brad's visit to the SAZ:

why do zazen? (i.e. why meditate?)
it's interesting to hear Brad assert that after decades of meditation, it's more difficult than ever for him to answer this question! i'm not sure exactly what he means by this, but i'm fairly sure he's not suggesting zazen (zen-style meditation) is worthless. i think he's trying to work against the idea of meditating as an action to achieve enlightenment, to suggest that the point of meditating is to meditate and we would do well to drop expectations.

instead of seeing it as an enlightment-generating exercise, Brad offers a more simple and practical reason to meditate. he compares it to brushing our teeth, something we normally do every day, although not for the reasons our dentist says we should (to keep our teeth clean, gums in shape, gingivitis at bay...). we do it because when we don't brush, our mouth tastes like crap. similarly, Brad offers, when we don't meditate we just don't feel right - something's off. meditation helps keep the mind less stinky.

is zen about enlightenment, or not?!
in my brief encounters with zen buddhism i've been interested by the play between the notions of "it's all about enlightenment" and "forget about enlightenment" (zen masters are famous for jamming up your mind-cogs by relentlessly throwing contradictions such as these at you). i ask Brad if he can speak about this.

his response is that many zen masters have been reluctant to speak about enlightenment, but that even the most reluctant ones, such as his own master Gudo Nishijima, do speak of it on occasion. the tricky thing with enlightenment is that most people inevitably dream up what they'd love for it to be and end up striving for something that doesn't even exist. given the propensity of spiritual seekers to form a distracting "enlightenment fantasy," the benefits of deconstructing this process or stopping it in its tracks are obvious.

in Brad's words: "if enlightenment is this state of perfection that you achieve where everything is cool forever, then i don't believe in that."

but there is such a thing as enlightenment, right?
this is my next question. while there are few things i could be more convinced of than the fact that a real shift in perspective from egocentricity to trans-egoic awareness can and does occur, i'm interested in hearing how the zen master will navigate his way out of this one - and besides, i could always be wrong!

"maybe..." he begins slowly, feeling uncomfortable, i imagine, with feeding unproductive desires. "there can be a shift... but it's not like anything ever changes. this is enlightenment, whether you notice it or not."

taking spiritual practice too seriously
Brad points out that by investing something with undue seriousness, we separate ourselves from it, make it into a "thing," divest it of its real power to transform our lives. (hopefully i'm not getting too carried away with my paraphrasing here.)

he brings up an interesting quote, from some zen master or another i believe, that i think is both funny and utterly true at the same time: "spiritual practice is too important to be taken seriously."

at the same time, he points out, having a sense of humor about spirituality is exactly what makes us sincerely serious about it, in the sense that we're truly devoted to it and not merely holding it up as sacred to use as material for self-aggrandizement. i agree completely; the highest respect we can pay to reality is to live our lives by it. if we do this, we have the right to joke about it because the playfulness emerges from a profound sense of love and appreciation, not disrespect.