On zen and spiritual awakening for skeptics
A spiritual awakening is a spiral path. Someone who is committed to finding the truth at all costs will circle inwardly and end up at the center of the spiral. Zen is about cutting some rings out of the spiral.
I have an advanced article on the more common and predictable aspects of a spiritual awakening and the spiral path. Zen is an intentional practice, thought, or ‘jump’ that skips some of these steps. I’ll give some examples…
Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash
Note that I’m going to quote heavily from A Course in Miracles in this article because its a non-traditional zen resource. Everyone is used to some old asian archetype with wispy mustaches muttering bullshit. But zen is about simplicity, accuracy, and results. There is plenty of zen material that Westerners can understand and Jed McKenna and Course in Miracles are top of the list.
“There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, "God's Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation." It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner.
— Dr. Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles
In a spiritual awakening, your consciousness expands, becomes less restricted with ego, and more aligned with the infinite possibilities inherent in human embodiment.
Consciousness is layered a bit like an onion. Someone who is committed to finding the truth at all costs will circle inwardly becoming more aware of their internal and external stimuli. Eventually they find where they started, and then cover the same material again with fresh insights.
Most people do this over the course of their adult lifespans with gradual maturation. But it can take a long time and many lifetimes to get the job done. Zen is about doing it as expeditiously as possible.
Which brings us to time… Spirit doesn’t really care how long it takes you to get this job done. Time is an illusion so in their view you are already done, and can get there whenever you want. Most likely if you are reading this blog, you don’t feel so relaxed about it.
“This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome. They merely save time. Yet it is time alone that winds on wearily, and the world is very tired now. It is old and worn and without hope. There was never a question of outcome, for what can change the Will of God? But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it. Yet time has an ending, and it is this that the teachers of God are appointed to bring about. For time is in their hands. Such was their choice, and it is given them.”
— Dr. Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles
The truth is, you can only go as fast as you can go. Investigating zen, and experimenting with it will likely convince you that too fast is no better than too slow. If you get material before you can absorb it, you really won’t be able to understand it. Also if you just skim it without implementing it you’re no better off than when you started. So there is a happy medium and most of us will need to use other resources as well as zen to get the job done.
Zen and skeptics
Skeptics like zen. It sounds cool, and simple. The spiritual information in zen writing is normally in code so skeptics feel comfortable brushing it off (“They’re not talking about telepathy, they’re talking about wind!”) The parts of zen that are immediately apparent to skeptics like “Kill the buddha.” are pretty aligned with atheism and scientific doubt. So oftentimes I find zen to be a very useful way to open the door with a skeptic on spiritual awakening.
“Well, you’re going to die.” I say and most people will tend to agree with me. They don’t like it, but hey, it’s pretty hard to argue with. Conveniently, it’s also a zen practice memento mori, which is about using an awareness of death to light a fire under your ass and get on with it. As Jed McKenna says “The point is to wake up, not earn a PhD in waking up.”
But there is a serious irony in zen for scientists. On the one hand, the take-no-prisoners attitude of zen adepts will appeal to any rigorously trained scientist — truth at all costs. On the other, the truth of zen is only likely to be appreciable to someone who is on a deep spiritual path.
The question becomes, are scientists really willing to accept the truth when it is presented to them? Most tend to pick and choose. “I’ll take the memento mori, but leave the tat tvam asi, I’m allergic.”
Also zen is a shorthand. Almost all zen is impossible to understand unless you already know its in code. I generally tend to find it more comforting and useful as a reminder because goddamn if I can understand it straight. I have to learn the concepts more circuitously and then realize that zen has summed them up nicely.
Most scientists haven’t accepted enough spiritual fundamentals to really get beyond the basics of zen, sand painting, nice trees, minimalist art, silence, and some pragmatic thinking. They like that part but hate the world-is-a-dream, other-people-are-reflections-of-you, and there-is-only-form-and-consciousness-and-hey-actually-there’s-no-form. Direct experience of these things can be no joke and the core part of an awakening so skeptics are unlikely to get there without other, more accessible modalities.
But sand painting is cool, and that’s just how zen suckers you in the door. Next thing you know you’re full blown obsessed with spiritual awakening (and still pretty good at archery or some useful skill, god bless those zen pragmatists).
Zen and spiritual awakening
“The third stage through which the teacher of God must go can be called "a period of relinquishment." If this is interpreted as giving up the desirable, it will engender enormous conflict. Few teachers of God escape this distress entirely. There is, however, no point in sorting out the valuable from the valueless unless the next obvious step is taken.”
— Dr. Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles
I want to be clear that I don’t claim to be enlightened (the center of the spiral, and yes I’ve also called it a mountain), I’m probably just a few rings ahead of you. By that I mean, there are some rings I’ve already traversed and don’t plan to cross again, my circles are a little more concentrated, and I find my life getting a lot simpler.
I also feel a very strong almost gravitational pull towards the center of the spiral. When people describe a black hole, or a whirlpool I think of the tugging I feel on my psyche these days. I strongly and with increasing focus desire peace, truth, clarity, and love. More than I desire money, fame, sex, or distraction. These new interests are becoming necessary to my physical well-being as well. I feel ill, and have less energy when I am not seeking them.
I also find life getting easier. Answers arrive faster, things I need appear with more smoothness, money or the things it would buy me appear in my life when I need them, people are kinder and easier to get along with. Most things in my life are getting easier.
At the initial stages of spiritual awakening, egos accomplishments, possessions, and relationships are getting torn away. This sucks and you feel picked on. But when you realize that the spiral path makes things easier, you’ll start to get really interested in zen, because who doesn’t want to feel better faster?
When I began to get really obsessed about saving time, and truly search for my mistakes before I made them, I fell in love with Zen. It’s a bold frontal assault on the spiritual mountain. You can just sit and repeat one of the koans to yourself gritting your teeth, until you finally understand it. It might take a while, but it eventually happens. There is something really beautiful in the art of sitting still and practicing rigorous inquiry to find a mistake before you make it.
Zen and spiritual awakening for skeptics conclusion
In conclusion, don’t feel bad if you find zen a little strong and not accessible. It is. Also don’t avoid it, just keep coming back to it’s precepts until they start to make sense to you, and its fine if that takes a while. The concepts in zen are hard enough to understand without cultural and language barriers so I highly recommend some modern teachers who can put the concepts in Western metaphor and colloquial language.
Overall, the more you progress on the spiral path the more you will like zen. Some of it is also good for finding common ground with people who are rigidly dogmatic about their science or atheism.
