“In 2007 my mom died and then my grandmother died, my wife decided she didn’t want to be my wife anymore, I lost my dream job, and people I thought were my friends and colleagues in Buddhist practice began attacking me in public over scandals that existed solely in their own minds. Only one thing was clear by the end of the year. I was going to have to start all over again... This year life opened a whole big can of suffering on me.
How does a real Zen master — as opposed to the cartoonlike figure invented by pop culture — deal with death, divorce, job loss, and personal discord? How does he perform the work of trying to help others get over their tough times while going through some pretty heavy shit of his own? How do you sit and meditate while your world crumbles all around you? Is meditation a valid reaction or just a form of spiritual escapism? These are all reasonable questions. They’re questions I asked myself a lot that year...
I found myself becoming the very thing I had always hated - a religious authority figure, a spiritual celebrity, a famous Zen master. People began to expect me - of all people - to be the thing they envisioned a Buddhist master ought to be. But let me clue you in on a little secret, friends and neighbors. Not only am I not that thing, but no one is. No one. Not even what’s-his-face whose smiling mug graces the cover of every other issue of the big Buddhist rags by the checkout counter in your local new age bookshop.
I began to see that it was necessary to demonstrate that in a very clear and unambiguous way. Some folks have tried this before. But they usually try by pointing outward, away from themselves. There must be a hundred tell-all accounts of some spiritual teacher’s transgressions - their big cars, their drug habits, their bizarre sexual peccadilloes. The underlying assumption often seems to be that although that guy wasn’t the real deal, maybe somewhere out there someone is…
When Zen Buddhism and other forms of so-called Eastern wisdom first became trendy in the West in the sixties and seventies, many followers tended to see their teachers as supernatural creatures. Unlike Western religions, many Eastern spiritual traditions had this idea of the “enlightened being,” of which the teacher was supposed to be an example. This idea seemed to suggest that the teacher was a kind of Christ-like paranormal creature with powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary people. Plenty of folks still make a bundle by playing the role of the spiritual superman. It’s a scam. It’s important to show that all of us in this Eastern spiritual master game are no more supernatural than any Catholic priest, rabbi, minister, shoe salesman, or fishmonger.
A lot of people out there have a vested interest in not having anyone say the kinds of things I’m going to say… Their livelihood depends on their followers believing that they’re something they are not. Maybe this will make it a little more difficult for some of those people to get rich that way. I certainly hope so. I guess that sounds mean. But the people who do that sort of thing are doing untold damage not only to their followers but to themselves as well. They would be better off if they had to get jobs at the local In-N-Out Burger instead.
To do the damage that needs to be done to the absurd idea of the Eastern spiritual master as superhuman, I’m focusing on the events in my own life in 2007 as specific examples of how Zen teaching and Zen practice are very much human activities performed by real people in the midst of real-life problems. Zen does not offer the kind of neat and pretty “ultimate solutions” promised by so many religions and cults. Instead, it is unrelentingly realistic. Yet it does provide an exceptionally practical way to deal with what life dishes out to all of us.
In fact, I believe Zen practice and philosophy provide the only truly rational and realistic way to live a balanced and happy life. Some people don’t like it when I say that. They’d rather I told them that Zen was just one of many good ways to deal with stuff. But if I thought that way I wouldn’t be teaching and writing about Zen, and I probably wouldn’t even bother practicing it. This doesn’t mean I want everyone to convert to my way of thinking or that I want to destroy all other religions and philosophies. It only means that I’m not interested in teaching or even practicing anything other than the philosophy I believe to be the best in the world.
I had another question when I came back to America after eleven years: does real Buddhism exist in the West? After I returned I began to be invited to speak and practice at a lot of Buddhist centers around the country. I had the opportunity to see firsthand what went on in the name of Buddhism both in the places I visited and through the people who visited and contacted me and showed me the results of their practice. While I’ve found shining examples of the Buddha’s way in prisons and at heavy metal shows, I’ve also seen sad perversions of Buddhism in its very own temples and among those supposedly propagating the Way in America. Authentic Buddhism doesn’t always come packaged the way we imagine it should.
There is something very profound, perhaps we can even say holy, in every human being. We all have access to this something every moment of every day, but most of us will live our entire lives without even suspecting it exists. The Buddha was not full of shit when he said the cause of suffering could be uprooted and that you can put an end to it once and for all. There is a way out of this mess humanity has found itself in. It’s just that the answer to the cause of suffering — and the way to end it — are nothing at all like what you think they are or imagine they should be…”
~ Brad Warner, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate
Brad is an American Sōtō Zen monk, author, blogger, documentarian and punk rock bass guitarist.
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