I’ve been involved with a Zen sangha for seven years now, and so I’ve pretty much seen the “lay of the land” of Buddhism, at least the modern American version of Buddhism. Buddhism says a lot of good and interesting things about life, the universe and everything. But there are some good things that it does not say. One of those things is the value of humility. For whatever reason, I have not read or hear much about the virtue of humility from the various Zen and Buddhist teachers I\u2019ve run across. Humility doesn’t seem to get mentioned in the Buddha’s various “lists”, e.g. the three refuges, the four noble truths, the five faculties \/ strengths, the eight-fold path, the ten essential precepts, etc. <\/p>\n
Even among the thirty seven “Practices of Bodhisattvas”, only one, #31, might relate to humility — “the practice of all the bodhisattvas is to scrutinize oneself continually and to rid oneself of faults whenever they appear”. Even this isn’t exactly very humble — it assumes that we can rid ourselves of our faults with a bit of Buddhist-style self-reflection. Yes, if you do some Googling, you can find articles on the role<\/a> of humility within Buddhism. You can even find a blog post with the same title<\/a> that I’m using here, sans the question mark — where the writer claims that Zen is a humble tradition because one of its “koan” stories admits that Zen is not really needed (in the sense that “we seek what we already have”). Given that there are allegedly about 1,700 koans, one line about “selling water by the river” does not a trend make.<\/p>\n There are also the various Buddhist rituals that seem to reflect personal humility, such as the frequent bowing that we Zen-folk do when trying to imitate our Japanese predecessors. But there is also some Japanese hubris that has filtered its way into modern Zen centers (including my own), such as the perceived need by teachers to be condescending and sometimes even rude with their students. Some groups even maintain the old Japanese tradition of having a priest walk with a stick amidst those sitting in meditation, occasionally hitting the errant monk who appears to be slouching or nodding off!<\/p>\n By contrast, in both the western religious tradition<\/a> and philosophic tradition<\/a>, humility is more prominently discussed, as it relates to inherent human limitations. Those limits include mortality (we\u2019re all going to die), knowledge (we see through a glass darkly), temperament (we all have our bouts of animal-like anger, greed, envy and distrust), and wisdom and understanding. We see and understand some portion of the picture of reality, but we are not God. We don\u2019t see and understand the whole map of time and the universe, and we never will. Not in this life. <\/p>\n I recently finished a book by a young Buddhist author named Brad Warner. Mr. Warner has published a number of interesting books, but I was most intrigued by his 2013 work “There Is No God And He Is Always With You<\/a>“. In this book, Mr. Warner tries to prove that the Buddha and his followers have already outlined a concept of “God” that amounts to a better and more sensible version of the general Jewish \/ Christian \/ Islamic concept of God, i.e. a God for modern times. Personally, I don’t feel that Mr. Warner succeeds here, but I will save that for another time. Right now, I\u2019d like to reflect on some of the quotes from the ancient and modern Zen masters that Warner uses to build his new-age version of God. Warner’s favorite master to quote from is Dogen, the 13th century Japanese Zen master. Dogen tries to describe reality in complex and contradictory terms, e.g.<\/p>\n \u201call moments of existence-time are the whole of time, and all existent things and all existent phenomenon are time . . . the reality of the here and now blocks off past, present and future\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\u201cdelusion, remember, is something that does not exist. Realization, remember, is something that does not exist\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cwhen one reaches the state of suchness, it is one blade of grass, one form; it is understanding forms, not understanding forms, it is understanding grasses, not understanding grasses. Because it is only right at such a time, therefore being time is the whole time. Being grass and being form are both time. In the time of time\u2019s time there is the whole of being, the whole world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hmmm . . . these passages would make a whole lot of sense with enough intoxicants or hallucinatory drugs! But really . . . in his incomprehensibility, is Dogen claiming to convey some great philosophical truths here that can be learned and used, or is there ultimately only one truth in Dogen\u2019s many words \u2013 i.e., that the truest and deepest levels of consciously experienced reality lie beyond what our language, concepts and critical mental faculties can grasp? Are Dogen’s writings really just one big koan on intellectual humility?<\/p>\n The problem with Buddhism arises when its modern teachers use these quotes to impress upon their students the existence of some sort of ultra-transcendent understanding of reality, an understanding that the Buddha and the most advanced masters have obtained (and perhaps you too can obtain, if you listen to the teacher and work hard enough). I would guess that this is what they call satori or enlightenment, basically what mades Buddha Gautama a Buddha. <\/p>\n In my humble opinion though, this is all wrong. The main point of all this “Buddhist word salad” is that we humans aren’t equipped to completely understand the universe and time. The confusing words of the Eastern masters sound ridiculous for a reason! It\u2019s not a matter of some deep esoteric wisdom that only the most advanced seekers can attain. Instead, the writers of these obscure sutras and koans are trying to say that there are inherent limits built into our minds and brains and bodies and environments, and these limits define what we can and cannot possibly understand. Modern science has shown that we surely can understand a lot! Much more than we would have thought just a few hundred years ago. And we no doubt will continue to push outward the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding. <\/p>\n However, as to the ultimate questions about why it all exists, what it is at bottom, what it means — those are the matters of wisdom that will remain forever beyond our reach. Case in point: the matter of human consciousness. Scientists can explain a whole lot about when we are conscious, what goes on in our brains and bodies when we are or are not conscious, and even what we might be conscious of or how we are feeling based on how our neurons are firing. <\/p>\n But as to explaining just why there is consciousness, what it ultimately breaks down to, where it ultimately obtains the qualities that we \u201cfeel\u201d during our waking moments (versus what triggers this or that feeling) . . . I\u2019ve been following the consciousness research field for over 10 years now, and I\u2019m growing increasingly doubtful that it can every really be explained. PS, I\u2019m not alone in that regard \u2013 this is called the \u201cmysterian\u201d position<\/a> by consciousness philosophers. Interestingly, in 2011, neuroscientist\/philosopher Sam Harris gave something of an endorsement<\/a> to the mystery-of-consciousness point of view! <\/p>\n