Zen, lobotomies and music

Copyright A. Barake, 2015, all rights reserved

Zen can be an overloaded word. Even Robert Pirsig admits in his famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that he may not altogether be that accurate about Zen.

One of Zen's objectives is to reduce suffering. To do so via a philosophy or religion means to address suffering's causes, through strictures and practices. I would like to talk about how Zen addresses suffering that comes from within, since suffering from without can become a political topic.

Zen teaches that some thoughts and emotions can cause suffering. The practice of meditation can attenuate this source of suffering by training the mind to see such thoughts and emotions as fleeting, to minimize engagement with them, to see them "fly by", rather than to dwell on them.

This method of disengagement attempts to train the mind to detach from the emotional content of thoughts, in other words, to understand the thought, to perceive and process it, but not to let it cause suffering.

An example would be a reminiscence of an event that could be said to be humiliating, or sad, say a scolding, or a quarrel. The mind may, the morning after say, remember the circumstances and the words that were said, but through Zen meditation, these thoughts would stop short of emotion, they would be like reading an account of the event happening to someone else, or to oneself a long time ago. A distance is placed between the thoughts that may cause suffering and the mind's areas that feel emotions.

It is a willful and gentle lobotomy.

This is not to say that the event or memory does not register, or is not processed. This is not avoidance, this is detachment.

Zen serenity, interpreted in the light of this approach, is a form of emotional control. Another way to keep a stiff upper lip, without repression of emotion, since emotion is not allowed to be invoked.

It is a difficult concept, for me at least, since often my emotions can rise up spontaneously and fast. If meditation can help delay the rise, or at least slow it down through the feedback mechanism of "seeing them fly by", then possibly they can be "pre-processed" and attenuated before they cause suffering or bad actions to occur.

My closing comment on this topic is in relation to music. Music is almost by definition associated with an emotional response. One Zen retreat in my area recommends silence during one's stay, no music, little talk. I think this is because music can be a powerful emotional trigger or catalyst. But what about chanting?

This makes me think that there many kinds of music, since some chants and certain instrumental accompaniments are common in Buddhist temples since they promote a state of meditation, or even trance. Maybe the distinction to make is between song and music, and even within that categorization, between romantic and non-romantic music.

We can continue to categorize, but I think to no useful purpose. Music can invoke memory, and dealing with memory is what Zen meditation practice teaches. So music is OK if you can deal with it, and some music is easier to deal that other kinds. I think Bach is easier to handle during meditation that Ligetti, or the Stones, but that is just me.

Half-baked vs open to possibilities? A manifesto.

studio series A. Barake 2008

I like the unfinished.

Whether it be studies, sketches, snippets of songs, or first drafts.

They seem alive, they allow for the future.

The future that I can choose to defer, giving me the hope of potential, of life going on.

Half-baked means that dinner is coming.

I also like the fully realized. It is post-coital, closure, comfort, time for closing the eyes and savoring.

So what is left not to like in this spectrum?

The mediocre, the completed in haste, the delivered for money not love, the faked, the cliche , the pandering to mass appeal, the blue smoke sentimentality of bad films by Spielberg and his ilk.

Playing the devil's advocate, I can see that the charges of laziness and lack of discipline can be laid. Other lesser judgements could be "wishy-washy", indecisive, uncommitted.

Yes, all valid categories for this approach, but the Venn diagram is flawed. These are not super sets of the incomplete. The incomplete is the super set of the attributes I list, and of many others. The incomplete action is the existential act, the rest is just noise and judgement. Being incomplete may not lead to riches, mass appeal, or to classic status, but it can reflect life and happiness. Certainly for me.

Brad Warner

I have been reading Brad Warner's book Sit Down and Shut Up! about Zen. His writing makes me think he is a kindred spirit. The book is engaging, very funny, and down-to-earth and it somehow manages to transcend the words and project the deep essence of the Buddhist meanings he wants to convey.

Brad is a Buddhist monk and a teacher. He also plays bass and writes columns on the Web. He writes about how his Buddhism allows him to react in a balanced way to situations and to people that may be frustrating or annoying. However, I get the feeling that he is still fighting the demons that assail us many of us, the ones having to do with pride and with having the last word. I guess that one aspect of enlightenment is the destruction of that urge, or at least its domestication.

What got me thinking about this was one of his Web columns, responding to a label he acquired for his association with the Suicide Girls site. That he responded at all was indicative. I often feel the same, some energy has to dissipate when one feels wronged. The state I am trying to attain is one where I don't feel wronged in the first place.

The other coincidental event that got me going along this train of thought was a funny excerpt from a diary-joke-agenda that suggested ways to "annoy the Dalai Lama". I don't think any of those methods would work, but they are so funny that they contain their own flaw; and the solution to this little problem: humour.

I think Brad knows this, and that is why his books are so great, the jokes are part of the religion. What other religions have jokes so deeply embedded (I know of only one joke in the Bible - about Peter being a rock to found the church on, and that one is really a pun that only works in Latin and its derivative languages)?