Adam and Stephan discuss Zen and the spiritual autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku, translated by Norman Waddell.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Adam and Stephan discuss Zen and the spiritual autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku, translated by Norman Waddell.
Copyright 2023 by Letters to the Sky
Stephan Downes:
Hi, I'm Stephan Downes.
Adam Rizvi:
And I'm Adam Rizvi.
Stephan Downes:
This is Letters to the Sky, a podcast about the metaphysical iconoclasts, philosophical visionaries and religious leaders of the world.
Adam Rizvi:
Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, neither or something in between, we invite you to take a deep dive with us down metaphysical rabbit holes and learn to see your life from a new perspective. Hello, Stephan.
Stephan Downes:
Wow, so chipper. So chipper.
Adam Rizvi:
A lot of energy today.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah? This is our second time recording this episode. We had technical difficulties after recording it for the first time unbeknownst to us at the time, which happens occasionally so.
Adam Rizvi:
That's very generous of you, Stephan. I had a big epic fail and recorded it on the wrong line.
Stephan Downes:
As I told you when it first happened, it happens all the time, even to professionals.
Adam Rizvi:
True that.
Stephan Downes:
So you are in good company as someone who cannot stop making mistakes.
Adam Rizvi:
It's all of us, man. It's all of us.
Stephan Downes:
Not me. Alright. What do we have today, Adam?
Adam Rizvi:
All right. We got Hakuin Ekaku. This guy is a Zen master. He is, hands down, one of the most influential Zen masters in Japan's history. You could even argue that Zen wouldn't exist in Japan, certainly not in the way it does, without Hakuin's help to bring it back from the ashes and create a resurgence of interest. And he was born in 1686 to 1768, so mid-1600s.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, so, so for those of you who have ever heard the phrase what is the sound of one hand clapping, that was Hakuin, although the actual koan is, what is the sound of one hand? People added clapping but apparently, the one that a lot of people have worked with is, what is the sound of one hand? But that aside, that is his. That is one of his contributions, which is now one of like the most frequently quoted koans, which we'll get into what those are. But yeah he was a monumental figure and he was a hugely polarizing figure as well for some people. He was absolutely brutal in his insults and criticism of Zen practice that he did not like. But at the same time, he completely revitalized Zen in Japan in a huge way. As Adam said, Zen wouldn't exist as it does today in Japan without him.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, he was also really well known for his calligraphy, for his art. He did tons of paintings. I think it was one of the main ways that him and his temple were able to make money. But still, if you look at his art, there's so much expressed in his brush strokes that you could argue conveys his degree of enlightenment or his... at least the way he saw the world. It really was quite expressive.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. An interesting fact and why we know so much about him is because unlike a lot of Zen priests, he wrote about his life very extensively and so in Japan at the time, priests—I mean they still are—are hereditary roles typically. So they're passed down through the family. You want to talk a little bit about his early life?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. So it's really interesting. I think one of the questions that can get asked when you get to know someone is like, what are your interests? Are you interested in spirituality and religion, philosophy and that kind of thing? There are different drives for us that get us into this topic. If you're listening to this, then you probably have similar interests. For Hakuin, he got into spirituality or religion because of being afraid to burn in the fires of hell. There's a great story of him, and he recounts the story, actually, of being in I think seven or eight years old and he was with his mother. There was a visiting priest from one of the early Japanese sects at the time who was describing, from a Buddhist perspective, the multiple hells that exist in Buddhism. He apparently went into graphic detail about the fires and the burning and the suffering and it terrified Hakuin. He was consumed with nightmares about this. He remembered going to his mother saying, "What must I do to avoid this?" And his mother at first thought it was, "Oh, don't worry about it, Hakuin," you know and sort of dismissed it. But he came back and came back and night after night would cry in her lap and say, "Tell me how to do this." She didn't know what to say, so she sort of came up with something. If I remember it correctly, she wanted to give him a haircut or wash his hair. And he refused until she gave him a solution to avoiding the fires of hell. She said there's a local village god. I'll get the name for it as some point... Tenjin, I believe. She said, "If you pray to him every night, you will be able to avoid the fires of hell." And I don't think she realized the kind of person she had given birth to because this kid went all out. He stayed up really, really late burning incense, praying to this god, local deity. He would get up early and he would make sacrificial offerings, you know just small things like flowers and whatnot. I don't think he was killing a lot to offer to this god. But at one point, doubt crept in. His mind as to whether this god really was going to save him. The way he did that was he put an incense stick on the altar and normally, when the smoke comes up, it's sort of chaotic. He said, "Okay, if you're out there, oh local deity, please make the smoke go up in a straight line." And so he had his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and lo and behold, the smoke was going up in a straight line. He's like, "That's it. I will devote my life to you." He closed his eyes again. He opened his eyes and it was a chaotic big swirl of smoke and that's when the doubt crept in. He's like, "Wait a minute. We had made an agreement. Straight line, and now it's chaos." And for some reason at that moment, he dropped it all. He was like, "Nope, you're not for me. You're not the one. There's got to be something else." And that began his lifelong pursuit into Buddhism and the core of Buddhism because that's the only thing he knew at that time, and that's the only real religion that was around at that time in Japan.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. And so, when he was around and growing up in Japan, it was really interesting. It was actually a period of decline in Zen. And for a long time, Zen had been really supported by the imperial court, by the government of Japan, and you're kind of entering a violent period with the shogunate. And he was... I mean, Zen in general was kind of out of favor, so to speak. I don't know if that... It might be too strong of a word, but Zen in general was not enjoying the same position it had in the past, and which made Hakuin's fierce defending of it and fierce criticisms of people who were kind of weekly practicing Zen really all the stronger. And in particular, he really criticized people who practiced Zen with no intention of actually serving beings in the real world. For him, the bodhisattva path, the path of serving others, of bringing others to enlightenment was just as central as sitting on the cushion or as working with koans. That was the truth. How do I say it? It's not as if one's more important than the other, but it is... Yeah it's just as central. It's just as central to any other type of practice you do as a Buddhist. And so he was always very engaged in the world and in serving others and in teaching others, and not just simply sitting on a cushion in silence and never interacting with the world.
Adam Rizvi:
What did he call them, do-nothing Zenists?
Stephan Downes:
Do-nothing Zenists, yeah. It's great. It's so great. Do you have that quote? The first quote, his insult, one his great insults?
Adam Rizvi:
Okay so basically he's... This group of Zenists are... They're known for sitting down and meditating and that's their goal. They just meditate. The goal was to continue, for them at least, to continue doing all of this stuff and not have to work beyond it. And then he had to push them and call them terrible names just to let them know that they are failing at being a Zen teacher. He called them thieves, essentially. And actually, he said that they were infesting the land. I'll read the quote here. So this is Hakuin directly. "I have a verse that pours scorn on this odious race of pseudopriests." Let's just... I'm going to pause for a moment. Let's just process Hakuin's preamble to his poem that they are an odious race of pseudopriests. I love that. It's great. I'm sure he has some alliteration if it was in Japanese." But. Earth's vilest thing from which all men recoil? Crumbly charcoal, firewood that's wet, watered lamp oil, a cartman, a boatman, a stepmother, skunks, mosquitoes, lice, blue flies, rats, thieving monks. Ah, monks, priests, you can't all be thieves, every last one of you. And when I talk about thieving priests," in case we don't know this already, "I refer to those silent illumination Zenists who now infest the land." This is like... He totally breaks being politically correct.
Stephan Downes:
He does. Absolutely. So I just want to contrast that because I love Hakuin's... The veracity of his insults. But as I was speaking before about how the central part of the path was really fulfilling the four Zen bodhisattva vows, I want to read what they are because they're also very powerful, but in a very different way. And you'll get to see... When I read these, contrast them with that strong of an insult and you'll really start to appreciate Hakuin. So the four vows are, beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. So these are.... Like when you take these vows, you are committing to a life practice and of serving other sentient beings on their own journeys to enlightenment. And just the fact that he could hold that... You know, he was a highly revered teacher. He was also very... you know... A bit of a... Now, he'd be controversial. He was probably par for the course. He could be violent at times. Um he would scream at people. He would harass his students. But it was always to fulfill these four vows. And his... You know, his students spoke highly of him. Students would come seek him from all over to study with him because they knew that they were getting the real deal.
Adam Rizvi:
There's a quote here that I want to read. After he had his first satori experience, and we'll talk a little bit about that, this was around the age of 24 to 26, he came to one of these realizations that enlightenment is nothing if it's not for service of others, or in service of others. He says, "I feel like a physician who possesses a wonderful knowledge of medicine but has no effective means of curing an actual sickness. How can I possibly hope to help rid other sentient beings of their afflictions as long as I still suffer from illness myself?" Which... That's fascinating because this came after he had one of his first breakthroughs. I think it goes to show you along the spiritual path, although there may be glimpses of the true nature of reality—at least in the Zen tradition—that doesn't mean that it's all done. In fact, that's probably just the beginning. He certainly realized that, and realizes that ultimately, this is, again, to help others and to serve others but he needs to realize this for himself. So he used that period in his life in his early 20s to renew and redouble his efforts at meditation and dharma practice.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely, absolutely. So I mean, I know that we're going to talk about koans and we're going to talk about enlightenment and Zen in general, but let's... Do you have anything else to share about his life and his biography right now?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. So we left off with Hakuin as a kid. I just remembered there's actually eight hells in the... At least in this tradition of early Zen, there were eight scorching hells that were described. He's now a child, essentially a teenager, diving into Zen practice and he goes to a temple nearby where he goes hard at work. And he realizes that he needs to put in elbow grease. In the Zen tradition, when you're at the lowest rung of the totem pole, so to speak, they will make you do things like scrub the floors and wash the dishes and prepare the food and all that sort of stuff. So he was putting in his due. At some point, though, he got disillusioned or disheartened because he realized years had gone by in this temple in the countryside of Japan, but he had nothing spiritually to show for it. Now, whether or not that's true, it's not clear. But he at least perceived that he needed something more. And so he actually left and went to another temple where he found one of his first, and arguably last, major teacher, Shōju. Shōju Rōjin was his full name and I believe at the end of his life, Hakuin looks back and says that Shōju Rōjin was his greatest teacher and taught him the most about the path of Zen. And that's particularly interesting because he actually only ends up spending eight months with Shōju Rōjin. If I remember that correctly, he didn't spend a long time, certainly under a year, but it was enough for him to realize that he needed to learn more. Actually, I have a couple quotes here that are kind of fun. When he um first appeared to Shōju, Shōju asked him, "Why are you interested in this? What are you learning?" And he was upfront and he said, "Well, it's because I want to avoid the fires of hell." His response was, "You're a self-centered rascal, aren't you?" which is great because even in Hakuin's desire for enlightenment, It was... Shōju's pointing it out that it was self-centered. It wasn't enlightenment for others like we've been talking about, Stephan, but it's enlightenment for himself, right? Hakuin says that he was "in a state of near terror the whole time I was with Shōju, trembling in every joint. My flesh constantly puckered up in goosebumps." And he describes at one point Shōju grabbed him and tossed him off the veranda onto the ground, "as if I were a little kitten." That's great. I mean, it also goes to show like the ways that masters treated their disciples. It was rough back then.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, man. That's so lovely. So I...
Adam Rizvi:
Maybe... We've been talking about Zen roughly with the assumption That we all kind of know what we're talking about. There's different forms of Buddhism.
Stephan Downes:
I don't think anyone thinks we know what we're talking about, but go on.
Adam Rizvi:
No, no. Yeah. I mean I mean, all of us, we, the listeners, too. Maybe you can outline what sets Zen apart from other forms of Buddhism. Like what is it known for? Where's the Zenness come from of Zen Buddhism?
Stephan Downes:
Sure, sure. So Zen is... Just like we've talked about Tibetan Buddhism here, so Zen is a form of Buddhism that originated in China. Well, it moved from India to China and then out of China, it moved to Japan. And so for a while... Well, Buddhism was in Japan before "Zen" was in Japan and there's several different types of Buddhism in Japan. There are several early forms, Pure Land being one of them, also Nichiren Buddhism and several forms of Buddhism, but Zen came over a little bit later and really... I mean, I think that Dōgen was really the first one to kind of like make Zen, Zen. He was another famous Zen master a bit earlier than Hakuin but he was the one who really made Zen, Zen. Zen is famous for zazen, which is sitting, which is like you're sitting facing a wall sitting very still. There's famous stories of the head student in Zen monasteries would walk up and down the aisle. If you've moved or like off, he would hit you with a stick. There's famous stories about that. But Zen's also famous for koans. And Koans are mind puzzles, so to speak, like what is the sound of one hand, that really force a student to grapple with them. They're things that don't sound like they have an answer but typically you know, a Zen teacher would give you a koan and then ask you to work with it and then you would work on it throughout the day. You would go in and then offer your answer to the Zen Master several times a day... or the Zen teacher several times a day, and the Zen teacher would tell you you were hot or cold or you know, getting it or not getting it. This is really how koans are worked with and so a lot of people tend to work with koans just contemplating them and thinking about them, but they're really meant to be worked through with a teacher who understands like what the purpose of giving the koan was and who gave the koan in the first place, the appropriate one to the student, and then can help guide the student through it. And so one of those central... For me, it goes hand in hand with koans and i'm actually not really sure if they are hand in hand but and Chan Buddhism, which is the precursor of Zen or the Chinese version of Zen, so to speak, which then went to Japan, they speak about the great doubt. And the great doubt is central thing to certain types of Chan practice. A lot of times, doubt is considered a really bad thing. But when we talk about the great doubt in Buddhism, in Zen Buddhism, we're really talking about like doubting the sanity of one's human mind, right. So in Buddhism, we often talk about how there is the samsara. There is the human version of things. There's the kind of the gross physical phenomena. Not even physical, but the phenomena that we all experience. And the great doubt is really about cultivating doubt in that. And a lot of times, that gets pointed inward in Chan practice and Zen practice to a point where one really starts to get a little riled up. Koans, for me, have always felt similar, where you know, you really take a koan like what is the sound of one hand and you just work on it. And there's an answer, but you have to show your teacher the answer. The thing about these koans is they had to be shown, not told, right. You can't tell your teacher the answer. You had to show them that you know it. There's a really like visceral kind of like tangled up knottiness and intenseness to that kind of practice that I think I've certainly... I'm not a Zen practitioner, but I've always like appreciated that about Zen and I've had those moments in my own life. But...
Adam Rizvi:
I think it's also... If I could jump in for a second here, it's like koans don't have a right answer. And I think that's the... For those few in the west that have heard about koans, they think it's like there's a question and there is a correct answer. But that's not necessarily the case. It's like there's all sorts of stories in Buddhist literature of students responding non-verbally. Like they hold up an object or they hold up one finger, or the teacher will do that and their koan will be holding up one finger or a flower, you know. Famously, Buddha himself held up a flower and that was his sermon, and then there was no one except for one person, Ananda, one of his students, who like got it and got the meaning behind his sermon and became enlightened or had an enlightenment moment right there. And so Koans, as you said, Stephan, it's like a knot that you unravel with your whole being. And it comes out in the form of words in a dialogue with your master or with a Zen master, but the Zen master will use what you say to get a sense of where you're at in terms of your awareness.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. And there are... Hakuin was... One of the famous things that he did was he codified and helped further the Zen koan repertoire, so to speak. So, you know there are koans that you give to students who are in certain periods of development in their practice that are more or less advanced than other koans and for particular reasons. I don't know them. I don't know this part of Zen specifically, but I know that it exists. So one of things Hakuin did was help codify that, and so really using these koans to work students from novices to advanced practitioners, which leads us to the point of it all.
Adam Rizvi:
What is the point of it, Stephan?
Stephan Downes:
I don't want to say it out loud.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, then we're just going to have to sit here in silence. I can't do it anymore. Goddamn it. I thought I was going to be able to win. I can't handle the awkward.
Stephan Downes:
Why would you ever think you were going to win that one?
Adam Rizvi:
I thought- I hoped.
Stephan Downes:
You, you sweet summer child.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh my gosh.
Stephan Downes:
You sweet summer child.
Adam Rizvi:
I was like, "I'm going to get Stephan on this awkward silence. I'm going to go 10 seconds." I don't know. I think it was 10 seconds. But that was... I think that was infinitely more painful for me.
Stephan Downes:
Maybe, maybe. You'll never know. Okay. So. We actually got a question from one of our audience members for us to speak a little bit about enlightenment. The first time we actually had this conversation, as I mentioned before at the start of this, we already recorded this and it didn't work out because of technical difficulties. We actually went through and explained this. After I was finished with my part, I realized that I was like explaining non-duality from a Tibetan perspective using like Madhyamaka principles, which I've spoken about before. But I really want to go back, try to explain it without that. Like from a more Zen perspective. I'm not going to be able to do it from a Zen perspective just because I really don't know much about Zen practice itself and the Zen expression, but we should try it again. I think you know, you asked at the very... One of our first episodes, maybe our second one, I think I asked you if enlightenment was possible as a joke question at the beginning. But it really wasn't a joke and you gave an answer and I believe you said no.
Adam Rizvi:
That's right.
Stephan Downes:
Is that what you said?
Adam Rizvi:
I did.
Stephan Downes:
And that sounded like a joke except it wasn't a joke. But no one knew it wasn't a joke except for the two of us.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, we did say that we would talk about it in a later episode, so here it is. It's coming back.
Stephan Downes:
Here it is. All right, so enlightenment. Well, there is a lot to say about it and there isn't a lot to say about it. And... Man, that was a bad start. Uh...
Adam Rizvi:
There's a description of enlightenment that comes from the Zen tradition, maybe that's a good way of starting it, which is that it's a gateless gate, which the idea is when you're on one side of it as a student and you're learning and you're striving towards enlightenment, enlightenment appears to be a gate that you have to go through, like some grand portal that you have to cross through. And you meditate. You study. You grow. You evolve. You do all those things and along the path, you approach the gate and then you walk through it, which is to say the enlightenment experience happens and you rest in that state. And then you pass through the gate and you turn around. And you look back and you see that there's nothing there. There's no gate there. It never was there. That description of enlightenment, for at least in the Zen tradition, I think captures this idea of you know, yes, we're talking about enlightenment. We're saying something. We're using the word enlightenment to point to an experience that people, mystics from time immemorial have experienced. And yet, the Zen masters are saying, "Listen, when you cross that threshold and you look back, you realize there's nothing there. There never was. There never was something to attain and to reach." And that's partly the explicit reason why we said there is no enlightenment.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. And so... As Adam said, enlightenment exists for the person who has not experienced enlightenment or is not enlightened. As soon as one passes through that gateless gate, as soon as one has a really profound... I mean you could say... So lets just... I want to be very clear, too, because this is a serious topic and a lot of people goof around it. But it is a serious topic and a lot of people have very strong misconceptions about this. There are different levels of awakening. It's very, very, very rare, in fact so rare that it's probably not worth talking about, people who become fully enlightened in an instant. A lot of the times, for the vast, vast, vast majority of people, it happens in fits and starts and in pieces. And we have different realizations at different times, and some are more complete than others. And the thing that's... So when we say enlightenment is impossible, it's because A, the enlightenment isn't a thing that one achieve. Enlightenment simply is. And then also, as Adam, as you pointed out last time, there's no one there to experience the enlightenment itself. And so you can come at it from the exterior as in it's not a thing external to ourselves. There's nothing to achieve. And at the same time, there's no one to achieve it. And so, like you said before—I'm just reiterating now—there is no enlightenment to achieve and there's no one to achieve it. But so, what is the actual experience of waking? Because that's all very like heady.
Adam Rizvi:
Totally.
Stephan Downes:
That's very heady.
Adam Rizvi:
I was just thinking that.
Stephan Downes:
The experience of awakening is... How do I describe it? Wherever you are, if it's safe to do so... Please don't do this if you're driving. So if you just take a look at something nearby., Right.. This is a bit of an exercise. Some of you will glimpse something and some of you won't. And that's okay. There's no right or wrong way to do this. Just take a look at something nearby. It could be a wall. For me, the webcam's right in front of me. My computer's right in front of me. See what you see. Are you seeing color? Are you seeing texture? Are you seeing a physical object? What are you actually seeing? What are your eyes seeing? What is your brain processing? And then I want you to take this on temporarily that everything you're seeing is actually light. By light, I don't want to say photons like physical light. They're light. There's a lightness to it kind of beyond words. I want you to keep going deeper and deeper and deeper in whatever you've chosen to contemplate with me and then just look as far down as you can go perceptually in your mind. Just be with it and see what you see. If you go far enough and if you spend enough time, some of you might actually see that there's nothing really there. There's space. That space has a lightness to it. One of the descriptions of nondual awareness is self-illuminating. There's this light that emerges from itself. There's no definition to it. As soon as you define it, it stops being it. It stops being that lightness. It becomes material phenomena. But there is this lightness to everything around us. When you start seeing that, you can start to see it in other things. You can start to see it in you know, your hands or a book or other objects around you. And then eventually, you start seeing that in your emotions and your thoughts. You start turning inward until everything just becomes lightness. Everything becomes the self-illuminating light that has no definition. It has no qualities to it that are discernible, but you know there's just light. That's the only way I can describe it. There's just light. That is like the first step in experiencing enlightenment, is like seeing there is just oneness. There is just this one thing. And in that thing, if you take this further, there's no movement because there's only this one thing that isn't really a thing. There's no movement. There's no stillness. You were never alive. You could never die. There is no you. And just every... All concepts, the mind just stops and everything just dissolves into that. That's the first step. A lot of people, if you're listening to this, a lot of people think that that's the last step but it's actually the first step. And all of the work that we do up until we experience that, is like preparing the ground. And then once we have that experience, once we see that for ourselves with our own eyes, it's no longer a concept. Enlightenment is no longer this thing that is out there that we'll someday achieve. Enlightenment is here. Enlightenment is us. Enlightenment is everything. And so... In Zen, back to Zen. I don't want to... Sorry I'm taking up all the mic time here.
Adam Rizvi:
No, that was great Stephan. I don't think you've ever done that before. I really appreciated going through that with you.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. So there's a text in Zen Buddhism called the... Let's see, the Sandokai. It's a great teaching text and it talks about non-duality. And so, in relationship to this... I actually have a piece of Hakuin's writing as well, but I wanted to share this. So there's two lines in the Sandokai which are really important here. Here they are. To be attached to things is primordial illusion. To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment. So the first one, the first line, sounds pretty familiar to a lot of people who study spirituality in general. To attach to things is primordial illusion. This is this fundamental idea that there's an identity there that is attaching itself to things and saying that that's real. The second one is a bit more... Especially if that exercise to you and me saying that that was the first step is a bit of a shock to you, the second line's really important. To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment. When you first have that experience, and I've seen it a lot, it is very easy... And in fact, I'm guilty of it. I've been very guilty of it in the past, is you want to stay there. It is the definition of comfort. There's all of a sudden that there's nothing wrong, there never was anything wrong, you know, you're a potato. That's what we call it. You've been turned into a potato. The thing is, the potato's got to...
Adam Rizvi:
You have to unpackage that for me.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah. For you?
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah.
Stephan Downes:
Which part?
Adam Rizvi:
The potato.
Stephan Downes:
Well, you just don't want to do anything. Like everything's complete. There's nothing wrong anymore.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, as in couch potato.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, couch potato.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, see, I was still in your like... the nothingness and the light and the blandness of a potato.
Stephan Downes:
I see. Well, if you can... Potatoes are not bland, Adam, first of all.
Adam Rizvi:
Well, you got to add some cheese and you got to bake it a little bit. But by themselves, they're kind of bland. All right, clearly, Stephan loves potatoes.
Stephan Downes:
I can't believe we haven't had this discussion. We'll have this discussion offline.
Adam Rizvi:
All right. I'm in trouble.
Stephan Downes:
Okay, so the second line, to encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment. So once you have that experience, you have to integrate it. You have to go back because that state is actually very fragile the first time you experience it and it's very fragile for a long time after you experience it. And things will constantly pull one back into limited perception right, to the attachment to things, the primordial illusion that that first line spoke about. So what we really have to do is start integrating that awareness into the other things we experience. Because things, we are constantly experiencing them. In Buddhism, that's the wheel of karma. So we as beings have generated, through our past actions, we generate a karma that is fulfilling itself in our present life. That engine was started a long time ago. That momentum was started a long time ago. Even though we've "experienced" this enlightenment, the karma is still occurring, right. We have not finally blown out the flames of karma. We've not achieved nirvana, you know as the Buddha was speaking about. Things will come up. Things will keep happening. We will have to deal with them. And it is a mistake to simply say, "Oh, I'm enlightened now. I don't have to deal with it anymore." It's actually not true. You may be enlightened, but you'll also die of starvation in a lot of pain or probably or thirst in a lot of pain or you'll get sick. Life will not be pleasant. It's not as if all of a sudden, nothing matters, right. That's the nihilism that Buddhism actually rejects. And so t's really...
Adam Rizvi:
It's not heaven in the sense that you know milk and honey and all that stuff.
Stephan Downes:
Right right. Absolutely. When you start to integrate this experience, you can have that experience of oneness at the same time you are angry. You can have that experience of oneness at the same time that you're experiencing sadness or grief or laughter or pleasure or pain, you know. You can have both of those experiences at once. That's more of the integration that is, I'm going to say for lack of a better word, healthy, a healthier integration of awakening and so Hakuin actually talks about this. Hakuin has... It's called Kensho. This kind of awakening is called kensho in Zen. Hakuin actually famously wrote about the five stages of Kensho. Hakuin, and so Hakuin, in true Hakuin fashion, was really critical of people who stopped at this first stage of Kensho. So here's what he says. This is what we just talked about, that experience I just guided everybody through. So if you got something from that and you're like, "Wow, this is great. I'm good here. I'm good. I'm good, guys. Please don't ask me to do anything else," here's what Hakuin had to say about this. "Too often, the disciple, considering that his attainment of this rank is the end of the great matter and his discernment of the Buddha way complete, clings to it to the death and will not let go of it. Such as this is called stagnant water Zen. Such a man is called an evil spirit who keeps watch over the corpse in the coffin. Even though he remains absorbed in this state for 30 or 40 years, he will never get out of the cave of self-complacency and inferior fruits of pratyekabuddhahood." And so...
Adam Rizvi:
You got to explain pratyekabuddhahood.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah. So what Hakuin's getting to here is that again, very Hakuin, is that the real fruit of this is in the action, the bodhisattva action of awakening all sentient beings. And so pratyekabuddhahood... So there are several different types of Buddhism. One of them is called pratyekabuddha. The pratyekabuddha is the one is the one who achieves enlightenment for one's self. So in the spiritual world, you see this a lot. You see like the lone wolf who reads a ton of books on Zen or Buddhism, has never had a teacher, has never actually interacted with anybody who might challenge their beliefs in real way because a real teacher will challenge every belief you have and it won't be always fun. And you know, they'll kind of treat it as, "I can do it on my own. I don't need help." They're not open to feedback and that is the classic... I mean, that's not even pratyekabuddha. That's someone who's doing it for themself, though, right? If we stop at this awareness and we just say that everything's groovy, everything's just kind of dissolving into oneness nothingness you know and there's nothing else to do because there's nothing, that is... You know, we'll just die in that and we'll never move on. That's not the end. That's literally the beginning. That is the beginning of the path. Everything up to then was just getting there. Once you have it, then you have to integrate it.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, there's a couple things that this makes me think of. One is Joseph Campbell's monomyth. It can be applied to enlightenment, in a certain sense, as you're striving for it and you attain it, right. You go in the cave and then you kill the dragon. Thou shalt and all that. We talked about all this. Now, you have the treasure, right. You have the experience. That can't be the end. That's not the end of the journey. Even Joseph Campbell would say now is the return. And where do you return to? You return back to the village you came from, your family, your friends and everything, and you share the treasure. And this is you know, this is the service of others. This is the compassion for all beings in the universe. And as Hakuin would say, it's the mind of enlightenment, which is being of service to others. He really, really put emphasis on that. It was like one of the biggest pushes in the latter half of his life, was to make sure that the teachings of Zen spread throughout Japan and that he left that imprint. There's another thing that I want to talk about in regards to enlightenment. That was a great little meditation that you guided us through. It made me think to share that enlightenment, or at least the working towards it, is about seeing the true nature of things. And it's not about intellectualizing and having a conceptual understanding of something. In fact, it's the disillusion of that. And specifically, you can use that same example that you had, Stephan, which is look around you and look for an object, right. Next to me is my phone, so we can use that as an example. I have my phone here, my smartphone. I look at this object and I immediately labeled it. It's blue and I called it a smartphone. But just in that, the label has altered my perception of that thing. What if I dropped the label of smartphone? What if I dropped the label blue and there was just this experience of a thing in front of me, right? But even that, a thing, means that I somehow demarcated the object from its surroundings and I made it into a form when in fact, it's not really just a form, but it is the experience of what is being perceived by me, right? And so now, we're going backward and backward and backward. Now, we're left with me perceiving other and this is the point of deep zazen and meditation, is you start peel away concepts. And you can work through anything. Eventually, and this is the fascinating part about, I think, all spiritual practice and certainly the mystical paths, they eventually go down to the concept of self. You peel back, you peel back and you look inward and you realize, "Well, who am I? What am I?" And so... Adam, he's a guy who was born in a certain place. He grew up in a certain way and he's got a story, right? So does Stephan. But that's just a concept. Those are just conceptual frameworks built upon conceptual frameworks, memories and memories and stories. But all of that is... It's a house of cards. That applies to each of one of us. And so when we look at Zen and Buddhism and diving into that, it's the ultimate iconoclastic thing to do, which is to tear down the concept of who you think you are.
Stephan Downes:
Absolutely, absolutely. And you're reminding me of one of my... It's not even a quote. It's more just like an expression. A Tibetan teacher who said, "Enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment." Right? We talked about the power of disappointment in the Chogyam Trungpa episode and how disappointment is... can be a real fuel for the fire of spiritual awakening. But but enlightenment, when you realize like that there's not even a you here, there's not even anything to achieve, it just is, like all of your hopes and dreams of some grand like explosion awakening where all the angels and cherubs and the... all the beings are waiting for you and cheering you on and "Great job. You did it," like it's not there. None of it happens, right? Like not like you're thinking it's going to. It's just kind of, "Okay, now what?" You know, and famous saying, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." You know, nothing really changes. Your experience of it does.
Adam Rizvi:
I think this begs the question... If I were listening to this for the first time, I would probably ask myself, "So what? Why would anyone want to work towards enlightenment? Why would anyone want to spend the kind of time deconstructing their concept of self, their sense of self and their sense of the forms of this world? Like why bother? Why not just live life?" I'm curious what you would say because I have an idea what I would say to that question.
Stephan Downes:
Well, I think you can't have... You need that, you need that desire to fuel. That desire is fuel, right. That's what makes you take on the great doubt. That's what makes you take on a koan. That's what makes you... Like in this one book I read once it called it spiritual autolysis, right like spiritual self-digestion.
Adam Rizvi:
Oh, interesting. I like that.
Stephan Downes:
And so it's like this process of dissolving... Like you said, dissolving, digesting one's self. And I don't really know. For me, personally, it's just been a thing that's been present in me, this desire to achieve "enlightenment", right, like whatever that was. That's changed over the years a lot. It's gone from this really cool thing that I was doing that made me special to you know really run-of-the-mill, everyday life and kind of changed over the years. I just have always had that impetus to partake in spiritual autolysis. And so i've always really liked that. It's always just been something there for me. And it really started... I think I read my first... I actually read my first Buddhist book and it was a Tibetan Buddhist book. I didn't know what I was reading. It wasn't like a conscious choice. So like they were cutting through spiritual materialism, which we've talked about, and there was one other book written by an American Tibetan Buddhist teacher and I remember having this out-of-body experience out of nowhere. It was in my dorm room in college and I just had this out-of-body experience where I left my body. I was watching it. I was watching everything happen and it was just like the craziest thing I had ever experienced. I had no idea what was happening right? And then from then on, I just had this desire. So I started like really digesting these books and then several months later, not even several months but a while later, you know like six or eight months later, I met a teacher who I really connected with. And that was... For me and my path and my style of work, meeting the teacher was the real crux for me, you know. There are some people who make it really far on their own and who are really good at processing things on their own. I'm not one of those people. I really need a teacher. I'm very stubborn and I have a real problem with authority, and so I need someone who's a very strong teacher to put me in my place on the spiritual path. But I'm really not sure where it comes from but without it, I couldn't imagine my life without it. Like why do it? I mean, if it's all just the same, you wouldn't be on the path if you had to ask that question, you know. You just do it. I wish I had a better answer for that. Like you're either interested in it or you aren't. It's okay either way. You know, I certainly don't make it better to be on a spiritual path or not. That's actually a controversial statement inside of the spiritual world. But some people really feel like it's legitimately better, but you know we're all on our own paths and who knows what is in store for each one of us? You either have it or you don't. What about you?
Adam Rizvi:
I feel for me, what I would say to that question why bother, why walk the spiritual path, why seek for enlightenment is I think it starts off as a selfish reason because...
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, yeah.
Adam Rizvi:
... life's too painful otherwise. You know? There's way too much suffering in this world. It's terrible, you know. This world is terrible and there are some really, really challenging things that happen in life and I think no matter how beautiful your life is... one's life is, um there's always going to be at least one or two things that occur that really throw you for a loop and cause suffering, frankly. I mean, we're talking about Buddhism right, so what are the noble truths? One of the first noble truth is dukkha, which is there is suffering. There is discomfort right, however that gets translated from Sanskrit. I think that's why it's the first noble truth. It's because that's for me, it's the drive. It's the drive. There have been many moments where I've sort of... The burning flames for enlightenment simmer and they turn to sort of like embers, right. They're not really a light and they're not burning bright. And then something terrible happens and my life gets turned upside down. And i'm just like, "What the hell is it all about anyway?" Right? That usually starts with disappointment. Something terrible happens, some unmet expectation, and I'm deeply disappointed, and not just that particular emotion but you know like suffering in any form, and then I ask myself, "There's got to be some other way. I can't just keep living like this." You know. And that, for me, has happened so many times in life where I've told myself, "This can't continue in the way that it is." And the benefit of not just Buddhism... I mean, there are other traditions that espouse this... but is the recognition that you shouldn't... As the famous teaching goes, like okay you want to go out and explore the world, but you want to protect your feet. You can either cover the entire world with leather or you can put leather around your own feet, right? And that teaching is to point to the idea that if you address yourself, if you find where the suffering is occurring within, then life itself will transform. And really, nothing out there "has changed", but you have. And because you have, there's less suffering. And I truly believe that. I feel like if one really takes to heart these teachings, transforms the mind, transforms one's own perception of the world and of one's self, then there is less suffering. That's what drives me, at least.
Stephan Downes:
A lot has come to me in this... As I want to keep sharing since you shared. And it actually... It brought up some stuff for me that really clarified things. The first thing I want to say, let me bring up the four noble truths. So this experience that I walked everyone through, you can get to that experience from the first noble truth. So, a lot of people... I mean, they're ordered for a reason, but they're actually ordered experientially as well, right? If you understand that life is suffering and then you understand why you're suffering, you figure out why. Because once you've figured out why, you have a glimpse that the ending of suffering is possible. And then it's figuring out what is the path to the end of suffering and those are the four noble truths. I've actually always really loved the first noble truth because it is the foundation of the rest, as far as experientially and on the path. So I just wanted to point that out. I thought that was a really great connection you made. The second thing is you really... I know I spoke about this like out-of-body experience that I had and everything, but you really actually... When you talked about life is suffering, I really reflected on my own life and experience. For me, it was meeting my teacher for the first time and for some reason, and I don't know why and this is... You know, if you're someone who studied with teachers, maybe you'll recognize this but I felt... For the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to be loved like completely and fully like... My entire being, all my faults, all my hangups, all my insecurities, all the things I wasn't proud of that I'd done, my teacher saw all of them and still loved me and still chose to you know, take me on as his student. Not even take me on as a student. I wasn't even there yet. Just love me and that was an experience I'd never had before. You know and I think a lot of us with our family, with our friends, you know we feel hurt. There's parts of ourselves that we can't show. There's parts of ourselves that we feel judged. You know, we feel judged. Meeting my teacher was the first moment that I was like, "Oh, there's something else. Like oh, it's possible to be completely loved." And like... That is the ultimate healing force and I think that's when you're talking about suffering, like that was my moment of realizing there's a real polarity here, you know. This is what I want. This is the world I want to live in. I don't want to live in this world where I'm hung up on all my insecurities and everything. I want to experience love.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, great way to um wrap up this episode.
Stephan Downes:
We're going to go into five minutes of Benny Hill music like we talked about?
Adam Rizvi:
At this point, we can do whatever you want, Stephan. Whatever you want.
Stephan Downes:
All right, 10 minutes of Benny Hill music.
Adam Rizvi:
30. Folks, this is going to be a two-hour long episode. Just get ready.
Stephan Downes:
The last hour is Benny Hill music.
Adam Rizvi:
The last hour.
Stephan Downes:
Benny Hill music on repeat. If you don't know what Benny Hill music is, please look it up. You'll recognize it immediately and you'll know why this is a funny joke.
Adam Rizvi:
The other thing too about spirituality and about Hakuin, just to wrap this up with a Hakuin-
Stephan Downes:
Oh, right, right. This is an episode about Hakuin.
Adam Rizvi:
This is about Hakuin. Is that he held such a playful attitude. He was fierce and...
Stephan Downes:
Oh my God, I'm so glad that you brought this up.
Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. You want to talk for another hour?
Stephan Downes:
Keep going, keep going, keep going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. After the Benny Hill music, intermission for now.
Adam Rizvi:
Intermission? So Hakuin, you know he's loving, he's fierce, he's really strict. He's physically, verbally abusive. Like there's so many different aspects to him, but there's one aspect that I thought was hilarious and it spoke to sort of the playfulness and the joyfulness about him. First of all, he... Even back then at that time, um it was considered not appropriate... You could put it that way, for a Zen priest to smoke or to drink alcohol, certainly not get drunk at that time and certainly not to carry pipes and you know the equivalent of cigarettes and whatnot. But, let me share with you this quote from one of his biographies. One of his main students is named Torei and Torei actually wrote one of Hakuin's biographies. And Torei specifically was known for being very disciplined and very strict and adhered to all the rules set forth according to Zen Buddhism. So here's the sentence. Torei, a priest who was known for his strict adherence to the precepts, writes how he would sometimes enter Hakuin's chambers and catch the master hastily concealing his still-smoking pipe behind his back. I love the image of that. I love it. It's like he's this great being, a giant in Zen Buddhism, and at this point in his late 80s or whatever, 70s, he's just chilling, smoking his pipe. But he knows he's not supposed to. He's got to set an example. His main student comes in, he stashes away the pipe. It's just such a sweet image in my mind.
Stephan Downes:
I love it. So your conversation about... Something struck me when you started this conversation.
Adam Rizvi:
Playfulness.
Stephan Downes:
Yeah, playfulness. So one of my favorite Zen teachers, he passed away recently, is Bernie Glassman and he was an American Zen teacher. He had a practice. He was a clown. He was a trained clown and he had a practice. When things got way too sanctimonious in the Zen hall, he always carried a red clown nose. When things got too serious and sanctimonious, he would take out the red clown nose and put it on. He would do the practice with the clown nose on. That was his way of like reminding everyone to like lay off. Like, stop taking this so seriously. So you know, you got to have some fun with it. Got to have fun.
Adam Rizvi:
You got to have some fun. Stop taking it so seriously. That's a great way to end this.
Adam Rizvi:
Well done, sir. Well done. Slow clap in the background. That's an actual slow clap.
Stephan Downes:
All right. Well, so coming up we have more... maybe more western esotericism, maybe satanism. Who knows?
Adam Rizvi:
Ooh, I've got some interesting stories to share with you all.
Stephan Downes:
Maybe we can get Lil Nas X on.
Adam Rizvi:
Yes, yes.
Stephan Downes:
Maybe he can come on our podcast.
Adam Rizvi:
Maybe some...
Stephan Downes:
How about grinding on the devil?
Adam Rizvi:
We got some Marcus Aurelius potentially, too. We've been really wanting to do stoicism.
Stephan Downes:
Oh right, stoicism.
Adam Rizvi:
It's...
Stephan Downes:
The thing that everybody likes that I don't understand. We'll get there.
Adam Rizvi:
Exactly. It's apparently a hot topic. We'll dive into it at some point, so lots, lots more to come.
Stephan Downes:
Cool. All right. Well, Adam, you have yourself a lovely rest of your day.
Adam Rizvi:
You too, Stephan.
Stephan Downes:
Goodbye. You're not going to say bye to me?
Adam Rizvi:
Bye.