On Some Differences Between Insight Meditation and Zen

 

I started my Buddhist practice in the Insight Meditation tradition, and after about a decade and a half, switched to practicing within the Zen tradition. The reason for my switch wasn’t due to any dissatisfaction with my Insight Meditation practice. I had moved to a new location and there just weren’t any Insight Meditation groups nearby. There was, however, a zendo in the next town that proved to be a congenial place to practice.

I soon found myself puzzled, however, by the differences between the Zen talks I was now hearing and the Insight Meditation talks I was more familiar with. As a result, I developed a keener appreciation for the differences between the multiple–sometimes conflicting–streams of Buddhist thought that had made their way to American shores. There is a tendency for Westerners–practitioners and teachers alike–to sometimes blend those streams together in a kind of incoherent mash-up without sufficient awareness of and/or appreciation for the inconsistencies lying just beneath the surface. The Mahayana Buddhist tradition was acutely aware of these inconsistencies and devised various ingenious ways of dealing with them. One method was to divide teachings into those that were considered subject to interpretation (neyarhta) and those considered to be definitive (nitartha), or ultimately true. The central idea underlying this typology was that the Buddha offered different teachings to audiences of different capacities.  Buddhist commentators then organized these teachings into doxographic hierarchies, with the most definitive teachings at the top.  Not surprisingly, commentators differed as to which teachings were thought to be provisional and which were thought to be definitive.  Also, not surprisingly, there was a tendency for historically later schools to view their teachings as definitive and those of historically earlier schools as interpretable. While Buddhist scholars are well aware of these intricacies, Western Buddhist teachers and practitioners (especially outside of the Tibetan tradition!) often are not.  

There are a number of crucial ideas in Zen (and Mahayana in general) that are either not found or not emphasized in the Theravada tradition from which Insight Meditation is derived. Just to give an example, the concept of “emptiness” (sunyata) is crucial in Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese Buddhism, but relatively unimportant in the Buddhism of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, or Cambodia. The concept of emptiness didn’t gain currency until the first century BCE, only reaching its full flowering in the second century CE in the Prajnaparamita Sutras and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka philosophy. The Theravada tradition, on the other hand, was transmitted from India to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE, well before the blossoming of Indian Madhyamaka.

What does this mean for each tradition?  For one thing, it means that the Insight Meditation tradition focuses on insight into “the three marks of existence”–the impermanence of all things, the idea that all things are in some way experientially unsatisfactory, and the idea that nothing experienced ought to be considered as “I, me, or mine.” This is essentially a psychologically minded approach. The last of the three marks–not taking experiences as part of the “network of me-ness”–was meant to help people see that they had no unchanging, essential Self to grasp onto. It was concordant with the Buddhist doctrine of annata or “non-self” which denied the idea (derived from the Vedas and Upanishads) that people had eternal souls that shared an ultimate identity with the godhead.

By way of contrast, the idea of “emptiness” is an elaboration on and extension of the Theravada idea of not self-grasping at phenomena as “I, me, or mine.”  Emptiness posits that everything–not just the personal Self–lacks independent self-existence. Nothing exists in the world by virtue of itself, but instead depends for its existence on its interrelationship with everything else. This is essentially a process view of reality–reality isn’t made up of “things” or “substances” but instead it made up of the flow of ever-changing interrelated processes. “Things,” according to this point of view, are just slow-moving processes. Thus, the person I am now–once a sperm and an egg and later dust and ashes–exists only by virtue of its interchanges with the environment–taking in food and oxygen, dependent on energy from the sun and water from the rain, existing by virtue of parental rearing, and living in a community. Without any one of those elements, “I” cease to exist.  

To a certain degree, the doctrine of emptiness shifts Buddhism’s focus away from Theravada’s psychological-mindedness and towards an ontological concern with the absolute nature of reality.  Zen and the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism posit that it’s possible to undergo a fundamental shift in how we directly experience reality based on this fundamental interrelatedness of things. 

This second-century Madhyamaka view of emptiness underwent a further metamorphosis with the development of the Huayan school of Buddhism in seventh-and Eighth-Century Tang Dynasty China. This change is beautifully expressed in the Flower Garland Sutra metaphor of “Indra’s Net.”  Indra’s Net is an infinitely vast net with jewels at each of its interstices, each jewel reflecting the light of every other jewel.  According to this metaphor, reality is just like Indra’s Net–every part of the universe is in immediate and intimate interrelation with every other part. The word “interpenetration” is often used to describe this intimate relationship. This cosmological vision of absolute interconnectedness–everything in the universe depending on every other thing without exception for its existence–lead to placing a more positive spin on the Madhyamaka view of emptiness. In Madhyamaka, the emptiness and lack of self-existence of all phenomena was seen as something negative–one more reason not to get attached to things. Why become attached to things if no “thing” really exists?  

The Tang Dynasty Huayan visionaries, on the other hand, sensed a profound beauty in this complete interpenetration of everything. They called it the “suchness” of things. This positive transvaluation of emptiness moves one beyond mere detachment and towards a positive caring for all of existence. There is a way in which earlier forms of Buddhism sought to detach us from the everyday world to reach a higher plane–Nirvana–whereas the heirs to the Huayan tradition (and Zen is one such heir) sought to ground us in caring for all of existence as it is, insisting that there’s no difference between form and emptiness–between everyday reality and Nirvana–except in our view of things.  In this way, the Huayan tradition turned early Buddhism on its head.

There are other ideas that occur in Zen that also weren’t part of earlier Buddhist doctrine. Centuries after the flowering of Madhyamaka in India, a third Indian Buddhist school known as Yogacara emerged. Yogacara introduced several innovations at variance with earlier streams of Buddhist thought.  (I ask scholarly readers to forgive the oversimplification here–there are, of course, some ways in which the Madhyamaka and Yogacara innovations were anticipated in pre-Mahayana Buddhism, just as there are ways in which the Chinese innovations were foreshadowed in earlier Indian Buddhist thought.)  Among the Yogacara innovations was the idea of the illusory nature of the subject-object dichotomy.  Zen meditation values losing the sense of an “I” who is watching the theater of the mind–in other words, losing the distinction between the observer and the observed. This is not a part of Insight Meditation.  

Another Yogacara innovation is the concept of the tathagatagarbha, or the “womb of the Buddha,” also called Foxing (pronounced “fo-shing”) or “Buddha Nature,” by the Chinese. The Yogacara Buddhists wondered how ordinary human beings could become Buddhas. How could one make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Nothing comes from nothing. The question is exemplified by a conversation between the Chinese Zen master Nanyue and his attendant, Mazu:

Nanyue asked, “Great monastic, what do you intend by doing zazen?” 

Mazu said, “I am intending to be a Buddha.” 

Nanyue picked up a brick and started polishing it. 

Mazu said, “What are you doing?” 

Nanyue said, “I am trying to make a mirror.” 

Mazu said, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a brick?” 

Nanyue said, “How can you become a Buddha by doing zazen?” 

The Mahayana Buddhists wondered how an ordinary person could become a Buddha unless the seed for becoming a Buddha was not somehow already present. This “seed” is the “womb of the Buddha” or “Buddha Nature.” The idea of Buddha Nature has been variously interpreted by different East Asian Buddhist traditions as meaning either 1) the idea of a universally present seed of awakening, dormant and waiting to be nourished, or 2) the idea that all human beings are in fact already Enlightened, only they don’t realize it yet, or 3) the idea that the integrated-universe-as-a-whole was, in fact, the Buddha’s ultimate body (dharmakaya) itself, and that our true selves are not the individual personalities they seem to be, but are, when seen correctly, the entire web of interconnected being. The last alternative informs the Zen notion of one’s “true self” or “big self” being the entirety of the interconnected universe, as opposed to the “small self” of personal ego. 

I might parenthetically add that the idea of an essential Buddha-nature or “true self” seems, at least on the surface, antithetical to the earlier Buddhist doctrine of annata or non-self. In fact, the Nirvana Sutra–one of the earliest Yogacara texts–is quite explicit about this contradiction, claiming that the tathagatagarbha doctrine supersedes earlier Buddhist teachings on non-self. 

Even the quintessential story of the Buddha’s enlightenment differs between the Theravada and Zen traditions. I remember my sense of disorientation when I first heard a Zen teacher tell the Zen version. According to the teacher, after sitting all night, the Buddha suddenly looked up at the morning star, exclaiming “How wonderful!  All beings and all things are enlightened just as they are!”  I naively thought to myself, “how can this teacher not know the real story of the Buddha?”  I was certain the Buddha never said any such thing!

Since then, I’ve heard some variation of this story from every Zen teacher who’s ever mentioned the matter.  I’m not sure of the original source for the Zen version of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, but a variant of it can be found in Eihei Dogen’s Shobogenzo, the thirteenthcentury foundational text of Japanese Soto Zen.  In it, Dogen writes “Sakyamuni Buddha said, ‘When the morning star appeared, I attained the way simultaneously with all sentient beings and the great earth.'”

The Theravada account of the Buddha’s first words upon awakening–the one I’d always heard before from Insight Meditation teachers–comes from the Dhammapada, a series of versified sayings attributed to the Buddha, and perhaps the most popular text in Southeast Asian Buddhism.  According to the Dhammapada, the Buddha’s first words on awakening were: 

‘Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in vain, seeking the builder of this house. Repeated birth is indeed suffering! O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving.’ 

Not a word about “all beings” or “all things” being enlightened along with the Buddha.  

Why the difference between the texts?  Each text deeply reflects the philosophy of the school it belongs to.  The Dhammapada emphasizes the Buddha’s personal accomplishment, the most important part of that accomplishment being the destruction of craving and the ending of rebirth. These are Theravada Buddhism’s primary concerns. 

The Shobogenzo version, on the other hand, reflects a belief we are all already enlightened but just don’t realize it yet. It also reflects the belief that everything is interconnected: when we become enlightened, everything in the world contributes to and shares that Enlightenment.  Finally, it’s concordant with the Zen vow to bring all beings to Enlightenment. The Zen version emphasizes awakening to interdependence and the “all-togetherness” of the world rather than the individual ending of craving and rebirth.

The takeaway from all this is that it helps to understand that Buddhism isn’t “one thing,” and that Insight Meditation and Zen aren’t always saying exactly the same thing. Buddhism is best understood as an interpersonal historical process that has metamorphosed in a variety of ways over two millennia, that has co-existed and swapped ideas with other developing traditions, and that has divergent branches which both share core conceptual DNA and differ on key points. 

All this makes it easy to get confused when one switches practice traditions.  Which tradition gets things right and which gets things wrong?  Which tradition accurately reflects what the Buddha “actually said,” or teaches the best way to meditate, or has the truest understanding of what Enlightenment actually is and how to attain it?  People get caught up in these questions, withdrawing to their respective dogmatic corners. 

You can too, if you like. 

I think the more important question is, “How’s your practice going?”  Different people probably do better with different sets of teaching and practices. That’s why there are 84,000 dharma doors. There is no way to know in advance which door is best for you. If a particular teaching or practice is helping you to become more mindful, fully present, compassionate, and responsible; if it’s helping you to develop a greater sense of equanimity and become less enslaved by your passions and desires, then it’s probably a good enough practice for you.  It’s best to consider all teachings through a pragmatic lens.  It’s beyond our pay grades to determine the final answers to ultimate questions, but we’re perfectly capable of determining whether or not adopting a particular practice, view, or attitude is helping us grow or not.  That , in the end, is the most important question of all.

End Notes:

Dhammapada quote from: Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.)  (1996). Jaravagga: Old Age, Dhammapada XI, 146-156.

Shobogenzo quote from: Tanahashi, K. (trans.) (2015). “Arousing the Aspiration for the Unsurpassable,” Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo, Boston: Shambhala, 650. 

Nanuye and Mazu koan from: Tanahashi, K. (trans.) (2011). The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Three Hundred Koans, Boston: Shambhala.

 

35 Replies to “On Some Differences Between Insight Meditation and Zen”

  1. Really lovely and interesting article. I like the perspective you give on the different interpretations of the same/similar concepts such as emptiness and no-self. I got a lot out of the more global view.

    I took a few academic courses on Buddhism a long time ago, and one passionate instructor said ”Buddhism is a multi-headed beast” – and then continued to show us how, when trying to define Buddhism with almost any characteristic or tenet, you could find a lineage that had evolved to embrace the opposite. That has always made me smile.

    Namaste

  2. Seth:

    Although it left my head spinning, this is one of the most interesting short essays on Buddhism I have read.

    As to the ontological concern, this pithy saying comes to mind: ”Things in themselves are only events that for a while are monotonous.” Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time.

    Great job!

    1. John, I really didn’t address the differences in meditative technique, but only on the differences in beliefs associated with each school. Each school uses a variety of meditative techniques. The Theravada tradition stresses things like anapanasati, vipassana, body sweeps, lovingkindness, jhana practice, and charnel ground meditations, whereas the Zen tradition stresses anapansati, shikantaza and koan meditation. I really didn’t want to get into all that here.

  3. Two Living Traditions:

    https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/living-two-traditions/

    A HANDFUL OF LEAVES

    The Blessed One was once living at Kosambi in a wood of simsapa trees. He picked up a few leaves in his hand, and he asked the bhikkhus, How do you conceive this, bhikkhus, which is more, the few leaves that I have picked up in my hand or those on the trees in the wood?

    The leaves that the Blessed One has picked up in his hand are few, Lord; those in the wood are far more.’

    So too, bhikkhus, the things that I have known by direct knowledge are more; the things that I have told you are only a few. Why have I not told them? Because they bring no benefit, no advancement in the Holy Life, and because they do not lead to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. That is why I have not told them. And what have I told you? This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. That is what I have told you. Why have I told it? Because it brings benefit, and advancement in the Holy Life, and because it leads to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. So bhikkhus, let your task be this: This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’

    [Samyutta Nikaya, LVI, 31]

    I don’t understand the place of speculation, metaphysics, fantastic cosmologies, dogma and feudal hierarchies in dharma teaching and practice.

    1. Thanks for your comment, Joseph. I sympathize to some degree, but understanding suffering and Enlightenment requires that these terms be interpreted within a broader philosophical network of ideas–a set of tacit and explicit assumptions about human existence and potential, the degree to which it is malleable, and what the best possible life a human being could aspire to might be. This requires at least some minimum of metaphysical assumptions that are probably unprovable. We can both agree that dogma and feudal hierarchies have no proper place in the way we appropriate Buddhist ideas, but some degree of philosophizing is inevitable to interpret Buddhist rhetoric and make it work for us. Not believing in metaphysics doesn’t make one immune from holding tacit metaphysical beliefs and its useful to examine our own often unacknowledged assumptions about the world.

  4. Hi.

    For me, buddha-nature means simply that the world is perfectly intelligible, at least to anyone with a minimally enlightened perspective, and on most subjects. So that is to say that truth is out in the open, it doesn’t require much cogitation. But for someone with an obscuration, their conclusions about the world might be obscurated too. Hence they probably need to remove the obscuration first. Which means buddha-nature is not something we can be sure of, something constant that we own at all times.

    I always try to understand that everything we believe in is fundamentally different from reality. Hence we should try to be open, but watchful too, in whatever time frame we do it.

  5. I’m only about ten months into all of this and absorbing it as rapidly as am able. Confusion comes easily. That said, I found your piece coherent, thoughtful, very well articulated, and above all, not just another layer of confusion. I have printed and will re-visit often.
    Thank you.

  6. “How’s your practice going?”

    !!! This is the question that all the arguers, talkers, debaters, philosophers in our society need. Me included :~) I enjoyed the whole article and then to get knocked off my seat with that at the end. What a pleasure. Thank you. I’m going to meditate now.

  7. Thank you so much for this. I began practicing zazen in 2005 after attending a weekend retreat with a zen teacher. For the past few years I have attended weekend mindfulness retreats with a vipassana teacher I greatly enjoy and admire. My sitting practice is sufficiently basic that I have not experienced conflict between the two practices, but I have wondered about the differences. Your article has given me greater understanding of both the similarities and contrasts between them. Thank you so much.

    1. Stephen, glad you found it helpful.There can be differences between the two in attitudes toward sitting, as well. This is especially true when comparing a vipassana practice that involves directing attention to awareness of anatta, anica, and dukkha with a shikantaza practice that just asks us to be present with phenomena as they present themselves.

  8. I just stumbled onto this (during a web search about various forms of Buddhism). The best written and easiest to grasp basic descriptions I have ever read!!!

  9. I re-read the whole essay after receiving a notification of the last comment and found so many wonderful topics of discussion. Just one more thing regarding this section:

    The idea of Buddha Nature has been variously interpreted by different East Asian Buddhist traditions as meaning either 1) the idea of a universally present seed of awakening, dormant and waiting to be nourished, or 2) the idea that all human beings are in fact already Enlightened, only they don’t realize it yet, or 3) the idea that the integrated-universe-as-a-whole was, in fact, the Buddha’s ultimate body (dharmakaya) itself, and that our true selves are not the individual personalities they seem to be, but are, when seen correctly, the entire web of interconnected being. The last alternative informs the Zen notion of one’s ”true self” or ”big self” being the entirety of the interconnected universe, as opposed to the ”small self” of personal ego.

    Perhaps the three “alternatives” are simply complementary perspectives on the same fundamental insight. I like No. 3 the most; it reminds me of something Einstein said: “A human being is part of the whole called by us universe … We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. ”

    Some traditions have this take: sentient lives comprise myriad ways in which the universe contemplates itself through consciousness. That’s beautiful too.

    It also brings to mind The Eagle’s Gift, by Carlos Castaneda. Its central teaching is that awareness is a gift from a power that determines our destinies. We pay it back when we die and the eagle eats our accumulated experiences as we swarm to its beak during the transition to the other world. How poetic!

    1. Amaury, inspiring metaphors, but in the end, who knows? I don’t have any imtimations about the larger picture. It’s all I can do to try to muddle through with the little life I have been given. It’s fun to wonder about the larger whole, but, as the koan says, “not knowing is most intimate.”

  10. “The more you know, the less you understand.” — Tao Te Ching.

    I think you understand a great deal and are too modest, which reflects understanding of the Great Way.

    Great faith.
    Great doubt.
    Great effort.

  11. Thank you. Yes there are different theories, each is distinct and valid and conveys information of that culture or even a sense of historical progression and assimilation of understanding.

    Yet the difficulty of interpretation or perspective on doctrine isn’t so important if we consider that practitioners of each ‘school’ have experienced/attained insight/satori/nirvana etc The theory is only the ‘best’ method available as presented by the person who was successful.
    It is the fact that each of them work that is important!
    Water has different names in different cultures but it is Water.

    Mind is the same for each of us and always has been but we hold different feelings-thoughts about it. If meditation practices are sincere, frequent, regular, long standing they decommission our programming and gradually unify the competitive sub minds and pacify the mind into calm abiding. A place from which deeper experiences of insight and realisation can dawn.
    For both the Theravadin & Zen practitioner the process of attending to the heart-mind skilfully and the cultivation of mental factors remains the same, it is just what happens through meditation. Meditation is a transformative process.

    As for niceties of theory don’t be fooled, even for the Theravadin meditation ultimately reveals impermanence as a flow of joy, there is no gap, the joy settles into serenity, the satisfaction of seeing our own nature as it is.

    The differences are apparent rather than meaningful.

  12. This was a wonderful article. It’s difficult to find comparative analyses of insight and zazen, and I appreciated the historical context and openness to multiple modes of practice.

  13. I just read this article now, having just learned of your website after reading your _Buddhism and Human Flourishing_. In this essay there seems to an implicit suggestion that Madhyamaka, Huayan, Yogacara, and Zen constituted not just differences (which are very well explained) but progressive steps in the development of Buddhism. In contrast, your book seems more like a naturalized early Buddhism (with occasional nods to ideas in these other forms of Buddhism). At the very least, your eudaimonic Buddhism in the book is much more in the spirit of Buddha as presented in the suttas of the Pali Canon as a human being whose teaching was for the most part pragmatically and experientially oriented. Your essay here ends on this note, but its overall thrust suggests that these new metaphysical dimensions advanced Buddhism to a higher stage. Can you clarify?

    1. Karsten, what very astute questions! My answers, I am afraid, are too complex to summarize in a necessarily brief response and not entirely straightforward. It is certainly possible to look at the historical developments in Buddhism as just one damn thing after another, and not see in them anything like evolution or development, or on the otherhand, devolution and corruption. Alternatively, one could suggest that “early Buddhism” was well suited to a particular cultural and historical moment on the Indian subcontinent, whereas later Buddhisms were a better fit for different cultural and historical moments in East Asia and Tibet. But there is also a way in which later Buddhisms are an attempt to address certain difficulties, aporia, and lacunae in earlier forms of Buddhism, and that to the extent that they may successfully address certain problems they may be considered progress, and to the extent that they may also introduce newer problems, they may become problematic in themselves. We might also note that later Buddhisms adopt or incorporate earlier Buddhisms, so that many or most of the themes of early Buddhism are still entirely or mostly present in later forms. My own personal stance is that there are things I greatly appreciate about later Buddhisms (e.g.,their attempt to address the selfishness of personal individualist libreration, their movement from a religion of purity and ascent towards one of intimacy and descent, their emphasis on interrelationship/interpenetration) and things I tend to dislike about them as well (their cosmological inflation of the person of the Buddha, their emphasis on illusionism, the mind-only aspect of Yogacara, etc.). I could say the same about early Buddhism as well: that there are things I admire and things I disagree with in it. My take on a naturalized eudaimonic Buddhism is, as you suggest, pragmatically and experientially oriented, but I don’t necessarily see it as more grounded in earlier forms of Buddhism. I reject, for example, early Buddhism’s nirvanic ideal and its belief in a permanent and complete end to suffering, its devaluation of personal attachments, its recommending a total end to sensual desire, its lack of interest in the aesthetic dimension of life, and its reduction of the self into parts. At the same time I accept later Mahayana innovations on interbeing, process, an appreciation of the natural world, and its emphases on care and compassion. So — to more directly address your question — I wouldn’t say that later Buddhisms “advance Buddhism to a higher stage,” but that all Buddhisms have their intrinsic value in their own right, that there is something to be gained by looking at each new Buddhism as a response to problems in earlier forms, as adding important voices to an ongoing discussion of the nature of human awakening, and as enriching our understanding of what it means to live the best lives we possibly can.

      1. Thank you for your response to my comment and clarification of your position. I am in substantial agreement with it, and I especially like your last sentence. Still, as a hermeneutic strategy, I think it makes sense to begin with what is valuable in early Buddhism for the project of awakening and human flourishing and then to consider how aspects of later of Buddhism either contribute to that project or tend to undermine it. I also specifically want to mention how much I appreciate the way your book frames naturalized Buddhism as a project of eudaimonic enlightenment without a final goal. I have long found it unsettling that Buddhism posits that while everything is conditioned, Nirvana is the unconditioned. If impermanence is the name of the game, then Nirvana is at best a heuristic trope.

  14. Hi Seth.

    I really appreciated your clear and honest writing. As someone who is fairly new to the Dharma, certain parts I am yet to fully grasp but I expect I keep returning to this essay in the future. For now, I have one question. You say:
    “Insight Meditation tradition focuses on […] the idea that nothing experienced ought to be considered as ”I, me, or mine.” This is essentially a psychologically minded approach. The […] not taking experiences as part of the ”network of me-ness”—was meant to help people see that they had no unchanging, essential Self to grasp onto.”

    Later on, in respect to Zen, you say:

    “Zen meditation values losing the sense of an ”I” who is watching the theater of the mind—in other words, losing the distinction between the observer and the observed. This is not a part of Insight Meditation.”

    I am surprised to hear you say, plainly, that losing a subject/object distinction is not part of Insight Meditation. Surely this would be the natural consequence of the realisation of anattā? Can you be more specific about the difference which you are claiming?

    Thank you so much for your writing, Seth.

    1. Chris, glad you found this blog post helpful. Your question is a good one, and shows you are really paying attention. The Zen emphasis is on our unity with everything, whereas the Theravada emphasis is on our impermanence. In other words, in the Theravada account, we don’t possess a self because the idea of the self is a reification of a process that is always in flux and lacks any kind of fixity. There is also the sense in Theravada that there is no central controlling entelechy that is in charge of us as organisms—that most times we don’t decide to think the thoughts or feel the feelings we have, but the thoughts and feelings just arise in response to causes and conditions, so that there is not this master controlling “I” in the way we often think there is. But this lack of a controlling “I” and this constant flux does not entail the additional belief that there is no separation between onself and the world, or no distinction that can be made between the observer (the witnessing consciousness) and what is observed. These are ideas that stem from the later Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools of Mahayana Buddhism. I hope this clarification helps.

  15. Dear existential buddhist, Thank you so much for this learned and cogent essay. I am the opposite of you–moved toward Theravadan because it was more availabe, though my first aha was in encountering the writings of Chogyam Trungpa and S. Suzuki (I know, very different traditions.) Lately I’ve been so disheartened by the Theravadan dharma talks that have preceded meditation sessions–their cliche-ridden pop psychologizing, for example, or as you put it: “early Buddhism’s nirvanic ideal and its belief in a permanent and complete end to suffering, its devaluation of personal attachments, its recommending a total end to sensual desire, its lack of interest in the aesthetic dimension of life, and its reduction of the self into parts.” As a writer I’m particularly bothered by the staleness of the language–as if language weren’t a thing of beauty and to be treated with love and care. How hard it is to hear what they’re saying when it’s larded over in cliche! Your essay has cleared up my reservations and driven me back to zen. What a relief. I think part of the reason, though, that it was hard to identify my issues is that the mindfulness movement tends to mix and match–so, many insight meditation centers append metta practice to vispassana, which if they had the benefit of accepting interdependency and buddha nature, would be unnecessary. I could go on. Thank you, though. Really grateful. ~AS

    1. Apollonaire, thank you for your comments. But don’t think that you are going to get less pop psychologizing cliches in Zen circles. Dharma talks that are fresh, inspiring, and pop-psychology and cliche-free are rare—both in both Insight Meditations and Zen circles. In the end, you are responsible for your own practice, and quiet sitting with an intimate attention to body, heart, and mind can occur in any setting, regardless of the rhetoric of the context. I find Dharma talks are most useful when they allow me to observe my own reactivity to what’s being said, and to question, “what is that reactivity all about?” Sometimes it reveals our own unrealistic expectations of teachers. Sometimes it reveals our own need to be right about everything. Sometimes it’s totally justified. But if all we got from talks were things we already agreed with, discarding the rest, how can we grow? Sometimes we can find new perspectives in teacher’s comments that, although they disagree with ours, contain useful grains of truth, or aspects of practice we have overlooked. It’s all grist for the mill!

      1. Thank you for your feisty response. I appreciate it, really. It makes me think: do I always want to be right about everything? I hope not, though I do have strong aversions, I know that. I think the most fruitful talks are those where the whole issue of right and wrong is moot, where it’s offering a perspective that rearranges my thinking. An example of unhelpful is the last talk I could take of a certain group, in which the dharma speaker gave the analogy for non-grasping as looking at a fishbowl and not having a need to rearrange th fish. I thought: but if this is equivalent to experience, then you have to eliminate the glass. We’re the fish, swimming in the same water as the fish we observe (and the water is an ocean, not a bowl with tangible limits). I guess it was useful to realize what is not useful. I guess.

        1. PS
          I think I’m all dharma-talked out. I’m going to just sit. With or without others. And read Dogon, or one of the Suzukis.

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