What is actually surprising is that Taisen Deshimaru, who brought Soto Zen to Europe in the 60-70s, quotes many Daoist texts and focuses on the Cosmos. Even the female principle / tissue is explored quite amply in his teachings. And he always went back to the Chan classics so as to set the foundations for practice. So I believe he had this insight--David' Hinton's--deeply embedded in his teaching.
From what they are saying, it almost seems that it would be more precise to call it Ch'an Taoism rather than Ch'an Buddhism. Thanks, Banyen, for making this conversation happen.
This was a great dialogue. Having Norman Fischer be part of it was a genius move. Hearing each of them riff on the relationship of meditation, landscape, and the Tao/Ch’an/Dark-Enigma Learning cosmology was excellent. I do take exception to one thing that David said. Someone asked about Japanese aesthetics and the relationship to Ch’an (and, of course, there is strong one), but to say that before the introduction of Ch’an or Chinese influence that Japan was “backwards” and “had no culture of its own” is a stretch, if not an oversight. Japan already had a significant spiritual tradition in the form of Shinto and Shugendō beginning in the 9th-century (pre-Ch’an/Zen) with En no Gyoja. The enormous impact of Chinese culture and religions on Japan is indisputable, with such figures as Kūkai and Yoshishige no Yasutane, the Wayfaring poets of Japan being inspired by Cold Mountain (such as Ryōkan) and the Chuang Tzu (Bashō and Buson), but “backwards”?
I wouldn’t call them backwards but they certainly didn’t have anything comparable to modern Shinto. It was merely a mixture of various folk beliefs. The sort that every tribal/hunter-gatherer group had.
A pleasure to hear this conversation. I do disagree with David's melding empirical method with Ch'an, however. I do not think that walking into a field and doing a sort of philosophical bracketing off [(forgetting everything)] is quite the same as what is practiced in Zen or Ch'an. For one, that gives into a Western notion of 'objectivity' with all its problematic history and connotations. And it suggests the idea that an individual can simply decide to separate from it all to see things as they are. From my own limited practice and understandings, that's quite different from the search for a self that may be empty or emptiness as the self. David makes a really helpful observation I think: the Western 70s thing was simply to drop an enigma when something seemed incomprehensible. But some of David's answers here sound like a reflection of much of Western psychology of the 21st Century, with a focus on scientific (esp. cognitive) solutions for all problems. I would imagine that the Zen questions about walking into the field might sound something like Who's walking? What's there? Those aren't unreasonable questions, but they aren't experimental logic either. Certainly Ch'an or Zen practice can change, and it's wonderful to go at understanding in our different ways. For my part, I am generally excited to see how Zen taken different forms in the journey West. Still, wouldn't it be good for us allow that Zen or Ch'an offer a certain value and methods that may not need much of scientific theorizing or devices?
If you listen further you'll hear them agree that empirical can also mean Immediate/Immediacy - the "empirical" method of open the sense organs and finding reality via experiencing. Very Zen indeed.
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Two amazing teachers and thinkers.
What is actually surprising is that Taisen Deshimaru, who brought Soto Zen to Europe in the 60-70s, quotes many Daoist texts and focuses on the Cosmos. Even the female principle / tissue is explored quite amply in his teachings. And he always went back to the Chan classics so as to set the foundations for practice. So I believe he had this insight--David' Hinton's--deeply embedded in his teaching.
Thanks for having this conversation. I enjoyed it very much!
Bill Porter says that "zen" is the pronunciation of pre-Mandarin dialect speakers in the past, and still used today in Gansu province.
From what they are saying, it almost seems that it would be more precise to call it Ch'an Taoism rather than Ch'an Buddhism.
Thanks, Banyen, for making this conversation happen.
This was a great dialogue. Having Norman Fischer be part of it was a genius move. Hearing each of them riff on the relationship of meditation, landscape, and the Tao/Ch’an/Dark-Enigma Learning cosmology was excellent.
I do take exception to one thing that David said. Someone asked about Japanese aesthetics and the relationship to Ch’an (and, of course, there is strong one), but to say that before the introduction of Ch’an or Chinese influence that Japan was “backwards” and “had no culture of its own” is a stretch, if not an oversight. Japan already had a significant spiritual tradition in the form of Shinto and Shugendō beginning in the 9th-century (pre-Ch’an/Zen) with En no Gyoja.
The enormous impact of Chinese culture and religions on Japan is indisputable, with such figures as Kūkai and Yoshishige no Yasutane, the Wayfaring poets of Japan being inspired by Cold Mountain (such as Ryōkan) and the Chuang Tzu (Bashō and Buson), but “backwards”?
I wouldn’t call them backwards but they certainly didn’t have anything comparable to modern Shinto.
It was merely a mixture of various folk beliefs. The sort that every tribal/hunter-gatherer group had.
A pleasure to hear this conversation. I do disagree with David's melding empirical method with Ch'an, however. I do not think that walking into a field and doing a sort of philosophical bracketing off [(forgetting everything)] is quite the same as what is practiced in Zen or Ch'an. For one, that gives into a Western notion of 'objectivity' with all its problematic history and connotations. And it suggests the idea that an individual can simply decide to separate from it all to see things as they are. From my own limited practice and understandings, that's quite different from the search for a self that may be empty or emptiness as the self. David makes a really helpful observation I think: the Western 70s thing was simply to drop an enigma when something seemed incomprehensible. But some of David's answers here sound like a reflection of much of Western psychology of the 21st Century, with a focus on scientific (esp. cognitive) solutions for all problems. I would imagine that the Zen questions about walking into the field might sound something like Who's walking? What's there? Those aren't unreasonable questions, but they aren't experimental logic either. Certainly Ch'an or Zen practice can change, and it's wonderful to go at understanding in our different ways. For my part, I am generally excited to see how Zen taken different forms in the journey West. Still, wouldn't it be good for us allow that Zen or Ch'an offer a certain value and methods that may not need much of scientific theorizing or devices?
If you listen further you'll hear them agree that empirical can also mean Immediate/Immediacy - the "empirical" method of open the sense organs and finding reality via experiencing. Very Zen indeed.