Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

[hades]

I found a site that has excerpts from this wonderful book by Trungpa.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/cutting.htm


http://www.amazon.com/Through-Spiritual ... 0877730504

Just curious, have any of you read it? And what do you think about it.

[Pye]

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hades, I have this book; read this book; and even use this book in the (what is now called) Asian Philosophy course when it gets tossed my way. Same do I consider Trungpa's The Myth of Freedom (and the Way of Meditation). I like about Trungpa perhaps the same things others like about Hakuin, that in-your-face, incisive, no-bullshit explication of things. The only places I find him wobbly are those in which he deals with gurus and a seeker's relationship to them. Even though he is cautious of attachment there, he is still too promotional for my tastes. This is a personal thing, since I generally think the entire dynamic of guru-ism is potentially dangerous, and perhaps even unnecessary. It's like putting sheet music in front of someone when they can pay better attention to the music itself without it.

I've run across another, very different book that if linguistically withstood, forwards a similar cutting-through: Zen and the Psychology of Transformation by Hubert Benoit. It was written in 1955 by a French psychiatrist (I know, I know; we are already on shaky ground), nevertheless, his knives are just as sharp even if there is much conceptual language they have to cut through. This fellow was intrigued by an actual physiological transformation in the brains of 'enlightened' persons; the physiological validity to the satori experience, and bears this up as best he can. He is less talking about that than how they got there. It's a fascinating, kind of brain-changing read in itself; one (ego) is "busted" on every page, similar to Trungpa. Students, however, think the book is "too hard."

But Trungpa, yes. His was the brightest voice for me 15 years ago, and I still find considerable clarity in it.


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[David Quinn]

I find him a bit generic and one-dimensional. His analysis of the ego isn't very confronting because it is kept largely theoretical and avoids addressing people's real-life attachments. It is a standard eastern guru lecture, which you can find almost anywhere.

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[Wild Fox Zen]

I find him a bit generic and one-dimensional. His analysis of the ego isn't very confronting because it is kept largely theoretical and avoids addressing people's real-life attachments.

This is just brazen ignorance. The paragraphs which address the lords of "form", "speech", and "mind" are not far from the beginning. These are as concise and fundamental an exposition of people's real-life attachments you'd ever find.

It is a standard eastern guru lecture, which you can find almost anywhere.

"If a fool looks into a book, a saint will not look out."

[David Quinn]

But don't you get bored with reading that kind of material over and over again? You can go to any eastern temple in the land and the resident guru will give a talk similar to the one given here by Trangpa. How many times do you have to hear it? Is your mind holier than a sieve?

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[Wild Fox Zen]

hehehe

You know even among Muslims, there's an admonishment not read the Quran too much, lest one get bored of it.

The point is, if I listen to a song I love over and over until I hate it, it's not because the song stopped being great. It's because I exhausted the emotional response of that particular juxtaposition of sounds. People do this with everything without even realizing it.

There's a certain quality of "newness" associated with the state of illumination in which one sees things as if they had never seen them before.

The kingdom of heaven is only for those with eyes to see.

That's kind of a tangent, though, but still relevant. If you can't intuitively recognize Trungpa profundity, then it's because you're not reading HIS words, but rather the imagined words of maybe a billion other people which make up this vague "guru" stereotype you hold in your mind; an amorphous entity that absorbs and neutralizes the wisdom of anything that sounds remotely similar to how a "guru" is supposed to sound.

[hades]

Actually, I haven't really been able to find other books like Cutting through...I know there are a whole bunch of generic recycled books on Buddhism out there, and gurus who say the same stuff over and over, but I don't think this book and author fit into that category.

He uses simple and plain language to express the actual mechanism and function of the human ego. And the dangers that surround it. Its pretty good stuff I think.

[David Quinn]

Actually, most of it is a load of rubbish. It is the same old dreary teaching that we should abandon thinking and discriminating and wallow instead in child-like immediacy. In other words, the same old mistake of thinking that animal or pre-human consciousness is wisdom.

His teaching is riddled with contradictions, of course. For example, he says to people that, on the one hand, they stop discriminating between "this and that", and yet his entire teaching is one of asking people to accept his particular "this'" and reject everything else as "that". He wants people to discriminate between "letting go" and "not letting go", for instance. So his teaching is fundamentally flawed and incoherent from the outset.

I also have to laugh at his admonishment that people collect knowledge and teachings as though they were collecting antiques in an antique store - which is all very well, except that his entire persona is one of dispensing what he thinks are treasures from the Tibetan tradition! He even says: "I left my gurus and teachers behind in Tibet, physically, but the teachings stay with me and continue."

I mean, how can you take this guy seriously?

He then tries to pretend that the Buddha himself was an unthinking being who wallowed in animal consciousness, just like he does. He even makes up a story about him:

Q. After Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment, was there some trace of ego left in him so that he could carry on his teachings?

A. The teaching just happened. He did not have the desire to teach or not to teach. He spent seven weeks sitting under the shade of a tree and walking along the bank of a river. Then someone just happened along and he began to speak. One has no choice; you are there, an open person. Then the situation presents itself and teaching happens. That is what is called "Buddha activity."

This is garbage. It even contradicts the official legend of the Buddha. According to legend, the Buddha was initially reluctant to teach people about the ultimate wisdom because he knew that almost no one would understand it and that it only would upset them. Then, one night, the god Indra came to him in a dream and said that even though his wisdom was too deep for most people to understand, there are still a few out there who are ready for it and will need his help. And so, the next morning, the Buddha made the decision to start teaching, after all.

In other words, he considered his options and made a conscious decision to teach. There was none of this "things just happened" business. That's just drivel.

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[Matt Gregory]

Not to mention, the Buddha deliberately selected the wisest group of people he knew and went over to them to try and teach them. They rejected him at first, but the Buddha persisted and eventually convinced them of his wisdom. That's the story, anyway.

[Jamesh]

Zen and the Psychology of Transformation

Pye, do you think this book would help me understand why I am so convinced the QRS are significantly ego laden without them actually realising it.

Personally I think one can only alter the nature of one's ego, rather than remove any part of it. For any enlightened person I believe their ego, is as strong - nahh actually far stronger, than prior to their attaining wisdoms.

While googling I came across the first page of this book

On the "Irrationality" of Zen

I'm thinking that I may gain an enhanced level of strength-of-conviction by reading both. Though I may not get around to either.

PS - Was that spunkrat Leah, one of your students?

[Wild Fox Zen]

the teachings of the buddha are forbidden for many here, whether or not they realize it.

[Pye]

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James writes:

Pye, do you think this book [Zen and the Psychology of Transformation]would help me understand why I am so convinced the QRS are significantly ego laden without them actually realising it.

That would be sort of a strange directive for which to take after any book, especially since you are already 'so convinced.' In this convincing, you know that no amount of authoritative, argumentative or empirical evidence that you present here is going to affect the admittance or proof you seek, for or against either one of them - nor admitted by either one of them, nature of the beast.

Q/S as a subject in itself only interests me now and again, and so I did not find time to immerse myself in David-as-subject and his psychological records. But the ensuing discussion points to the same persona problem that I think fuels many of the questions posters have about the philosopher-list upheld by the forum: and/or why this-or-that one is included when this or that one has fundamental differences with each other, and with the Q/S itself.

I don't mean David's persona, but rather the attraction to a type of persona -- a "man of the infinite" or a "tireless fighter for Truth" or a social misfit, a buddha, christ or sage, and this misguided project of occupying a persona as a goal in itself. You mention this attraction as well in the Kierkegaard thread, and it is the same thing that has enabled me to give up on demanding consistencies between Q/S philosophy and the philosophies of the men on their greatest hits list.

What hangs them all together is a type of person -- a form of one -- rather than a strictness to content. Admiration-for or a wish-to-be-like is what I find a self-damning goal, romantic, even weak -- all the things the Q and the S have located soundly, notwithstanding <<[and I stress this last emphatically]. I think the greatest of minds have been occupied with their own work and have little time or interest in the admiration for others, much less the goal "becoming a sage." When one is occupied with their own focus and work, it is the content of sagacity that matters and not the form of the sage. That will or will not happen, depending on the sagacity of one's work. Makes sense?

Jamesh: Personally I think one can only alter the nature of one's ego, rather than remove any part of it.

I happen to agree. One's sense of self accompanies them always (squashed, inflated - no matter), and it is work with the ego, recognition of its drives - a type of refinement of one's sense of self that moves things out of the way in order to see better. In a sense, I have considered the enlightenment idea as actually an expansion of the ego (hence, a dilution of it) -- an expansion of one's sense of self to include far far more that is around one through one's own eyes, and less hovering around the smallness of an ego that cannot take on anything past its immediate self.

Jamesh: PS - Was that spunkrat Leah, one of your students?

Would that she were. I could learn from her as well, as all good students do me :)

But everything is a teacher, everything. One should never self-restrict to only one. It might then become a persona problem instead of the self-discovery of the whole universe within.


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[Pye]

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. . . . to desire as a goal to "be a buddha or a christ" is the same as saying "I desire to be famous" -- what one becomes famous-for comes after that, and is an expression purely of personal values. And to desire fame is to fear one's own mortality and temporal phenomenality . . . . to exceed one's own skin, as though being one, having one, is not enough . . . .


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[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

Q/S as a subject in itself only interests me now and again, and so I did not find time to immerse myself in David-as-subject and his psychological records. But the ensuing discussion points to the same persona problem that I think fuels many of the questions posters have about the philosopher-list upheld by the forum: and/or why this-or-that one is included when this or that one has fundamental differences with each other, and with the Q/S itself.

You are mistaken. None of the philosophers on the "list" - e.g. Socrates, Diogenes, Lao Tzu, Huang Po, Hakuin, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, etc - have fundamental differences with one another, or with Q/S. There are some shallow differences, yes, but not fundamental ones.

For example, Kierkegaard emphasized the importance of faith, which on the surface seems to place him at odds with, say, Nietzsche, who emphasized science and atheism. Yet these are merely superficial differences. In reality, both were united in their iconoclasm and their desire to help people break free of their core delusions and social conditioning. Both were motivated by the Infinite.

It is important to remember that spiritual teaching is a process of applying correctives to delusions which already exist in the community. There is nothing objectively real in them; they are specific responses tailored for specific situations. Thus, whatever differences seem to exist between wise philosophers throughout history is mainly generated by the different delusions and conceptual frameworks that their respective societies were under the grip of.

I don't mean David's persona, but rather the attraction to a type of persona -- a "man of the infinite" or a "tireless fighter for Truth" or a social misfit, a buddha, christ or sage, and this misguided project of occupying a persona as a goal in itself.

That analysis is very incomplete. Any attraction that I have to the sage persona is part of a much larger attraction that I have to truth.

But I guess this is unlikely to mean much to you, since you have effectively expunged the word "truth" from your vocabulary.

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[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

. . . to desire as a goal to "be a buddha or a christ" is the
same as saying "I desire to be famous"

Not necessarily. It could just mean that the person in question wants to reach perfection, as embodied (to some extent at least) by Jesus and the Buddha. In other words, it could be an expression of his purity.

You're very negative and dogmatic when it comes to other people's idealism. You've got this fixed idea that any expression of spiritual idealism is inherently inauthentic and bad.

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[Pye]

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David writes:

But I guess this is unlikely to mean much to you, since you have effectively expunged the word "truth" from your vocabulary.

Nothing at all can be spoken without it, as all will measure near or far to it; all finds its place in juxtaposition to it; within it. One has no need to use the word for the sake of a word, if one's every word is already defined and sourced by it to begin with.


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David: You're very negative and dogmatic when it comes to other people's idealism. You've got this fixed idea that any expression of spiritual idealism is inherently inauthentic and bad.

If this is the case, then my whole life has just gone down the crapper . . . .

"Other people's idealism" is far less a focus for me than my own. Forming one's own does not happen when it is handed over to "others."


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[Pye]

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. . . while the subject is here, I don't know, David. That one thinks it is necessary to "fight" for truth; to "protect" the truth; to "promote" the truth as though truth itself could be somehow damaged or is too weak to be seen -- this does not speak very well for the ultimate power of truth, and perhaps in this, my faith is even greater; certainly more ideal.


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[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

DQ: But I guess this is unlikely to mean much to you, since you have effectively expunged the word "truth" from your vocabulary.

P: Nothing at all can be spoken without it, as all will measure near or far to it; all finds its place in juxtaposition to it; within it. One has no need to use the word for the sake of a word, if one's every word is already defined and sourced by it to begin with.

So you don't see a need for philosophers to openly hold up the ideal of truth as something to be valued, and to urge people to become truthful?

"Other people's idealism" is far less a focus for me than my own. Forming one's own does not happen when it is handed over to "others."

The ideal of truth was originally handed to us by "others". Do you think we should all stop pursuing it because of that?

You're very similar to Marsha Faizi in this regard. Marsha had the quaint idea that being an "individual" involves rejecting all group-think, no ifs or buts. This was reason enough, in her eyes, to dismiss the ideal of enlightenment, for example. If two or more people value the ideal of enlightenment, then that alone is enough dismiss it as group-think and as an object of contempt. Are you as fixated by that sort of dynamic as Marsha was? (And if so, will it mean that you will now have to reject it?)

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[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

. . while the subject is here, I don't know, David. That one thinks it is necessary to "fight" for truth; to "protect" the truth; to "promote" the truth as though truth itself could be somehow damaged or is too weak to be seen -- this does not speak very well for the ultimate power of truth, and perhaps in this, my faith is even greater; certainly more ideal.

The truth doesn't need protection, I agree. But people's resistance to truth does have to be fought - that's if you have an interest in fostering a better future for the world.

People are weak when it comes to truth. Their false attachments are very strong. Any encouragement and help we can give them in overcoming their resistance to truth can only be a plus.

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[Pye]

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David writes:

So you don't see a need for philosophers to openly hold up the ideal of truth as something to be valued, and to urge people to become truthful?

I'm sure a word or two on it wouldn't do any harm :)
. . . . but this is similar to expending one's whole philosophic energies upon talking about philosophy as opposed to doing any of it. Like artists sitting about in a cafe talking about art instead of doing any of it. Truth? Well, no kidding! What is underlying any philosophical endeavor but this? I doubt Kierkegaard or Nietzsche or Hakuin or anyone sat down with the intent to compose a bunch of lies, but even these couldn't stand as such without looking over one's shoulder for the truth.

David: The ideal of truth was originally handed to us by "others".

So it is a subjective affair? :)
Even so, this shows little faith in any given person to find it within.

The rest of this about Marsha Faizi, I don't know that you have her right, or me. I'm hardly going to move off of something I find value in just because others do, too. But in bringing her up, I take the opportunity to say I miss her here. Wish she could meet Tim ;)


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[Pye]

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I wrote:

So it is a subjective affair? :)

pardon, I should have said "an affair of subjectivities." This would be the truth.


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