1 Heidegger&Zen

[Guest guest]

Dear Folks:

 

I am really delighted that Professor Carter's quote was reproduced here. I

would certainly agree with Heidegger that he and D.T. Suzuki attempted to

express the same essential concepts regarding Zen.

 

As a younger student of Zen, Suzuki, Herrigel, Basho, and Heidegger were

areas of consistent study, with Alan Watts as a more "western" voice thrown

in for the sheer joy of listening to his voice on radio or tape. There is

always something joyous and spontaneous about the Zen experience which allows

it to stay vital and fresh for the one who chooses this path. It's like

being involved in a never ending form of both intellectual thrill and comic

entertainment...but with a deadly serious importance of purpose that is never

attached outwardly. That is to a great degree part of its charm...this sense

of non-attachment extends to the very core of the belief system itself. It

is a matter of life and death in the purest sense...but we are only

discussing life and death here, folks, so what is not to laugh about?

 

This seeming tension or meaning and paradox cannot be explained in words.

The tension between the meanings of the words, literally and figuratively

force one to reach a higher understanding or altered cognitive state. Many

people who are not very sophisticated or mentally alert cannot distinguish

the nuance of Zen imagery or verbal play. This is like some subtle dry wit,

a great deal of British humor, for example, quite dry that seems to pass many

Americans by completely. It's a form of trained or learned mental

acuity...and just as the quick retort and sarcastic come back is used with

deadly and common purpose in New York and New Jersey, but mid Westerners and

some Westerners struggle to keep up the rapier wit and sly

innuendoes...longer exposure soon makes it possible to trade barbs. So too,

then is Zen thinking an "acquired taste" and individuals who are not

immediately quick at grasping the admittedly obscure nature of Zen, can with

exposure eventually have a breakthrough...an insight, a sudden enlightenment.

 

 

My point is to stress that it's not intellect or intelligence that acts as

the final barrier, just familiarity and allowing the mind to be twisted with

the tensions of Zen sayings, Koans and observation. "What is the sound of

one hand clapping?" the overused Koan actually does not serve as well as some

other more insightful observations, Haiku and questions. "If you are

sleeping and dream that you are awake, how is that different than if you are

awake remembering a dream?" "Who is the most worthy?" "If you meet the

Buddha on the road, kill him!"

"Do not think of the color blue." "Only when you no longer think that you

are ready are you ready." "Only if you forget about achieving Bliss, can you

achieve Bliss."

 

I highly recommend Suzuki, Herrigel, Heidegger, Basho and heck while we're at

it, all of the Sufi stories retold by Idries Shah.

 

Blessings,

 

Zenbob

[Guest guest]

Western philosopher Martin Heidegger's later work has often

been described as "mystical" and poetic, but in non-traditional

ways (at least in the West). In this late period Heidegger

gave some attention to Eastern thought, particularly Zen. He

is reported to have felt that he and D.T. Suzuki were trying

to say the same things. In an interesting essay by philosophy

professor Robert Carter entitled "Zen and Ontotheology via

Heidegger," Carter reflects on Heidegger's essay "Dialogue

on Language Between a Japanese and an Inquirer." I want to

share some selections from Carter's essay as food for thought

and dicussion.

>From Robert Carter's essay:

 

"There is being, the determinate things of the world,

and there is the presence of Being,

or perhaps the presence of Nothingness,

which can only be hinted at as indeterminate.

To render it determinate is to lose it,

to objectify it as a being.

This is [what Heidegger calls] the 'two-fold,'

or what I [Carter] prefer to call the double aperture of awareness.

One uses the language of being to free oneself from its hold,

to obtain 'releasement' from language as sign,

to gain hints through language that point toward

a nondualistic, indeterminate, nondiscriminating emptiness.

This emptiness is the stage, the background, the mystery,

the spiritual awareness out of which all determinations arise.

It is not conceptualizable, not a mental representation,

for we never experience it directly [as object for a subject].

It is like a 'clearing' in which things become 'unconcealed,'

and the clearing itself is the unseen stage

on/in which being arises.

In Nishida's language, it is a 'place' (basho),

an emptiness in which things arise

as expressions of the indeterminate.

It is a field of occurence: field, clearing, stage place." [p. 172]

 

 

 

 

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