Brian D. wrote:
“Buddhism is a technology to reduce suffering. That is what the Budha said it was, nothing more or less. Buddhism does not assume that the Good (whatever that is) is another form of suffering.”
Mike replies:
Zizek’s whole point was that no matter what one assumes or comes to see as the goal of human striving -- material goods, bodily pleasure, political change, etc. -- a Buddhist would reject the goal as simply another form of attachment or thirst (trishna) for the world. Although you claim that “Buddhism does not assume that the Good (whatever that is) is another form of suffering,” Buddhism does see attachment/trishna/desire/clinging/greed/craving/lust is any human’s response to the impermanence of the world -- Attachment is man’s (mistaken) way to gain an illusory sense of permanence. Instead of clinging to the transient world, the Buddhist strives to accept the imperfection, impermanence, and interconnectedness of the world. Of course, the Eightfold Path echoes this sentiment most directly in (2) Right Aspiration -- the true desire to free oneself from attachment/trishna as well as its alternate forms dvesha/hatred and avidya/ignorance. The three steps of the Eightfold Path related to morality, the shila and the three steps of meditation, samadhi, seem to me to be ways of escaping the attachment to the world, which would be ways of fully effecting Right View and Right Aspiration. In this way, I see the Eightfold Path as a way to escape trishna for the goal of nirvana, which essentially seems to be enlightenment as a release from samsara, that is, from human’s trishna/thirst for any positive goal in the world. Striving for any particular goal would not, then, fully recognize the impermanence/imperfection/interconnectedness of the world.
Buddhism might indeed be a “technology to reduce suffering,” but it is a technology that has an implicit and ultimately conservative metaphysics. To be able to use the technology, one has to read the manual, so to speak -- that is, one must buy into the Buddhist “theology/philosophy” on the nature of existence in order for the technology to be effective in reducing suffering.
So, even though Buddhism does not assume the Good is another form of suffering per se, it would see the kind of striving for change which would be required to effect any positive Good as a kind of attachment to an ultimately impermanent and imperfect universe and oppose to this striving a resignation from the world.
In this sense, isn’t it paradoxical/contradictory to be a self-identified “Buddhist activist”?
Other points: (1) When Hollywood types (who I shouldn’t even have to name) start publicizing their Buddhism, Buddhism becomes a pop-phenomenon. Isn’t the latest mystical religion to share this same fate that of the Kaballah?
(2) Even though Buddhism recognizes the interdependence of all existence, meditation is a technique of placing oneself in proper relation to one’s desire/thirst/attachments. Thus, the practical effect of Buddhism is to create an “inner distance.” It is this practical effect which allows the Buddhist (especially Zen, as the quotes I placed in my last post note) to “do his duty” without considering the way in which he, has a freely choosing human being, is actively contributing to the suffering of others.
Which is to say, once one comes to see that the world is impermanent and inevitably imperfect and that “attachment and clinging to desire is the source of suffering” as Brian wrote, the practical result is an attitude of indifferent tolerance to one’s surroundings rather than one of radical intolerance. This is how Buddhism can and does serve capitalism. Why else, as Zizek points out, would Japanese corpratism endorse the Zen attitude? Why else, as Zizek points out, would Zen endorse Japanese corpratism/militarism?
(3) First Brian argues that “there is no inner distance” which results from Buddhism. Then he argues -- in the same post! -- that Buddhism is NOT about there being “no reflexive distance.”
This seems to be related to Brian’s contention that “Not stopping one’s mind does not mean to be reflective/analytical.” Though I think he meant “Not stopping one’s mind is not the same thing as NOT being reflective/analytical.” Or “Not stopping one’s mind does not mean to NOT be reflective/analytical,” to split the infinitive. (If this isn’t what Brian meant, I am confused.) Regardless, it is true that one can stop one’s mind without being reflective. However, if Buddhism endorsaes “not stopping one’s mind,” which was the point of the quotation from Ishihara Shummyo, it also effectively prohibits any reflection, which might not be the best tactics for progressivism: in my (limited) experience, activism is actually served, rather than harmed, by man’s ability to reflect upon existence (though this doesn’t mean, of course, that one should ONLY reflect upon existence).
Zizek’s point in relating the Shummyo quote to the Suzuki quote is that any belief system endorsing the ‘total immersion in the now’ without reflection on existence is a belief system which works extremely well for social control.
(4) Though this is Zizek’s point in relating these two quotations, his ultimate point seems to be quite in agreement with Brian’s latest formulation of what Buddhism “is”:
Brian: “Buddhism is a technology to reduce suffering. That was what the Buddha said it was, nothing more or less.” Zizek: “...Zen meditation... is a spiritual technique, an ethically neutral instrument which can be put to different sociopolitical uses, from the most peaceful to the most destructive.”
Both Brian and Zizek see Buddhism as an instrument/technique. The definitions seem to diverge when Brian’s caveat is added that Buddhism is one used to reduce suffering, while Zizek’s caveat is that Buddhism is ethically neutral, rather than ethically positive. But this would be to miss Zizek’s point: Of course Buddhism claims to reduce suffering! But it sees suffering as arising from attachment to the world (see quote from Brian above) -- Buddhism, then, is a technology which reduces attacment to the world -- and in doing so, becomes ”ethically neutral.”
This has nothing to do with “stripping away the Eightfold Path” -- because at the heart of the Eightfold Path is the prajna of Right View and Right Aspiration which Zizek, I think, is addressing. Of course, it does mean that a re-reading of the shila, but my point is that the points made in the shila should be grounded in a different metaphysics than Buddhism because of the way that Buddhism reduces down so easily to (1) a perspective that degrades radical striving to change the world as a form of attachment/thirst and (2) an ‘ethically neutral’ perspective insofar aqs it can philosophically ground corpratism/militarism.
I’m interested in hearing from Brian, of course, exactly in what respect I’m not in touch with Buddhism generally or the Pali cannon in particular, though I understand if he wants to discontinue this topic, since LBO isn’t in my experience a place for discussions of theology.
I contrast Buddhism’s metaphysics with that of the Western Enlightenment: I feel that only a politcs rooted in the tradition of rationalism (albeit a radical and contemporary version) will lead to further beneficial/progressive changes in man’s condition, micro and macro. In this, of course, I disagree with Adorno and Horkheimer who see rationality as the manifestation of man’s drive to control nature (see their ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’). I think in our era of post-modern relativism and the general degradation of “grand narratives” made by post-modernists, as well as with the onslaught of mysticism-as-resignation, the Enlightenment tradition which includes Marx and Freud are the few things radicals have left to hold onto.
Mike