Notes from Form

Personal Intro

This is a talk Given by Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi at the Boulder Zen Center titled 'Transforming the Self'. These are the notes I've taken on part one of the series. These are raw notes right now. I am going to go back and add personal anecdotes and further readings in the near future.

If you find these notes interesting , I suggest following the Zen Mind Podcast and/or checking out the wealth of digital content available from the Boulder Zen Center.

Link to full session

Four Tenets of Buddhist:

1. Transformation is possible
2. Liberation from suffering ( freedom )
3. Living in accord with how things exist ( wisdom )
4. Living for the Benefit of all beings ( compassionate action )

These tenets aren't tied to any specific tradition. Once you see them clearly and separate them from any specific tradition , they open up to all traditions ( science, philosophy, etc. ).

Not very invested in hopefulness for the world but what could make him hopeful is that there is this motivation to Transform ( freedom, wisdom, compassionate action ). It isn't always actualized; however, it is a source of hope.

Buddhism as a Transformative Phenomenology :

• explore your alive-ness through how you experience it.
• it is also helpful to have others speak about what they experience, but it is up to you to decide if it is helpful.
• Buddhism is a description of human experience ( Phenomenology ) with the goal of transformation ( freedom, wisdom, compassionate action )
• This focus on transformation is largely missing from western philosophy.
• In Zen you need a prescription for how to achieve this transformation ( i.e. zazen )
  • how can we expect zazen to transform ( freedom, wisdom, compassionate action )?
  • Dogen says that there are buddha's that don't know there are buddhas.
    • implying that the results aren't always visible.
  • Transformation isn't something you think your way too. It is something that matures & with good teaching it can be noticed.

Buddhism & the Self

• Buddhism shocks w/the notion that there is no self.
• When Buddhism makes a 'no self' statement, it is making a very specific statement, “ there is no independent, unchanging essence to each of us.” — even this is something to explore & to not just accept
  • everything is interdependent & changing
  • the self emerges from the field of everything
• Possibly when you truly find that lack of essence, mind, & self that is liberation from dukha and leads to transformation.
  • inversely, when that construction of self or essence is in place it stands in the way of liberation , wisdom, and compassionate action.
• Selflessness can't be binary so a fun, useful term is less-self-ness ; you can look at this practice & transformation as a spectrum. You can observe when there is more or less selff-ness.
• there are domains in which you can observe self-ness:
  • Skin bag: you can experience being stuck in the skin back , feeling the separation between you & the world. When we feel that we are located inside vs. outside, this is more self-ish feeling.
  • Emotions: Giving a presentation may result in anxiety, when that physical feeling becomes a knot — something you must remove before going about your life.. Then you are feeling more self-ness. You aren't afraid that others will judge your actions, but instead that they will judge you
  • Continuity: its not important what I think , it is important that I think — because, with each thought there is a thinker that is thinking the thoughts. So, when I experience a thought I experience 'me'. When you exp a period of non-thought the continuity is interrupted, I no longer exp. the thinker.
    • Zazen , attempts to push us into the space of non-thought and an exp. of less-self-ness
  • Story: When someone ask you who you are, you are ready to pull together a story. You might or might not be walking around telling yourself a story but you are always ready to tell a story about yourself when asked. When you recognize that the story is just a story and it isn't you ( isn't defining you ) this is an exp. of less-self-ness.
    
    • Being strongly vested in beliefs is form of self-ness
  • Transcendent Self: changing from a time shape to single moment that is more relaxed. A lightness of being, less heavy because there are less future / past concerns.

We're just experiencing moments of less-self-ness and then we can go forward with these experiences / learning and apply them to our lives.

The Teachings of the Two Truths

• The Fundamental & conventional ( emptiness & form ) , the important thing is that they are both true.
• The two truths become useful when they work together, we're wired to experience our perceptions as reality and when we recognize this we can call it true.
• As a Buddhist you can recognize that the above point causes suffering and that underlying this seemingly solid reality is a field that is the form of emptiness.
• With the above two points you can then live within forms (seeming reality) with out identifying with it too much.
  • you can realize that you need money to move within the field of forms but from the point of view of emptiness it is just a constructed conventional reality.
  • if you attach too strongly to emptiness you wont be too functional
• To take the point of view of emptiness is wisdom to take the point of view of convention is the path of compassion.

Personal Summary & thoughts ( WIP )

• I enjoyed this weekend seminar a lot. It was simple but thought provoking.
• I am not sure that the comments around the focus on transformation being missing from western philosophy are fair or correct.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche who is one of the most famous western philosophers was extremely focused on transformation and transcendence. In a lot of ways his focus was similar to a lot of Soto Zen practices. He was focused on aiming for a lofty ideal — similar to Buddha , nirvana, enlightenment — through piratical and experiential ways . (i.e. Nietzche's concept of the Übermensch as a goal humanity can set for itself – be it a different objective in transformation than Soto Zen , it is still a transformation and an experiential process that Nietzsche is suggesting.