Sex and Zen and Sin, part I
April 17, 2002
I get an email from a friend of mine, Phil. He says �Hey, Jody, what with all of your atheism and all, why are you posting all these quotes from Zen Buddhists?� I was actually quite surprised by this note because Phil wasn�t one of the two people known to regularly read my site�
To answer him, it�s easy enough to say that Zen Buddhism isn�t so much a religion but a philosophy. Of course, it�s easy enough to say that but can be terribly hard to prove, as there is such a vast panoply of gods, demons and various incarnations of the Buddha as to at least give every appearance of being a religion. And sitting under a tree, slaying the Mara with a touch and ascending into Eternal Bliss only to be called back by the cries of the suffering of the world isn�t qualitatively that different from being divinely born of a virgin so that you can sacrifice yourself to yourself in order to save everyone and everything. (And that last one, dear readers, deals with more than Christianity.)
It could be because that in much of the writings of the Zen dudes that I�ve read, they�re obviously in on the joke, or the con, or the fiction (depending on your point of view) as they demand their victims, marks or fans to let go of what they think they know and approach, directly and experientially, what they are. It could be that somewhere along the way they learned that everything in life, every philosophy, outlook, item, possession, relationship, religion or way of being, was ultimately a trap in as much as getting wrapped up in any of the mentioned walls one off from living and being, spontaneously and creatively, in the tick tock of time.
To be honest though I just like those quotes. They constantly reframe the discussion away from texts, theses, dictums, and dogmas and back, squarely, painfully, burdensomely, onto the shoulders of reading. Mostly those quotes are reminders that that which is doing the pointing is not the pointed at thing. Maps aren�t the landscape, recipes aren�t dessert and movies aren�t reality.
All great platitudes but so what?
Well, I started thinking about those platitudes (this time, as I�ve pondered on these things for much too many times) after the whole �scandal� with the Catholic Church filled every cranny of the paper that wasn�t already filled by the perpetual bloodshed between Palestinians and Jews. It was also the responses from some of the sites that I surfed to, places like Louder Fen, HokiePundit, Annuciations or Between Naps, where the faithful, to me at least, did intellectual pirouettes and double thinks in order to continue to cling to cherished beliefs by either ignoring ample evidence against those views or in separating, and then elevating, themselves from any who hold differing views.
This intellectual pirouetting is what is necessary to live in a modern world, framed by science and democracy, enjoying it�s benefits and advances but holding fast (and loose) to a world view framed at best in First Century superstitions and at worst by pre-historic paranoia. In two thousand years we�ve learned much about the mechanics of how the world works: why the sun rises, what stars are, why objects at rest remain at rest and what it really takes to fly through the air. In the last hundred, we�ve made great advances in evaluating and comprehending the mechanics of us: how DNA forms the template of our bodies, how certain genes impact on brain functions, how PET scans reveal thinking, emotion and perception, even the general expressions and cognitions behind our psychology, emotionality and physicality. Quantitatively, we aren�t the same folks who explained rainfall by how well we behaved the year before.
Some argue that qualitatively we are little different than those savages. There is no doubt that greed, avarice, cruelty and dominance still influence much of our interactions in the world. Yet we have matured. Women are no longer (widely) regarded as secondary to men, �race� is no longer seen as a discrete but rather arbitrary or illusory (and in any event, no longer a determinant of inherent value) and might is no longer the sole determiner of right. Democracy has become the ideal, security the goal and advancement the orientation of an increasing number of societies worldwide. Our youth and inexperience continues to trip us up, but we have tried to lessen the impact of those ideas and concepts, which limit and destroy us. So much remains in front of us, yet the distance to go in no way negates the miles we�ve come.
The Catholic Church continues to pronounce a system and world-view vastly out of step with modernity. Some argue that that is a value, something to be celebrated and spread. Adoration of priests, filial, unquestioned duty to Rome, denigration of gays and lesbians, and proclamations of the complete understanding of �truth� are not values, but rather dogmas designed to mitigate against the uncertainties of life. Compassion, selfless service, social justice, truth and honesty, those are real values. Those are catholic -- universal � values, of infinite merit and enduring beauty.
-- next up, Christianity and Homosexuality
Posted by Jody at April 17, 2002 09:33 PM