Zen: A Rational Critique [1 ed.]

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ZEN: a By

ERNEST BECKER, Ph.D. The appeal

of

Zen

to a variety of

and

West-

erners

both

sionals

has been increasingly evident

dilettantes

and, to some, has

profes-

become a matter

of

concern. Zen typifies an Eastern approach to problem-solving that

is

at the opposite

pole from Western ideals: the

human

being, puppetlike, manipulates himself in

the hope of coercing his environment.

Steeped in a tradition of magical omnipotence, the Zennist seeks to bring other-

worldly power to bear on this-worldly problems.

To

the question "Does Zen hold forth

something of value to the West?"

this

book makes an unremittingly negative answer. Zen, Dr. Becker remarks., has thus far escaped unscathed from traditional

and

Western skepticism about irrational

antirational approaches to

human

understanding. In this book, he provides

a

much needed

tive.

clarification of perspec-

He gives a fresh view of Zen's origins (Continued on back flap)

3 1148 00019 1981

-

29^ B3952 61-2378J Becker Zen: a rational critique

Zen: A

DATE OCT

f

Rational Critique

Zen: A

Rational Critique

By

ERNEST BECKER,

Department of Psychiatry, State University of

Ph.D. New YorL

Upstate Medical Center

W-W-NORTON & COMPANY, INC

.

New York

Copyright

1961 by Ernest Becker First Edition

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 61-7474

Printed in the United States of America for the Publishers by the Vail-Ballou Press

123456789

To

Douglas G. Haring

",

.

.

the teacher imparts the

6123783

spirit."

CONTENTS

Introduction:

The Appeal

1

The

2

The Zen Buddhist

3

The Zen

of

Zen to the West, 13

Psychotherapeutic Personality Change, 23 Conversion, 43

Discipline as a Psychotherapeutic

Process, 87

4

The

Historical

An 5

The

Background

of Zen:

Anthropological View, 102

Central Psychological Role of the Trance

in Zen, 119

6

Zen Cosmology and Zen Values, 133

7

The Thought Reform

8

The

Rebirth, 143

Psychotherapeutic Meeting of East and

West, 155 9

Conclusion, 173 Bibliographic Notes and References, 185

Index, 190

"The

state of

mind, the state of society

is

of a piece.

.

.

,

A society holds together by the respect which man gives to man;

it fails

power,

when

in fact, its

it falls

concept of

apart into groups of fear

man

J.

"The danger lieve

to society

is

and

is false."

BRONOWSKI

not merely that it should beis great enough; but that it

wrong things, though that should become credulous."

W.K.CLIFFORD

Zen:

A

Rational Critique

INTRODUCTION

The Appeal

of

Zen to the West

A living man who sits and does not lie down; A dead man who lies down and does not sit! After

all

these are just dirty skeletons.

The Westerner who finds some charm in Zen is often hard put to reconcile the antinomy, so foreign to his own traditions, between its poignantly esthetic musings about man and nature and its blatant denial of life. The purpose of this book is not to effect reconciliation, but rather to show that Zen really & S^SSSLS^ life, abnegation of the Western ethic of individuation and autonomy which was ,sp Jaboripusly fashioned by Mediterfa"ilBM^iviIization and is still too precariously grasped. It is a trite observation that knowledge accumulates so quickly and voluminously that we are con-

stantly forced to rediscover something long known which has been quietly buried under the silt of more up-to-date thought or more pressing research. Yet this is what seems to have happened to Zen. The credulous new generations have to start again at the beginning and learn things all over; and with an ever new spirit

animating their strivings, it is inevitable that they should choose to delight themselves with the wrong things.

13

Zen, Thought Reform, and Psychotherapy

Of

course "wrong things"

is

a highly relative phrase;

traditions. Curiously, right and wrong depend on social this is the one area in which proponents of Zen to the West have been most remiss: they have without exception claimed that Zen is not only in harmony with Western tradition, but is in fact in essence more Western than the Western Greek and Christian-Judaic traditions themselves. This would be amusing if it were accepted only among a handful of gullible poets harmthe idea has inlessly dispersed in espresso shops. But fected some unimpeachable Western professionals, and

psychotherapists who possess a good deal over individuals. purpose here is neither power to make light of Oriental esthetics, nor to quench any

among them

My

Qf

possible proselytizing by the Buddhist religion, but simply to look at Zen "in the round" in the hope that if

we can be purged

of childish

dependence upon

omnipotence, we might view our imperfect

magical achievements and impossible problems with a selfreliant adult realism. Those who turn to Zen expect it to grant the most impossible of all the things that life

cannot give: a ready solution to the ponderous task and social adjustment and this without

of personal

the exercise of reason! -yllhe

denial of

mind

is

as old as

Buddhism; at

least

Buddhism's impotence to do something tanto aid gible suffering humanity judging by the cities and slums and rural misery of Asia. It has become so as old

is

important for everyone to have a "personal belief" in our society, which is so mistrustful of "bad intentions," that

we seem

to question content only in the case of Marxism. And even the idea that Marxism can actu-

14

The Appeal ally

be accepted

of

as a religion in the

countries absolves

it

of

some

evil. I

Zen

to the

West

underdeveloped

do not

at all

mean

to imply that one religion is better than any other, but simply that all religions do have a conceptual content;

and the nonbeliever

interested in certain facets of a

creative ends needs religion for esthetic or artistically for its eschatology of salvaalso to know the

premises

Western psychotherapists however their professional understanding of the Zen negation of reason and understand it. logic is perverted, at least do tion.

In Buddhist thought, the world is a terrible place which one is reincarnated again and again through aeons of time, to form attachments to things and loved

into

ones and be separated remorselessly from them by an is not fundaimpersonal fate. The Buddhist protest eternal mentally against life. Life is not bad; it is the a

from desired objectr ^RaTTFTfie gainful separation is

an

entirely impersonal flux in,

which nothing really "exists" except attachment and desire. The Buddhist salvation is freedom from desire and hence from rebirth^he_Zen doctrine is that instantaneous freedom is achieved by uniting oneself with the eternal essence; liberation from the fetters of existence is possible in the here and now, not merely at death or in in

Zen except

some life to come. Nothing this

able to this end. thing, in fact,

Zen

is

important

tsafil^^

Most expendable

which must be effaced

liberation to take place

of

all

one

tfie

in order for the

i^hgjitt^

mind tojhou^^^

^^

*

rom 15

Zen, Thought Reform, and Psychotherapy

We

shall the very possibility of union with the cosmic. of this roots historical examine later the magical and idea.

r.The negation of mind in Buddhist thought is rather Westerners generally known, and undoubtedly many the West in it. of find Zen attractive because Many revolt

both against reason's obviously majestic crea-

tions for the

good

life,

as well as

solve problems of personal

But

less

well

its

utter failure to

contentment and

creativity.

known than

fundamental to any

the negation of mind, method appraisal of it, is the

and Zen

uses to proselytizel^Zen is basically a technique by to achieve a mental breakdown of people so that Its rethey can be made to accept a new ideology.

which

semblance here to Chinese thought reform can be conclusively demonstrated. Also not widely enough recognized

is

version

that Zen's propensities for ideological conalso inherent in many forms of

and reform are

a basic psychotherapy practiced in the Wqst. There is which identity in the coercive and regressive processes

Zen, thought reform, and various Western psychotherapies use to achieve reform or conversion goals,

A

system of belief may be offensive to some, but the Zennists themselves will be the most tranquil in a reappraisal of facts which have slipped from view, or remained in the special "scientific" dissection of a

province of ivy-overgrown inaccessibility. They will relay the burden of critical defense back to the source of attack, by branding this "conscious/' "fragmented/' and hopelessly "unspontaneous" treatment because as a typical example of its symbolism is "learned"

the "error" of attachment they seek to eliminate. 16

But

The Appeal

of

Zen

to the

West

the examination of facts does not permit reduction to the same innocuous relativity as the assumption of

emotionally validated

beliefs. If it did,

we

could sub-

firecracker-propelled garbage cans for space rockets, and effect a considerable saving in the national stitute

budget.

No

purposeful argument

mystic, becianoser inniltimat^^ untenable premise, he invokes

thought process to arrive at

c^be^^dwi&thQ^ the bankruptcy of

what he

"really

mea^s."

Besides, the mystical position has been bolstered by the recruitment of many intellectuals here in the West:

Jung

is

revitalist

logic

one of the foremost to have answered the "Who'll step out and declare" cry against

and

rational analysis.

the "universal unconscious"

To is

judge by his writings,

a vast repository of heal-

ing symbols, a psychic bank which has been accumulated through untold generations of evolution, and which lies at the disposal of mankind for healing purposes. Appropriately, the symbolic plasma of this bank seems to have been largely contributed by the East, in

the form of

tranquilizing_mgndgZdg religious represen tationsoF universal harmony which have only to be seen or imagined in order for a mental reintegration to take place. One is hard-pressed to imagine a universal hereditary unconscious; and serious scholars have long since turned to more profitable preoccupations

ever since the

abandonment

of the doctrine that char-

acquired by the individual in his lifetime can be passed on to his progeny. Freud observed in the

acteristics

early part of this century that psychoanalytic theowho form their own school bring their per-

reticians

sonal faiths with

them

Jung

is

religious,

Adler was 17

Zen, Thought Reform, and Psychotherapy a socialist.

More recently,

the precious Zen

gift

Erich

Fromm's

gratitude for

from the East (these are his

directly traceable, as we shall see, to his conviction of the need for a greater spontaneity, a more

words)

is

total expression of the inner

man

than a culture ani-

mated by markets and Madison Avenue can give. The whole man to Fromm represents an original total potential which has been warped and channelized by the functional needs of a buying-and-selling society. Of course Zen is not limited in its appeal to those

who deny the value therapists.

of reason, or to apocalyptic psycho-

Zen answers the esthetic and

reflective

needs

of a variety of temperaments without suBjectmg them to complete conversion by means oFiEsrebifth method,

and without subverting clar% of tHnking. Zen enjoys favor in the West on many different levels, and its appeal defies ready explanationjlf o the philosophically minded, the Buddhist metaphysics of universal becoming has long provided rich conceptual fare; but this is not a new attraction, and Zen is only one of many speculative schools^ In the

West

synthesis

one

is

more modern

tempted

spirit of

East-

to use the epigram

is perhaps unfair Zen avows itself philosophically protean: in Japan Zen has been incorporated into Hegel, and in the West it has been equated with Kierkegaard, Existentialism, Faust, and Pragmatism. This is in the same spirit as Sri

"pooled ignorance*' but

it

Aurobindo's reconciliation of Indian spiritualism and European materialism.! Akin to the appeal of a philoobvious delight of the religious, mystical temperament in the submersion of telluric values, and even the conceptual ablation of a sophical esoterics

18

is

tfee

The Appeal

of

Zen

to the

West

universe of mind and matter. It is possible too to understand the creative becoming of Zen cosmology in a purely humanist sense; but this requires overlooking the core idea of and the susjiuddhi^n^ tained affirmation!^ Western

humanism

upholds. As for Zen's reputed manifestait is not enough realized that its in-

tions in the arts,

fluence on garden art, painting and poetry is more a post facto rationalization on the part of Zen adherents

than something historically

In Japan, Shinto is arts. Besides, the aesthetic response to creative forms need owe nothing to an understanding of Zen thought itself; anyone can appreciate: real.

the mother of the

A fallen flower Returning to the branch? It was a butterfly.

One

can be an excellent rock gardener and a Shintoist

as well.

But again, one does not begrudge Zen a historical connection with the arts in Japan these arts may well turn out to be a lasting contribution to an asphaltharried eye's need for a restful line and a rapport with nature, and there is no need to cavil at their proveni-

The most unwarranted aspect of Zen's appeal to West is the one which highlights the West's own critical bankruptcy. There are those who continue to ence.

the

impute to the East the ability to offer ready answers to the dilemma of man's existence, long after the East itself

I

West for more practically oriRomain Rolland's post-World War

has turned to the

ented approaches. poetic plaint

is still

typical:

19

Zen, Thought Reform, and Psychotherapy

Who, amid the disorder in which West

the chaotic conscience

struggling, has sought whether the fortycentury-old civilizations of India and China had not answers to offer to our griefs, models, it may be, for our

of the

is

1

aspirations?

The

unveiling of the Oriental

mind

initiated

by

excited nineteenth-century scholars is still not over; public translations oft esoteric texts have been given a i

new impetus by readers

M

_

_.

I'-

jiMLMMirt"'

'"'

1

the paperbacks. shelves

matter-of-factly to Joyce' Ulysses: the

Power next

A new generation of The Way and Its power to manipulate

magically resides in the vague, the mysterious, or simply in the uncomprehensible.

life

tractive because it

saying nothing; or,

purports to explain everything by when pressed, it offers in ultimate

mdescension arTenigmatic koan

:

A monk

asked, "All things are said to be reducible to the One, but where is the One to be reduced?" Chaochou answered, "When I was in the district of Ch'ing I 9 had a robe made that weighed seven chin! felt profundity strikes more the nonaspiring fact. Besides, the

In one's late teens the directly

home than

accumulation of punctilipus knowledge by one's elders seems stiff or irrelevant/The koanjs really an aggresviolent revolt against intellect.^. ErCummingS, so much in favor with college lias a poem wmcfi sive,

,

youtfi,

reveals that "feeling after the nature of

is first/'

and that he who inquires

things "will never wholly kiss you/' has validated the poet's insight: in an Psychoanalysis activity like kissing, regressive suspension of analytic

ihi a 2(f

preface to A. K.

Coomaraswamy's The Dance of

Siva, 1924.

The Appeal self-consciousness

formance. But

all

Zen

to the

West

in the service of ego-strong pernot a kiss. Is it an oedipally-

is

of

of

life is

infused blow that one strikes from his poetic retreat? "That's something you can't understand" is a defense against an overly-responsible world. a sullen, young Zen-inspired poet

When

known

who ma3e

thorough steeping in Zen prohis was fundity, admiring agemates to divulge urged by the "meaning of Zen/' he invariably deepened his reputation for profundity by responding with a painted smile an alternative to presenting a koan. Zen prohis unusually

vides the ultimate in lightly-resting armor: for the price of maintaining a silence infused with intensity,

one avoids having

t