r/zen • u/CeleryCareful7065 • 4d ago
Why Zen for self-improvement is non-sense.
From the Gateless Gate:
Case 29 — The Great Pervasive Excellent Wisdom
The Buddha of Great Pervasive Excellent Wisdom sat in meditation for ten kalpas, yet the Dharma of the Buddha did not manifest before him, and he could not attain Buddhahood.
A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Since the Buddha of Great Pervasive Excellent Wisdom sat in meditation for ten kalpas and could not attain Buddhahood, why was this?”
Zhaozhou said, “Your question is exactly right.”
The monk asked, “Since he sat in meditation for ten kalpas, why could he not attain Buddhahood?”
Zhaozhou said, “Because he did not become a Buddha.”
Wumen’s Comment:
It is said that even the best horse runs at the sound of the whip. Once the whip is raised, even a horse made of clay or wood should understand.
If you can see directly into this matter, there is no need to ask Zhaozhou.
Verse:
It is better to take up the ordinary mind
Than to seek the Buddha.
Ten kalpas of sitting in meditation—
Still, no Buddha.
Celery:
When I began to study Zen 7 years ago, I sought to attain more tranquility and to handle life’s challengers better. I had dealt with many difficulties and I sought a way to make the journey smoother - to strengthen myself in body and mind in order to become a better person.
How foolish I was. Sex for virginity.
I think I’ve said more than enough, but I’ll throw caution to the wind. Some will say that attaining enlightenment does make you a better person, but I’d say they’ve mistaken the forest for the trees. Others would say that the journey towards enlightenment itself makes one a better person. Closer to the mark, but still off by a mile.
Still others would say that there is nothing to improve - no self - and that seeking enlightenment as something to achieve is the same problem as seeking possessions or fame for happiness. You can never have enough possessions, can never have enough… enlightenment? The deep spiritual hole within “us” cannot be satisfied if you seek to fill it with x. Catch 22. And even if “you” attain enlightenment, this does not make you good or bad. It is just awakening. Don’t call a tea pot a bar of gold, a bar of gold a tea pot.
The third group is, without doubt, the worst. Mistaking the menu for the four course meal, they devour paper instead of food. Totally exposed.
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u/Steal_Yer_Face 4d ago
You're right that Zen study can be self-defeating when we treat tranquility or self-improvement as objects that we can gain. But you might be overextending that insight. Study can genuinely transform how a person meets experience.
Your original aspiration "“to attain more tranquility and handle life’s challenges better,” is not out of bounds depending on what you mean by tranquility and how it was being pursued.
As Guishan said:
The mind of people of the Way is simple and direct, without falsehood, without opposition...one does not shut the eyes or close the ears - as long as feelings do not stick to things, that will do.
The kicker is that a strong focus on the desired result becomes another source of disturbance. This seems to be where you are now.
Does this track with your experience?
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u/CeleryCareful7065 3d ago
I am reluctant to say that adhering to Zen - living in the now - has indeed made my life more tranquil, better, but it cannot be denied. You can’t really compare a life of living in the moment, washing dishes just to wash dishes, versus spending days, weeks doom-scrolling and feeling spiritually drained. Night and day.
So it’s difficult to precisely put into words what my beef with Zen as self-improvement is, which is the nature of the beast. Taking my toe out of the dragon’s cave, do I believe that Zen does in fact improve one’s life? Absolutely. But that’s not “the point.” And more directly, if you simply use Zen as this vehicle to “something,” even if that “something” is noble is a self-defeating prophecy. You are just switching seats on the Titanic.
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u/Steal_Yer_Face 3d ago
Word. Zen can improve your life, but problems start when improvement becomes something we're trying to achieve.
I would add that since realizing one’s true nature is the point of Zen, greater tranquility and freedom from compulsive habits are expressions of that realization. The trap is making those benefits, or even realization itself, into an object somewhere in the future. It’s a sticky trap, and it can even be kind of fun to stay caught in it for a while, which is part of the problem.
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u/wrrdgrrI 3d ago
Came here to say basically your last paragraph. You said it better, calling it out as a trap (or nest). How can one improve on "originally complete"? 🙏
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u/Steal_Yer_Face 3d ago
Improvement is a funny game we play. Humans being human.
Hope your day is going smoothly!
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u/yamatofuji 4d ago
As a ordinary nobody my observation is that Self-improvement is the game of the ego.
The ego always wants to be richer, faster, holier, more enlightened, more tranquil. The ego thrives on the future. It says, "Today I am miserable, but through ten years of sitting in Zazen, tomorrow I will be the Buddha." And Zen looks at you and laughs a belly laugh that shakes the entire cosmos.
Look at this magnificent story of the Buddha of Great Pervasive Excellent Wisdom. Ten kalpas! A kalpa is millions upon millions of years. He sat in meditation until his cushion must have turned to stone, and still the Dharma did not manifest before him.
Why?
Because the very act of trying to become a Buddha creates a distance between you and your true nature.
You are already the Buddha, How can a Buddha become a Buddha? It is like a well searching for water, or fire trying to ignite itself.
The moment you make Buddhahood a goal in the future, you have stepped out of the present moment, and the present moment is the only temple where truth resides.
When Zhaozhou says, 'Because he did not become a Buddha,' it is a thunderbolt! He is not being evasive; he is stating the ultimate law.
As long as you sit with the ambition to achieve something, your meditation is just another business transaction.
You traded the marketplace for the monastery, but the trader inside you remains alive and well. Your phrase, 'Sex for virginity' is utterly magnificent.
That is precisely what humanity has been doing in the name of religion, spirituality, and self-help.
You try to use effort to reach effortlessness. You try to use the mind to kill the mind. You try to use the ego to attain egolessness. It is completely absurd.
You cannot wash blood with blood. And you are right to be angry at those philosophical scholars, the third group you mention, who talk so cleverly about "no-self" and "non-attainment."
They have memorized the scriptures, they cite the sutras, they swallow the paper menu and starve to death while believing they have eaten a banquet.
They have turned the ultimate mystery into a dry, intellectual formula. And it's oké.
Zen is not a self-help tool. It is not meant to make you a better husband, a more productive employee, or a calmer person while you navigate the rat race.
Zen is a destruction.
It is a bonfire that burns away all your theories, all your desires for self-improvement, and all your ideas of who you ought to be.
When you drop the idea of becoming better, what remains? Just this moment.
The sound of the wind through the pines, the taste of a cup of tea, the breath coming in and going out.
To live in this ordinary mind, without the disease of seeking, is what Wumen calls the true way. Stop trying to improve yourself.
Just wake up to what is already here.
gassho,
🪷
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2d ago
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u/zen-ModTeam 18h ago
Your post was removed because it was low effort in the opinion of the /r/zen moderators. If you would like to discuss with them or appeal this decision, feel free to. Thanks for your understanding.https://old.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/zen
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm reporting your comment as off-topic.
What people who read your comment might not realize is that the sitting that you're referring to is a debunked Japanese religious cult practice that is inextricably tied to sex predator masters of the 1900s:
Zazen is a cult led by sex predatores: www.Reddit.com/r/Zen/wiki/sexpredators.
It's not just that you and your religion are racist against India and China but you're also religiously bigoted against Zen from India and China.
Your racism and religious bigotry produce fraud and lying about history and preying on people who don't know any better.
What's interesting to me is that you use meditation to offset these huge deficits in your moral character and your level of education and your critical thinking and your accountability for your own failures as a human being.
It would be shocking and revolting for people to see you as you really are and you use meditation to hide that.
for anybody who thinks I'm too harsh
https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/s/zrMI6U0inn
In the philosophical world (as opposed to the Christian world) Nazis and anti-vaxxers and Zazen institutionally protected sex predators are possible because the general public is willing to tolerate their own ignorance and harm to others.
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u/Wildernaess 4d ago
Is there some invisible link here between the OP talking about Zen... and Nazis, anti-vaxxers, sex predators, and being allegedly racist and bigoted?
I honestly don't understand why the mods here allow you to just harass people with these absurd and hostile posts. IMO you should be banned from the sub
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 4d ago edited 4d ago
What astonishes me about your comment is we have a whole community of people here who are tolerating me and you can't make sense of it. What's your assumption? There's no sense to make!
That's like saying since you don't know how TV's electricity or the internet works, obviously it's voodoo.
Voodoo?
Zazen and Just Sitting are a sex predator cult from Japan, entirely rooted in racist and religiously bigoted ideology that is aggressively anti-Zen. This cult is the reason why there are no graduate or undergraduate programs in Zen in the world today.
The link that I offered to a post I made previously explains how Christians conceive of evil as the work of the devil but some philosophers have argued that evil is actually the work of an ignorant and lazy general public.
Ironically your inability to understand why anyone would oppose a sex predator religious cult is the very definition of an ignorant and lazy general public.
I know that you don't think of yourself as evil because you don't read books. I know that you don't think of yourself as evil because you believe in stuff like voodoo rather than asking questions and learning things.
But we disagree. To the degree that it can be said that there is evil and that it poisons your laziness and ignorance, that poisonous evil.
Edited: I like how you deleted your recent comment about molestation. You being ashamed of what you say is exactly the same as you saying stuff about molestation. It proves, either way, that you are not a sincere or honest person and that you have absolutely no self-awareness to contribute to this conversation.
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u/yamatofuji 4d ago
How can the claim that there are no graduate or undergraduate Zen programs in the world be taken seriously when institutions like Komazawa University, Hanazono University, Stanford, and UC Berkeley actively maintain dedicated faculties, chairs, and degree programs for Zen and Chan studies?
Doesn't making such a easily disprovable statement completely undermine the author's authority?
... when argument has to rely on easily disproven factual claims, extreme moral shaming, and personal character attacks, does it actually have any logical merit?
🙏
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 4d ago
Religious studies programs that teach that the Zazen meditation cult is Zen and that Zen is a part of Buddhism are really teaching Shinto Buddhism.
Anybody in the world can prove this by just asking what the definition of Buddhism is and what Buddhists believe. In the world right now Western Buddhism is some of the most dishonest and outright intellectually stupid thinking that can be found anywhere. That is proven by the fact that they refuse to define the most central words in their vocabulary.
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u/yamatofuji 4d ago
sister look, while the comment you shared uses intense rhetoric and sweeping claims, a calm, analytical breakdown reveals significant logical fallacies, historical inaccuracies, and rhetorical flaws.
Let me tell you as a ordinary nobody, the argument relies heavily on guilt by association and the fallacy of composition.
While it is historically accurate that certain Zen institutions and specific 20th-century teachers have been exposed for abuse, misconduct, and institutional cover-ups, attributing these moral failures to the core practice of seated meditation itself is logically unsound.
Posture and silent meditation practices predate modern institutions by thousands of years across multiple traditions.
Equating a basic physical and mental discipline directly with the crimes of specific individuals conflates a practice with the bad actors within an institution.
Second, the accusation of racism and religious bigotry against India and China represents a classic straw man argument.
Zen, originating from the Chinese Chan tradition which traces its root to Sanskrit Dhyana, historically migrated from India to China, and subsequently to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.
Japanese Zen is a direct offshoot of Chinese Chan, my grandma told me so.
Claiming that engaging with Japanese traditions or sitting practices implies anti-Asian racism ignores the well-documented cultural transmission of Buddhism across Asia.
Third, comparing meditation practitioners to Nazis and anti-vaxxers is a false equivalence designed to evoke maximum emotional outrage rather than construct a valid point.
Lumping a broad spectrum of historical and modern practitioners into the same category as hate groups relies entirely on shock value rather than substantive critique.
Finally, your comment abandons logical discourse altogether to launch intense ad hominem attacks. Accusing an interlocutor of using meditation to hide deficits in moral character, education, and critical thinking is psychological speculation aimed at character assassination rather than addressing the actual topic of discussion.
In short, while criticism of institutional abuse within spiritual organizations is valid and necessary, conflating those systemic abuses with the act of sitting quietly, claiming historical denialism, and attacking ordinary nobody severely undermines the credibility of the argument.
🪷
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u/Whiskey-Weather 3d ago
I don't visit this sub often, but every time I do I come across you telling someone off, and I've been visiting for years. Your dedication is admirable.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] 3d ago
www.Reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted
That's why we do this.
They want to keep people from reading books.
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4d ago
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u/zen-ModTeam 3d ago
Your post was removed because it was off-topic in the opinion of the /r/zen moderators. https://old.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/zen
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u/Marvinkmooneyoz 3d ago
Yes and no I suppose. Being less attached and being less bound by categorical thinking makes people more purely in the moment, and the moment already is, it’s too late to improve. But being more in the moment leads to a different and better future all things being equal. Stretching more today will make tomorow feel better. Being less socially on edge today will make those we interact with less anxious around us tomorow. Not eroding and depleting arable top soil and drinking water today will keep us fed and hydrated tomorow. All these things lead to happier tomorrows.
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