Why I Meditate

Why I hold out in my solitary self-styled meditation practice is an interesting question. It is not "easy" for me to sit still for a period of time each day and systematically turn my attention inward. I do not find meditation intrinsically gratifying, or endorphin-producing, as I do aerobic exercise. I have to carve out time for meditation intentionally; it often feels to me like a chore. Yet I do get around to meditating, most every morning.

Western science backs up the notion that seated meditation promotes well-being, as scientific studies convincingly show the salutary effects of a diet rich in fresh vegetables and lean sources of protein. As the science does not inspire most Americans, most of the time, to eat well, neither are scientific encouragements adequate to get me sitting down and focusing my attention every day. That laboratory studies have established that meditators sleep better than non-meditators, all by itself, would get me only as far as thinking that meditation is "something I should be doing." It's like the ten-minute workout to strengthen my abs each day: knowing that the practice is a "good idea," does not suffice to get me off the dime.

This is all there is to say of why scientific encouragements for seated meditation, by themselves, haven't helped me practice. Of the encouragements of spiritual teachings, particularly Buddhist teaching, there is much more to say.

Buddhism and My Practice

No discussion of seated meditation is complete without a discussion of Buddhist teaching, to which Western meditators owe a tremendous amount--whether or not we reckon ourselves "Buddhist."

"Buddhist practice" has been seminal in the West. It is the primary form of seated meditation to have caught on here, first appearing in the 1960s and 70s. "Buddhist" meditation has been widely embraced as promoting the cultivation of "self-awareness," an understanding of one's own inner states and motivations, which encourages the development of attributes like calm, restraint, and compassion for others. Built up through the systematic focus of attention inward, "Buddhist"-style "self-awareness," is credited with countering Western cultural excesses, especially our tendencies towards violence and materialism. In general, "Buddhist" meditation is seen as consistent with democratic ideals of community engagement, and values like critical inquiry, over and above dogma and submission to authority.

In my forays into practice, I have appreciated--and I still appreciate--the knowing, simple encouragements offered to my likes by Buddhist teachers like Pema Chodron, the Reverend Heng Sure, and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. I also recognize among my influences teachers like psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose interest in meditation is inspired by Buddhism, though he claims no spiritual authority whatsoever. These teachers' observation that meditation enhances individual well-being by weakening habitual thought patterns, or "inner ruts," that block compassion for self and others, has served as a hypothesis I can continually test. The emphasis of certain Buddhist teachers on "finding a meditation practice that works for you," has countered dogma I internalized during my long-ago exposure to Zen, that painstakingly following the edicts of authorized "Zen teachers," about "how to meditate," was the only way to benefit from the activity.

Until my recent confrontation with Morgan, I thought I might indeed be a Buddhist meditator. Morgan pointed out, however, that the crux of any school or flavor of "Buddhism" was Buddha's Four Noble Truths and his Eight-Fold Path. The Buddhist tradition that fomented Zen, the form of Buddhist meditation prevalent in the West, also recognizes the "emptiness" ideal from the Heart Sutra as core teaching.

Thanks to Morgan, I have been forced to re-think my position on Buddhism. I realize I must distinguish between the helpful teachings of Buddhism--at least Western Buddhism--and ancient, core Buddhist traditions, which seem to me to defy reason and to promote unhealthy reliance on "masters." On re-examination, I find the Noble Truths and the Heart Sutra to be at the heart of, not incidental to, counterproductive experiences with meditation I have had in the past. I decline to accept 2,500-year-old "received wisdom" from Buddha, for reasons I'll examine fully.

Looks like I am not, then, a "Buddhist" meditator; I am not a Buddhist. What am I?

It's important here to start with a discussion of "authoritarianism."

Hallmarks of Authoritarian Ideology

The dictionary definition of "authoritarian" runs, "Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom." To contrast the credit given to "Buddhist" teaching for its emphasis on "self-knowledge," authoritarian teachings, in general, negate the individual's own experience as a source of knowing. I cannot be the expert on my own life, saying what it is I need, if my personal testimony contradicts the pronouncement of some authority about "what's good for me." The minister's assertion that "I need to pray more," to assuage my doubt, as long as I'm a fundamentalist Christian, will trump my own suspicion that I need more freedom to question church teaching than the literalistic interpretation of scripture allows for. If I continue to try define myself as a fundamentalist Protestant, moreover, I will come to mistrust myself, shamed by my own "sinful" predilection to criticize the Bible and the words of the minister.

In determining if an ideology is "authoritarian," leading to self-mistrust, Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad, in their 1995 book The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power, apply an eminently useful set of standards. First of all, according to their model, an authoritarian ideology posits an "absolute truth" or "absolute good," outside the realm of typical human experience. Kramer and Alstad refer to an individual's perceived union with this "absolute" as a "state of oneness." In this state, divisions between the individual and the "greater reality," as interpersonal boundaries, seem to evaporate and become irrelevant. Examples of the ways different traditions have conceptualized "oneness" include "selflessness" or "nirvana" in Buddhism, and "the state of eternal salvation," in Christianity. An authoritarian ideology teaches followers the necessity of subservience to worldly authority, to achieve this state, personally or collectively.

In their discussion, Kramer and Alstad take pains to distinguish mystical experience, "the spontaneous experience of oneness," in which divisions between the self and the "absolute" seem to vanish, from worldly structures and practices that are supposed to guide individuals lastingly to such experience. The former are to be respected as spontaneous and transient manifestations. The latter, according to Kramer-Alstad, inevitably fail, and they are inevitably destructive.

Authoritarian ideologies promote impossible ideals, as "unconditional forgiveness" in Christianity. Kramer and Alstad call these ideologies, which foster self-sacrifice in followers looking to live up to them, "renunciate." A perfect example of renunciate belief is illustrated by the Buddhist Noble Truth that "attachment causes suffering." One goal of Buddhist practice, then, is to "rid oneself of attachments." But "attachments"--as the individual's needs for food, sleep, and human contact--are part-and-parcel of the human condition. It is impossible for a living person not to have attachments--as Buddhists themselves concede.

Since such individual attributes as will, self-interest, and "attachments," cannot really be abdicated, followers of the authoritarian ideology will fail at the "renunciation" their beliefs demand. The failed ideologues develop self-mistrust. They may also come to defend and embrace the betraying ideology all the more zealously.

Core Buddhist Teaching as "Renunciate" Ideology

In my early twenties, I became involved in an austere Zen practice, which I tried frightfully long and hard to "make work." I suffered for its "not working." I sat hours on a firm round cushion in the zendo in extreme discomfort, dozing off, in physical pain, or fantasizing so vividly that my actual surroundings paled in comparison. I was not succeeding in "following my breath" with my attention, as I had been instructed to do. I confided to Zen teachers in private that I did not see how practice was helping to calm me, or increase my awareness. I was told that the problem was my "ego delusion." The "ego delusion" diagnosis I received was, in fact, supported in the core traditions of Zen Buddhism--both in the elaboration of the "selfless" ideal in the Heart Sutra, and in the Noble Truth that "attachment (as to ego) causes suffering." The teachers' advice that the answer to my practice-related misery was "more practice," was consistent with the teaching, which implied that the opposite of "suffering," was "egolessness," or "emptiness." My "ego," encompassing my personality, identity, and all personal motivations, was to be drummed out of me, in my striving for transcendent "oneness."

I thought the Buddhist teachers who told me about my "ego delusion" were "people who knew." I believed I must be "wrong," struggling so much. I came to doubt my deepest intuition that, indeed, the practice was not serving me and never could.

After finally extricating myself from the teachings of that school, I was not to attempt meditation again for years and years.

Until recently, I believed the harsh teachings of the zendo years ago represented only a particular school--not Buddhism, as a whole. While Buddhist teaching can be creative, engaging, and constructive to a point, I now believe that I would run into the same problems sooner or later, with any form of Buddhist meditation, as I ran into at the zendo.

"Authority" of Buddhist Teachers?

Are some Buddhists "closer" than others to realizing impossible Buddhist ideals, and so in a position to teach and advise followers?

In my years-ago Zen experience, I was warned solemnly against self-styled "gurus" who emerged to mislead followers "without the backing of a tradition," particularly, a "reputable lineage." This "lineage," apparently, involved a line of "masters" along which wisdom was imparted, elder to successor. I remember talk of a new teacher's "receiving transmission" from an aging master, who wished to authorize his successor to teach followers and see to their pastoral care. I guess this "transmission," understood in Western terms, was something like a blessing.

Such dispensation, unfortunately, often fails to ensure the spiritual authority of elders in Buddhist traditions, who are supposed to be dedicated to "ending suffering." Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the 1992 blockbuster The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and a de facto Tibetan Buddhist "master," is promoted by his handlers as none other than "the incarnation of Lerab Lingpa Terton Sogyal, a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama." Despite his impeccable spiritual credentials, Rinpoche has been discredited as a spiritual authority, owing to credible and disturbing allegations involving sexual abuse of followers. His is only one example of a Buddhist "master," with sterling traditional credentials, engaging in deeply destructive mischief.

What of Buddha, himself? What of the spiritual authority of a young prince, who deserts his wife and child in a bid to "end suffering"? Oh, I know he didn't leave her impoverished--far from it. Anyway, maybe she had already filed for divorce, and her lawyers had blocked any custody or visitation rights. So Buddha set out on his monastic pilgrimage in the wake of a tragic family rift, when he already had nothing to lose. He was not the cause of the estrangement. Yes, I am joking, but you see my point: it is hard to spin this biographical detail, so Buddha doesn't come off looking like a common hypocrite.

Helpful and Hurtful "Buddhist" Teaching

The common core ideologies of the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path notwithstanding, "Buddhism" in the contemporary West might very well not be recognizable to an East Asian mystic 2000 years ago. The ideology has changed and continues to change; "Buddhism" is grounded in specific cultures, and it is hardly "timeless." Despite the conventional wisdom that "Buddhist" tradition is the East's gift to the West, influential strains also have percolated in the other direction: Teachers the likes of Thich Nhat Hanh appear to have been molded by the American Civil Rights struggle, among other Western reforms.

Besides its renunciate core teachings, then, what is "Buddhism"?

Though they coexist, it is beyond the scope of this statement to examine the relationship between the "good Buddhism" of inspiration, understanding, and encouragement, and the "Buddhist baggage" of antiquated, authoritarian teaching.

For not addressing this relationship, some might brand me a "New-Age spiritual dilettante." But that's hardly fair: I prefer to call myself a "Buddhist-inspired secular meditator."

When I tell you that talks I heard at the zendo that hosted the abusive long-ago "sittings" are part of the reason I meditate today, you may well be surprised. Don't be.

One speaker at the zendo addressed the role of common curiosity in a "good life." He said it is every-day curiosity, wielded well, that penetrates rationalizations we carry around that interfere with happiness and peace. If we notice we always crave sugar at a certain time of afternoon, why is that? If we keep quarreling with our spouse, why? If we stay in this job we hate, why? The teacher then suggested we meditate with curiosity, and apply the question, "What is this?" to any difficult life situation.

The understanding and development of curiosity, as it was explained to me that day, is one gift of learning to "quiet the mind" through the systematic focus of attention inward. Other gifts of meditation practice include calm, the refinement of important goals, open-mindedness, self-discipline, and the self-trust that comes of self-knowledge.

I am indebted to the inspirational face of "Buddhism." That meditation promotes calm and self-awareness, and the other good "adult developmental milestones" that I mentioned, is an utterly transparent, testable hypothesis. It embodies an approach that contrasts sharply with the core teachings of Buddhism--the 2,500-year-old dogma, requiring of followers self-sacrifice, a high tolerance for "paradox," and recondite interpretation by "masters."

The former, I am continuing each day to explore. The latter, you can keep.