The Zennist

It's hardly Buddhism or Zen

If I were young again, say about twenty, Zen and Buddhism would bore the hell out of me.  Buddhism and especially Zen have become over the  years—let’s face it—a self-help cult.  And that really bores the hell out of me.  

I thank the gods that I got turned onto Zen in the early 60s.  That was back before the psychologists got their hands on it, including the self-helpers.  Zen, especially, was still in the category of mysticism.  A person interested in Zen Buddhism went in search of enlightenment—not a psychologist in robes, aka, Mr. Roshi.

The present state of Buddhism in the West, including Zen, is hardly Buddhism or Zen.  And maybe this explains why it is so boring.  There isn’t a Buddhist blog or a nonacademic Buddhist publication in which I can’t find a number of factual errors—some of them quite bad the most egregious being that the Buddha categorically denied the self despite the fact that the entire Mahaparinirvana Sutra is dedicated to a Buddhist atman!

Westerners who decide to take up Buddhism are mainly responsible for both Buddhism and Zen going downhill at such a rapid rate.  The problem is, they have a kind of God complex.  They think they’re entitled to alter what the Buddha said or ignore as much of the Buddha’s teaching as they so desire and still call themselves Buddhists.  

It’s the God complex side of this matter that irks me the most.  It is fairly easy to correct wrong opinions, factual errors, and misstatements with actual citations from the Buddhist canon.  It ain’t so easy to correct personality disorders such as, for example, psychopathy which tends to be found in our prisons and in the top levels of corporations—and yes, even in Buddhism.  But this aside, why do Westerners think they are entitled to change Buddhism around—or Zen—to fit with their often crazy ideas of reality?

So far I have seen these changes in Buddhism which have nothing to do with Buddhism.  (Needless to say there are more, but this is all I could come up with for now.)

1.  Buddhism is agnostic. (No it ain’t.)

2.  Buddhism follows the main tenets of physicalism and the physical sciences. (Really? Boy that is news to me.  Let’s have some citations as proof.)

3.  Buddhism doesn’t believe in a self? (Then why did the Buddha in the Pali canon call the self the noble witness?)

4.  The world of samsara is really nirvana (Oh boy, here we go again.  In the Vishesacintabrahmapariprcca Sutra it says: “Samsara is Nirvana, because there is, when viewed from the ultimate nature of the Dharmakâya, nothing going out of, nor coming into, existence, [samsara being only apparent]: Nirvana is samsara, when it is coveted and adhered to.”)

5.  We already have the Buddha-nature (i.e., we are Buddhas). (According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra sentient beings only have the Buddha-nature potentially in the example of cream that can be made into butter with the right process.) 

6.  We must sit in zazen because Shakyamuni sat in zazen for six years before he became awakened (No he didn’t.  For six years he practiced austerities (i.e., tapas) with five ascetics which didn’t work.)

7.  Practicing awareness is basically what Buddhism is about. (Sorry, not true.  Fundamentally it is about being aware of the luminous or pure Mind; of getting in phase with it instead of being always in phase with samsara.  This isn’t easy to do.)

Let's be wary

One needs to be wary of Japanese Buddhism because some of its forms accept the phenomenal world as absolute rather than conditioned and non-absolute according to Dr. Hajime Nakamura.  Said again, some forms of Japanese Buddhism believe that the world of impermanence is the absolute.  This is echoed in Dogen’s words from the Shobogenzo in the section on Buddha-nature that “[t]he impermanence of grass, trees, and forests is verily the Buddhahood.”  Incidentally, this raises an interesting question that if grass is the Buddhahood, aren’t we also the Buddhahood?  In fact, Dogen says that “[t]he impermanence of the person's body and mind is verily the Buddhahood.”  Now if this is correct, then why did Siddhartha struggle so hard to win Buddhahood when his body was already fully enlightened?  

In keeping with the belief that organic things are the Buddhahood, one Japanese Tendai scholar by the name of Ryôgen (912–985) even likened organic growth to stages of Buddhist practice.  Budding, for example, would be bodhicitta and the fruiting of the tree would be nirvana!  Before this, Kûkai (774–835), the founder of the Japanese Shingon school, brought up the idea that “plants and trees” have Buddha-nature.  

To equate the finite world of impermanence (i.e., samsara) with the world of nirvana is a strange inversion of the Buddha’s teaching.  The awakening of Siddhartha whereby he became a Buddha transcends the world of impermanence and suffering, including the psychophysical being, namely, the Five Aggregates.  Least we forget, these aggregates are impermanent, suffering, a disease, an imposthume, an arrow, a misfortune, etc.  Moreover, the Buddha instructs us to turn our mind away from these things and focus the mind, instead, on the undying element which is nirvana (M. i 435–36).  

Clearly, the world before us is not in nirvana if you have ever lived in the real world.  According to the Lotus Sutra this world is like a burning house or a city of illusion.  In this respect, our daily life has nothing to do with nirvana—far from it.  However, some Japanese Buddhists like Dogen insisted, for example, that “impermanence of the country and scenery is verily the Buddhahood”!  But such a belief gets us nowhere.  In fact it is confusing for a beginner whose reasoning skills and knowledge of the Buddhist canon is quite weak.  If Buddhist teachers alive or dead can’t make their words conform with the Buddha’s, then we should be very critical of their teachings.

Scientific materialism and the coming of paradox

We learn in the Mahayana canon that we are the Tathagata in embryo (garbha) otherwise known as the Tathagatagarbha.  This means that we are all potentially Buddhas, and will become Buddhas if we don’t fail to develop our seed-like nature.  But now comes the hard part.  While we are the Tathagata in embryo most of our actions are counterproductive.  They work against the gestation and perfection of our Buddha-nature.  

This is not particularly our fault except when we have the clear choice either to chose the Buddha’s path or go with the ways of the world.  Where some or most of the fault lies is with the institutions of Western scientific materialism which, in the words of B. Alan Wallace, “suppress all forms of intuition, reasoning, and personal experience that are incompatible with its principles, much as did the Roman Catholic Church during the medieval era” (The Taboo of Subjectivity, 165).

Not only has scientific materialism totalized the external world with its technologies, not to mention its killing machines, but it has even managed to suppress what we can say or think about the mind and/or the brain.  In this respect, its creed is that for every state of consciousness there is a corresponding physical process in the brain so that we are to conclude that minds spring from brains so that our present life as a thinking mind means, essentially, nothing.  

For a Buddhist, this is a terrible creed, one that must inevitably end in nihilism which is the closing off of our access to immaterial spirit and with such a closing, the end to the possibility of attaining Buddhahood.  But the educated Buddhist also knows that this is a misuse of science.  It is a materialistic interpretation of science—not authentic science which first doesn’t reduce the world to hard chunks of matter as if all of science is only supposed to be a series of footnotes to Democritus.

Presently, the battle lines are drawn between spirit and matter, qualia and quantum, nonlocal-nonlinear and local-linear, mind and brain, gnosis and dogma, cooperation and obedience, compassion and exploitation.  From this it is not hard to guess the outcome of the materialistic interpretation of science if it is allowed to continue.  Yet, in the end it will all come crashing down as paradox asserts itself which scientific materialism has, all along, presupposed for itself in its effort to to delimit and control it by linearization.  

I hasten to add that other words used to define the Greek word paradoxos which our word ‘paradox’ comes from are “unexpected”, “strange”, and “marvelous”.  One example of the coming of paradox (i.e., the strange and marvelous) involves so-called string theory.  According to the theoretical physicist, Lee Smolin, “no matter what the experiments show, string theory cannot be disproved.  But the reverse also holds:  No experiment will ever be able to prove it true” (The Trouble With Physics, xiv).

Closing this, Buddhism itself is paradoxical, or the same marvelous.  And we are marvelous sentient beings who take it up and come, eventually, to know our Buddha-nature together with its unexpected, strange world!

An old materialist argument

Today, consciousness is considered an emergent property or quale of certain neural processes or if you like the brain.  We could even say that consciousness is an emergent property of a living body and doesn't exist where there are no bodies or the body is no longer alive.  But this argument has some problems.  

Can we say of the warm water in our tea cup, heat is an emergent property of this water? We cannot.  The same applies with metal.  If metal feels warm or cold to the touch, that warmth or coldness is not the property of metal.  Neither water nor metal have the internal capacity to produce warmth or coldness.

Now if heat is found in a living human being, we can say that heat is an emergent property of a human body in the same way locomotion is and vocal sounds.  No one doubts this.  But where is the determinate object called consciousness?  It is not like heat or vocal sounds or someone running on the sidewalk, all this arising from a human body.  

Consciousness, it should be pointed out, is something quite subjective.  The definition of consciousness as being the faculty of being conscious is, to be sure, quite notionless.  Even the word “conscious” is almost notionless as in “knowing secret human thoughts” or “perceiving, apprehending, or noticing with a degree of controlled thought.” 

Consciousness might be something entirely different than we have been taught to believe.  It might be something, for example, like space or time but in the form of a universal biotic or life force or even the emergent property of this force.  It might even be closer to the idea of Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, in fact.  

It is fair to say that it is still inconclusive that consciousness is an emergent property of the body or the brain since, for one thing, it can't be detected directly like heat or sound requiring, instead, an ingenious use of the English language to give it meaning. 

It is an old argument that consciousness emerges from bodies and by implication, brains.  In the Indian school of materialism (Cârvâka) consciousness is considered to be a quale of the body since it always exists when a body is present and doesn't when there is no such body.  Such arguments, however, are not that convincing.  The Indian mind was not stupid.  There is no evidence of which I am aware that either Jains or Buddhists took the materialist position with regard to consciousness.  For Buddhists, consciousness was transitive and nonlocal which could, through desire, localize itself during conception as when the male’s sperm joins the woman’s egg.  The idea that consciousness is the property or quale of certain neural processes might have been laughed at by the Buddha who had an entirely different view of reality than our modern day materialists. 

Buddhism helps reduce my everyday anxiety

I  have never been a fan of psychologizing Buddhism; turning it into an outpatient clinic for those especially affected by the Jekyll and Hyde evils of modernity which, on the one hand, proclaims itself to be humanistic while, on the other, builds nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of global murder on a scale never thought possible.  Buddhism has more to offer than being an outpatient clinic.  In fact, to psychologize Buddhism is nothing less than destroying it, destroying, that is, its full potential.  Echoing this, I came across this observation by authors Makransky and Jackson.

“One could criticize such comparisons by arguing that, in contrast to Buddhist-Christian dialogue, the Western psychologizing of Buddhism may secularize it so much that it loses its soteriological thrust, to end up, say, promoting techniques aimed at nothing "higher" than reducing day-to-day anxiety” (Buddhist Theology, p. 156).

Indeed, this seems to have already happened.  Having been psychologized to some extent, Buddhism is being used mainly for “reducing day-to-day anxiety”, as it were, dealing with the superstructure while ignoring the substructure.  But the substructure is where lays the problem, especially with regard to the modern soul’s attachment to materialism of which it sees no reason to let go.  

The arguments for materialism are all too convincing for the untrained mind.  Such a mind believes that there are no nonmaterial, increate states of being such as nirvana.  Such a belief seems even reluctant to give up the belief that all things can be reduced to a chunk of indescribable matter (which is at the heart of the Big Bang theory).  What, of course, is really being said is immaterial qualia phenomena such as purpose, awareness, intention, goals, meaning, beauty, compassion, and even color, do not exist since they are not chunks of matter.  

Because the substructure of modernity is based on materialism in which science is the guardian and gatekeeper, Buddhism is only permitted to go so far.  No Dharma centers of which I am aware dig into the Lankavatara Sutra or the Avatamsaka Sutra or any complex Sutra or Pali Sutta for that matter—they might lose half their membership.  And with the exception of some orders of Tibetan Buddhism, modern Buddhists never mention the luminous Mind or the same, the clear light Mind.  And now we see that Buddhism is supposed to sacrifice its spiritual understanding of reality on the great altar of scientism when, in fact, much of science is fictional: a lot of may-bes, might-bes and could-bes but nothing ever definitive.  Ironically, science is drifting to the world of qualia in the example of cosmology, a lot of which rests upon mathematics which is immaterial and a qualia phenomenon.

Whether or not modern Buddhism can resist materialism and with it resist being completely psychologized, remains to be seen.  In the meantime, Buddhist practitioners will continue to use Buddhism to help them in the quest to find limited happiness in materialistic samsara. 

The Buddha's self

From the Pali canon it can be argued that the Buddha describes is self as being what, in essence, the Five Aggregates are not.  These aggregates cover the whole range of conditioned existence which is impermanent, suffering, and what is not the self (P., anattâ; S., anatmâ).  These same aggregates are said to be like foam, a bubble, a mirage, a plantain-tree (i.e., when the leaf-sheaths are taken away, no core remains), and a juggler’s creation.  The Five Aggregates are also identified with Mara the Evil One.  There is nothing in the Pali canon that says we should cling to the Five Aggregates which are not the self.

When the Buddha describes his own self it is usually found in this pattern.

“Bhikkhus, form is nonself [anattâ/atmâ].  What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self.’  Feeling is nonself... Perception is nonself...Volitional formations are nonself...Consciousness is nonself.  What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom:  ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my  self’” (S. iii. 22–23).

As we can easily see, aggregates 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are all not the self or anattâ.  In regarding these aggregates with correct wisdom or prajñâ the Buddha doesn’t identify with any of them saying, “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.”  Thus we are forced to conclude that the self of the Buddha lies beyond the reach and range of the Five Aggregates as something non-aggregative.  Moreover, we also must conclude that the Buddha’s self lies also beyond the reach and range of impermanence and suffering since the Five Aggregates are said to be impermanent and suffer.

The Mahayana Sutra, Mahaparinirvana, seems to understand that the self or atmâ signifies the Buddha for it says:

"The Self' signifies the Buddha; 'the Eternal' signifies the Dharmakaya; 'Bliss' signifies Nirvana, and 'the Pure' signifies Dharma."

What is to be kept in mind is that the self of the Buddha is transcendent, that is, it transcends the nets of the Five Aggregates.  It has no shape, for example, or feeling, nor is it consciousness.  In whatever way we try to conceive of the Buddha’s self, which we are doing with the Five Aggregates, we come up short.  And this is because we are run-of-the-mill persons (S., prithagjana).  So how do the run-of-the-mill person regard the Five Aggregates?  Let’s let the Buddha answer.

“In the same way, an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person regards form as: 'This is mine, this is my self, this is what I am.' He regards feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness as: 'This is mine, this is my self, this is what I am.' If he walks, he walks right around these five clinging-aggregates. If he stands, he stands right next to these five clinging-aggregates. If he sits, he sits right next to these five clinging-aggregates. If he lies down, he lies down right next to these five clinging-aggregates” (S. iii. 151).

The run-of-the-mill person, as we can see from the aforesaid, is caught up with his or her aggregated existence.  They are in an aggregate psychosis.  It follows from this that what they regard as the self (the aggregates) is the measure by which they deny and reject any self which transcends the aggregates—like the self of the Buddha.  This might explain why so many modern Buddhists actually believe that Buddha taught that the self is an illusion and something to be rejected.  But this is incorrect.  However, it is understandable because the run-of-the-mill Buddhist is bound up with the Five Aggregates.  As expected, they reject a self beyond the aggregates and offer as their proof the fact the Five Aggregates are not the self!

The elephant is not an elephant

My late Uncle Ivan collected elephant art, in particular elephants made from ivory, brass, clay, cloth, and carved wood.  One I especially recall was his carved wooden elephant.  It was carved from a very hard dark wood (its name escapes me at the moment).  Over the years that particular elephant served to remind me of some important Buddhist ideas.  One of which I am fond is in regard to the substance of Mind itself and its phenomena.  When I first saw my Uncle’s carved wooden elephant it was easy to get carried away with the elephant devoid of wood. To be sure, it was very intricately carved and quite beautiful.  Yet, there wasn’t actually an elephant there.  Not one bit of that carved wooden elephant was other than wood.

The artist who made this elephant put a great deal of craftsmanship into carving the elephant.  Still, it was only wood.  But let’s imagine that this wood is now luminous Mind and the more this same Mind shapes itself the more the natural luminosity becomes overshadowed by the shape it is making, the shape becoming very captivating.  As we might expect, there would eventually come a point when the  luminosity disappeared.  What would be in its stead would be a living, breathing, big elephant, not to mention a world made of the same Mind for the elephant to roam around in.

But now what if it were possible to also sense the luminosity and also see the elephant, itself, at the same time so we could say, “This beautiful creature is glowing with Mind’s luminosity.  It is Mind’s phenomenon.”  When we think about this, that the luminosity should not be present is unnatural.  And why?  Because there is no part of the elephant we see in his world that is not made of Mind or is Mind-only (cittamatra).  

In our ignorance and enchantment with the elephant phenomenon made of Mind we have inadvertently blocked out the Mind substance.  Such extreme attachment is negation—negation of Mind’s luminosity.  In order to return to the natural order in which all phenomena are sensed to to be luminous forms of absolute Mind we have to go through a course in the restoration of absolute Mind.  In order to accomplish this we first need a glimpse of the luminous Mind.  Put another way, we need an initial awakening then expand this awakening finally reaching the stage where we see the whole universe as one vast exhibition of Mind’s power and in this realization know that we are fundamentally Mind.

Buddhist apophasis

The apophatic methodology, also known as the via negativa, is something not absent from the canon of Buddhism.  Apophasis or negation, for example, occurs when the Buddha inventories the Five Aggregates, consisting of form, sensation, perception, predispositions, and consciousness, and finds them to be not the self or anatma.  In this respect, these aggregates do not belong to him, fundamentally.  They are, in other words, what he is not, viz., not his self.

The method of Buddhist emptiness is another form of Buddhist apophasis.  One of perhaps the earliest formulas of emptiness occurs in the Culasuññata Sutta of the Pali Canon.  

“He regards that which is not there as empty of it.  But in regard to what remains there he comprehends, ‘That being, this is.’  Thus, Ananda, this comes to be for him a true, not a mistaken, utterly purified realisaton of (the concept) of emptiness” (M. i. 104–105).

In Vasubandhu's Madhyantavibhaga he defines emptiness in the following way which is not unlike the definition in the Culasuññata Sutta:

"It is perceived as it really is that, when anything does not exist in something, the latter is empty with regard to the former; and further it is understood as it really is that, when, in this place, something remains, it exists here as a real existent."

Under this definition we will use the example of mind perturbations (âsravas) as being the emptable or removable part of mind that doesn't belong to mind's true nature.  

In apophasis, the âsrava obstructed mind is confronted by the, as yet, hidden, potentially transcendent mind.  The transcendent mind removes from its primordial field all âsrava/perturbations arriving finally at itself.  This arriving-at-self, is none other than nirvana and pure Mind which is absolutely free of perturbations.  And for this reason, in the Pali canon, this emptiness of Mind is called paramanuttara suññatâ i.e., the incomparably highest emptiness.

Since mind has always been implicitly behind the removing or emptying-out process—although hidden from itself—by removing the three obscuring perturbations consisting of sensuality, becoming, and nescience (sometimes there is a fourth, which is view) mind has no other course than to eventually arrive at itself as pure Mind which is luminous and absolutely self-affirming.

Apophasis, if applied correctly, proceeds to what is most primordial and everlasting (nitya).  In the incomparably highest emptiness Mind is the immaculate medium of all in which all is seen—but as what is not the absolute Mind.  In this state one is Mind being now liberated from blindly following its perturbations in the belief that these conditions were it. 

A map to nirvana

The discourses (Sutras) of the Buddha are in essence road maps to nirvana or if you prefer navigational maps to the other shore of nirvana.  In no way should we confuse the map with the land itself.  Nirvana is an actual attainment whereas the Buddha's discourses, no matter how much we prize them, are simply the means.  They are like the finger pointing to the moon—not the moon.

A map of California on which we’ve just highlighted the route we are going to take from Lodi to Yosemite valley is not Yosemite, nor even California.  We understand this.  We might even imagine adding to this map photographs together with detailed descriptions of sights others have seen on the way to Yosemite.  Still, we understand that these additions are not Yosemite.  Far from it.

Now let’s imagine that someone informs us that the route we have just highlighted is not Yosemite.  Yosemite is nothing more than a name printed on this map.  He then asks us not to travel to Yosemite because it only exists on this map and what is on this map is only print.  At this point we might protest and tell this guy that he’s crazy.  We respond, “Yosemite does exist because others have been there.”  But no matter what we say or how many times, this guy still insists that Yosemite is just the printed word “Yosemite”—moreover, this map is just made of paper.  It is not even California.  Of course we know that Yosemite does in fact exist as does California.  We ignore this guy and drive to Yosemite.  Arriving, we hike up to Vernal Falls and enjoy a nice lunch we’ve packed.  

When it comes to maps in the form of the Buddha’s discourses or Sutras it is not that difficult to disregard their usefulness as navigational tools.  In the intellectual history of Buddhism, some Buddhists like the guy who is positive that Yosemite is just a mere name, insist that the Buddha’s discourses are not like maps at all.  The Buddha is just telling us that everything is empty—and samsara turns into nirvana when you realize and see the emptiness of everything.  There is, in fact, no ultimate reality like nirvana.

Next, we might imagine a dispute taking place between a school that asserts the Buddha’s discourses are like maps that will lead us to ultimate reality and a school that says the discourses teach no-maps and all is empty with self-nature being also empty.  Now let’s further imagine someone just recently awakened who has actually seen ultimate reality, then declares that the discourses of the Buddha are certainly like maps which help us to find ultimate reality.  Of course the other school, that asserts the discourses are not like maps at all, says of this person that he is mentally deranged.  

In the end, the school that asserts the Buddha’s discourses are like maps, that will lead us to ultimate reality, has to shun the school that doesn’t.  There is nothing to be gained by disputing with nihilists.

This brings to mind Wittgenstein who seemed forced to conclude there is no discoverable reality beyond the pale of language which means true reality will be forever beyond human cognition.  But certain kinds of maps, in the example of the Buddha’s discourses, can act as a bridge whereby we can discover true reality, that is, set foot on the other shore of nirvana.  Those who don’t treat the Buddha’s discourses like maps by which to accomplish the gnosis of ultimate reality really don’t understand Buddhism and perhaps never will.

Thought is their master

We are often blind as to the negative effects of thinking and thought, or the same, that unforeseen failures such as with large systems are largely due to the thoughts by which they are created and sustained.  This is what the Buddha meant in the Dhammapada when he said “Events (dhammâ) are preceded by thought. Thought is their master. They are made by thought.”  This further suggests that the main source of our problems is thought, itself, which paradoxically we use to try to solve our problems which only makes the problem worse.  On this subject the late physicist David Bohm noted:

“What is the source of all this trouble? That is really what we have been concerned with in all these dialogues of the past few years. I’m saying that the source is basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our problems. That’s part of our tradition. Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems is the source of our problems” (David Bohm, Thought as a System, 2)

The Buddha and David Bohm both understood that thoughts are not impotent or just tools to use as we see fit.  Far from it.  As Bohm points out, thoughts essentially use us.  

“But I want to say that you don’t decide what to do with the information. The information takes over. It runs you. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives the false information that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought, whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us” (David Bohm, Thought as a System, 5).

Indeed, thoughts have an effective power.  To the extent that we believe we are not moved by thoughts, in that proportion we probably are.  Thoughts, in this respect, produce a kind of spell over us.  We go to schools and universities to learn systems of thought which amounts to a kind of trance induction.  Our minds are subsequently programmed with thoughts which will determine how we perceive the world and make decisions.  

Least we forget, thoughts create nations and wars.  They create and shape religion.  Moreover, they are at the core of religious disputes and inquisitions.  Thoughts destroy nature, produce famine and disease while creating systems of governance of which the devil would be proud.  Thoughts also create economic systems which lead to recessions and great depressions.  Thoughts even produce an astonishing number of iatrogenic or physician induced deaths each year (some 250,000!), then tell us this is okay—it’s acceptable in light of the good being done!

One never thinks as the Buddha did to blame negative or evil consequences on thought, itself.  Thoughts are supposed to be harmless.  But this is clearly not the case.  Nor does it count for anything that our intentions are good.  The fact of the matter is that negative consequences often arise as a result of our thoughts although we have good intentions.  

While it is easy to point the finger at others when systems fail or our life is not working out as we imagined it would, the real blame lies with thoughts.  In other words, we have been used by bad thoughts which will lead to a bad outcome—always.  Incidentally, it never dawns on us to interrogate thought, rigorously, questioning where certain thoughts are leading us and to what doom.  We are more like sheep in this than rational humans.

It is pertinent to say that the reason that we are presently facing a depression; a crisis in our healthcare system; an environmental catastrophe is because of the preponderance of  thoughts that are unsound and often contradictory.  To be sure, all of these problems were created by thoughts that were never entirely sound, rational or based on credible hard evidence.  Even science fails, miserably.  Most of science is an elaborate fiction of what might be in terms of thought, but is not in terms of hard physical evidence.    

Thought is very capable of creating fictions of what might be but never is.  Thoughts can produce hypotheses, models, and hunches faster than a German sausage machine can pump out sausage.  Yet with all this thought which fills thousands of acres of books, man is still more like a barbarian than a civilized being who is, above all, compassionate.

But let us also not forget that thoughts can wrongly arouse our emotions as when at night when we hear a sound outside our home and imagine that someone is breaking into our car only to find out upon inspection that nothing has happened.  But worse, thoughts can arouse our emotions so that we hate and fear Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans.  Thoughts can drive us to hate Muslims or drive us to embrace psychopaths and do horrible things in the name of God.  Again, citing from Bohm’s book, Thought as a System:

“The thought of something pleasant will make you feel good. The thought that you are doing great will make you feel good inside—all the good feelings will come out. Or the thought that you have done something wrong may make the adrenalin flow, may make you feel guilty. If somebody says you are guilty, which is a thought, then you can feel very miserable. Feelings are tremendously affected by thoughts. And obviously thoughts are tremendously affected by feelings, because if you are angry you don’t think clearly. Likewise, if you have a feeling of pleasure in something you may find yourself reluctant to give up that idea which gives you pleasure, even if it is wrong—you engage in self-deception” (7).

What the Buddha asks us to keep in mind with regard to thought is the outcome of thought, especially, in light of the negative events that again, and again arise from thought.  History, in fact, if it is done right, is a good teacher of how deceptive thoughts can be and how they can destroy us by creating artificial divisions and problems where there are none.  

The history of the last four hundred years of Western civilization is such a history of bad thought which produced evil consequences.  And likely the evil consequences will occur again if we don’t critically interrogate thought and toss some thoughts into the waste bin of history that promised us much but delivered only more suffering such as our current economic system based on greed and the purposeful mal-distrubution of wealth.  And this also goes for thoughts used by certain religions that look to the future for a savior to deliver the flock from their backwardness and violence.  And this includes a secular society as well whose systems of thoughts drive sentient beings to value selfishness, materialism, and nihilism.