beginner's mind 675
Nov. 19th, 2025 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f0rrest“Our usual understanding of life is dualistic: you and I, this and that, good and bad. But actually these discriminations are themselves the awareness of the universal existence. ‘You’ means to be aware of the universe in the form of you, and ‘I’ means to be aware of it in the form of I. You and I are just swinging doors.”
—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Driving north on Interstate 675, around the Dekalb County area, past the JESUS SAVES and BEEN HURT IN AN ACCIDENT? and WENDY’S SPICY CHICKEN NEXT EXIT, you'll pass a break in the thick wall of billboards and trees, and there you’ll notice a temple on a hill. This temple is fashioned in the old Laotian style, bright reds, sea greens, a brick staircase flanked by wavy three-headed dragons, big ornate double doors, a line of great golden Buddhas out front. This is the Wat Lao Buddha Phothisaram. And just a few yards before this, towering right in front of the temple itself, there's this massive billboard that reads ARE YOU COVERED? 1-800-GET-LIFE.
This is the kind of dualism we are so accustomed to seeing here in the United States of America. On one side, we have a calm place of quiet meditation, on the other, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE SOON BE AFRAID BUY NOW. It’s a striking, ironic juxtaposition, almost uniquely American, because only corporatism run amok could produce such a thing by accident. It takes a certain lack of awareness and fucks given to erect a massive life insurance billboard right in front of a Buddhist monastery. I mean, think about it, they’re trying to sell something that Buddhism is just giving away for free. And they’re trying to sell it in a flash, in a small break in the wall of trees, while we’re driving like 90 mph down busy Interstate 675, when the atoms are all blurry and smeared together. This ironic image is there, then it’s not there, but it’s still there, because it was always there. It’s there and not there at the same time, because, as the Buddhists would say, these things are the same, or something like that.
Within the last year, after reading some of Salinger’s lesser-talked-about short stories, I have developed a sort of tourist interest in Buddhism, specifically the Zen school of Buddhism, specifically the one that says “Kill the Buddha,” which sounds cool as shit and is essentially a comment on hero worship, and talks about doing things “with no gaining idea,” which means to practice something without a goal, without the intent to achieve something, as this desire to achieve something is itself a taint, as Buddhism seeks to eliminate desire as a path to Enlightenment. This “no-gain” idea is itself paradoxical because, first, it’s sort of an idea itself, and second, because why would anyone practice anything if not to achieve some sort of outcome? Doesn’t one need to desire a thing to even seek it out in the first place? Doesn’t motivation sort of hinge on the very idea of wanting the thing you are motivated for? Wouldn’t you be, like, not motivated to pursue the thing if you didn’t want the thing? Why would anyone do something if they didn't want to do it on some level? This is what drew me to Zen, the no-gain idea. I wanted to understand no-gain because it was so opposed to my first-world understanding of human psychology and ego. It made no sense to me, but in some ways, it also made perfect sense because my own desire to achieve something, be someone, has always felt a little gross to me, like a thin film of slime over my psyche. On the one hand, no-gain is a paradox, it doesn't make any logical sense, but on the other hand, it’s obvious to me that the desire to achieve something is, at its core, a selfish, egotistical desire, and selfish desires lead to angst and discontent, be it through comparison, envy, self-pity, doubt, or whatever. So it makes sense to me that stripping away desire, even stripping away the desire to strip away the desire, would lead to something like contentment, like washing away the slime, so to speak. Because when we desire something, we look at things through the lens of “have” and “have not,” and this is a destructive, dualistic path. Take, for example, in my case, “I have written a novel” and “I have not written a novel.” This is a dualistic perspective. “Have written a novel” and “Have not written a novel.” This perspective is harmful because, naturally, I start to look at writers as “those who have written a novel” and “those who have not written a novel,” and by doing this, I am bucketing people into a hierarchy of value, where writers who have written a novel are seen as more accomplished than those who have not written a novel, myself included somewhere in this value hierarchy, when really everyone is of equal value because we’re all just humans living together on this here planet in this here galaxy in this here universe, and who cares if a writer has actually written a novel or not, right? You could say, “Well, why does it have to be a value hierarchy, can't it just be a descriptive observation about the writer?” And that's fair, but if there is no value, that also means there is no value in calling it out. It is meaningless. Why even mention it? When we engage in dualistic thinking, even if our intentions are good, we are inadvertently assigning some sort of value, some sort of “have” and “have not,” some sort of “this” and “that,” some sort of “good” and “bad,” some sort of thing to achieve, and this leads down a destructive path. I don’t think I’m explaining this well, so let me just drop a rhetorical nuke bomb to make my point, that being, when we engage in dualistic thinking, we get “us” and “them,” we get “boy” and “girl,” we get “black” and “white,” we get “Aryan” and “Jew,” we get the fucking Holocaust.
So, when I first saw the Buddhist Temple Life Insurance Landmark, it sort of put me in a weird, dualistic funk. I was driving to my dad’s up Interstate 675, and I passed the break in the trees, and in that brief flash, I saw the temple and the billboard, and so I turned to my wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat reading a book, and I said, in a kind of flabbergasted tone, “Did you just see that?” And, looking up from her book, she said, “No, sorry, I missed it, what was it?” So I said, “Never mind, don’t worry about it,” and kept driving. At first, I didn’t think much of the temple and billboard, just that it was sort of darkly humorous, but over time, it started to taunt me, mock me almost, that grayscale close-up face of the solemn-looking old woman with the ARE YOU COVERED? juxtaposed against that magnificent Buddhist temple, it kept popping into my head like an intrusive thought, and I kept thinking to myself, how could a Buddhist temple exist in a place so antithetical to Buddhism? How could someone even practice Buddhism in a culture that places so much value on materialism, greed, and self-advancement? In this corporate world, isn’t Buddhism just kind of doomed to fail? Isn’t it pointless to even try? Is Buddhism even compatible with our society?
We are indoctrinated with dualism from birth. Some doctor looks at our junk and checks some sort of box. We are male or female. We are Caucasian or Hispanic or something else. Right when we pop out of the womb, some health insurance company sees us as rich or poor, and our coverage options warp around this nexus of poverty. As we grow older, our parents buy us all sorts of cool or cute toys, depending on which box was checked. Our rooms fill up with colorful plastic. We hold Daddy’s hand down the aisle at Walmart, and we pitch fits when he tells us that we can only pick one thing. He makes lists of all the other things so that he can buy them, wrap them, and place them under a big glowing tree once a year, and in this way, the whole family celebrates avarice and greed. Then we go to school the next week and brag to all our friends about all the cool or cute shit we got for Christmas, depending on which box was checked. We stare into the glow of our television sets and fantasize about being those people. Our parents tell us that we need to do well in school so that we can make a lot of money one day. We see money as a source of comfort from a young age. We look at big houses and think, “Wow, that’s a nice house,” so we grow up thinking that success is a big house. We start seeing people as big-house people and small-house people. Our teachers and parents tell us we are unique and special, so we grow up thinking we are different from everyone else. We believe our choice of clothing says something deep about who we are on the inside. Nike or Adidas. Old Navy or American Eagle. Mario or Sonic. Pepsi or Coke. Sony or Nintendo. Apple or Android. Pokemon or Digimon. Visa or Mastercard. Google or Bing. Star Wars or Star Trek. Buddhism or Corporate America. We feel strongly about these preferences. We collect things related to these preferences. Our identities become an accumulation of stuff and things. And eventually, we have kids of our own and impart these values onto them, and thus the cycle of materialism continues.
Surely, Buddhism has no place in this society. How could it? If Buddhism were like a flower, it wouldn’t even grow in this dark place.
But this wasn't all that bothered me about the temple and the billboard. What really bothered me was the fact that I myself had a problem with the juxtaposition of these things at all, because it revealed something about myself that, while I was aware of it to some extent, I hadn't really dived too deeply into. It revealed that I myself am deeply entrenched in dualism. The very fact that I notice irony stems from the fact that I am dualistic. I see things in terms of “good” and “bad,” and when a good thing is coupled with a bad thing, I see this as ironic in some way, whereas if I had no dualistic thoughts, I probably wouldn’t see the irony at all, because there wouldn’t be any. The temple and the billboard revealed that there is a darkness inside me that is conjuring all sorts of deeply ironic, sardonic observations, and I started questioning the usefulness of this. Like, would I be happier or something if I didn’t think this way? What is scoffing at the temple and the billboard actually accomplishing? Is it all some sort of weird flex, like “look how smart I am, I can point out the dark irony in situations,” and this somehow makes me feel superior or morally righteous in some way, while I myself don’t actually do anything to correct the perceived “good” and “bad” things that make up this irony I am observing? The temple and the billboard made me realize that I’m just as caught up in the same dualistic thinking as everyone else, the same dualistic thinking that drives people to put corporate billboards in front of Buddhist temples to begin with, and this realization did not sit well with me. It disturbed me, frankly. So I decided to read up on Zen Buddhism, thinking that maybe that would alleviate some of the dualistic angst I was feeling.
A couple of months ago, I ordered this book from eBay, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and it never arrived. It was marked delivered, but it never got here. I contacted the seller, and they said that that was their only copy, so they gave me a refund, even though I didn't ask for one, and I didn't actually check if it got refunded. It was like ten bucks. It wasn't that important to me. I figured it was just not the right time. The universe said no, this book is not for you, please wait a little while longer. I started reading something else and forgot. That is, until a few weeks ago, on Interstate 675, when I passed the break in the trees, saw the temple and the billboard, and the questions kept piling up. Is Buddhism doomed to fail? Is Enlightenment even possible in this corporate hellscape? If I practiced Buddhist teachings, like conditioning myself not to care about materialistic things, living frugally, ditching the rat race, so to speak, wouldn’t I be harming my family, who depend on me for food and shelter and all these other things, and wouldn’t that be selfish in some way? Wouldn’t that ultimately produce bad outcomes not only for me but also for the people around me? Is Buddhism even realistic in this society, or is it just some pretentious philosophy that dudes with man-buns pretend to practice after they drink their Starbucks Mocha Choca Frapes or whatever? Should I just move on, look into some other philosophy that might be more compatible with the modern world? I wanted answers. I desired them, needed them. So I downloaded the book, put it on my Amazon-branded corporate eReader, and started reading it electronically and with great vigor.
The book was written by Shunryū Suzuki, a Buddhist monk who helped spread Zen Buddhism to the United States in the 60s, and it was published in 1970, right before Suzuki’s death in 1971. The text, as you might imagine, is full of confusing, paradoxical stuff. Stuff like, “Zen is not important. Thinking things are important is dualistic thinking. But actually, Zen is very important.” And, “Kill the Buddha. Thinking someone or something is the Buddha is not the Zen way. But actually, you are the Buddha.” And, “Thinking things are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is not so good. These are dualistic misconceptions. You will have a bad time if you think of things as ‘good’ and ‘bad.’” Of course, I’m sort of paraphrasing these quotes from large walls of text which expand on these ideas in way more depth, but that’s sort of the gist of the entire book. It’s a paradoxical adventure of the mind in which nearly every other sentence contradicts itself in some uniquely Buddhist way. But, out of all this paradoxical, confusing stuff, one quote stood out to me in particular and helped me grapple with the dualistic angst I had been feeling ever since bearing witness to the temple and the billboard on Interstate 675.
“Tozan, a famous Zen master, said, ‘The blue mountain is the father of the white cloud. The white cloud is the son of the blue mountain. All day long they depend on each other, without being dependent on each. The white cloud is always the white cloud. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain.’ This is a pure, clear interpretation of life. There may be many things like the white cloud and blue mountain: man and woman, teacher and disciple. They depend on each other. But the white cloud should not be bothered by the blue mountain. The blue mountain should not be bothered by the white cloud. They are quite independent, but yet dependent. This is how we live, and how we practice zazen.”
—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
And now I think that maybe corporate America needs Buddhism just as much as Buddhism needs corporate America. These things are different but the same. They depend on each other but are also entirely independent. If there were no desire and materialism, there would be no Buddhism, and if there were no Buddhism, there would be no desire and materialism. This is just the way things are. These things are in perfect harmony with each other because all things are in perfect harmony with each other.
—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Driving north on Interstate 675, around the Dekalb County area, past the JESUS SAVES and BEEN HURT IN AN ACCIDENT? and WENDY’S SPICY CHICKEN NEXT EXIT, you'll pass a break in the thick wall of billboards and trees, and there you’ll notice a temple on a hill. This temple is fashioned in the old Laotian style, bright reds, sea greens, a brick staircase flanked by wavy three-headed dragons, big ornate double doors, a line of great golden Buddhas out front. This is the Wat Lao Buddha Phothisaram. And just a few yards before this, towering right in front of the temple itself, there's this massive billboard that reads ARE YOU COVERED? 1-800-GET-LIFE.
This is the kind of dualism we are so accustomed to seeing here in the United States of America. On one side, we have a calm place of quiet meditation, on the other, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE SOON BE AFRAID BUY NOW. It’s a striking, ironic juxtaposition, almost uniquely American, because only corporatism run amok could produce such a thing by accident. It takes a certain lack of awareness and fucks given to erect a massive life insurance billboard right in front of a Buddhist monastery. I mean, think about it, they’re trying to sell something that Buddhism is just giving away for free. And they’re trying to sell it in a flash, in a small break in the wall of trees, while we’re driving like 90 mph down busy Interstate 675, when the atoms are all blurry and smeared together. This ironic image is there, then it’s not there, but it’s still there, because it was always there. It’s there and not there at the same time, because, as the Buddhists would say, these things are the same, or something like that.
Within the last year, after reading some of Salinger’s lesser-talked-about short stories, I have developed a sort of tourist interest in Buddhism, specifically the Zen school of Buddhism, specifically the one that says “Kill the Buddha,” which sounds cool as shit and is essentially a comment on hero worship, and talks about doing things “with no gaining idea,” which means to practice something without a goal, without the intent to achieve something, as this desire to achieve something is itself a taint, as Buddhism seeks to eliminate desire as a path to Enlightenment. This “no-gain” idea is itself paradoxical because, first, it’s sort of an idea itself, and second, because why would anyone practice anything if not to achieve some sort of outcome? Doesn’t one need to desire a thing to even seek it out in the first place? Doesn’t motivation sort of hinge on the very idea of wanting the thing you are motivated for? Wouldn’t you be, like, not motivated to pursue the thing if you didn’t want the thing? Why would anyone do something if they didn't want to do it on some level? This is what drew me to Zen, the no-gain idea. I wanted to understand no-gain because it was so opposed to my first-world understanding of human psychology and ego. It made no sense to me, but in some ways, it also made perfect sense because my own desire to achieve something, be someone, has always felt a little gross to me, like a thin film of slime over my psyche. On the one hand, no-gain is a paradox, it doesn't make any logical sense, but on the other hand, it’s obvious to me that the desire to achieve something is, at its core, a selfish, egotistical desire, and selfish desires lead to angst and discontent, be it through comparison, envy, self-pity, doubt, or whatever. So it makes sense to me that stripping away desire, even stripping away the desire to strip away the desire, would lead to something like contentment, like washing away the slime, so to speak. Because when we desire something, we look at things through the lens of “have” and “have not,” and this is a destructive, dualistic path. Take, for example, in my case, “I have written a novel” and “I have not written a novel.” This is a dualistic perspective. “Have written a novel” and “Have not written a novel.” This perspective is harmful because, naturally, I start to look at writers as “those who have written a novel” and “those who have not written a novel,” and by doing this, I am bucketing people into a hierarchy of value, where writers who have written a novel are seen as more accomplished than those who have not written a novel, myself included somewhere in this value hierarchy, when really everyone is of equal value because we’re all just humans living together on this here planet in this here galaxy in this here universe, and who cares if a writer has actually written a novel or not, right? You could say, “Well, why does it have to be a value hierarchy, can't it just be a descriptive observation about the writer?” And that's fair, but if there is no value, that also means there is no value in calling it out. It is meaningless. Why even mention it? When we engage in dualistic thinking, even if our intentions are good, we are inadvertently assigning some sort of value, some sort of “have” and “have not,” some sort of “this” and “that,” some sort of “good” and “bad,” some sort of thing to achieve, and this leads down a destructive path. I don’t think I’m explaining this well, so let me just drop a rhetorical nuke bomb to make my point, that being, when we engage in dualistic thinking, we get “us” and “them,” we get “boy” and “girl,” we get “black” and “white,” we get “Aryan” and “Jew,” we get the fucking Holocaust.
So, when I first saw the Buddhist Temple Life Insurance Landmark, it sort of put me in a weird, dualistic funk. I was driving to my dad’s up Interstate 675, and I passed the break in the trees, and in that brief flash, I saw the temple and the billboard, and so I turned to my wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat reading a book, and I said, in a kind of flabbergasted tone, “Did you just see that?” And, looking up from her book, she said, “No, sorry, I missed it, what was it?” So I said, “Never mind, don’t worry about it,” and kept driving. At first, I didn’t think much of the temple and billboard, just that it was sort of darkly humorous, but over time, it started to taunt me, mock me almost, that grayscale close-up face of the solemn-looking old woman with the ARE YOU COVERED? juxtaposed against that magnificent Buddhist temple, it kept popping into my head like an intrusive thought, and I kept thinking to myself, how could a Buddhist temple exist in a place so antithetical to Buddhism? How could someone even practice Buddhism in a culture that places so much value on materialism, greed, and self-advancement? In this corporate world, isn’t Buddhism just kind of doomed to fail? Isn’t it pointless to even try? Is Buddhism even compatible with our society?
We are indoctrinated with dualism from birth. Some doctor looks at our junk and checks some sort of box. We are male or female. We are Caucasian or Hispanic or something else. Right when we pop out of the womb, some health insurance company sees us as rich or poor, and our coverage options warp around this nexus of poverty. As we grow older, our parents buy us all sorts of cool or cute toys, depending on which box was checked. Our rooms fill up with colorful plastic. We hold Daddy’s hand down the aisle at Walmart, and we pitch fits when he tells us that we can only pick one thing. He makes lists of all the other things so that he can buy them, wrap them, and place them under a big glowing tree once a year, and in this way, the whole family celebrates avarice and greed. Then we go to school the next week and brag to all our friends about all the cool or cute shit we got for Christmas, depending on which box was checked. We stare into the glow of our television sets and fantasize about being those people. Our parents tell us that we need to do well in school so that we can make a lot of money one day. We see money as a source of comfort from a young age. We look at big houses and think, “Wow, that’s a nice house,” so we grow up thinking that success is a big house. We start seeing people as big-house people and small-house people. Our teachers and parents tell us we are unique and special, so we grow up thinking we are different from everyone else. We believe our choice of clothing says something deep about who we are on the inside. Nike or Adidas. Old Navy or American Eagle. Mario or Sonic. Pepsi or Coke. Sony or Nintendo. Apple or Android. Pokemon or Digimon. Visa or Mastercard. Google or Bing. Star Wars or Star Trek. Buddhism or Corporate America. We feel strongly about these preferences. We collect things related to these preferences. Our identities become an accumulation of stuff and things. And eventually, we have kids of our own and impart these values onto them, and thus the cycle of materialism continues.
Surely, Buddhism has no place in this society. How could it? If Buddhism were like a flower, it wouldn’t even grow in this dark place.
But this wasn't all that bothered me about the temple and the billboard. What really bothered me was the fact that I myself had a problem with the juxtaposition of these things at all, because it revealed something about myself that, while I was aware of it to some extent, I hadn't really dived too deeply into. It revealed that I myself am deeply entrenched in dualism. The very fact that I notice irony stems from the fact that I am dualistic. I see things in terms of “good” and “bad,” and when a good thing is coupled with a bad thing, I see this as ironic in some way, whereas if I had no dualistic thoughts, I probably wouldn’t see the irony at all, because there wouldn’t be any. The temple and the billboard revealed that there is a darkness inside me that is conjuring all sorts of deeply ironic, sardonic observations, and I started questioning the usefulness of this. Like, would I be happier or something if I didn’t think this way? What is scoffing at the temple and the billboard actually accomplishing? Is it all some sort of weird flex, like “look how smart I am, I can point out the dark irony in situations,” and this somehow makes me feel superior or morally righteous in some way, while I myself don’t actually do anything to correct the perceived “good” and “bad” things that make up this irony I am observing? The temple and the billboard made me realize that I’m just as caught up in the same dualistic thinking as everyone else, the same dualistic thinking that drives people to put corporate billboards in front of Buddhist temples to begin with, and this realization did not sit well with me. It disturbed me, frankly. So I decided to read up on Zen Buddhism, thinking that maybe that would alleviate some of the dualistic angst I was feeling.
A couple of months ago, I ordered this book from eBay, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and it never arrived. It was marked delivered, but it never got here. I contacted the seller, and they said that that was their only copy, so they gave me a refund, even though I didn't ask for one, and I didn't actually check if it got refunded. It was like ten bucks. It wasn't that important to me. I figured it was just not the right time. The universe said no, this book is not for you, please wait a little while longer. I started reading something else and forgot. That is, until a few weeks ago, on Interstate 675, when I passed the break in the trees, saw the temple and the billboard, and the questions kept piling up. Is Buddhism doomed to fail? Is Enlightenment even possible in this corporate hellscape? If I practiced Buddhist teachings, like conditioning myself not to care about materialistic things, living frugally, ditching the rat race, so to speak, wouldn’t I be harming my family, who depend on me for food and shelter and all these other things, and wouldn’t that be selfish in some way? Wouldn’t that ultimately produce bad outcomes not only for me but also for the people around me? Is Buddhism even realistic in this society, or is it just some pretentious philosophy that dudes with man-buns pretend to practice after they drink their Starbucks Mocha Choca Frapes or whatever? Should I just move on, look into some other philosophy that might be more compatible with the modern world? I wanted answers. I desired them, needed them. So I downloaded the book, put it on my Amazon-branded corporate eReader, and started reading it electronically and with great vigor.
The book was written by Shunryū Suzuki, a Buddhist monk who helped spread Zen Buddhism to the United States in the 60s, and it was published in 1970, right before Suzuki’s death in 1971. The text, as you might imagine, is full of confusing, paradoxical stuff. Stuff like, “Zen is not important. Thinking things are important is dualistic thinking. But actually, Zen is very important.” And, “Kill the Buddha. Thinking someone or something is the Buddha is not the Zen way. But actually, you are the Buddha.” And, “Thinking things are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is not so good. These are dualistic misconceptions. You will have a bad time if you think of things as ‘good’ and ‘bad.’” Of course, I’m sort of paraphrasing these quotes from large walls of text which expand on these ideas in way more depth, but that’s sort of the gist of the entire book. It’s a paradoxical adventure of the mind in which nearly every other sentence contradicts itself in some uniquely Buddhist way. But, out of all this paradoxical, confusing stuff, one quote stood out to me in particular and helped me grapple with the dualistic angst I had been feeling ever since bearing witness to the temple and the billboard on Interstate 675.
“Tozan, a famous Zen master, said, ‘The blue mountain is the father of the white cloud. The white cloud is the son of the blue mountain. All day long they depend on each other, without being dependent on each. The white cloud is always the white cloud. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain.’ This is a pure, clear interpretation of life. There may be many things like the white cloud and blue mountain: man and woman, teacher and disciple. They depend on each other. But the white cloud should not be bothered by the blue mountain. The blue mountain should not be bothered by the white cloud. They are quite independent, but yet dependent. This is how we live, and how we practice zazen.”
—Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
And now I think that maybe corporate America needs Buddhism just as much as Buddhism needs corporate America. These things are different but the same. They depend on each other but are also entirely independent. If there were no desire and materialism, there would be no Buddhism, and if there were no Buddhism, there would be no desire and materialism. This is just the way things are. These things are in perfect harmony with each other because all things are in perfect harmony with each other.
This is what I have come to learn, with my beginner’s mind, and it all started on Interstate 675, which, fun fact, is actually connected to every other road in mainland America, so it’s not really Interstate 675, it’s actually just one long, winding road that connects everyone to everyone else. Literally every road in mainland America is connected, isn’t that interesting?
This is what I have come to learn, with my beginner’s mind.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-19 09:11 pm (UTC)I like your image of interconnectedness at the end, all roads leading to one another--a journey possible from any starting point to any other point. That's beautiful--I'll hold onto it!
Re what you say about the writer who's written a novel and one who hasn't, I'd want to push back on your assertions that there's no point in saying something if not to assign a value to it. I agree that in THAT instance, people generally are assigning a value, but think it would be possible to make the statement without intending a value statement and still have the statement mean something--e.g., you could merely be indicating where a person was on their writing journey without saying "And that puts them lower on the hierarchy than Joe over here." And meanwhile, there are lots of times, it seems to me, when we describe something without hierarchizing or assigning value.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-19 10:37 pm (UTC)For the value thing, I think I am hung up on the concept a little bit, which is why I included the counter argument to begin with, because I had that thought, but to me, like, even if you qualify it in that writer's-journey kind of way, the potential for that being used by someone, anyone, as a value statement is still there. We are introducing a potential value hierarchy, in that case.
To me, this gets into the usefulness of labeling stuff, we get into the chair situation, which is a common thing people bring up, like labeling something a chair is potentially useful for people, but is it? Etc. I see these things as probably necessary. But, as it's called out in the book, a frog sees no value in a chair. A frog is just a frog and does frog things and does not concern itself with chair. A frog goes with the flow and does what feels right. Obviously we are different from frogs, however, but this is the type of Buddhist proverb we are dealing with here, as you know, to draw some sort of learning from.
It could be that we live in this society that places value on placing value on things and we just have to deal with it. We should call attention to it, however, to spread awareness of the potential damage these frivolous distinctions can cause. If we could say a man is a man and a woman is a woman without somehow injecting value into it, that would be ideal, but here we are, in this weird society where this has some sort of value often relating to one's identity, or whatever.
I don't know. Rambling.
wherein I talk a lot...
Date: 2025-11-20 12:11 am (UTC)Is it maybe that you're interested in cases where it's easy to see a statement slotting into a value hierarchy--maybe because, precisely, those sorts of statements reinforce binaries or hierarchies? Like if you're concerned with kids cheating and you look at a class, you're going to pull out the kids who are cheating as examples--"See? This one cheated, and this one and this one"--and not the kids who didn't cheat. Now I'm the one who's rambling because I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Maybe something like: if something is a preoccupation, like black-and-white thinking or hierarchical thinking, then there's a tendency to really stare at that and focus on that. And people can say, "Well, that makes sense: if there's a problem, that's what you want to focus on." But, putting aside the Zen aspect ("is there problem? Is thinking about problem and not-problem making a division where there needn't be"<--I don't know man!), another possibility would be to look at things that *aren't* so easily labeled as examples of the problem.** And sure, anything can, with a little mental gymnastics, be made to fit into the problem pattern, but maybe if one were to stop short of that and try to see it NOT forced into that pattern, there'd be merit in that.
**e.g., If I say "I went for a walk in the woods, and I noticed that all the ferns have turned this ghostly white. Tree leaves turn colors, but ferns go pale. I notice this every year, but every year it surprises me anew," I've mentioned ferns, trees, referred obliquely to fall, compared tree leaves with fern leaves, but I think it would be pretty hard to put anything in a hierarchy here. You COULD say, "Maybe she's preferring ferns leaves to tree leaves" or the opposite, or you could say "Maybe she's being self-deprecating about her memory," or contrariwise, "Maybe she's saying it's good to forget and be reminded each year," but there really isn't anything (I'd argue) in the statement that requires that.
I don't know if that helps any with the problem of men being valued more than women (by and large) or writers-who've-written-novels being valued more than writers who haven't (by and large). As you say in your section on pragmatics (feeding your family, etc.), we do have to actually survive in the world as it's constructed now, so we can't pretend that this isn't how a lot of people think. But we ourselves can walk away from that thinking.
Re: wherein I talk a lot...
Date: 2025-11-20 01:21 am (UTC)I love this conversation because it's like what I would imagine a discussion between two Buddhists in a monastery might be like.
"Ah, but what about the frog?"
"But are you not forgetting about the fern?"
I wonder if it's really only applicable to dualistic ideas that we apply toward ourselves. Like, when we start obsessing over the labels we give ourselves and others, we are going down a darker path, maybe? To your point, even with the frog, I would not be able to tell the story about the frog without having some sort of label for the frog. But the frog is not a dualistic label that impacts me very much. I do not dwell over frogs, you know? So no harm done. I do dwell over concepts of gender and race and rich man poor man, etc.
Re: wherein I talk a lot...
Date: 2025-11-20 01:41 am (UTC)I do not dwell over frogs, you know? So no harm done. I do dwell over concepts of gender and race and rich man poor man, etc. --Yeah, exactly.