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teddy & the paradoxes of zen
Jul. 17th, 2025 11:40 pmA few weeks ago, I read J.D. Salinger’s short story collection, Nine Stories, and it got me thinking, to say the least.
The collection itself is alright, there are a few standouts, like “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor,” both touching on the psychological and interpersonal impacts of war, but there was one story, in particular, that stood out to me as truly special, a story I would recommend to anyone, called “Teddy.”
I won't get into all the details of the story, you can read it yourself, but it's essentially a beginner’s primer to Zen, a Buddhist concept, centering around this idea that, through meditation, you can come to realize your true nature, how everything is connected, and, eventually, tap into your own Buddha-nature, which is this idea that everyone is the Buddha, or has the potential to become like the Buddha, through self-control and meditation. Ultimately, the goal of Zen is to become Enlightened, and one of the core ideas of Zen is that human logic often gets in the way of this goal.
In the story, the titular character, Teddy, is like this ten-year-old Zen prodigy or something, possibly reincarnated from some long-dead Zen master, and he's chock-full of all this incredible Zen wisdom, which he attempts to share with his family and friends while on a cruise to the Bahamas, or something like that, and, of course, no one really takes him seriously, except one guy who tries to use logic to challenge some of Teddy’s wisdom, but, of course, Teddy, being a Zen master or whatever, has a wise counter to every objection, and some of the stuff he says is really out there and cool, like the long excerpt I'm about to copy-paste just below this paragraph.
( Excerpt from Teddy... )
On the surface, Teddy’s philosophy might seem like that of a stoned high-schooler, but he has a good point, that being, humans make up the definitions for stuff, an arm is an arm because we say it is, collectively, and an arm “stops off” where it stops off because, well, we say it does, collectively. We all share in this sort of collective dream world in which we construct the meaning of everything based on usefulness or whatever, but, ultimately, we are constructing the meaning, the meaning does not construct itself, which calls into question exactly where the arm stops, actually.
To illustrate further, the atoms in my fingertips surely touch the atoms in the air around me, and at a microscopic level, if one were to look, those atoms probably look nearly identical, so, at that microscopic level, it would be impossible to tell when the arm truly stops and where the air begins, which begs the question, is everything, in fact, connected? Is everything one and the same? I don’t have an answer to that question, it’s just something interesting to think about.
The point of all this, however, is that “Teddy” got me really interested in Zen, to the point where I even purchased a book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which I have yet to read, but I have thumbed through it, and I came across this idea that, to achieve Enlightenment, you must practice Zen with “no gaining idea,” and that got me really curious, so I looked it up online, and I found this quote from an ancient Zen master, or whatever, which I will now copy-paste below.
“As soon as you produce any opinion or interpretation, and want to attain Zen and be a master, you have already fallen into psychological and material realms. You have become trapped by ordinary senses and perceptions, by ideas of gain and loss, by ideas of right and wrong. Half drunk and half sober, you cannot manage effectively.”
-Yuanwu Keqin
This quote, to me, is the most interesting Zen-thing that I have read thus far. It actually sent my mind swirling, to tell you the truth, because the quote seems to be suggesting that, if your goal is to reach Enlightenment, you will never reach Enlightenment, like, ever. This is the concept of “no gaining idea,” which essentially means that, in order to become Enlightened, you must sit there and meditate with "no gaining idea” of actually becoming Enlightened, or else you are doomed to never reach Enlightenment. And this idea struck me as not only incredibly wise, but also incredibly paradoxical.
To work through the paradox, we must first understand the paradox, which I barely even understand myself, but I am going to try to explain it in the clearest way possible.
The aforementioned copy-pasted quote above, which encapsulates the “no gaining idea” concept, essentially makes two strong points. One, the desire to attain Enlightenment is itself a barrier to Enlightenment, because Zen philosophy itself seeks to remove desire, as desire leads to suffering and discomfort and other bad stuff. And two, the very idea of Enlightenment itself comes baked-in with the dualistic implication that there are those who are Enlightened and those who are not Enlightened, which is categorical, dualistic thinking, which ends up placing people into camps of “have attained Enlightenment” and “have not attained Enlightenment,” which naturally leads to hierarchical thinking, which leads to seeing some people as lesser than others, which leads to concentration camps, war, segregation, caste systems, death, and all sorts of other bad stuff, all of which Zen aims to eliminate, because, as Teddy so succinctly tells us above, we are all connected, we are all one, things don’t “stop off,” we just pretend like they do.
So herein lies the Zen paradox, or paradoxes, because there’s more than one, actually.
The first paradox is, if you want to become Enlightened, you are already trapped in the cycle of desire that Zen itself seeks to eliminate. Yet, if that’s the case, why are there so many books and schools and masters of Zen Buddhism, all of which aim to provide guidance in the attainment of Enlightenment, if the very idea of trying to “gain” that Enlightenment is itself a barrier to said Enlightenment? Essentially, what this is implying is that, in order to eliminate desire and thus reach Enlightenment, you must first desire to reach Enlightenment, but Zen teaches that you can’t reach Enlightenment through desire, yet, to even attempt to reach Enlightenment, you must first desire Enlightenment, yet you can’t attain Enlightenment if you desire it, and so on and so forth. I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Wanting to be Enlightened is the very thing preventing Enlightenment. This is the first Zen paradox.
The second paradox is, by even engaging with the idea of Enlightenment, you are dealing in dualistic thinking. Yet, these various schools of Zen all teach of Enlightenment and how to reach it, so the implication seems to be that, in order to abolish dualistic thinking, you must first engage in dualistic thinking by thinking about Enlightenment. But by engaging in dualistic thinking, you are actually further from Enlightenment, because Zen aims to abolish dualistic thinking, yet you need dualistic thinking to even think about Enlightenment, yet you can’t be Enlightened if you engage in dualistic thinking, and so on and so forth. I could keep going, but I think you get the point. In trying to reach a state where such dualistic thinking is abolished, you must first engage in dualistic thinking. This is the second Zen paradox.
Honestly, I’m not sure what to do with these Zen paradoxes. My first thought was that they undermine the teachings of Zen, because how could a philosophy be built on the back of two pretty strong paradoxes without collapsing in on itself like two supermassive black holes trying to suck each other up?
But then, I started thinking about Teddy and what he said about the forbidden fruit. I started thinking that, perhaps, in twisting my mind around these paradoxes, I am simply being too logical. After all, the very concept of a paradox is, indeed, just a human-made concept, a concept that doesn't actually exist out there in the ether, just in our minds.
So, after some meditation, I started thinking that maybe I’ve just taken one too many bites of the apple, and then I got this crazy idea, maybe I should just vomit it all up.
Now I just have to figure out how the hell I’m going to do that.
The collection itself is alright, there are a few standouts, like “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor,” both touching on the psychological and interpersonal impacts of war, but there was one story, in particular, that stood out to me as truly special, a story I would recommend to anyone, called “Teddy.”
I won't get into all the details of the story, you can read it yourself, but it's essentially a beginner’s primer to Zen, a Buddhist concept, centering around this idea that, through meditation, you can come to realize your true nature, how everything is connected, and, eventually, tap into your own Buddha-nature, which is this idea that everyone is the Buddha, or has the potential to become like the Buddha, through self-control and meditation. Ultimately, the goal of Zen is to become Enlightened, and one of the core ideas of Zen is that human logic often gets in the way of this goal.
In the story, the titular character, Teddy, is like this ten-year-old Zen prodigy or something, possibly reincarnated from some long-dead Zen master, and he's chock-full of all this incredible Zen wisdom, which he attempts to share with his family and friends while on a cruise to the Bahamas, or something like that, and, of course, no one really takes him seriously, except one guy who tries to use logic to challenge some of Teddy’s wisdom, but, of course, Teddy, being a Zen master or whatever, has a wise counter to every objection, and some of the stuff he says is really out there and cool, like the long excerpt I'm about to copy-paste just below this paragraph.
( Excerpt from Teddy... )
On the surface, Teddy’s philosophy might seem like that of a stoned high-schooler, but he has a good point, that being, humans make up the definitions for stuff, an arm is an arm because we say it is, collectively, and an arm “stops off” where it stops off because, well, we say it does, collectively. We all share in this sort of collective dream world in which we construct the meaning of everything based on usefulness or whatever, but, ultimately, we are constructing the meaning, the meaning does not construct itself, which calls into question exactly where the arm stops, actually.
To illustrate further, the atoms in my fingertips surely touch the atoms in the air around me, and at a microscopic level, if one were to look, those atoms probably look nearly identical, so, at that microscopic level, it would be impossible to tell when the arm truly stops and where the air begins, which begs the question, is everything, in fact, connected? Is everything one and the same? I don’t have an answer to that question, it’s just something interesting to think about.
The point of all this, however, is that “Teddy” got me really interested in Zen, to the point where I even purchased a book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which I have yet to read, but I have thumbed through it, and I came across this idea that, to achieve Enlightenment, you must practice Zen with “no gaining idea,” and that got me really curious, so I looked it up online, and I found this quote from an ancient Zen master, or whatever, which I will now copy-paste below.
“As soon as you produce any opinion or interpretation, and want to attain Zen and be a master, you have already fallen into psychological and material realms. You have become trapped by ordinary senses and perceptions, by ideas of gain and loss, by ideas of right and wrong. Half drunk and half sober, you cannot manage effectively.”
-Yuanwu Keqin
This quote, to me, is the most interesting Zen-thing that I have read thus far. It actually sent my mind swirling, to tell you the truth, because the quote seems to be suggesting that, if your goal is to reach Enlightenment, you will never reach Enlightenment, like, ever. This is the concept of “no gaining idea,” which essentially means that, in order to become Enlightened, you must sit there and meditate with "no gaining idea” of actually becoming Enlightened, or else you are doomed to never reach Enlightenment. And this idea struck me as not only incredibly wise, but also incredibly paradoxical.
To work through the paradox, we must first understand the paradox, which I barely even understand myself, but I am going to try to explain it in the clearest way possible.
The aforementioned copy-pasted quote above, which encapsulates the “no gaining idea” concept, essentially makes two strong points. One, the desire to attain Enlightenment is itself a barrier to Enlightenment, because Zen philosophy itself seeks to remove desire, as desire leads to suffering and discomfort and other bad stuff. And two, the very idea of Enlightenment itself comes baked-in with the dualistic implication that there are those who are Enlightened and those who are not Enlightened, which is categorical, dualistic thinking, which ends up placing people into camps of “have attained Enlightenment” and “have not attained Enlightenment,” which naturally leads to hierarchical thinking, which leads to seeing some people as lesser than others, which leads to concentration camps, war, segregation, caste systems, death, and all sorts of other bad stuff, all of which Zen aims to eliminate, because, as Teddy so succinctly tells us above, we are all connected, we are all one, things don’t “stop off,” we just pretend like they do.
So herein lies the Zen paradox, or paradoxes, because there’s more than one, actually.
The first paradox is, if you want to become Enlightened, you are already trapped in the cycle of desire that Zen itself seeks to eliminate. Yet, if that’s the case, why are there so many books and schools and masters of Zen Buddhism, all of which aim to provide guidance in the attainment of Enlightenment, if the very idea of trying to “gain” that Enlightenment is itself a barrier to said Enlightenment? Essentially, what this is implying is that, in order to eliminate desire and thus reach Enlightenment, you must first desire to reach Enlightenment, but Zen teaches that you can’t reach Enlightenment through desire, yet, to even attempt to reach Enlightenment, you must first desire Enlightenment, yet you can’t attain Enlightenment if you desire it, and so on and so forth. I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Wanting to be Enlightened is the very thing preventing Enlightenment. This is the first Zen paradox.
The second paradox is, by even engaging with the idea of Enlightenment, you are dealing in dualistic thinking. Yet, these various schools of Zen all teach of Enlightenment and how to reach it, so the implication seems to be that, in order to abolish dualistic thinking, you must first engage in dualistic thinking by thinking about Enlightenment. But by engaging in dualistic thinking, you are actually further from Enlightenment, because Zen aims to abolish dualistic thinking, yet you need dualistic thinking to even think about Enlightenment, yet you can’t be Enlightened if you engage in dualistic thinking, and so on and so forth. I could keep going, but I think you get the point. In trying to reach a state where such dualistic thinking is abolished, you must first engage in dualistic thinking. This is the second Zen paradox.
Honestly, I’m not sure what to do with these Zen paradoxes. My first thought was that they undermine the teachings of Zen, because how could a philosophy be built on the back of two pretty strong paradoxes without collapsing in on itself like two supermassive black holes trying to suck each other up?
But then, I started thinking about Teddy and what he said about the forbidden fruit. I started thinking that, perhaps, in twisting my mind around these paradoxes, I am simply being too logical. After all, the very concept of a paradox is, indeed, just a human-made concept, a concept that doesn't actually exist out there in the ether, just in our minds.
So, after some meditation, I started thinking that maybe I’ve just taken one too many bites of the apple, and then I got this crazy idea, maybe I should just vomit it all up.
Now I just have to figure out how the hell I’m going to do that.
