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Zen & Critical Thinking
sinewaves
Explorer
Is there a place for critical thinking for a zen practitioner? I like to read - when I'm reading, I'm in reading mind, when I finish reading (for example, an opinion-based piece) I go into thinking mind - each action is given full attention, focus.
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"Critical" thinking, true critical thinking isn't an issue. People choose to think critically, or not, all by themselves. There's nothing "Zen" can do about it. Zen is just a collection of ideas, and abstraction if you will. As such it is powerless.
People, though are a different thing. People, now, may treat critical thinking as a bad habit ......
Yet it is right here with us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness;
It is only when you seek it that you lose it.
You cannot take hold of it, nor can you get rid of it:
While you can do neither, it goes on its own way;
You remain silent and it speaks; you speak and it is silent..."
What is it?
Solving this does not require logic or critical thinking. In fact, critical thinking gets in the way. It's a riddle designed to trap the logical mind. This is Zen. It is as obvious as the hand at the end of your arm. Wave that hand in the air, and you've just made the sound of one hand clapping. It can be turned into nonsense. Profound nonsense, but nonsense nontheless.
Rinzai in particular but koan based practices in general seek to force direct intuitive comprehension of the Dharma by tying the logical mind into knots. Applying logic and critical thinking, the theory goes, is chewing on the koan. One must transcend logical thought and break through to a higher (deeper, more profound) state of mind. This is the Zen that Westerners fell in love with as authentic enlightenment, because it was as inscrutable as we presumed the Eastern mind to be.
Once a monk asked Tung-shan, "What is the Buddha?' Tung-shan replied, "Three pounds of flax."
But koans are not nonsense. Zen is not nonsense. The teachings appear that way because we don't speak the cultural language they're written in. We sometimes fall in love with the apparent nonsense and insist that's all there is to it. The Master says it's nothing special and we nod and say, "How profound! Now what does he mean by that?"
"Three pounds of flax!" He means it's nothing special. Just how much plainer can he make it?
My experience is mainly limited to Soto Zen where the koan of daily life is mostly addressed through meditation and Dharmic study.
Other forms of Zen prefer to encourage a focus on formalized Koan study to the extent that open contemplation might be seen as a dilution of that concerted focus.
but.....
as time goes on, I think critical thinking is just what's left when the mind is no longer preoccupied with the deification of itself.
I recently watched the film 'Primer' - I set aside time to contemplate the film - not to come to see whether the film was good or bad (irrelevant) but to contemplate the ideas of the film (which, for anyone who has seen them, will understand what I mean).
There is a function for contemplation, critical thought, emotive, intuitive, awareness based and even enlightened 'thunking'.
That's what I thunk . . .
:buck:
These processes and functions can have clear distinctions but often, like thought they are more like temporary and ever changing patterns.
Zen can be a little 'tight' but the Taoist influences give it a natural flow too . .
:wave:
seeker - very practical example.
Being a zombie zen master, spouting koans and incapable of solving a maths problem, does not compute . . . or exist unless something is very wrong . . . most of sense this . . .
Thinking for oneself is critical, rather than critical thinking which CAN have connotations of negativity . . . though it should not. It too has a posi
We can examine our questions, queries etc. and ask ourselves - 'do I have the answer already and what might it be?'
Most people do this. Buddhists with a little practice maybe more so.
In your original question you mention focus. A very important tool. A mind tool.
In other paths that are perhaps more emotional or body orientated, we might ask what a film feels like and where it 'hits' us physically.
Most of us are 'out there', caught in samsara. There is as most of us are aware a big and spacious place and empty in some ways, inside. Buddhist increases our awareness of this inner dimension . . .
:wave:
Just because the chatter stops doesn't mean motivation and perception stop.
Typed that from a newly installed Ubuntu Linux. The screen was only partially displaying text.
'It also has a positive meaning' would make more sense.
This idea of being having our own internal independent critic, may sound dualistic. However that is dependent on the focus and attention skills we have mustered.
So for example I notice other mistakes in my text. Happens [shrug] . . .