The Hua Hu Ching is a lesser known collection of the oral teaching of Lao Tzu of Tao te Ching fame. The version I have is translated by Brian Walker. It is short, excellent, and in my opinion a worthy part of every Mahayana Buddhist library.

It is Taoist in the sense there is no reference to Buddhism at all. It is Buddhist in that the content is clearly in alignment with important aspects of Cha’an and Zen Buddhism and their derivatives.

This reflection on useful delusions is admittedly a delusion of sorts, and it may not even be of the useful sort. Who knows?

I listened to a recent debate between Chris Hedges and Sam Harris on religion and politics. The Sam Harris rhetoric was in fine form, excoriating religion, and portraying it as the scourge of the earth. I think Chris Hedges did the better job, particularly if one is interested in arriving at truth rather than skewering religion. When I ran across Lack of Moral Imagination and Softness of Head from Woodmoor Village , the seed germinated into this article.

I’m coming to a conclusion to leave this mountain. While it has been useful to be here, its value to me seems to be dimming. And it has not seemed that useful to others in general. Within a few weeks, I will wind my way down to the plains below.

The intent of writing was always partly cathartic. In many ways, the articles reflect my journey towards Buddhism. Unlike some who see Buddhism as a neat philosophy or Zen as cool, I’ve viewed it seriously — perhaps too seriously at times. My postings were mainly a reflection of some struggles I’ve had with Buddhism, and some of the reconciliations that I’ve noticed.

“Resist not evil” is an explicit Christian directive from the lips of Christ himself, though it is almost universally ignored and rejected by Christians. “It’s not practical. It doesn’t really mean what it says. It only applies to saints, not ordinary mortals. Etc., etc.” Honest, strong, Christians struggle and squirm like a hooked fish when they confront it; most quickly rationalize it away, usually with the prompt help of clergy that have never honestly confronted it themselves.

I’ve often been glad to free of this directive as non-Christian. I don’t have to play dodge ball with this commandment, rationalize it away or ignore it to get rid of the discomfort it imposes.

Yet, after reflection, I think there may be truth here. Franklin Wolff, in Experience and Philosophy , succinctly states it this way.

In Buddhism the three poisons are greed, hate, and delusion. Some versions have anger as one of the poisons. I’ve never had much difficulty with an explosive temper. Rather, my form of poison is a grinding arthritic frustration with the eventual effect of judging people very harshly in my mind, though less often in word or deed.

What I’ve come to see recently is that this frustration is not wholesome. This isn’t a result of some Buddhist catechism that I’ve internalized. It’s just plain seeing. Not seeing this has locked my mind in a rut for several years.

I found this in a recent Lama Shenpen email teaching to one of her students.

Many people have this attitude of dismissing their own experience as of no consequence and it’s the biggest obstacle to progress towards Awakening.

You have to have confidence in your own experience and your own judgment and then just use other people’s experience and guidance in order to home in on it and hone it - but it always comes down to what you experience yourself.

My experience with Buddhism during the last several years can most simply be characterized using the words “mind mirror.” No other religion that I’ve come across asks one to persistently look at how the mind works with tools to help one clear away the fog and see more clearly. Even psychology as a discipline (except perhaps for Jungian psychology) is strongly tainted with cultural values that are so deeply embedded they are unstated.

It’s not been a pleasant process. It’s been demanding in the sense of being willing to see honestly, without the affective overlay that usually colors and shapes things to our liking. In my case that “liking” includes my pet ideas about how things “should be”, even when some of my “should be” springs from noble aspirations.

I finished Red Pine’s The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, a very short book. Of the four writings included, only one, Outline of Practice, is reliably the work of Bodhidharma; he didn’t write very much. This short work in less than 3 full book pages provides the core of Zen in four steps of practice, none of which sound very appealing or exciting. I provide them here because they were of help.

1. Suffer injustice.
2. Adapt to conditions
3. Seek nothing
4. Practice the Dharma

The following are excerpts and paraphrases of the actual text.

Accepting the injustice in one’s life and others is based on accepting that “what one is” is what one has been. Accept that with an open heart and without complaint.

A Turkish Muslim author’s book, The Atlas of Creation, sent to French schools, in sort of a mass mailing campaign prompted an outcry from WoodMoor Village Zendo in an article titled Turkish Creationist Book.

I agree with the repugnance of religious cosmogony as a substitute for science. I also think this issue is not easily brushed aside as yet another example of ignorant, arrogant “fundamentalists.”

The larger dynamic in society as a whole is a search for ethical values in a world bent on destroying the foundations they have traditionally been built on. It is not science, per se, that is the culprit, but a groundswell of awareness that the older mythologies just don’t cut it very well in the modern world. If you are sick, would you take a pill or go to a scientific doctor, or to a a minister in hopes that the evil spirits causing your cold could be dispelled? No answer is necessary. Prayer as a medical device has been relegated even by religionists to the narrow niche of the final resort when everything else has failed.

The “heart” has never made a lot of sense to me. Intelligence, intellect, thinking, mind — these are terms I use and understand growing out of normal consciousness.

But recently the “heart” matter has seemed to come to my attention from several different sources. (I’ve learned to pay attention when the same subject seems to converge out of nowhere from multiple sources.) One important source was a newsletter from the resident monk at the temple I attend. Another was a talk on CD by Bo Lozoff at the San Francisco Zen Center. But there were more subtle pointers too. Finally I decided to spend some effort reflecting on it.