On Zombies and Suchlike

Zombies  -  Dead or alive?

Whiling away a few moments I came across talk of Zombies. Being "undead" , or at least not quite dead but certainly not alive, they raised questions of "both/and" as opposed to "either/or", and even, by devious routes, to the Two Truths of Mahayana Buddhism.

Well, all this can be confusing at times and in the past some good souls have given me the advice to stick to following just one expression of "The Truth", one path toward it, even suggesting that there is just one entrance anyway and heaven help anyone attempting to sneak in by the back door.

One truth - but many songs

But I stumble on, and changing track again, at the moment I am reducing my reading to just two books, "The Divine Comedy" and my very own self produced blook (sic) on Pure Land Buddhism.

This last contains the beautiful "Hymn to True Faith" (the Shoshinge), various Hymns to Amida, Shinran's Tannisho and a glossary of Pure Land terms - all nicely illustrated.

Do the two books clash? Well, in a way, yes. The copy of the Divine Comedy mentioned is the translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and includes all of Gustave Dore's illustrations. Longfellow's slightly archaic English keeps me on my toes or, perhaps better put, slows me down, making for a more contemplative read. Some of the words he uses seem to have fallen away from common usage and I find myself looking them up...."Pelf" for instance, this being "money gained in a dishonest way" - which I must say makes me wonder why such a word has indeed fallen away from common usage! Then "dolent", which is "sad or sorrowful".

A scene from the Divine Comedy - William Blake style

 But Mr Longfellow sometimes has a way with words, as in:-

Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill, 

Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them,

Uplift themselves all open on their stems"

A lovely image, suggesting how any sentient being will unfold and respond to the infinite light and touch of love. Which image brings me back to my Pure Land book, to the heart of its message, a message contained in the Name, the Word made Flesh in eastern guise.

Well, yes, the books do clash just a bit. The apparent "either/or" world of Dante, where one is either saved or lost, forever, having abandoned all hope. In Dante's book the whole idea of being "on the way", in a reality of "both/and", many ways for all of us, is nowhere to be found. Nowhere in Dante's hell is the lamp of the Buddha, lighting the darkness, causing those who dwell there to exclaim:- "ah, there are others here besides myself!" No, each is lost in his or her own eternal darkness, their personal self, congealed and chained forever, beyond all hope of mercy.

Beyond hope?

Can it be read in any other way? Perhaps it can, just as the "Pilgrims Progress" can offer succour not only to conservative Protestant Christians. Yet I think of readers of the Bible, especially the New Testament. Some seem always to come away with creed comfirmed, the One Way of their own minds again beyond all dispute, and the ways of others cast out to the realms where the gnashing of teeth is the only sound. While others read and find an eternal love proclaimed, all embracing, where all find a home. Is the text necessarily one or the other, one reading of it right and one wrong? Maybe there is in fact some form of judgement in our reading, our interpretations and assertions?

Either/or? Or could it be "both/and", a living word, part of all becoming?  

I seem to have drifted from zombies, and I am trying to recover again the thoughts that led me to them. It was in fact reading a little book on Derrida (he of deconstruction) by Jeff Collins. I lost my way in this particular book, unable to follow what logic there was, but perked up when Mr Collins began to speak of zombies. It was the idea of a zombie being neither dead nor alive and thus possibly both that led me off along my own path.

Mr Collins finally asked "What if the western rationalist distinction between life and death doesn't hold?" Without being able now to remember just how I made the transition, I thought of the correspondence between deconstruction and the spiritual path, the negative way, the via negativa. In this "way", rather than plotting a positive path that anticipates a place of arrival for a redeemed self, we simply seek to see that which is false, strip ourselves of  it, this then leaving us as that which necessarily remains. 

There would seem to be some need for trust, trust in there being some reality beyond any false constructions, possibly even a faith that "truth" is infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, infinite potential. Otherwise there is fear that stripping away could be the stripping of that which can be the only reality, the only truth - a relative one. With nothing beyond. 

Infinite compassion

My musings led to the following four brief notes:- 

1. Eastern emptiness has nothing to do with such a "nothing" but is a "fullness", not a nihilism. 

2. Decidability (Derrida) must be momentary, otherwise it creates a path, forward and back. Which leads to judgement of the path of others. A "self" congeals, seeking to justify itself. Back therefore to trust/faith.

3. Our identification with our "selves" shows a lack of faith yet "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies".......The total separation of life and death in our consciousness makes us fear the emptiness of "no self", such is identified with death, of becoming a zombie! The living dead! Duality again rears its head. 

4. Like Schrodinger's Cat, difficult to know if we are "alive" or "dead" until the moment comes to act; if we act as empathic beings, compassionately, or defensively, or not at all, letting the moment slip by. Thus Faith and act become "one" - or not.

After those four undigested notes I will now get back to Jeff Collins, who writes:- 

"True life must preclude true death. The zombie short-circuits the usual logic of distinction. Having both states, it has neither. It belongs to a different order of things: in terms of life and death, it cannot be decided."

John Keats

"Either/or" establishes conceptual order/meaning but I would tend to agree with John Keats who has written in one of his letters:- "I have never yet been able to conceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning........." 

"Both/and" would for some appear to threaten. Threatens chaos. Yet on the other hand, when "either/or" becomes absolute, when imposed by authority, we have the Inquisition (Yet just maybe, if only momentary - the response of faith in the moment, when "God has entered in" - there is that total freedom of mind that is the goal of the Holy Life)  

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Related Quotes:- 

"When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself."

(Meister Eckhart, from the "Talks of Instruction" on True Obedience)

In addition to the above quote, more from the book "Realizing Genjokoan" by Shohaku Okumura. I find the following quotations relevant to this blog, but am unable to digest/assimilate them at this moment, so will merely post them without comment. Here they are:-

......... the word kōan expresses the reality of our own lives; we are the intersection of equality (universality, unity, oneness of all beings) and inequality (difference, uniqueness, particularity, individuality). Reality, or emptiness, includes both unity and difference......

......Each one of us can be viewed in the same way. We are both universal and individual, and this universality and individuality are not two separate aspects of our being; each of them is absolute. One hand is 100 percent one hand. Five fingers are 100 percent five fingers. This whole universe is one universe; there is no separation within it. And yet, this universe is a collection of unique individual beings. These beings cannot be the same because each has its own particular time, position, and causal history. We cannot alter this reality because each and every thing is completely independent. And yet this whole world, this whole universe, and all of time from beginningless beginning to endless end, are one. We cannot separate ourselves or anything else from this unity; we really all exist in only one time and one space......

......So we may view reality as a collection of independent things or we may view it as one vast seamless whole. The fact of these two ways of viewing reality is important in Buddhist philosophy. In Mahayana Buddhist philosophy these two aspects of the reality of life are called the Two Truths: absolute truth and relative or conventional truth........

.....In Zen these two realities are called sabetsu (distinction, inequality) and byōdō (equality)........

..........Viewed from one side everything is different, and viewed from another side everything is the same. To see one reality from both sides is the basic viewpoint of Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen. This is expressed, for example, in the Heart Sutra as “form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” As form, everything is different, and yet these forms are empty. “Empty” means there is no difference, and yet this emptiness is form. In this way we see one reality as an intersecting or merging of oneness and uniqueness.......

......In the famous piece called Sandōkai (Merging of Difference and Unity), a traditional Zen poem composed by Zen master Shitou Xiqian (Jap.: Sekitō Kisen; 700-790), the author refers to these two sides of reality as difference and unity. In that poem, the true nature of reality is described as the merging of these two sides, with darkness representing unity and light representing discrimination. Light represents discrimination because when it is bright outside we can see that things have different forms, colors, names, and functions. But when it’s completely dark, even though things still exist, we cannot distinguish between them, just as we cannot distinguish between beings when we see them from the viewpoint of unity. So light and darkness are two aspects of one reality, as difference and unity are two aspects of one reality. This view of reality is basic to Buddhism and Zen, and understanding it is essential to a study of Zen literature or Buddhist philosophy......

.....Dōgen, however, said that to see one reality from two sides is not enough; he said we should also express these two sides in one action........

.........In the Heart Sutra, for example, these two sides of reality are expressed as “form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” But in Shōbōgenzō Maka Hannya Haramitsu, Dōgen writes, “Form is form. Emptiness is emptiness.” In other words, when we say “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” there is still a separation of form and emptiness because of the dualistic nature of language. If form really is emptiness and emptiness really is form, we can only say “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” This is so because when we say “form,” emptiness is already there, and when we say “emptiness,” form is already there.......

........So, how can we actualize both sides of our lives within one action? This is really the basic point of our lives....... 

.....The most important teaching of the Buddha is that we must find the middle way; so we must avoid the extremes of egoism or collectivism and practice with reality as the middle way. We have to create our own way; there is no fixed middle way in every situation. We must try to see the whole of every situation and find the healthiest, happiest way of life in each circumstance. This is the essential point of both Buddha’s and Dōgen’s teachings......

.......each and every activity we perform in our daily lives is an opportunity to practice and awaken to the reality of the individual and the universal........

........In my understanding, this teaching of individuality and universality is the essence of the title Genjōkōan. Genjō is nothing other than kōan, and kōan is nothing other than genjō: Genjō means “reality actually and presently taking place,” and kōan means “absolute truth that embraces relative truth” or “a question that true reality asks of us.” So we can say that genjōkōan means “to answer the question from true reality through the practice of our everyday activity.

Dogen