Tricycle interviews the Angry Asian Buddhist

I'm really glad to see Tricycle publishing an interview with arunlikhati,  which deals with some of the issues of culture and ethnicity that tend to distort some of the way in which "Buddhist media" portrays "Buddhism."

As I commented over at arunlikhati's place, I tend to experience these issues too in odd ways.  The other night before my trip I was practicing Wing Chun with a Vietnamese professional guy.  His French was impeccable, but yes, I was (slightly)  surprised that he was illiterate in 漢字.  (Yes I know Vietnamese has been Romanized since the French, and yes I know Vietnamese isn't a Sino-Tibetan languague, but just because an Asian language has loan-words from Chinese, and just because there are non-Sino-Tibetan 漢字 languages not written in 漢字 whose users are literate in 漢字 doesn't mean that all educated speakers of non-Sino-Tibetan Asian languages know 漢字. )

So it's good to see this kind of dialog taking place.

What does it mean to have no rank?

I travel a lot, as regular readers on this blog know.  At the end of this week I'm traveling to Prague, which is sort of an ancestral homeland of mine (I'm of Polish, Slovak, & German descent, and have relatives in Prague). 

As I often do when I travel, before I go I usually do an internet search to find the "state of Buddhsim" where I'm going.  It's how I found Chan/Son/Zen Temples in Xi'an, Tianjin, Jeju, Seoul...

So I look to see if there's any kind of Zen in Prague. And there is. There's the Kwan Um folks' Prague office. I kind of have a grudging admiration for the Kwan Um folks.  And then there's this guy.

Master Sando Kaisen – Alain Krystaszek was born in 1952 in Noyon in the Oise region of France. He spent his first years in his hometown, and left it at the age of eight, when his father decided to take him to Poland, his father´s home country, to be brought up there. Here in Wroclaw, he received strict education, and the repressive atmosphere of communism of that time left sorrowful feelings inside him. As he was growing up, he kept on thinking more and more intensively about the issues of injustice, anger and human ignorance. The Christian education, he received in Poland while he was ministering for an old bishop, provided first answers. When he returned to France in 1967, he became a guardian of a Noyon cathedral and a guide in the John Calvin Museum. He was even thinking of becoming a priest. But at that time he started to ponder about other things too. He could not accept the idea, that peace and happiness of the spirit could only exist inside the church walls, and that the outside world would be filled with suffering and ignorance.

He ceaselessly continued searching for answers, and he wandered from one group to another. He started to make his living as a musician playing drums. At that time, at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s, France was a place where eastern philosophy was flourishing. Fascinated by martial arts, which he had started to learn in Poland with teachers coming from beyond the Caucasus, he decided to go to China in 1972 where he could practice martial arts in their place of origin. His journey led him through the Himalayas, all across the communist China to a small temple, lost in the mountains of Wei-fang-shan. He practiced kung-fu here and meditated under the tutoring of an old Chinese master, who taught him both the mastery of controlling his body and mind and the traditional Chinese medicine.

When he got back to Paris, he met a Japanese Master Taisen Deshimaru, who had arrived to spread the zen teachings in Europe. He finally found in him a living example of what he had always been looking for, and he decided to become his disciple...

In 1979, he received an ordination for a monk from the hands of his master. His monk´s name became Sando Kaisen, meaning “a lonely hermit”. He devoted himself completely to the practice and transmitting of the zazen position. He studied ikebana (the Japanese art of arranging live flowers), calligraphy (the Japanese art of writing-painting) and growing bonsai. For over twenty years, he pursued his interest in Chinese medicine and kept on improving his kung-fu, up to the point when he realized, that the quiet sitting position surpasses all other practices and leads directly to the realization. That is when he definitively stopped practicing martial arts.

Full of energy, Master Sando Kaisen kept on drawing more and more disciples to himself, he founded one association after another and established many dojos, centres for practicing zazen...   ...© Master Sando Kaisen’s Zen

Of course the name Taisen Deshimaru was kind of a dead giveaway as to why this oddly flattering praise appears here.  It is really hard  to get past that - does this kind of schtick help beings in Central Europe? Maybe it does.  I find it kind of hard to believe however, yet, I'm sure this guy's got "followers." 

I guess the point of this whole thing is Alain Sando Kaisen really has his poop together, and you don't.  I guess.  I mean, the guy can walk on water and swim on land, it seems.

But what possible kind of Zen could you learn from a guy like this? 

You might learn, I suppose, how to meditate in the Soto kind of way (I'd hope at least that.)  But this kind of wording can't but encourage some kind of attachment to Sando Kasisen that is unhealthy.  Someone in the position of authority should maintain some difference from their "students" (clients? partners?), but ultimately there are no kings; nobody is by virtue of whatever karma or effort untouchable, fundamentally and irretrievably separate; there is no divine right. 

Anyway, "Master" Sando Kaisen's Zen is rather unfamiliar to me; it doesn't look very much like Zen from its web presence.

New Post on Zen & the Martial Arts Coming...

I recently came across a few corners of the internet's martial arts areas...and hoo boy do they kind of not get certain things related to martial arts. It's not quite like they're the  コブラ会 ("Cobra Kai" - I wonder if it was ever written that way before...) or something like that ...but they really don't get the premises of 功夫.

Mother's Day

It's a good day to focus on the Mothers out there.

Bows to all of you. 

There are no words to acknowledge your difficulties.

Shorter version of the last post:

I know that I know what I know.
They know that they know what they know.
I don't know what I don't know.
They don't know what they don't know.
I know some of  what they don't know.
I know some of what they know.
They don't know that what they don't know
includes some of what I know.
I don't know that what I don't know
includes some of what they know.


(Apologies to R.D. Laing)

On not having much to say...or being older...

Well, it seems the Buddhist blogosphere is becoming a little thinner of late.  The Precious Metal blog is closing up shop.   The Reformed Buddhist is really kind of dormant.

And this blog hasn't had that many posts of late.  My rate of posting has gone from a deterministic constant rate process to one more bursty and Poisson-like.   That's my way of saying though it's been 6 days since I wrote a post on this blog it might be that tomorrow you might find thirty or forty posts here, but don't bet your life savings on it.

I'm not  running out of things to write about, but rather these days there are higher priorities.  My 10 year old  is becoming slowly but surely a rather skilled young violinist who knows about Shakespeare.   My wife is doing several things business related. I've got major work things to do, bursts of creativity.  Plus sitting practice, swimming, and 詠春券.

And I could be writing  posts not just on Buddhism.  If you look at the early pages of this blog, way back some 8 years ago (yes, this is one of the oldest, still functioning blogs by an American Buddhist of European descent) it had many political pages.   I don't write many political blog posts anymore, on this blog, and when I do, it might appear on Daily Kos instead of here.  (I've been meaning to do a post over there on Russia Today; remind me to do so.  The post would be about how come the English language version can talk about problems in the US, and how come they don't talk the same way about problems in Russia, and how propaganda is propaganda is propaganda.  But, despite its propaganda issues, RT is a guilty pleasure, unlike the BBC or Fox News or CCTV-9.)

The thing is, there's much I could write about but various things prevent me from doing so.  For example,  much of my current work is practice more and more, but much of it I am not at liberty to do so because of commitments to my employer.  It's because of those commitments that I feel a bit frustrated at times, because I can't tell folks how Buddhism in the marketplace is really like and practiced. Maybe when I retire I can write a book about it. 

But I for one, for now, plan to continue writing on this blog; I think there are important things that should be said, and it seems as long as no one else is doing it, and as long as I can do so without treading on other commitments I've made, I might as well be the guy.   I wouldn't deign to call the perspective I've acquired some kind of "wisdom," because I had to wade through quite a lot of my own stupidity to get where I am now.  A grandfather of mine was reputed to have said, "You'd have to sit three days up a donkey's ass to know what I know," or something like that.   It wasn't quite a boast, but an admission of the kind Zimmerman sang:

An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.

I especially think those things need to be said when I see a raft of posts in the Buddhist blogosphere that tend toward the uninformed - at least uninformed by what I've been informed by.   It is a cliche that experience brings perspective, and I hate to trot out that cliche as any kind of an argument from authority.   But it remains a fact that so many of those with less experience just don't get "it" -  they don't know what they don't know, and I, myself, know so damned little myself, including, but not limited to the fact that I don't know what I don't know.

 

I do hope those who are continuing in the Buddhist blogosphere continue to continue - I need to hear others' perspectives, too.  If anyone knows of any blogs to be added to my list of blogs to read please let me know. 

Assorted quick comments on things in the Buddhist blogosphere.

• Arun, as usual, has an interesting article on the use of the term "ethnic Buddhism," and he's got a point.  Frankly, until I moved out of New York, I always wondered at the white-bread-and-mayonnaise culture portrayed in the media - I didn't realize there was such a culture and it's still rather foreign to me. 
• Corollary: I wish Charles Prebish's published works were more accessible; as I wrote in a comment, I bet his writings were unintentionally exclusionary decades ago and now could stand to be updated. It's not a great problem.
• Mental illness is a big problem, compounded by the fact that it resides in a nexus of individuals.  I'm not qualified, I feel bad that Brad Warner feels obliged to comment in this area, and I feel worse that a great deal of mental health professionals are faced with the problems they have, with a paucity of tools and approaches.
• I could write to Nathan quite a few posts on intellectual property.   But the short answer would be: much IP should be compensated. Some shoudn't be. And as the old saw goes, that which is worthy of compensation is like pornography - you know it when you see it.
• Watch out for cults.

Organizations and Buddhism

I DO want to briefly mention the tie-together of a few recent posts. Warner's rescinding his Dogen Sangha.  Barbara's kinda sorta China bashing over the Dalai Lama again. (Also see here.)  And Danny Fisher's happy as a clam that "Dharmic religions" gets their day in the sun at a White House -sponsored "faith-based" yadda yadda yadda.

These posts are all related to each other by some odd confluences of organizations (and in the latter two, government organizations) and Buddhism.  But Warner's is related too, as his is about a Buddhist organization or lack of one  thereof, to be more to the point. 

Barbara's critiquing China's meddling in a traditionally avowed theocratic organization, namely that of Tibetan Buddhism.  Danny Fisher is pleased that the government is meddling with Dharmic religions enough to recognize them, patronize them at the White House and so forth. And Warner's happy that he extinguished an organization before it had a crib.

To be fair to Danny Fisher, he'd be among the first to critique China too.

But I've a point in putting these all together: Lots of Western Buddhists bash China when it suits them for their preconceived political notions about a "Free" "Tibet" and all that, but they bash the US government when it doesn't positively patronize Buddhists.  And I put Warner in there 'cause he's kind of a too-cool for all that guy in his position of refusing all organization, but that's kind of impotent in my view.

Organizations are like knives; they are neutral morally. Patronage or oppression is the same way; it's the circumstances in which they're used that imbue them with a morality or lack thereof.  Nobody objects on moral grounds  if La Cosa Nostra is oppressed, except for some folks whose relations can be reliably traced back to the Old Country.

On the other hand, if you're going to accept patronage from a government, then it's only natural for there to be some kind of "organizational deformation" in response to that patronage; it's always been the case throughout human history.  And that deformation is a threat to the ethical soundness of a religious institution; of that there can be no doubt. Furthermore,  I'd also submit that Warner's position of removing the organization altogether is itself questionable, as it aborts the possibility of an organization to do any good.

I just think there's a great deal of hypocrisy presented as some kind of moral purity in the way many folks view state interaction with religion. States will interact with religion for their own political reasons. The US does it as well as China. Both lead to both benefits and morally questionable activities.  And religious organizations have similar issues.

The illusion of free will and its utter irrelevance

I like Brad Warner's Zen, despite its Soto flavor.  And I'm sure when his god book comes out, I'll probably read it and rip it to shreds - or not- I might not really; he and I might just come down on the same side of things with just each of using using more unfortunate language than the next person.

This post though is about a comment he makes on his blog entry on his return to California:

Sam Harris is a pretty convincing speaker, isn't he? I plan to watch that entire video soon. But I watched about a minute of it & it seems pretty clear where he's going.

The problem is it's all up in the head. This is what trips up people like Harris. They are far too clever for their own good. They can convince themselves of anything they choose to because their brains are so sharp and efficient.

I actually LIKE Sam Harris' stuff. So don't get me wrong here. Among his crowd of self-satisfied über atheists, he's definitely the best. Richard Dawkins has nothing on Sam Harris.

The best koan I know of that addresses the issue is the one about the guy who stubs his toe and says, "I had heard that the body is an illusion, where does this pain come from?"

It's a slightly different angle on the same problem. "I had heard (from Sam Harris) that freedom of choice is an illusion. Where does this freedom of choice come from?"

Nishijima Roshi always said that determinism and free will are both true. It depends on which angle you look at things from.

Thoughts may be conditioned. But that doesn't negate freedom of action. This is something you see through actual experience, though. Not through thinking.  

First of all, I think Warner's language in dismissing the so-called New Atheists is, yes, unfortunately chosen.

Can a speaker be convincing?  Or are the speaker's ideas, conveyed in the manner in which the speaker chooses convincing? Get it? Warner's language has embedded in it some kind of guru rejection which posits a "New Atheist guru" which  just isn't there in any of the New Atheist writings.   I don't find Warner's words here convincing at all. But not just for that area of his comment, though his dismissive use of the term "self-satisfied über atheists" does nothing to help his case.  Look, many religious folks are going to find New Atheist writings stridently attacking their sacred cows; I'll stipulate to that point.   But given the asymmetry of the playing field, as its been for thousands of years, and given folks like even Brad Warner responding as above, I can't hardly blame them.  Sure they largely don't attack Buddhism, and when  they do it's uninformed.  I'll stipulate to that point, too. But when we have a discussion together, any rationalist atheist is the easiest person in the world with whom a Buddhist can come to agreement. Period. Full stop. In fact, I'd rather spend eternity in the company of New Atheists than I would in the company of someone who gets all touchy-feely about how all religions are one and all that.

If you see my comment below Warner's, though you get to the meat of my objection with this passage. 

We're highly conditioned creatures. as the posts (here and here) indicate with regard to our views and beliefs of death alone. It's been good for our survival to have characteristics like this, and the conditioning to perceive the world as though there were an "I" with "free will" is another biological/social evolutionary trait we have had. 

There is, from  a systems theoretic, behavioral scientific, or Buddhist perspective, no reason at all why there is the necessity of considering that we have a "free will." We seem to perceive ourselves as separate selves with autonomous agency, to be sure, but that's not the same thing as saying we have autonomous agency.

One objection that one might lamely try to bring against this is that people, and Buddhists especially, are prone to develop and improve and cultivate skill. Of course that's true.  But so what? Beings such as us with perceived autonomous agency wouldn't perceive it any other way. In fact if there were a separate self with such autonomous agency it would make the cultivation of skill more difficult, as you can "get" from cultivation of the Buddhist Dharma.

But  that might not be the ultimate objection of Brad Warner (or maybe Nishijima).  That, rather may go like this: if the notion of "self" is inherently empty, with no intrinsic essence, the notion of a  "free will" attribute of this inherently empty self  is also inherently empty.  

But that's not the same thing; it's a kind of category mistake if  they're  going there, and I admit I don't know if that's where they're going.  "Free will" is an attribute applied to certain beings; it is an ideal in the way its advocates apply it, but only imperfectly realized, if at all,  because of the obvious fact of habit.  But that last sentence, to me, at any rate, implies that Occam's razor can be applied, especially given the fact that we improve by suspending such notions, except insofar as we think by practice we improve.  But that thought-position-action doesn't imply the grander philosophical notion; the latter is utterly unimportant as long as there's the former.  That former is assumed axiomatic in Buddhism and its writings; the latter, though, I can't think of something that leaps out at me at the moment that justifies a Western philosophical notion of free will.

I won't be surprised if someone else brings up another Buddhist position on this and cites myriad sutras to back up their position, but I just don't think the Big Question is all that important.

Google Buddhism

I'm a bit ambivalent about this guy at Google and his mindfulness courses.  I mean, yeah, of course, do it and all that.  And much of what's said here is quite apt.  But...it may be that “people love that entrepreneur/mystic thing,” but  the rubber meets the road and the metaphors mix in the aspects of  day - to - day practice  amdist the mundane events transpiring in every kitchen where there's that homicidal bitchin' to determine who will serve and who will eat.

Plus,

• Why not just call it Buddhist Buddhism Buddhism course?
• Why does it have to be done at Google to attract the media's attention?
• There's so much else that's not being gotten to here.

P.Z. Myers responds on NDEs...

It's also on Salon. Myers is almost certainly right...the counters given in his references (check out the timeline on infidels.org on the "brain dead in the operating room" case.)

Still,  Buddha nature does pervade the universe.  It just does it in ways that aren't woo-filled.  That is, as I wrote last week, an experience of  change of awareness and acceptance of all that we are, all the muck and goo and anger and weakness and vulnerability - that can be employed as a force for the good, far more powerfully than reading about the NDE of someone else.

Near Death Experiences May or May Not Have Purely Naturalist Explanations

There's an intriguing if flawed article on the subject in Salon here.

Materialistic scientists have proposed a number of physiological explanations to account for the various features of NDEs. British psychologist Susan Blackmore has propounded the “dying brain” hypothesis: that a lack of oxygen (or anoxia) during the dying process might induce abnormal firing of neurons in brain areas responsible for vision, and that such an abnormal firing would lead to the illusion of seeing a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Would it?  [ NDE researcher Pim] van Lommel and colleagues objected that if anoxia plays a central role in the production of NDEs, most cardiac arrest patients would report an NDE. Studies show that this is clearly not the case. Another problem with this view is that reports of a tunnel are absent from several accounts of NDErs. As pointed out by renowned NDE researcher Sam Parnia, some individuals have reported an NDE when they had not been terminally ill and so would have had normal levels of oxygen in their brains.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, though I would expect that there would be some physical (chemical/electrical/mechanical)  trace of the NDE - that is, if someone remembers an NDE it should do so by an observable change in their brains post facto.   I expect that the cessation of metabolic (and hence chemical/electrical/mechanical) processes should, as a physical process itself, be a closed system. 

And it well might be, and be the case that consciousness is not entirely contained in neural areas. 

It goes without saying the parallels to Buddhist concepts are potentially profound - Buddha nature evidently does pervade the universe, and not as some kind of faint hope either. 

More to the point,  - or changing direction of this post somewhat -  the change of awareness and acceptance of all that we are, all the muck and goo and anger and weakness and vulnerability - that can be employed as a force for the good, far more powerfully than reading about the NDE of someone else.  I had to go an extra few feet for someone yesterday.    The person had some problems in life I have been fortunate enough to avoid, or perhaps I'd experienced them in different ways.  I didn't at first know why it was important for me to do what I did, but I think it was because it was a great way to acknowledge and say "no" to all the crap we'd all experienced in life.  I was listening to a talk from Genjo Marinello the other day on resoluteness in practice.  I think you need a smidgen of something with excitement that feels a little like anger to cultivate that resolution. 

Awareness and...?

I may have more to say yet on life, death, and the internet of things. But this post is about awareness. And maybe a bit about the internet of things.  I came across an article about awareness and its continuum a few days ago but was too engaged at the time to blog about it here.

One problem is that the word has more than one meaning. Trying to plumb the nature of self-awareness or self-consciousness leads down one infamous rabbit hole. But what if the subject is simply the difference in brain activity between being conscious and being unconscious?

 I think we Zen folk actually focus more on the issue of not so much the nature of awareness but in our practice of being aware. 

In studies using anesthesia, the paralytic effects of drugs used during surgery were blocked from one forearm, and then attempts were made to communicate with the patient. Dr. Alkire wrote, “Patients under general anesthesia can sometimes carry on a conversation using hand signals, but postoperatively, they deny ever being awake. Thus, retrospective oblivion is no proof of unconsciousness.”

The recent research by Dr. Scheinin and Dr. Langsjo and colleagues, including Dr. Alkire, looked for proof of consciousness. The researchers used brain scans in combination with two drugs, propofol, which helped cause the death of Michael Jackson, and another anesthetic drug, the many-syllabled dexmedetomidine.

The standard measure of unconsciousness is that a subject or patient does not respond to commands. By that standard, when a subject responds, he’s conscious. What makes dexmedetomidine an ideal drug is that people who are completely under can be brought back from oblivion by gentle shaking and loud speaking, even if they are still on the regular dose of the anesthetic.

In Dr. Scheinin’s study, when unconscious subjects on this drug were told to open their eyes, they responded. Then most of them drifted back into apparent unconsciousness, without their brain’s neocortex turning on. Only the brainstem, the thalamus and one part of the cortex were active.

The subjects under propofol were not waked up, but as the drug was withdrawn, the pattern of their awakening fit well with the other data.

Questions remain. What level of consciousness exists without the neocortex? Does this mean the subjects understood what was happening with more primitive brain regions?

 It's may be even more complicated than that, since the above is detailing a particular response to a verbal command.   The issues raised here - and the issue of memory and its determinant of awareness means that in terms of science and technology, we simply do not understand yet the ways in which our own biology is related yet to awareness and really memory.  We're just beginning to get ideas on these fronts, as well as the idea of what it means for the awareness of self as self to exist biologically.   It's partly why I cringe when I see people going woo about the internet of things, technology, etc. and putting some kind of metaphysical spin on them.   They misuse science's purpose, or misunderstand it, or don't care. 

Now don't get me wrong - technology is certainly influencing our biology in terms of our diets, our modes of transportation, and such.  The ubiquity of computing, memory, and  communications devices is no doubt contributing to an atrophy of our own cognitive and expressive skills.  But that's not anywhere near saying that my iPhone is primitively aware of anything.  Hell, I don't know what else can be aware of anything, strictly speaking.

Off on business...but a couple of pending ideas...

I'm off to Korea on business, and don't know when I'll get to post or how much in the next week or two, but I thought I might point out a couple of ideas in embryonic stage right now:

1. I saw on Algernon's blog a post on pink slime and vegetarianism. As a non-vegetarian, as a person who is fascinated by blurring borders and deconstruction of categories (including that of life and death), I have some points with which to respond in this on-going conversation.

2. Regarding blurring boundaries of life and death, awareness and non-awareness, I've a bit more to say about the Internet of Things and universal awareness.  Mainly though, it's that the design of the Internet of Things must be done without regard for the metaphysical.  Sorry folks, but we see through a glass darkly as one guy wrote, but we engineers must design towards the sensible and observable and measurable. 

I'll be back.

Update on Dennis Genpo Merzel

Apparently, Merzel has become a Sangha.  Or at least his Sangha follows him into the bathroom when he does his business. I don't know exactly how this is done, considering what I understand a sangha to be.  What's actually left of Merzel's Kanzeon Sangha doesn't appear to be much, given its internet presence.

Then again my sangha doesn't have much of an internet presence, but that was more or less a conscious effort, and our sangha is very much intact.

Humility is a really important quality to cultivate. I think it has to be cultivated with the cultivation of overcoming fear.  I only know this because I've been lucky enough to meet such fearless humble people.   I doubt I would have gotten an inkling of this on my own otherwise.

Technology, Buddhism and Creativity

 

I came across this article, which talked of "The Internet of Things" and Buddhism, via a Tweet from Buddhist Geeks.

"Internet of things?" I say to myself.  I've done that.

Yeah, I have.

No need to go into details, but yes there are real flesh and blood Buddhists developing real technology now. I generally don't talk about it on this blog because I prefer to make sure there's a pretty high wall between what I do here and what is attributed to those to whom it should be professionally, including myself, colleagues, employer, etc. However, it is possible for me to talk as an individual generally about technological developments and it is a matter of public record that I've been involved in the development of technologies enabling the wireless internet.  So as long as I don't get too specific, I'm OK here from an ethical point of view.  And while I don't do applications for M2M (that is, "machine to machine"  which is how "Internet of Things" is more commonly and compactly referenced), as a real technologist I have a few perspectives on that article.

First, let's take this part:

Perhaps when the abstract idea of a “web of life” becomes physical—when our plants, houses, boats and bodies are interconnected through technology—interconnectedness will feel more real to us. Perhaps we will better understand the impact of our behaviors when visualized aggregated data shows us the consequences on air quality of taking the bike instead of the car to work. But will this knowledge of our connection to all other things make us better people? Or will we just fuel our addiction to stimulation, becoming experience junkies who use increasingly advanced devices to post updates, tweets and check-ins and win badges, rewards and social status? What happens when our plants start tweeting that they’re thirsty and our cars check themselves in at a parking lot by the beach? What was supposed to be enlightening becomes performance art.

The Internet of Things will produce data sets like we’ve never seen before, but that doesn't necessarily mean we will have more meaningful products. So the question becomes, how can we design connected objects with meaning and mechanics to make people engage in better behavior? 

Reality check:  

• M2M devices and applications are going to be made in those nasty places where cell phones already are made. It will be the case because people with economic and political power can cause it to be so for their own benefit.  
• Applications in automotive, agriculture, health and energy are already being developed with specific objectives in mind.  Those objectives happen to be making more stuff and services to serve people to make other people money.  It's up to the end users, who may aggregate for good ends, to produce good ends from these interconnections.
• You won't make people engage in better behavior through devices themselves just as you won't make people better chefs by designing better steel for knives.  People with better knives can become just as well better killers.  Technologies are a set of tools. Don't forget that.

Matt Rolandson says, “The first step is to put meaning on the agenda in the product development process, as emotional and philosophical intention, by encouraging designers with ideas about how to manage intention and awareness. A lot of what is developed today uses the triggers of fear or social stress..."

Reality check:

I could go on about how products are designed today, the "Agile Development" fad/trend, etc. Instead, I'll go a bit meta on this and simply point out that this has been done for years in industry, though many (rightfully) disagree as to what "meaning" means here, and what is "right" and "ethical."  But for anyone who doubts what my point here, I'd suggest they read The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker.  And those of us who are in Buddhism and technology are endeavoring to practice it as we make our project plans, reports, software modules, and systems.  We are endeavoring to benefit all beings when we determine what sorts of technology and development we pursue. 

[Vincent] Horn sees a future when the use of bio- and neuro-feedback gets more advanced and thereby can tell us when our minds start to wander, when our attention goes away. A big part of Buddhist thinking is being reminded to be present, and a number of technologies are being developed toward that end. Vince sees a huge potential to automate certain activities in order to free up energy to explore new vistas of the mind.

Reality Check

I see that and other things.  I just can't tell you about it at all other than to ACK what Vincent wrote above.  Suffice it to say, he ain't seen nothin' yet.

As the Internet of Things is being developed, there is a question of whether the movement toward an interconnected society will be hindered by monetization. 

Finding sustainable models of development will be done, because the market will demand it. 

One other point I'd like to make though, which is not considered at all by those in that article. It has to do with creativity and technological development.

Engineers design stuff and create groundbreaking research for a couple of reasons: First and foremost, it's fun to create, or to lead others to create.  It's enjoyable. It's like mountain climbing or going on an adventure to develop something that no one ever did before; you are pretty much seeing what has never been seen before in the history of humanity. Folks like me (including me)  had to prove theorems that were previously unknown to make the stuff work today that works today.  We're driven to do it, just as an artist is driven to create art.  Even if we don't make oodles of money in Silicon Valley (though we're not uncomfortable.)

It's why I'm skeptical when I see futurist stuff (I'm looking at you Ray Kurzeil).  Many technologists (including the author) have been around the block on these things.  When I see someone using a smartphone, I have to think to realize that my inventions made that scene possible.  The reason is, because me, like hordes of other technologists, are driven by the question best that morphed into the of a Cartoon Network ripoff of Mythbusters; that is, "Dude, what would happen if...?" To say we should design a product that "reinforc[es] a positive identi[t]y for" end users would kill the creativity.  Or as Rilke is reported to put it, if my creative demons are exorcised, then so will be my creative angels.  We make tools; we make amoral tools.  Maybe app designers can find good ways to use them, but you can't design a knife that won't cut you if used wrongly.

 Moreover, that scene of the smartphone user wasn't made by a single technologist or even one single group of technologists.  There was, simply for starters, all beings involved in supply chains, including those workers in those nasty  places I mentioned earlier. Futurists tend to be blissfully unaware that the cost of these things in human life and experience needs to be acknowledged and addressed.  Since they're not involved directly in doing  and don't see the doing, it's going to be significantly more difficult for them to be aware of it.  Here's a hint, though: what was the photo at that adorns the top of this blog portraying?

Finally, in regard to futurism and Kurzweil, I'll quote a section of the Wikipedia article on him; these bits are consonant with my view of the subject:

Kurzweil's ideas have generated much criticism within the scientific community and in the media. There are philosophical arguments over whether a machine can "think" (see Philosophy of artificial intelligence). Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me."^[50]

VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has been one of the strongest critics of Kurzweil’s ideas, describing them as “cybernetic totalism”, and has outlined his views on the culture surrounding Kurzweil’s predictions in an essay for Edge.org entitled One Half of a Manifesto.^[51]

Pulitzer Prize winner Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, has said of Kurzweil's and Hans Moravec's books: "It’s as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you can't possibly figure out what's good or bad. It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid."^[52]

Of course Hofstadter's point could be generalized significantly: Much of what everyone does (including myself)  is a mixture of very good food and dog excrement blended together. That's why folks invented process improvement - or as the Japanese put it,  改善処理　(kaizen shori).　Or, as Patti Smith put it, "The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest preoccupation of man..."

We have to question how we're questioning as to figure out what to improve.

  That about says it all.

南無, Translations, Worship, Buddhism and Being Stuck

Over at The Worst Horse, there's an interesting exchange arising from a fundamentalist Christian pastor with a geriatric congregation who applauds the pastor's acting out of his anger management issues.  As Rod/Worst Horse points out,

“We don’t worship Buddha,” says pastor Dennis Terry, introducing Rick Santorum while preaching to the choir in the newly posted video... Well, that’s not something most Buddhists say they do, either — at least not many Western Buddhists; rather, it’s more often the case that we look at the historical Buddha as an example of a real human being who proved that liberation from suffering was possible.

I noted that

This is a very interesting point, but actually more than a few Western Buddhists do express worship to the Buddha when they chant the Vandana  

To which Rod/Worst Horse replies

Well, that’s true, except for some this is a vocalisation of recognizing a quality inherent in ourselves and in others.

Yah, you got that right.  But Neal in the comments says,

@Mumon It is my understanding that the English translation of the Vandana is “I venerate the Sacred One, the Great Sage, the Truly Enlightened One.”
It is also my understanding that the word “venerate” means to revere or respect. Not quite the same as worship.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.

 I want to explore Neal's comment a bit, especially in regard to how it reflects Western Buddhist thinking, but first I'm afraid we'll have to go on a language excursion.  OK, well, let's go to the dictionary:

wor·ship

 [wur-ship] Show IPA noun, verb, -shiped, -ship·ing or ( especially British ) -shipped, -ship·ping.

noun

1. reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

2. formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage: They attended worship this morning.

3. adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of business success.

4. the object of adoring reverence or regard.

5. ( initial capital letter ) British . a title of honor used in addressing or mentioning certain magistrates and others of high rank or station (usually preceded by Your, His,  or Her ). 

 Since in many translations that I've seen of Buddhist liturgies the word "homage" is used, this might be enough, in my opinion, but just to be sure,  the definition of "veneration" does indeed list reverence as a synonym for veneration.

As I said, Rod/Worst Horse is right about this being a vocal expression of a quality that inheres to us. The operative word that is worship/homage/veneration here is 南無, expressed in Japanese chanting as "namu" (なむ）and Mandarin and Pali as "namo." That 南無 in Chinese and Japanese is obviously a transliteration of the Pali is evident from the meaning of the characters composing 南無; 南 means "South" and "無" is the mu meaning "not" or the prefix "un" as in "wireless" being 無線 ,  (musen) in Japanese.    Jeffrey's Japanese-English dictionary's definition of 南無 lists several uses the term, none of which use the term "worship," but all of which seem to be dancing around the word somehow.  I do think the case can be made that indeed, "worship," "homage to," and "venerate" can be used interchangeably for 南無 here, because of the uses of the term where we find it, and noted translations of it.

 For example, Jeffrey's Japanese-English Dictionary includes the Nichiren chant 南無妙法蓮華経 (namu myouhourengegyou) - oh, I should note the "ou" usage connotes an extended "oh" sound, in case you're interested.  南無妙法蓮華経 is translated as "Homage to the Lotus Sutra."

For us Zen folks,  many of us chant 延命十句觀音經 ("Emmei Jukku Kannon Gyou").  Hakuin scholar Philip Yampolsky translates that sutra as:

Kanzeon! Salutation and devotion to the Buddha!
We are one with the Buddha
In cause and effect related to all Buddhas
and to Buddha Dharma and Sangha.
Our true nature is
Eternal, Joyous, Selfless and Pure.
So let us chant every morning
Kanzeon with Nen (attention)
Every evening Kanzeon with Nen!
Nen Nen arises from Mind
Nen Nen is not separate from Mind.

(Note to Prof. Yampolsky: Please forgive my bad editing; I'm wrestling with Blogger.) The phrase "Salutation and devotion to the Buddha" is what is rendered from 南無佛, ("namu butsu") and yeah, 佛 means "the Buddha."

The most common expression of the use of 南無 would be the Pure Land use of it; which is rendered in Japanese as "阿弥陀仏," (namu amida butsu) or, evidently, 阿弥陀佛.  It's also the most common form of Buddhist homage in Chinese (where, to the best of my knowledge, it would be rendered in Mandarin as "namu amito fo.")  In Chan Buddhist temples in China you'll be greeted with 阿弥陀佛.

Ok, I think I've beaten that ...oh, I better not use that metaphor- as I said Rod/Worst Horse is right.


 I didn't want to write this because I wanted to bore anyone with my meager knowledge of comparative linguistics or whatever you call the stuff I wrote above. The real reason I wanted to write about this is because I think it  -and that rage filled pastor that Rod/Worst Horse referenced, underscores a kind of fault-line in Western convert Buddhism.  I first encountered it when my teacher, leading a ceremony honoring the Buddha's birth, invited us to engage in a ceremony by saying, "Let us worship the Buddha." I, myself, felt it right there: Hey, wait a second!  Nobody said anything about worshiping anything!  Later I read stuff such as the above and I became convinced: what we regard as "worship" is a "good" thing when we mean reverent honor, respect, and veneration, but we think it's a "bad" thing when we mean "bowing down before the other evil guy's false deity," or something like that.   We associate "worship" with what that hateful pastor does, whereas we venerate, reverently honor, etc. But they both mean the same thing!

Now I find that pastor's brand of fundamentalism repulsive; that is, I am viscerally repulsed by a crowd of angry people being stirred up by a person displaying anger conveniently speaking for a god who is only present as anger.  And he may not - he certainly is not worshiping, reverently honoring, or venerating that aspect of us which transcends suffering, greed, hatred and ignorance.  But I don't think I'm adequately doing my own transcendence if I let him - or rather my perception of him - if I let my perception of him  get to own the word "worship" as a bad thing in and of itself.  If we are venerating the separation of ourselves from others, if we are venerating our own greed, hatred and ignorance, if I am acting out of my own visceral repulsion, I find it very difficult to see past where that pastor is; I limit my own freedom to act out of generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

And that's why I wanted to mention this.

Confrontation, Force, Sensitivity, Zen, Right Livelihood, and Being Like Water

You need to relax if you're going to confront or by confronted by someone physically, especially if they're a foot taller than you and have 100lbs on you.   That's the 2 cent take-away from 詠春 (Wing Chun).  It's the only way you can be aware enough - or sensitive enough - to figure out what to do, and what to ignore.

It turns out this principle is ridiculously useful in life; that is the parallels with this principle in everyday life actually make life much easier to do successfully and with integrity.  As are a some other principles from 詠春:

It's important to keep one's basic "structure" intact.  In Zen we can call that a constancy of practice.  In 詠春, if we act, we're acting from our "core." Likewise, in 詠春, although the force used arises from the 丹田

(that point below the navel you know about as the tanden), you're centered through your feet.

A strong force is never directly opposed; it is diverted, or one moves around it.  This is one of the most useful things I've seen/absorbed.  Someone responding to me in anger or rage does not have to be met with anger or rage, if only because it's freaking useless and a waste of energy to do so.  It is "being like water," as that famous student of 葉問 (Yip Man) pointed out.  Bruce Lee might have seemed silly saying these things in movies, but the guy did study philosophy when at the university.  And the funny thing is, these apparent dime-store dollar-store aphorisms can be used in real life.

Likewise, when the opportunity arises, go directly to the center; and defend your center. In everyday life, we might have to wait days or weeks or months for the opportunity, but we should take it when it arises.

I cannot tell you how useful it is to generalize these notions in everyday life.  I do think that the approach of the folks at the Mountains and Rivers Order (don't tell me about their historical issues) has merit here:  Zen should be applied in all aspects of one's life, and one's Zen practice should be informed by other aspects of one's life.  Doing something that you can apply positively to all aspects of your life is helping all beings.  And in practicing these principles, one definitely experiences what used to be called a "paradigm shift" in one's view of one's self.  Not 悟りor 見性 (satori or kenshou) but it can feel now and then like the Day the Universe Changed. Yet we still don't know what we don't know, so that feeling isn't always entirely useful.

It's also increasingly why I'm not so enamored of "causes" or "engagement," as I've written previously.   So very much of that stuff being written or discussed is just so unaware of actually how to do anything useful.  It's not surprising - it's not something widely disseminated in our culture.

While  this post was bubbling around in my head,  I came across this article in the NY Times on the apparent increasing popularity of Mixed Martial Arts.  The NY Times, in its corporate persona as arbiter of all things of the trend, seems to have pronounced that MMA is to young men as yoga is for women and other older people, and places the blame/origin for this on the movie "Fight Club."  While "Fight Club" was a pretty good movie (and therefore roundly denounced by right-wing fundamentalist Christians in the US), I'm not sure of this data as presented by the NY Times.  I'm sure MMA is popular today, and I'm sure a big aspect of this is its violence.  But from the folks I know in 詠春, I know this: It is useful to know about other styles and aspects of martial arts.  In reading that Times article, I thought, this certainly has aspects of pointless spectator sport violence, but it is arguably better than WWF. Besides, anyone who's read anything about this stuff or seen it does get to think silly thoughts after a while, such as just  what would happen if a kick-boxer fought a sumo wrestler? 

MMA? I never watch it. I think the NY Times is just "style pronouncing" again.  I think at least some of the people who watch MMA are looking at something they cannot do themselves, and as such, it's a distraction (and a violent one at that).  It's better to learn to do something yourself.  It might help other areas of your life.  So if one were learning MMA, one might become more peaceable. I mean, it's the case with 詠春 - as someone told me, the more one knows of it the more one is reluctant to actually get in a real physical fight, because if one skilled in the art does enter into such a fight, at least one of the fighters will be effective, and that means someone will get hurt. Luckily, it doesn't have to get that way most of the time.

Right livelihood and knowing one's bedfellows

While I was in the middle of what I do during the day, obviously some Buddhist blogs started talking about blogging and ads and making money and such (Nathan, James Ford, No Zen in the West, etc.).  And I've got a thing or two to say in response, which I'll list in no particular order other than how  they popped into my noggin:

• Today I'm making a decent living.  I don't know how long that will last  - I guess nobody knows until they're within a factor of 10 of Mitt Romney's income.  But if you're not managing your career like you would any other asset, I'd say you're not engaging in right livelihood.
• Increasingly I find discussion about how capitalism is bad Buddhism ...ummm...tiresome. Capitalism is problematic for a host of reasons, but if you're focusing on that all the time, chances are you're not engaging in right livelihood.  You're not even scratching your foot through your shoe.
• I've had ads on my blog for years.  I have tried to follow Google's policies in this regard; I don't find them overly burdensome.  
• I don't  pretend that I'm the most morally or ethically pure exponent of Buddhism in meat-space, and I certainly would feel stupid maintaining a holier-than-thou persona here.  
• The nice thing about Google's ad policies is that I have a choice of whether or not I want to block a particular advertiser. I'll admit that it's mostly laziness that keeps me from blocking out some that might have to do with a Maharishi guy or something.  I do sedulously block ads where I feel there is a chance of a conflict of interest potentially with my current employer.  And Scientology - I block them (to the best of my understanding here).
• Nobody at Patheos ever asked me to join them. I'm shocked.  Actually, I talked about Patheos over here. It's not out of any supreme moral purity that I'd decline joining them even if asked to do so.  It's that I think it's inherently absurd to create an even playing field, a mass of "he said, she said" views when it comes to the issues involving what people call "spirituality." I'd rather not go there.  I'd rather go where I can do good in meat-space and think about how to write about that here. Mais chacun a son goût. 
• I think the Freethought blogs bit is good.  They take advertising. They do not subvert "capitalist norms." They don't have anything to prove about their own moral purity and the marketplace.
• One's bedfellows may be one's own greed for purity instead of "the system."
• Capitalism is a strong force, but unless you know how to work in the midst of strong force, you will likely continue to feel impotent.  That's still the post I really wanted to write this morning instead of this one.  Ah, so it goes.
• Update:  "Too often, we Zennies speak of liberation, but fail to risk the whole nine yards of ourselves. To place the cultures and social norms we have built ourselves out of on the fire, and let it all be burned straight through if necessarily through deep inquiry."  Bah.  Nathan, do you realize the bizarreness of this passage? Have you inquired on it? Introspected on it? Placed it in historical context? In a Buddhist context?  To put it front and center: Why do you think "Zennies" "fail" to "risk" "ourselves" qua cultural and social norms? Maybe it's because...in order to help all beings, in order to be liberated, you don't have to be the kind of guy that could see eye to eye with the desert monks who called lice "pearls of god."  Maybe, in fact, if you get into such a state, it might actually prevent you from helping all beings!

Creationism, god, and Soyen Shaku

Barbara has more patience than I do, at least when it comes to reading the Huffington Post. They have become so woo-filled-for-the-purpose-of-executing-an-AOL-business-plan that I rarely read them anymore, even when they publish an insufferable creationist. But Barbara offers a pretty good reply here, so I don't have to, really. And I suspect you could go to my former posts about "intelligent" "design" to rebut the pseudo-scientific garbage Lurie is putting out regarding evolution. But I thought I'd get to the bit where the creationist, one Alan Lurie,invokes Soyen Shaku.  Barbara writes:

Rabbi Lurie supports his claim about Buddhism with a quotation from a Rinzai Zen teacher named Soyen Shaku -- "Let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists."

So what about this? Soyen Shaku (1860-1919) became the first Zen teacher to set foot on North America when he traveled here to speak at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893. He returned in 1905 to give some lectures. It appears he did not speak English and relied on translators, one of whom was D.T. Suzuki.

So it's possible something was lost in translation. It's also possible that Soyen Shaku believed he had to say something affirmative about God so that his audience didn't turn against him. Also, Soyen Shaku didn't say anything about a "guiding consciousness."

Now it turns out that one need not speculate too much about all of this, and Barbara's right that Soyen Shaku said nothing about a "guiding consciousness."  But in fact you can read then entire text of Soyen Shaku's Zen for Americans, in which the quote appears here, and it is pretty apparent from its style that D.T. Suzuki did in fact do the translation (or at least someone who was well versed with Suzuki's writing style did).  So I think the credit to Suzuki for translation is accurate, especially because it reveals the erudition of the scholar Suzuki was.  The chapter on "god" in Suzuki's book is here.  And this work went off-copyright decades ago, thankfully.  Suzuki translates Soyen Shaku as:

...Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent; this world, being merely its manifestation, is necessarily fragmental and imperfect. To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence.

One of the most fundamental beliefs of Buddhism is that all the multitudinous and multifarious phenomena in the universe start from, and have their being in, one reality which itself has "no fixed abode," being above spatial and temporal limitations. However different and separate and irreducible things may appear to the senses, the most profound law of the human mind declares that they are all one in their hidden nature. In this world of relativity, or nânâtva as Buddhists call it, subject and object, thought and nature, are separate and distinct, and as far as our sense-experience goes, there is an impassable chasm between the two which no amount of philosophizing can bridge. But the very constitution of the mind demands a unifying principle which is an indispensable hypothesis for our conception of phenomenality; and this hypothesis is called "the gate of sameness," samatâ, in contradistinction to "the gate of difference," nânâtva; and Buddhism declares that no philosophy or religion is satisfactory which does not recognize these two gates. In some measure the "gate of sameness" may be considered to correspond to "God" and the "gate of difference" to the world of individual existence.

Now, the question is, "How does Buddhism conceive the relation between these two entrances to the abode of Supreme Knowledge (sambodhi)?" And the answer to this decides the Buddhist attitude towards pantheism, theism, atheism, and what not.

To state it more comprehensively, Buddhism recognizes the coexistence and identity of the two principles, sameness and difference...

Thus, according to the proclamation of an enlightened mind, God or the principle of sameness is not transcendent, but immanent in the universe, and we sentient beings are manifesting the divine glory just as much as the lilies of the field. A God who, keeping aloof from his creations, sends down his words of command through specially favored personages, is rejected by Buddhists as against the constitution of human reason. God must be in us, who are made in his likeness. We cannot presume the duality of God and the world. Religion is not to go to God by forsaking the world, but to find him in it. Our faith is to believe in our essential oneness with him, and not in our sensual separateness. "God in us and we in him," must be made the most fundamental faith of all religion.

Suzuki/Soyen gets a bit too anthropomorphic in the succeeding text, and I am pretty certain that this is done to introduce Buddhism to an audience that "knows about" a western god.  Suzuki/Soyen's emphasis improves a bit here:

As I mentioned before, Buddhists do not make use of the term God, which characteristically belongs to Christian terminology. An equivalent most commonly used is Dharmakâya, which word has been explained in one of the sermons herein collected, and it will not be necessary to enter again upon the discussion of its signification. Let us only see what other equivalents have been adopted.

When the Dharmakâya is most concretely conceived it becomes the Buddha, or Tathâgata, or Vairochana, or Amitâbha. Buddha means "the enlightened," and this may be understood to correspond to "God is wisdom." Vairochana is "coming from the sun," and Amitâbha, "infinite light," which reminds us of the Christian notion, "God is light." As to the correct meaning of Tathâgata, Buddhists do not give any definite and satisfactory explanation, and it is usually considered to be the combination of tathâ = "thus" and gata = "gone," but it is difficult to find out how "Thus Gone" came to be an appellation of the supreme being. There are, some scholars, however, who understand gata in the sense of "being in" or "situated in." If this be correct, Tathâgata meaning "being thus," or "being such," can be interpreted in the same sense as Tathâtâ or Bhûtatathâtâ or Tattva, as explained below. But in this case Tathâgata will lose its personification and become a metaphysical term like the others, though it has been so persistently used by Buddhists in connection with the historical Buddha that it always awakens in their minds something more concrete and personal than a mere ontological abstraction.

 It should be understood that this concrete realization of the Dharmakâya only happens when difference and sameness are...um...co-aware, or co-realized to invent a term - but they are already, sort of.  But as Suzuki notes here, this ontological abstracting is distracting.  But read the whole of Suzuki/Soyen, it's well worth the time.  However, it should be clear that this "god" of Suzuki/Soyen is not a monotheistic creater deity: the identity of sameness/difference, is dependently originated.  The most problematic text in Soyen/Suzuki then is:

We must not, however, suppose that God is no more than the sum-total of individual existences. God exists even when all creations have been destroyed and reduced to a state of chaotic barrenness. God exists eternally, and he will create another universe out of the ruins of this one. To our limited intelligence there may be a beginning and an end of the worlds, but as God surveys them, being and becoming are one selfsame process. To him nothing changes, or, to state it rather paradoxically, he sees no change whatever in all the changes we have around us; all things are absolutely quiet in their eternal cycle of birth and death, growth and decay, combination and disintegration. This universe cannot exist outside of God, but God is more than the totality of individual existences; God is here as well as there, God is not only this but also that. As far as he is manifested in nature and mind, they glorify him, and we can have a glimpse of his image and feel, however imperfectly, his inner life. But it will be a grievous error, let us repeat, to think that he has exhausted his being in the manifestation of this universe, that he is absolutely identical with his creations, and that with the annihilation of the world he vanishes into eternal emptiness.

The best way I can reconcile this text with what I know about Buddhism, though is that Dharmakâya, being co-existent with the difference world, as it were, (or Absolute and Relative), have the relation that Relative disappearing with Absolute remaining is kind of like considering the number A, and dividing A by 0. That is, the concept of whatever the Absolute is without the Relative is pretty much outside the discourse of things in Buddhism, just as A/0 is not within the discourse of finite mathematics.  We can use identifiers to connote a sequence of numbers leading to "A/0" but the term "A/0" itself is not usefully defined in finite mathematics.

To put it another way, this is why I'm a largely atheist Buddhist: the notion of "god" in the sense that Suzuki/Soyen writes here just isn't useful for everyday operations - and within Buddhism the point is the realization and effective execution of the identity of Absolute and Relative for all beings right here.

And so Barbara's right: Suzuki/Soyen's notion of "god" isn't what theists call god.  I think in our day and age the term "god" is not very useful to apply to Buddhism, for at least the reason that using "god" here means that Buddhism can be extracted by theists for their own purposes (and I think Brad Warner's book is going to be similarly problematic, but I hope to enter things there.)

I think it is unfortunate that Suzuki/Soyen did not see that there would be people who would misuse his text here, but that happens.  One other quote from Zen for Americans I might throw in here, where Soyen/Suzuki is replying to a Christian critic, comparing the Christian Jesus Christ to the Buddha:

Nor has Jesus Christ attained to the calmness and dignity of Buddha, for the passion of anger overtook him in the temple, when he drove out with rope in hand those that bargained in the holy place.

How different would Buddha have behaved under similar conditions in the same place! Instead of whipping the evil-doers he would have converted them, for kind words strike deeper than the whip.

The same could be said for other monotheistic characters as well.

I have more useful things with which to blog, namely how the practice of Wing Chun really is developing, at least in myself, improved abilities for dealing with people that I didn't even know I needed. And how does that square with the NY Times discovering that mixed martial arts is the "Yoga for Young Men?" I hope to get to that stuff over the weekend.