“While living one sits up and lies not,
When dead, one lies and sits not;
A set of ill-smelling skeleton!
What is the use of toiling and moiling so?.” – Hui-neng1
Before we move on from Zen, I thought we might look further into its conception of contentment from the perspective of the famous 20th century Japanese philosopher, Daisetz T. Suzuki. We met him earlier in the sections on Teleology2 and Suffering,3 but today I would like to extract from one of his essays a fairly contemporary viewpoint addressed to the Westerner on the Zen concept of contentment. His essay Satori, or Enlightenment begins:
“The essence of Zen Buddhism consists in acquiring a new viewpoint on life and things generally…we must forgo all our ordinary habits of thinking which control our everyday life, we must try to see if there is any other way of judging things, or rather if our ordinary way is always sufficient to give us the ultimate satisfaction of our spiritual needs. If we feel dissatisfied somehow with this life, if there is something in our ordinary way of living that deprives us of freedom in its most sanctified sense, we must endeavor to find a way somewhere which gives us a sense of finality and contentment.”4
I have read no more apropos a description of the goal of this section of my website than Suzuki’s. Let’s follow his thoughts on how Zen can help us through the contentment labyrinth. He starts with a warning: this is “the greatest mental cataclysm one can go through with in life…no easy task…a kind of fiery baptism.” 5 Its central tenet is satori, that is, the intuitive (not logical or analytical) looking into the nature of things which unveis a new non-dualist or unified world and remakes life in a way that stays with one thereafter.
According to Suzuki, satori is not quietism like Tao, nor a trance-like wasting of life as in other Eastern traditions, but a seeing into one’s life and one’s own Nature. He tells us the sixth patriarch Hui-neng denied sartori arises out of stopping all mental activities and sitting cross-legged for a sustained period of time, and, in fact, scorned such practices.6 On the contrary Zen masters encourage the seizing of the most trivial incidents in life to make the mind flow and to open up new vistas. During such moments, one’s attention must be directed inwardly to the working of the mind. No one, not even a Zen master, can bring one to the final state; all they can do is indicate the way and leave it to each individual to find his or her way. At the end of the day, this state of contentment comes down to finding oneself (as if one lost oneself through neglect) or the “returning to one’s own home.”7
(continued next post)
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1Barrett, William (editor), Zen Buddhism; Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki. Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1956. Page 89.
2,3 See post on this site titled Teleology – Alternative Approach to Reality and Suffering – The First Noble Truth IV dated 1/15/2020 and 2/3/2020 respectively.
4Ibid., page 83.
5Ibid.
6Ibid., page 89 – see epigram for this post.
7Ibid., page 97.
We ended last time on the first key component of Zen as a path to contentment – staying in the present moment. The second component is meditation on eternal truths (as opposed to koans). The key ‘truth’ of Zen is that thought interferes with the experience of reality by attempting to dissect it for analysis as traditionally is done in the West. What is needed is a special form of concentration which stills the mind. The practitioner learns to cultivate a deep or profound silence in the deepest recesses of his or her being. Thought is considered the great disrupter of contentment and an obstacle to the experience of reality. Thinking is about dividing reality which the Zen master tells us is a lower discriminatory consciousness.5 For example the classic philosophical designation of nuomenal reality (the thing-in-itself) is an abstraction postulated to solve a problem arising out of ignorance of reality. Zen seeks to understand the “suchness” not the “thatness” of things by immediate seeing into things just as they are. The higher way depends not on reason, but seeking by the complete person for the ultimate reality.6
Like the other Asian traditions Zen offers a means to contentment and tranquility that transcends the human world and one’s own inadequacies and failures. It originates in a worldview that the experience of Nature and reality as a whole combined with staying in the here and now are the basis of peace and enlightenment. In Zen Buddhism, the effort to achieve self-improvement and satisfactory purpose in the world is replaced with focused work and meditation on paradox and truth under the apprenticeship of a master.
“The only way to strengthen one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing…Be passive and receptive…The poetic nature has no self. It is everything and nothing…A poet has no identity…he is continually in and filling some other body.” – John Keats1
Zen, it turns out, is not a philosophy or a religion, but a way of life, with two key components. First one must learn to live in the present moment rather than focus on future plans, expectations, or worries. One important element for this is work, especially some form of manual labor which forces one into the present moment. Zen so it seems is less about intellectual speculation and more about doing. However physical work must be paired with “training in the experience of seeing directly into the complete self in the fullness of the experienced moment without the mediation of intellect”3 including complete control and regulation of the body and breathing to bring thought, emotions and volition under control. The successful practitioner becomes focused on making “the most of the present moment finding therein the wholeness of self and completeness of life.”4
The last Daoist text I wish to introduce is Liezi (formerly spelt Lieh Tzu) attributed to a likely fictional sage, but considered “the third major classic of philosophical Daoism.”6 Like, but also distinct from the other Daoists, his fundamental philosophy asserts (1) that life and death are a natural cycle, and thus it is unwise to cling to life, (2) opposites are interconnected and complementary, (3) the Dao requires an attitude of selflessness and purposelessness, (4) life is an illusion, (5) knowledge is of limited use as it distorts one’s natural spontaneity, and (6) one’s destiny is ensconced in following the path of spontaneity (like a swimmer riding a current).7 
“There is no greater curse than the lack of contentment. No greater sin than the desire for possession. Therefore he who is contented with contentment shall always be content.” – Laozi
The second great Daoist is Zhuangzi (formerly spelt Chuangtse or Chuang Tzu) who is a more prolific writer, and seemingly less mystic and more intellectual than Laozi. Both speak of “the virtue of quiescence, of keeping and preserving one’s spiritual power through tranquility and rest.”2 and both use water as the symbol of tranquility of the mind and spiritual calm. Zhuangzi tells us “When the body is kept hustling about without stop, it becomes fatigued. When the mind is overworked without stop, it becomes worried, and worry causes exhaustion. The nature of water is that it becomes clear when left alone, and becomes still when left undisturbed…it is the symbol of heavenly virtue.”3
However Buddhism also emphasizes meditation. Regarding this ‘immeasurable contemplation,’ I quote from the Nikayas: “This contemplation is ease for the present as well as resulting in ease in the future…this contemplation is noble, disinterested…this contemplation is peaceful, excellent, it is for gaining tranquility, for reaching one-pointed concentration, it is not of the habit of painful self-denial…this contemplation is one which I, mindful, enter upon; mindful, emerge from…” 9 
Paradoxically, Western man’s strong response to Buddhism may very well be the result of his being forced by circumstances to accept one of its major premises, that humans experience is not individualistic. Those things which have made of life, for some, a veritable hell, have at the same time thrown its richest possibilities into relief, the chief being the sense of man’s oneness with others.”12
Last time we examined contentment as conceived in the Hindu tradition. Today we look at the legacy of the Buddha who followed, but eventually rejected Hinduism’s extreme asceticism in favor of a middle way. His lesson is that renunciation is indeed essential, but mortification is counterproductive. The body must be cared for as it is an important factor in spiritual development.1 In an earlier section we discussed in detail Buddha’s four Noble truths: (1) Life is suffering, (2) Suffering is due to desire, (3) To eliminate suffering, eliminate desire, and (4) To achieve Nirvana, follow the eightfold path.2 We will not in this section repeat a detailed analysis of this last point, rather I hope to extract facets integral to contentment and defer on enlightenment to the next section.
There is more. Buddha tells us we are fettered to Mara or the physical world and our continued attachment to passions and yearnings for pleasure and the material only strengthens those fetters.6 By quieting doubts and constant reflection, rather than dwelling on pleasures and the physical, we can cut those fetters and become free. Contentment comes from the avoidance of riches, passion, hatred, vanity and lust.7 Then he comes upon the perhaps the greatest hope for freedom “Give up what is before, give up what is behind, give up what is between, when thou goest to the other shore of existence; if they mind is all together free thou wilt not again enter into birth and decay.”8
Shankara, the eighth century Hindu thinker, offers a slightly different conception. His is non-dual with only Reality or Brahman as true and the world as false. Moksha comes from recognizing that one’s true nature is not different from Brahman. This is achieved by following Jnana Yoga, the Path of Knowledge, in three steps: (1) learning from a teacher or guru, (2) understanding those teachings, and (3) practicing meditation especially on the great saying of the Upanishads, “thou art Brahman.” The result is a liberated person able to help others towards the same state of peace.
One other key thinker appears much later, K.C. Bhattacharya (1875-1949) who suggests we need not look to scriptures or theology – “Rather, metaphysics should start with a phenomenological critique of ordinary experience” that brings “about a realization of the self as pure freedom.”3 Whichever course one follows, the contemplative techniques in Yoga “induce a stilling and purification of the mind in which the essential nature of the soul is reflected clearly. Thereby the soul becomes forever detached from any psychophysical organism.”4 Obviously the Hindu faithful impose a soteriologic meaning to moksha, but at the level of us as living beings, it also describes contentment in the here and now.
“Rejoicing in the things of the spirit, calm, caring for nothing, abstaining from sensual pleasure, himself his only helper, he lives on in the world in hope of eternal bliss.” – Laws of Manu.
In this tradition, contentment and release appear to originate through withdrawal from the world following one of two patterns. First one may choose at an early stage in life, as in the case of Shankara (and Buddha!), to forsake society and become a wandering sannyasin, or holy man, living by begging, and spending one’s waking hours in ascetic contemplation. This is still the life choice of the Hindu monks. However, the more common pattern is to live a typical youth and middle age with family and occupation, and abandon society late in life with the explicit aim to find peace and enlightenment (as a hermit or vanaprastha).1 The actual steps to contentment are similar in both cases; but one’s priorities and timing drive the course one chooses.
“To be content with little is hard, to be content with much, impossible.” Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, The Two Countesses
