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Buddhism Is Not What You Think
Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs
Chapter One
Paradox and Confusion
If you visit a Buddhist temple in Japan, you'll likely encounter two gigantic, fierce, demonlike figures standing at either side of the entrance. These are called the guardians of Truth, and their names are Paradox and Confusion.
When I first encountered these figures, it had never occurred to me that Truth had guards -- or, indeed, that it needed guarding. But if the notion had arisen in my mind, I suspect I would have pictured very pleasing, angelic figures.
Why were these creatures so terrifying and menacing? And why were the guardians of Truth represented rather than Truth itself?
Gradually, I began to see the implication. There can be no image of Truth. Truth can't be captured in an image or a phrase or a word. It can't be laid out in a theory, a diagram, or a book. Whatever notions we might have about Truth are incapable of bringing us to it. Thus, in trying to take hold of Truth, we naturally encounter paradox and confusion.
It works like this: though we experience Reality directly, we ignore it. Instead, we try to explain it or take hold of it through ideas, models, beliefs, and stories. But precisely because these things aren't Reality, our explanations naturally never match actual experience. In the disjoint between Reality and our explanations of it, paradox and confusion naturally arise.
Furthermore, any accurate statement we would make about Truth must contain within itself its own demise. Thus such a statement inevitably will appear paradoxical and contradictory. In other words, statements about Truth and Reality are not like ordinary statements.
Usually we make a statement to single something out, to pin something down and make it unambiguous. Not so if our business is Truth. In this case we must be willing to encounter, rather than try to evade, paradox and confusion.
Our problem with paradox and confusion is that we insist on putting our direct experience into a conceptual box. We try to encapsulate our experience in frozen, changeless form: "this means that."
Ordinary statements don't permit paradox. Rather, they try to pin down their subjects and make them appear as real and solid as possible. Ordinary statements are presented in the spirit of "This is the Truth; believe it." Then we 're handed something, often in the form of a book or a pamphlet.
But all statements that present themselves in this way -- whether they're about politics, morality, economics, psychology, religion, science, philosophy, mathematics, or auto mechanics -- are just ordinary stuff. They're not Truth; they're merely the attempt to preserve what necessarily passes away.
When we claim to describe what's Really going on by our words, no matter how beautiful, such words are already in error. Truth simply can't be represented.
We want Truth badly. We want to hold it tightly in our hand. We want to give it to others in a word or a phrase. We want something we can jot down. Something we can impress upon others -- and impress others with.
We act as though Truth were something we could stuff in our pockets, something we could take out every once in a while to show people, saying, "Here, this is it!" We forget that they will show us their slips of paper, with other ostensible Truths written upon them.
But Truth is not like this. Indeed, how could it be?
We need only see that it's beyond the spin of paradox that Truth and Reality are glimpsed. If we would simply not try to pin Reality down, confusion would no longer turn us away.
What we can do is carefully attend to what's actually going on around us -- and notice that our formulated beliefs, concepts, and stories never fully explain what's going on.
Our eyes must remain open long enough that we may be suddenly overwhelmed by a new experience -- a new awareness -- that shatters our habitual thought and our old familiar stories.
We can free ourselves from paradox and confusion only when we set ourselves in an open and inquiring frame of mind while ever on guard that we do not insist upon some particular belief, no matter how seemingly well justified.
If it 's Truth we're after, we 'll find that we cannot start with any assumptions or concepts whatsoever. Instead, we must approach the world with bare, naked attention, seeing it without any mental bias -- without concepts, beliefs, preconceptions, presumptions, or expectations.
Doing this is the subject of this book.
Buddhism Is Not What You Think
Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs. Copyright © by Steve Hagen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.