Meditation from Patañjali to AmaZen

 

    The above post has made the rounds for a while now on the imageboards I frequent. This particular capture of it has an image of the hieromonk Seraphim Rose over it, for reasons I am unsure of (I am not terribly familiar with his writings). It seems that the AmaZen Booth was quashed by popular ridicule back in the spring of this year, but I have a few thoughts to give on this. I will focus on the idea of Buddhist meditation as an instrument of control, as I am not very familiar with Stoicism as of yet, though I would love to read a Classical Stoic's assessment of Modern Stoicism as sold in bookstores to businessmen, college students, etc.

    First, a bit of metaphysics. In Krishnaite theology (as detailed in the Bhagavad Gīta for example), there are three fundamental forces in the universe: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas is inertia and sluggishness, associated with the lowest humans, called paśu or "animals" (analogous to the gnostic idea of hylic people, who are "pure matter" lacking a soul). Rajas is vigorous energy, associated with an intermediate class of humans called vira or "men" (the gnostics call these people psychic in the sense that they at least have a psyche, meaning a spirit or mind). Sattva is luminous stability and balance, associated with the highest class of humans called divya or "divine" (the gnostics call these people pneumatic, indicating that they are directly ensouled). These forces, each one called a guna, manifest not just in people, but in food, music, art, professions, etc.

    I contend that meditation may be imbued with (and thus cultivate) any of the three gunas, depending on the object one meditates upon.

    In the traditional systems such as Theravāda Buddhism, Yoga (as outlined by Patañjali), Taoism, and so on, objects of meditation are properly sattvic. The Pāli canon of Theravāda, for example, lists forty kasina for the ascetic to contemplate: a color, an element, light, consciousness, etc. Incidentally, breath was also a popular object of meditation (pranayama) as it is today, however it was conceived of more as "the vital aspect", a stark contrast to the modern view that breathing is just a convenient source of white noise (traditional pranayama is absolutely silent, by the way). The activity of meditation, appropriately, is quite sattvic as well, with all such traditions prescribing their ascetics to quietly sit upright in a stable posture, sometimes with the hands sealed in a mudrā (gesture).

    Later on, we find much more active forms of meditation, particularly in the Tantra sects of Buddhism and Hinduism, but also in later Taoism and in the Japanese sects of Buddhism. These correspond more properly to rajas, with the belief that it could be transformed to destroy earthly attachments and produce enlightenment (the slogan of Tantra: "turn poison into medicine"). This is where we find Hatha Yoga and Tai-Chi, systems of physical postures that we recognize today in Western gymnasiums and bookstores, but as with breath meditation the motivations are quite different. Furthermore, we find Japanese Zen teaches its contemplative attitude (the name derives from zazen, 座禅, the Sino-Japanese translation of Pāli jhāna, an advanced series of Theravāda meditations) to such classes of people as samurai warriors, sumō wrestlers, and other martial artists, who are nonetheless allowed and encouraged to continue their quite violent careers. In Japanese Shingon, as well as in Tibetan Buddhism and Śaivist Hinduism, we find virile rituals and contemplations of wrathful gods such as Acala and Bhairava.

(Please let us know if your next AmaZen experience has you burn an offering to one of these guys!)

     There are even quite taboo practices that involve meat, alcohol, and sexual intercourse, most commonly found in vāmacāra (Left-Hand Path) of Hinduism and Buddhism, but it appears Taoism prescribes a similar sexual practice involving coitus interruptus. As an aside, in the Classical civilizations, the mystery cults of gods like Dionysus and Aphrodite used intoxication and orgies for initiatic purposes as well.

    Now we come down to the lowest guna, the slow and dull tamas. The foregoing methods of meditation simply will not do in this case. If you are, say, a manager or HR person at a company like Amazon, you do not want the other two gunas in your workers. Someone who cultivates the divine equanimity of sattva will be difficult for you to push around, and a fiery, rajasic worker may push back at you. Your ideal employee is a docile, thoughtless drone: tamas incarnate.

    A brief aside: apparently the reason Amazon produced these Zen Booths was to help workers who were sad, stressed, etc. Even in some bizarre reality where a manager wanted to use the foregoing practices, the conditions are not right. The candidate for ascesis of either type described so far must be a healthy man. An aspiring arahant or zhenren cannot be troubled by excess stress nor depression, nor indeed by the unsafe, unhealthy conditions at Amazon workplaces. Furthermore, an ascetic must possess what the Buddhists call viriya-bala, virile energy, so women—including the woman who designed the AmaZen program—are absolutely inadmissible, except perhaps as consorts in the sexual practices mentioned, though even there they are no more than assistants. If the ultra-condensed history of meditation has not made it clear, then this motivation should show how absolutely absurd it is to import "Zen" into a corporate workplace.

    Anyway, in choosing objects of meditation for their "Zen" boxes, you'll certainly leave out gods (compassionate and wrathful alike). The workers' own vital currents or divine consciousness won't do either, so don't include prompts about one's inner light. Samurai weapons, martial arts, orgies, and alcohol will be hard to pitch to your boss, not to mention they'd more likely rile your workers up than shut them down. What would be objects proper to tamasic contemplation? Let us inspect the contents of an AmaZen box:

• A computer with preloaded videos about "mindfulness". A laughable inclusion, because a worker who enters has, presumably, lost his nerve. It would be like getting out a tire-pump for a car whose entire wheel has broken off and rolled away.
• Pamphlets with similar tips about mental wellness and so on. We should note here that so far reading and watching are the activities available in this box, which are entirely passive in nature, to say nothing of their actual contents.
• Miniature plants. Vegetable symbolism is common in esoteric traditions, particularly in images such as trees and lotuses. It does not seem, however, that these puny shrubs come with prompts about something like the Rose Cross, much less a proper Zen image like the lotus.
• A fan. Perhaps it is meant to produce a white noise (both heard and felt), which is a phenomenon that soothes and calms its listener. Obviously, soothing is not the intended goal of meditation (not even those orgies of Tantra and Taoism), since that, after all, is the passage from rajas down to tamas. Or, perhaps it is merely to alleviate the stagnation that might develop in such a cramped little box.
  
• Gray static-noise walls. As with the fan's sensations, visual noise is inherently tamasic, since there is nothing to focus on, and the choice of gray (the absence of color, contrary to what a Theravādin might contemplate) only augments the muted, depressed atmosphere that Amazon management requires.
• On the ceiling, a painting of the sky. This is the closest we might get to a traditional object of meditation. The Buddhist kasina include both the color blue and the sky. The ultimate end of such contemplations, however, is the realization of formlessness and emptiness—not, by the way, in the sense of nihilism (a nihilist lacks τέλος and thus would never meditate), but in the sense of freeing (emptying) oneself of profane, terrestrial thoughts and bonds. I do not foresee any of this described in a pamphlet meant to calm a distressed laborer. Also, given how cramped the box is, one would need to crane his neck up 90° to actually view this painting, which is certainly not a stable position. At best, this is probably just a peripheral visual effect to induce more soothing, not concentration.
  

    To reiterate: Western efforts to import Eastern practices (not Eastern metaphysics, I note) to cultivate "mindfulness" or "mental health" are, on their face, totally alien to the original goals of such practices. The use of meditation will work precisely according to its object—after all, a successful meditation would be the union of the mind with the object. So it should not surprise us that Amazon, not to mention all sorts of other firms, YouTube channels, fitness instructors ("yoga"), etc. choose objects meant to dull the mind: insipid videos and pamphlets, petty decorations, and muted sensory noise. 

    As a lesson from all this to more honest practitioners: identify the guna inherent in whatever endeavors present themselves you. Always prefer sattva, approach rajas carefully (if at all), and avoid tamas. Today, in Hesiod's Age of Iron, you shall face opposite recommendations from friends, family, and elites alike—therefore, remain steadfast and discriminating.

    (There are probably some intelligent recommendations, based in proper Eastern metaphysics and practice (karma yoga comes to mind), that could be made to today's serfs in Amazon's warehouses, which Amazon itself might even use to be a positive force in the world, beyond materialist considerations of workplace safety or pay-raises. That is a job for someone else, however.)

 

Buddhism, Stoicism, and... Socialism?

    The following is a note on Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, Volume I, Chapter IV, Part II, Section VI.

    Up until now Spengler has made many allusions to the idea that Stoicism, Buddhism, and Socialism form a category of a declining civilization’s phenomena (“old age attitudes”). To be sure, here he means that form of Socialism by which the lower castes are subsidized to do nothing: “welfare socialism”, in contrast to his more-vaunted Prussian socialism, which is socialism in the sense of Soviet-style economic management. Either way, I have had a hard time even beginning to understand how Socialism would relate even remotely with Stoicism and Buddhism. Here, at the end of this section, he has just now explained it.

    Spengler contrasts two types of civilizations: one which cares only for the here-and-now and cares not for Time, and those which are utterly enraptured by Time. To the former he assigns the Classical and Indian civilizations, and to the latter Egyptian and Faustian (i.e. contemporary Western) civilizations. In Greece, Rome, and India, there was no reckoning of time like there is today; years hardly count for Greece and Rome, and in India centuries went by without much fuss. The Classical Stoicism and the Indian Buddhism are essentially formalized doctrines of this anti-temporalism. In contrast to the peasantry of these civilizations, who merely feasted, celebrated, slumbered, etc. as they pleased without caring to make plans for the morrow nor preserve what was created the day before, the aristocracy threw out even the present, and thereby embarked on the ascetical, monastic paths to Liberation. It is the difference between inertia and stability, tamas and sattva. The hylic pashu is utterly passive to the forces of the stream, to the cracks of Māra’s whip, and so indulges in every pleasure and flees from every pain. The pneumatic divya, meanwhile, sees the emptiness at the bottom of all this, and begins to reach for the sunlit riverbank instead of back down into the murky depths. It is a trivial remark to say that they are both without time, without history. Blind Mercury does not perceive Saturn’s prison bars around him; luminous Mars has long since escaped and killed Saturn; that they are both “unengaged with Saturn” is moot.

    Now, it certainly makes sense to compare welfare-socialism (FDR, the Gracchi, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, Mazdak, etc.) with the serfish ignorance of time*, but not at all with the noble conquest of time. It might be said that the Buddhist saṅgha is somewhat of a welfarist institution, in that they refuse to farm nor raise money for their food, instead walking about with bowls to beg—the anti-temporal hand to mouth existence that Spengler attributes to the entire Classical and Indian civilizations. Very well! I would agree that such monks, however admirable their progress may be on the ariya-magga, are utterly dependent on the planning and organization of terrestrial producers. Better, in my estimation, would be the Roman farmer-emperors like Aurelius and Cincinnatus (the latter famously emulated by our own Washington), who despite their supratemporal orientations, recognized the need to plan and provide for their time-conditioned bodies. Perhaps this is why I plan to keep a small house and a humble job in my future course on the quest for the spirit: my orientation is more Classical than Indian.

    The point, however, is that it is wrong to think all silence is equal. Slumber is not meditation, inertia is not balance, tamas is not sattva, stagnation is not tranquility—and a man who sees all this and judges “Well, none of them engage in planning, so they must all be equally lazy jerks!” is one of those chronic drunkards who, to quote Julius Evola†, thinks that all life is intoxication, and thus sees the end of intoxication as the end of life.

 

 

*    Speaking of "time": economists of the so-called Austrian school (see for example Hans-Hermann Hoppe) have described socialists as having "high time preference", which is a fancy way of saying they prefer present goods over future goods. In contrast, market capitalists have a low time preference, which is to say they are willing to delay present gratification for future goods of greater quantity/quality. As an illustration, compare a welfare-dependent to an entrepreneur. The former is more present-oriented in that he prefers to stay at home and received checks, rather than go to work to receive paychecks of greater value at a later date. The latter is more future-oriented in that he invests his money in capital goods to expand his operations and (hopefully) earn greater profits.

    It's weird to model transcendent asceticism in economic terms, but in line with what I've said: it could be said that Stoics and Buddhists have zero time preference—neither present-oriented nor future-oriented—in the sense that they cultivate an attitude free of attachments and preferences, in an endeavor that produces supratemporal fruits (ἀπάθεια for the Stoics, nibbāna for the Buddhists). So, contra Spengler, Stoics and Buddhists are so far from socialists that they are off the chart, so to speak.

†    The Doctrine of Awakening p. 203

 

 

 

Parable of the Mountain and the Fire

    In a shadowy, gloomy forest, there is a grand mountain with a blazing, eternal flame at the peak. Only a qualified few are able to ascend the peak and acquire this flame—most men lack the constitution to make the journey. These qualified men, the sages, periodically go to this source to bring back a flame for their peoples. By this flame they are both able to survive in their dark habitat, as well as to see its true nature more clearly. Sometimes it happens that some flame is exchanged by neighboring folks. Some folks never produce a sage of their own, and rely entirely on couriers to others, but nonetheless they possess the discipline to preserve the flame as long as possible.

    At some point, the flame of the Jews has become quite weak, as they are notably insular, refusing to get flames except from their own sages (who they call prophets). A fellow named Josh appears amidst them, successfully scales the mountain, acquires the flame, and returns to the Jews with it. He proclaims that only he could ascend the mountain, and that from now on, everyone—not just the Jews, but also the occupying Romans, neighboring Greeks, etc—must only live off this very flame he has brought, and it can only be transmitted using his torches. Despite some scuffles amongst his followers, this community of mountainless torch-bearers prospers, keeping the flame alight for some time after Josh passes on.

    Eventually, as we would expect, the flame begins to dim. Up until now, any ordinary community would acquire more fire either through the efforts of a sage, or from neighboring folks. Unfortunately, the rules laid out by Josh prohibit this—only he was allowed to go get that fire, and only the fire he acquired may be used or distributed. Those who attempt to prove themselves sages are barred from seeking the mountain, and those who attempt to find fire from others are treated savagely. Thus, life slowly becomes more difficult and the world less comprehensible for these followers of Josh.

    Now the flames have gotten quite dark, and only cinders remain among the many communities sprung by Josh. This has resulted in a tremendous, unique crisis. Nobody disagrees that Josh was the only one allowed up on the mountain, and that his flame was the only flame. However, some begin to think there is no mountain at all, and that Josh and his flames were just fantasies. As they are left groping in the dark, their social structures begin to deteriorate, and their knowledge of the world clouds up. Some groups are able to live in the darkness somewhat well using their senses other than sight, but never so great as if they had illuminated vision. Others can hardly get it together.

    After a long time of groping in the dark, these descendants of Josh’s followers encounter other flame-bearing peoples. This does not resolve the crisis. Some descendants still hold fast to the idea that only Josh could acquire flame from the mountain, and that only his flame could be spread; they are even so brazen as to offer their smoldering ashes to those with brightly shining flames. Some descendants doubt their eyes, clinging to their conclusions that the mountain and its fire were all nonsense anyway, or else stubbornly arguing that life is better based on the senses besides sight. A few are willing to accept these foreign flames using their foreign torches and foreign fire-maintenance equipment (a fewer still use the torches handed down by Josh to violate his precepts), but for the scorn from both the fire-doubters and Josh-fundamentalists, they wind up assimilating to these foreign communities, forming smaller communities of their own, or else persisting alone in the woods with a little fire.