Preface

It ought not to be inferred that living by Zen has something unique

or extraordinary about it, for it is, on the contrary, a most ordinary

thing, not at all differentiated from the rest of the world.

Daisetz T. Suzuki (1870–1966)¹

The skyline is a promise, not a bound.

John Masefield (1878–1967)²

Living by Zen includes an awareness coextensive with all the rest of the ordinary, incredible world. So coextensive and so ordinary is Zen that it often regards itself as “nothing special.” Indeed, wherever we gaze in Zen we find that its unbounded horizon becomes universal in scope. Turning to look far back at meditation’s historical roots, we glimpse an approach that began millennia ago in ancient Yogic practices, then became increasingly institutionalized as it emerged through the cultures of East Asia. When the old Sanskrit term for meditation (dhyana) entered China, it changed there to Ch’an. When this Ch’an practice of meditation came to Japan, the word was pronounced Zen.

When we in the West now look back at this rich historical legacy, we discover contributions made by countless worthy ancestors. Why do these pages include so many of their words of wisdom? Because these pioneers seem almost to have anticipated research out on the near horizon of the neurosciences. In this sense, they were already pointing toward a living, neural Zen.

Two worlds meet along this horizon line. Below is firm ground, the earth on which we stand. It beckons us to explore tangible objects just out of reach, waiting to be touched and used. Extending far above the skyline is the infinite vault of the sky. Themes in this book often encourage us to raise our sights in this direction. These skyward dimensions invite us to glimpse loftier aspirations, to explore intangible frontiers where elevated potentials are not yet clearly defined.

Suppose we happen to rise very early, then go outdoors and gaze up above the horizon. Only by looking off to the east will we glimpse the first colors of the approaching dawn. Up there, when we see the bright planet Venus, what will be going on in our brain? Before a single thought enters, two attentive systems will already have taken the lead, blending into one unified image the distance functions of the right and left halves of our visual fields.³ We need to remind ourselves that this attentiveness plays an automatic vanguard role in all of our brain’s subsequent mental processing. Why do these pages emphasize the involuntary nature of such attentive processing? Because these covert functions, acting silently, make crucial contributions to all implicit learning, to intuition, and to creative insights of various kinds.

To D. T. Suzuki, who brought Zen to the West, living by Zen was a highly practical matter. To live Zen meant to be intimately attuned to the ordinary events in one’s everyday world. Living Zen wasn’t just sitting quietly indoors on a cushion. In keeping with Suzuki’s often expressed views about the Japanese love of Nature, and how this deep appreciation entered into the Zen cultural aesthetic,⁴ some chapters in this book emphasize outdoor topics. The themes of Avian Zen⁵ and Buddhist Botany invite readers to celebrate Earth Day every day, not only once a year.

Other chapters begin by looking far back into the remote past for an historical perspective on research that might appear out on some future horizon. The word horizon has an interesting history.⁶ The French have an expression, “reculer pour mieux sauter.” It refers to those first deliberate backward steps that help one gather momentum for the next leap forward.⁷

So, part I begins by looking far back into ancient historical narratives in preparation for the next leaps we’ll then take into the neural perspectives of this twenty-first century.

Part II reviews themes that evolved during subsequent centuries when Zen and psychology each developed after having been exposed to different cultures.

Part III considers more recent information about how our brain changes when attitudes expand in the background of an increasingly clear, calm awareness.

Part IV explores the fresh perspectives inherent in those dimensions of visual space above our usual eye-level, limited horizon. We have yet to realize the full promise of these dimensions.

In part V we peer further out into the future. Among the topics considered, four themes are of universal human importance. They are creativity, happiness, openness, and selflessness.

Consider this book an invitation to discover in this new millennium the extraordinary promise inherent in seemingly ordinary things.⁸

To sharpen the discussion, short statements or questions are inserted throughout, marked by bullets (•). For the reader’s convenience, bracketed references in the text [ ] indicate pages in four earlier books that provide background information on the topics being discussed. For example, [ZB] refers to Zen and the Brain, [ZBR] refers to Zen-Brain Reflections, [SI] to Selfless Insight, and [MS] to Meditating Selflessly.