I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness.
The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to train the self to become stronger, whereas actual Seon (Zen) in East Asia is about going with nature, letting go of the self, and allowing things to flow. In the actual practice of Seon, it's about doubting the self, letting go of attachments, and realizing that achievement, comparison, and the desire for control are all just fleeting. There's a famous phrase: 'Banghasak (放下著)' — let it all go.
If anything, I think ancient Roman Stoicism feels more like Zen than Western Zen does
So that's fascinating. When I saw this article, I was expecting it to be about whether we should give up the desire for success, but instead it took a completely different direction, which was surprising
Similarly, the Western idea of Stoicism seems to focus mostly on controlling or even suppressing your emotions (at least on surface level), while the Stoicism you rightly call "Roman" (thanks for that, btw) is much more holistic and more of an ethical framework.
Thank you for letting me know correctly.
Who doesn't call stoicism Roman?
The idea that "being stoic" means to be emotionless isn't a roman idea. Its a modern one.
> Who doesn't call stoicism Roman?
The Greeks?
Most pop stoics focus on the Greeks :P
Stoicism in Ancient Rome was COMPLETELY about controlling your emotions, though. And in Greece it was never that big of a deal. The stoics we remember today are all Roman. Marcus Aurelius, Epicurious, Seneca.
Meditations is largely Marcus Aurelius soothing himself with logical arguments.
Im not doing it full justice but the passages read like “A whole is not less than its parts, Humans are intelligent, therefore the universe is intelligent, there for my situation is a logical plan from the universe, so I should be content.” Marcus was explaining why he needed to be the perfect elite Roman citizen, using nature to logically show why he needed to embody societally cherished traits like being logical, just, fair, but also being stern, powerful and strong. Over and over again.
Now at the time, they did consider it a hard science. They were trying to figure out secrets of the universe, the absolute correct ethics, and therapy (controlling your emotions) at the same time. Each tenet relied on eachother, you couldn’t have one with the other. Today we know the science was wrong and ethics are more complicated than they could’ve imagined, but the controlling emotions side remains. So I completely disagree that modern stoic bros are bastardizing it, it just is an flawed ideology that matches well with some of our modern western traits of a “masculine” man.
> Stoicism in Ancient Rome was COMPLETELY about controlling your emotions,
This is so false it deserves comment. For example, the SEP for Stoicism [1]. You'll notice that the first entire two sections are Physical Theory and Logic. Ethics comes later and it isn't until 4.3 (after Telos and Virtue) that you get to indifference. From the intro:
"Stoic philosophy was, from Zeno onwards, conceived of as comprising three parts: physics (phusikê), logic (logikê), and ethics (êthikê)."
I think you are over-indexing on one work by one Stoic. There is much, much more to actual Stoicism than "controlling your emotions".
1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
> But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness.
I cannot recommend the Idler magazine strongly enough. It's outstanding material towards a healthy way of aimless being.
https://www.idler.co.uk/article/leisure-principles/
https://archive.is/nKJM2
"To be done with doing", from Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels, always struck me as such a powerful phrase. An entire state of mind boiled down to 5 words. But then again I remember her saying eastern philosophy greatly influenced her writing, if I'm not mistaken
The 'Le Guin' series actually had similar kinds of stories in Asia before. There's a strong Taoist influence, you see—more specifically, Chinese-style Taoism rather than a Buddhist perspective.
From the viewpoint of '不立文字 (Bù lì wén zì): truth is not confined to language; language is merely the finger pointing at the truth' — this is closer to Taoism than to Zen. In fact, the Chinese worldview runs deep throughout her worldbuilding. Le Guin's take on 'magic' reflects a profound understanding of Eastern philosophy. The reason Ged doesn't use magic lightly is precisely a matter of balance, and (without giving away spoilers) the final confrontation between Ged and the Shadow is essentially about embracing one's own dark side — which shows a deep grasp of Taoist thought.
Personally, I also love the Earthsea series. The philosophy underlying that world is exactly the kind that resonates especially well with East Asian readers
Ha, wow, thanks for the refinement. Indeed use of language (especially at the end with the dragons) is a very important theme.
And I agree, it's more than excellent. The judicious magic, the way she manages to naturally - without it becoming a sermon - describe acts of kindness as the biggest miracles, is great.
Highly recommended.
To be done with doing, would appear to require passive income?
No need for an income at all if you are going to be a monk.
This is the problem with modern spirituality, we take teachings meant for ascetics and try to apply it without a teacher to our, very far from acetic life.
Mediation s goal isn't to help you be more productive. Prayer isn't for getting a better car or in lieu of life insurance.
There are some useful lessons to be drawn, though. One of them being that even the monks will kick you out if you just slack off all day.
> To be done with doing, would appear to require passive income?
who is asking this question ?
Man it sucks that she gets the unique distinction of being the only IP that Miyazaki's son totally RUINED.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_Earthsea_(film)
Easily the worst film ever made to have Miyazaki's name on it. Even Ursula LeGuin couldn't hide her disappointment with it.
When I read the title I thought it was about running machine learning algorithms on AMD/Zen processors
> The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to train the self to become stronger, whereas actual Seon (Zen) in East Asia is about going with nature, letting go of the self, and allowing things to flow.
I think the Western sentiment, and why it is attached to strength, comes from a combination of the West's allure to Eastern martial arts and the reality of plateauing during training. Once you've been doing something for 2 years, you are no longer seeing the massive learning gains you saw as a true novice. However in that journey toward "mastery" (a term I hate) you have to keep a positive outlook that the practice takes time.
I now use this phrase from my instructor: "Practice makes permanent". There's no such thing as "perfect practice", but whatever you practice is what will stick.
> comes from a combination of the West's allure to Eastern martial arts and the reality of plateauing during training. Once you've been doing something for 2 years, you are no longer seeing the massive learning gains you saw as a true novice.
Which is ironic given the context - Wing Chun is basically useless the first two years and’s you plateau until it finally clicks - only then do you start to see massive gains each lesson!
(why? For a long time you just go through the motions with drills, but until you >really< understand how your structure is connected to your stance (which can be over a year), your punches and movement are way off from optimal from a Wing Chun perspective).
They’re both wrong though in reality. Zen comes from the chinese word chan, which comes from the pali word jhana, meaning meditative absorption (and it doesn’t just mean “meditation” in a general sense, it’s really referring to the rupajhanas). Real Buddhadharma has nothing to do with going along with nature or nonduality. What you’re describing sounds like taoism.
To summarize your argument a bit, you are essentially saying, 'Christianity was originally a Jewish sect, so the current Trinity doctrine is wrong.' Generally speaking, Zen (Seon) moved from India to China, and after Bodhidharma, it began to emphasize self‑nature while incorporating Taoist concepts. Perhaps your argument might come from a perspective that is not East Asian but rather based on the original texts, possibly from the Indian tradition. In Mahayana Buddhism, Sunyata (emptiness) is the core of non‑duality, and it is actually somewhat different from your Theravada interpretation.
The problem is that the way Zen is used resembles the Seon traditions of East Asia, specifically Korea, China, and Japan, and those traditions are built on Mahayana emptiness with Taoist elements mixed in. Therefore, from the perspective of primitive Buddhism, what you say is correct, and from the Pali perspective, it can be called Jhana, but strictly speaking, that is difficult to call Zen[1][2]
[1]https://kabc.dongguk.edu/content/view?dataId=ABC_BJ_H0184_T_...
[2] https://www.ibulgyo.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=28814&ut...
Actually, this is a matter of Buddhist sects. It's not that you're wrong—the etymology is correct—but I think you're taking the historical changes too lightly. Because generally speaking, there is Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism, and they usually follow the Pali tradition. In fact, the concept of 'emptiness' (Sunyata) in Mahayana Buddhism is itself based on non-duality. So what you're asserting is not wrong as a source or an original form of Buddhism, but regarding the description of Zen in the article, the actual Seon tradition is generally closer to what I'm claiming. In fact, you can't really talk about Seon Buddhism without bringing up Taoism, because during the process of its transmission through China, it merged with Chinese folk beliefs and then spread throughout East Asia. (For reference, I'm Korean, and the Buddhist traditions in Korea were also heavily influenced by China.)
[dead]
There's no such thing as "wrong" in this sense. Eastern religious traditions are manifold across space and time, they influence each other, change, and split quite significantly.
> Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness
The visual metaphor from Taoists is being like 'uncarved wood'. Western Zen has been bastardised and commercialised, whereas one can look into Taoism to find many of the same concepts that, by virtue of their own simplicity, have remained timeless. The "problem", so to speak, with Zen is being associated with Buddhism, which has a long and intricate history and body of works attached to it, yet moves towards the same line of simplicity and spontaneity of Taoism.
In the words of Alan Watts, it all starts with the eternal Tao; all other religions are for people that need the same ideas overcomplicated with too many words.
You seem to know quite a lot about the East. Buddhism and Taoism are a bit different, of course, but your understanding is largely in line with how Eastern popular thought actually sees things. It seems like you've done a fair amount of business with Easterners.
Would either of you have a recommendation on where to start learning about either?
My journey into this world started with Watts' "The Way of Zen", and later, with his posthumous book "Tao: The Watercourse Way"
And I am a big fan of Ron Hogan's "Getting Right with Tao" translation/modern interpretation of the Tao Te Ching.
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (Translated Ursula K. Le Guin) The Way of Lao Tzu (Wing-tsit Chan)
After watching how much the east misunderstands western religion (i.e. Neon Genesis Evangelion), there's no benefit to "actually understanding" the religions of the east. They make little effort to understand western religion in their popular media, so why should we do it for them? As far as I'm concerned, Lisa Simpson is the quintessential Buddhist and will remain that way until Japan proves they understand what the trinity actually is.
“Here is my opinion on philosophies and religions spanning thousand of years based on a Japanese anime: the anime got some things wrong so I might as well ignore all of it”
Fascinating insight. Thank you for your input, I guess.
Saint Serafim Rose has books on Taoism being mostly compatible with Orthodox Christianity fwiw.
Because there is more value in understanding someone else's ideas than as some kind of cultural favor? East Asians built empires, invented and discovered incredible things. They have developed elaborate artistic, musical and familial traditions. All of that is of course related to their cosmological ideas. If you could, why wouldn't you understand ideas that were integral to so much human activity? And if they fail to understand your culture in the same regard, that just puts you at an advantage.
In the words of my old man, "I'm not telling you what I know, cause then you'll know what I know plus what you know and then you'll know more than me!"
I am just another western poser that has sought peace of mind reading Eastern philosophy. I am no expert.
And if anyone actually read the book, Zen was about processing childhood trauma.
what?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a series of lectures about philosophy told through the lens of a real motorcycle trip across the country interleaved with recollections of his personal history developing the philosophy, going through a breakdown as a result of schizophrenia, and recovering the personality lost through electroshock therapy. He was a bit of a megalomaniac and failed out of traditional academia as a result of his mental illness which his son likely shared to some degree.
I don't think the intent of Robert Pirsig's work was to outline a git gud strategy cloaked in chillness. The book is heavily inspired by Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery which is explicitly not about trying to get good at something.
Both books highlight the value of dissolving conscious aim in favor of experience something. Pirsig's point isn't, you gotta act like a noob and then you can be good at maintaining motorcycles. His point was that there is a joy in losing yourself in these things that have to be done. If you are rushing to get it done or focusing too much on the end state, you will lose the joy and this thing will become a chore.
He does make the connection that years of doing things this way will lend you a kind of skill. And he connects the ideas to the Western concept of gumption which is a kind of motivation or persistence but again the book's core is not, lose yourself and you will get good. It's more like that a Western obsession with accomplishment can rob you of the joy that can come from engaging with activities for their own sake and not pushing through them just to get them done.
It's all about enjoying the journey.
That good 'ole Protestant work ethic. Idle hands are the Devil's play things!
one of those words that lost meaning, like samaritan or literally
Kind of like when I had dark bread in Asia, it was white bread with food color.
Some things don't transfer well.
I stopped caring about the (ab)use of the word Zen in "tech" when that scummy startup Zenefits got in trouble.
Do non-westerners do this? Go through lengthy "it's not this it's that" explanations trying to display superior knowledge of what the real genuine thing from somebody else's culture is?
Any time some topic of some asian culture that has been shared into america comes up this sort of thing dominates the discussion.
There is plenty of it in ancient literature, both Western and Eastern. Humans' fundamental attachments remain more or less remain recognizable over time and place.
There is, though, something especially cheap about how it is mostly done today. At least we got treasures like the Cantongqi/Sandōkai out of it in the past. (Or maybe I just committed exactly the same error by invoking the Sandōkai.) I'm sure it was done similarly back then, but likely mostly in actual conversation.
Maybe enough of today's commented noise will filter down to a small number of some particularly astute internet comments which will be studied in the year 3226, but I doubt it. Today's best thinking is still found in books and articles. Which has always probably been true, but it used to require some additional amount of work to hear foolishness.
There exists a long history of shallow practice of religious / philosophical schools for as long as we have recorded history of anything? This isn't surprising or particularly profound news.
I think everyone, to some extent, does that when they encounter something they already know. The truth is, we don't all share a unified way of thinking, and HN, being one of the most prominent Western platforms where information spreads quickly, is viewed by people from many countries. In fact, Japan, China, and Korea all have sites that curate content from here. And when you spend time here, you see a lot of differing perspectives. It's like the difference between an outsider's view and an insider's view.
Western Zen has also adapted to fit certain needs, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just that, as an East Asian, when I clicked on a post about Zen, what I expected and what I actually saw were different.
In fact, from what I've seen on Korean YouTube and elsewhere, when something tied to one's cultural identity gets modified, it's a fairly universal human reaction for someone who knows the original to say, 'This seems different, doesn't it?' What you're talking about often tends to become a kind of power struggle over 'who gets to define this culture.' When the insider's definition differs from the outsider's, that dynamic frequently plays out. It's a common trait of online communities.
However, this is usually influenced by the dominant demographic of the community, so generally speaking, the community's majority tends to shape the norms. In that sense, it's usually the outsiders who need to adapt. I'm trying my best to do that too. HN is fundamentally Western-oriented, and I try to adjust to native speakers like you, even if it means slightly altering my approach. The problem is that our ways of thinking differ in so many ways that for me, what feels like a low-cost critique can read to this community as a high-cost one. That gap is something I find quite difficult.
In any case, it's just a fresh perspective for me. I don't think Western Zen is bad (and that's an important point).
It's like this: if an actual Chinese person goes to the US and eats Panda Express orange chicken, they'll say, 'This isn't Chinese food.' But is that really the Chinese person's fault? Localization is only natural. When you think about it, it's simple. Most people don't stay on this site for long (I stay about two hours a day, so I guess I'm a longer-term user). Many people don't even leave comments. But when they click on a title that interests them and find it different from what they expected, they might leave a comment.
And isn't that part of what makes life interesting? The fact that you and I think differently, that our predictions don't always match. Rather than framing it as a 'non-Western way of thinking,' I'd ask you to understand it as a gap that arises because you're a native of a site watched by people all over the world.
In any case, I don't think the Western adaptation of Zen is wrong. Cultures naturally get localized. Just like how I feel a sense of unfamiliarity when I see K-pop Demon Hunters, but that's a natural reaction. I just hope you'll see it as a third-party observation that certain things feel different. Isn't it better to have a diversity of perspectives?
In the Author's Note at the beginning of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Persig writes
>[the book] should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either.
This article's title is another in a long series of meme titles of the form "Zen and the Art of...", Persig was doing it as a riff on Zen and the Art of Archery
>I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different.
All of the schools of Zen/Chan/Seon or whatever you'd like to call it are quite different and in the east there are some pretty dramatic differences between schools.
My point being that the discussion being dominated by the authenticity of various kinds of zen on an article about machine learning aggressively misses the point. The frequent digression into mostly irrelevant distinctions is a problem around here. I don't know anything more about Zen or machine learning from all of this discussion and we should all be more careful for our comments to add to the discussion instead of taking away from it.
Given AI’s impact on society, I read this more as Zen And The Practice of Kamikaze.