John and I had a wonderful talk on our way to and from the Co-op in Coralville this morning. I plugged in my iPod and we caught a talk by my old Zen teacher Cheri Huber at What Is Enlightenment? John goes for the jugular when listening to talks by spiritual folks (I tend to as well). Huber gave a great introduction to what is significant about renunciation. It's not about giving up something, per se. It's about learning where we're stuck and giving up that stuck place.
When she got to the part about her monks, John said to me that listening to her is a lot like hearing his Marxist philosophy professor many years ago at Iowa State. This guy was self-observant enough to say that being Marxist is easiest when you're curled up in your middle-class home drinking nice Scotch. It's easy to pretend you're detached from things as a monk - but it's a contrived environment that's completely simulated. Far from being 'real' in some fundamental way, it's an invented space where people get to play.
I even think Huber might agree with that. Being in a monastic environment is beneficial only in that one gets to experience the world in a radically different way. The reason I fell out with her as a student over twenty years ago was whether the behavioral precepts that she taught - and that the sangha which hung on her every word obeyed - were true in some absolute sense or not. Of course they weren't, and I didn't understand why she didn't say so. I suspect that hit too close to home for her to do. For me it cut too close to my own Fundamentalist Christian upbringing. I don't let any external authority determine what's true. That Huber believes that real spiritual progress can only happen in a monastic environment serves to support her own position as a leader of such a community and worldview. That's not my belief. But I still treasure the training in mindfulness meditation that I got from her and that I still practice twenty years later.
John and I followed her talk with another podcast with Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil couldn't be more different from Huber in his quest for personal immortality mediated by behavior, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. He's not renouncing anything - at least superficially. But there's a core that's the same. When questioned about what we'd do if we existed for five hundred years, he admitted that our current psychology isn't up to it. We need to change at heart to adjust to what we're evolving into.
John suggested - and I agree - that Huber and Kurzweil at heart are addressing something similar. Only someone with great self-discipline can achieve great things in mystical practice. The same thing's true about great creation. Whether we live five hundred years or five more minutes, the core's the same. We must embody what we are at core, and not behave as we imagine we ought to behave. Nietzsche said much the same thing:
Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? "Thou shalt" is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, "I will." "Thou shalt" lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animal covered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden "thou shalt." (Also sprach Zaruthustra)
