Would you recommend Zen Buddhism to an atheist?

[SecularFuture]

If you knew an atheist who was looking for some philosophical inspiration, could Zen Buddhism be an option? Would he/she need to ignore a lot of superstitious crap just to see the meat and potatoes? Or is Zen Buddhism mostly free of that?

[Toto]

The most western forms of Zen have no superstition, but they do have a lot of ritual and hierarchy. The point of Zen Buddhism is not belief, but the practice of meditation.

You can read Allan Watts to get an attractive picture.

An atheist who want philosophical inspiration could just study philosophy.

[aupmanyav]

I would say, study buddhism or zen for sure, then go to 'advaita' and jettison all rituals and heirarchy to be on your own.

[abaddon]

If you knew an atheist who was looking for some philosophical inspiration, could Zen Buddhism be an option? Would he/she need to ignore a lot of superstitious crap just to see the meat and potatoes?
Yes, it’s an option. Atheist or not, one’s beliefs about the universe are just the burden he takes with him.

No, he/she doesn’t need to ignore a lot of superstitious crap in Zen because the superstitious crap in question is the philosopher himself; the world being just what it is, untamed by anyone’s philosophy however “inspired”.

What’s true? what’s false? is for tourists. Zen’s not an issue of believing.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
...
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
~~ Hsin Hsin Ming (http://home.att.net/~paul.dowling/archive/zen/hsin.htm)

[Apostate1970]

I think that every religious or spiritual tradition deserves a sympathetic reading. I also happen to think that few can withstand a fair reading for long before they're shown to include elements that are malicious or absurd or otherwise corruptive to people. No existing religion can do so forever. I think that Buddhism in some forms or traditions (Mahayana, Zen), can withstand a fair reading longer than most and that most people could benefit greatly from a sympathetic reading.

[Will.L]

Sufism and Zen are probably the biggest non-western philosophical traditions that have influenced me. As far as Zen goes, I always recommend Philip Kapleau's "Three Pillars of Zen" because that was the first book I ever read on it, and I think it is a fabulous introduction. For the academically-oriented mind, D.T. Suzuki's stuff is nice, and for an easier read, S. Suzuki is really great. Meditation is at the heart of Zen, but it still appears to me that the heirarchical (and some superstitious) elements of it might hurt more than help. Then again, everything has its place. Whatever helps helps, and sometimes heirarchy does that for people. At any rate, I'd say it depends on the atheist. If an atheist were interested in Zen, I'd recommend for them to do what I did. Read some literature, try some short but regular meditations, and see what's up from there.

Having a good internet forum with people knowledgeable about Zen definitely helps as a supplement to all this as well ;)

[+or-1]

Would you recommend Zen Buddhism to an atheist?

Nope.

[Gamer4Fire]

Sure, I'd suggest it as a philosophical exercise. It isn't much of a religion, seeing as how it doesn't contain am inherent belief system.

[Kharakov]

I would say, study buddhism or zen for sure, then go to 'advaita' and jettison all rituals and heirarchy to be on your own.

What, with all the others who have taken the non-conformist's oath?

[aupmanyav]

Who asks you to confirm? :)
p.s. - Confirm to what?

[Revolutionary]

I've looked into it just a little myself. Even though many of its claims are not supernatural, I've only seen them presented with authority rather than reason. I read a book and I think, "How do you know what? Why should I believe you?"

[Lógos Sokratikós]

What I would recommend, not only to atheists but to anyone, is Zen Buddhism as a practice for wellbeing. Forget the rituals, hierarchies, etc. Keep your critical thinking, just practice it for your cognitive, emotional and physical health and personal growth.

Buddhism has always been concerned with feelings, emotions, sensations, and cognition. The Buddha points both to cognitive and emotional causes of suffering. The emotional cause is desire and its negative opposite, aversion. The cognitive cause is ignorance of the way things truly occur, or of three marks of existence: that all things are unsatisfactory, impermanent, and without essential self.

http://www.parkridgecenter.org/Page483.html

(I disagree with the author that "As scientists discover the impossibility and the inadequacy of objectivity". Objectivity is quite alive and well in modern science, thank you. One must bear in mind that objectivity is not an absolute but relative concept, and it's entirely useful.)

[Lógos Sokratikós]

I've looked into it just a little myself. Even though many of its claims are not supernatural, I've only seen them presented with authority rather than reason. I read a book and I think, "How do you know what? Why should I believe you?"

You can divide the issue between "Buddhism the religion" on the one hand, and "Buddhism for health" or "Zen for health", on the other. Different aspects of buddhism, especially those concerning meditation, have been studied and are considered to improve both physical health and general wellbeing (the following provides a good summary on this subject: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=940CE1DB173BF937A2575AC0A9659C8B63).

[question_it_all]

What I would recommend, not only to atheists but to anyone, is Zen Buddhism as a practice for wellbeing. Forget the rituals, hierarchies, etc. Keep your critical thinking, just practice it for your cognitive, emotional and physical health and personal growth.

Buddhism has always been concerned with feelings, emotions, sensations, and cognition. The Buddha points both to cognitive and emotional causes of suffering. The emotional cause is desire and its negative opposite, aversion. The cognitive cause is ignorance of the way things truly occur, or of three marks of existence: that all things are unsatisfactory, impermanent, and without essential self.

I agree with this wholeheartedly :)

I have experienced problems with depression for the better part of 12 years and have recently been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I have been interested in Buddhism (predominantly Zen) since my teen years and whilst I'm sceptical about some of the more superstitious elements I have found that the practice of meditation (non-superstitious, focussing on breathing, concentration, etc) has tremendously helped my depression.

Since incorportating meditation into my life I've found I am more in control of my emotions (which I have struggled enormously with in the past), have better focus and concentration, have far fewer knee-jerk reactions and am simply happier in general. The cognitive distortions that used to rule my mind-set are now fewer and weaker than before and I found I can brush them off without too much worry.

The study of Zen philosophy has helped augment my meditations and I particularly like the perception Zen leads one to, i.e. non-attachment (this is a Buddhist philosophy in general but the Zen take on Buddhism is far more attuned to the non-theist, sceptical mind). In Zen they say the mind is to be like a mirror, simply reflecting what is without grasping or holding on. This has benefitted me by allowing me to notice negative emotions or cognitive distortions and then let them go. In the past I would ruminate on things until they overcame me, now I have more clarity of mind to notice these thoughts and let them go. My life is most certainly the better for it.

As an atheist and a sceptic in general I can highly recommend Zen (which revolves around meditation) for any individual looking to gain better control over their feelings, emotions, sensations, and cognition.

That may not be relevant to the OP's philosophical needs but studying Zen and practising Zazen (seated meditation) has certainly changed the way I view and interact with the world without impacting upon my sceptical and atheistic views.

[aupmanyav]

I am happy to know that meditation has been useful for you.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

I have experienced problems with depression for the better part of 12 years and have recently been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I have been interested in Buddhism (predominantly Zen) since my teen years and whilst I'm sceptical about some of the more superstitious elements I have found that the practice of meditation (non-superstitious, focussing on breathing, concentration, etc) has tremendously helped my depression.


Psychotherapy is too expensive. Zen is as cheap as buying a mat, a couple of books and bus fees to a zen center.

As a psychologist myself I'm frustrated by the prohibitive cost of psychotherapy for most people. In Costa Rica where I live, the minimum fee demanded by the government-sponsored Colegio Profesional de Psicólogos is ridiculously high and most people cannot pay.

A copy of Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-Updated/dp/0380810336) and Zen with earnestness and just a grain of salt are an affordable remedy IMO.

[question_it_all]

Psychotherapy is too expensive. Zen is as cheap as buying a mat, a couple of books and bus fees to a zen center.

As a psychologist myself I'm frustrated by the prohibitive cost of psychotherapy for most people. In Costa Rica where I live, the minimum fee demanded by the government-sponsored Colegio Profesional de Psicólogos is ridiculously high and most people cannot pay.

A copy of Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-Updated/dp/0380810336) and Zen with earnestness and just a grain of salt are an affordable remedy IMO.

How interesting! I am a psychology student (hopefully about to enter my PhD next year, fingers crossed) and every time meditation has been mentioned in our classes as a form of therapy it has been shut down. I understand why they have shut it down, the scientific evidence for the benefits of meditation within a mental health scenario is contradictory and flimsy (at least in the opinion of my lecturers), however much of this has been done on TM which, to the best of my knowledge can have some unwanted side-effects.

From personal experience however I have found meditation to be as useful, if not more so than my therapy sessions. I would never recommend meditation as a substitute for therapy (if said therapy is affordable, in Australia it is not too expensive and is partly covered by our health care systems), but as a supliment to therapy I'd highly recommend it!

It is nice to see a registered psychologist who recommends meditating though :)

[aupmanyav]

Yes, there can be side-effect in people with susceptible minds and there is wrong cultist teaching. We in NAR&P and discussed it many times. However, I do not know why your teachers should slam it, it is a simple bio-feedback system, that is what meditation is.

[Apostate1970]

it's almost always unfortunate when someone gets too connected to and too enthustiastic about a particular doctrine or tradition or method since these are hardly ever generalizable to every case. will "zen" help everyone? no, and to the extent that more and more people were to start trying it and advocating it, it would thereby only begin to fail more people... success itself would distort it and thereby defeat it.

but is some sort of meditative practice beneficial to many people? yes, i'm quite sure it is.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Psychotherapy is too expensive. Zen is as cheap as buying a mat, a couple of books and bus fees to a zen center.

As a psychologist myself I'm frustrated by the prohibitive cost of psychotherapy for most people. In Costa Rica where I live, the minimum fee demanded by the government-sponsored Colegio Profesional de Psicólogos is ridiculously high and most people cannot pay.

A copy of Feeling Good (http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-Updated/dp/0380810336) and Zen with earnestness and just a grain of salt are an affordable remedy IMO.

How interesting! I am a psychology student (hopefully about to enter my PhD next year, fingers crossed) and every time meditation has been mentioned in our classes as a form of therapy it has been shut down. I understand why they have shut it down, the scientific evidence for the benefits of meditation within a mental health scenario is contradictory and flimsy (at least in the opinion of my lecturers), however much of this has been done on TM which, to the best of my knowledge can have some unwanted side-effects.

From personal experience however I have found meditation to be as useful, if not more so than my therapy sessions. I would never recommend meditation as a substitute for therapy (if said therapy is affordable, in Australia it is not too expensive and is partly covered by our health care systems), but as a supliment to therapy I'd highly recommend it!

It is nice to see a registered psychologist who recommends meditating though :)

1) Well don't call it "meditation" then: say "TM" and "zazen"/"zen"/"zen meditation".

2) It's not only your personal experience: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=zen+meditation+outcome & http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=zen%20meditation%20outcome&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws

3) Mindfulness-based psychotherapies (http://stress.about.com/od/stressmanagementglossary/g/M_Psychotherapy.htm) are forms of psychotherapy that incorporate zazen-type stuff and cognitive therapy -type stuff into a coherent program, rather than just doing therapy and recommending zen (which isn't bad but it doesn't hurt to have that one up your sleeve for suspicious people).

REBT and cognitive therapists know clients relapse. The typical solution is encouraging clients to continue with the rational disputation with constancy and resolution. So, from a certain point of view, wouldn't it be ideal if people stuck to wellness methods, as they say, religiously? Wouldn't it be ideal if it also were affordable for even poor people? That's where I believe zen fits the picture... of course (IMO) as long as folks don't take it as a substitute for their traditional religion, become "true believers" and start saying flippity stuff like Sharon Stone (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/may/28/news.chinaearthquake).

[question_it_all]

Yes, there can be side-effect in people with susceptible minds and there is wrong cultist teaching. We in NAR&P and discussed it many times. However, I do not know why your teachers should slam it, it is a simple bio-feedback system, that is what meditation is.

I brought the subject up with my Psychophysiology of Awareness (predominantly sleep research but delves into meditation and trance-like states a bit) lecturer. It's not so much that they slam meditation as a beneficial practice, just that the university's school of psychology has a philosophy of teaching only those therapies which have had extensive, rigorous, peer reviewed research done. Certainly meditation has had plenty of research done but my PoA lecturer has mentioned that the research has largely been done on TM, has not always been within APA research guidelines and has not always been peer-reviewed. Basically the university doesn't want to promote therapies that are not mainstream such as cognitive behavioural therapy etc. I think they don't want graduates going out and treating mentally ill patients with a bunch of leftfield, esoteric practices, so they err on the side of caution.

[question_it_all]

3) Mindfulness-based psychotherapies (http://stress.about.com/od/stressmanagementglossary/g/M_Psychotherapy.htm) are forms of psychotherapy that incorporate zazen-type stuff and cognitive therapy -type stuff into a coherent program, rather than just doing therapy and recommending zen (which isn't bad but it doesn't hurt to have that one up your sleeve for suspicious people).

We have touched on these briefly and will hopefully delve further into these in the PhD program. What I've read so far has certainly piqued my interest :)

[aupmanyav]

Certainly meditation has had plenty of research done but my PoA lecturer has mentioned that the research has largely been done on TM, has not always been within APA research guidelines and has not always been peer-reviewed.They should not transcend, keep their feet on ground, and then study meditation. :frown:

[gurugeorge]

If you knew an atheist who was looking for some philosophical inspiration, could Zen Buddhism be an option? Would he/she need to ignore a lot of superstitious crap just to see the meat and potatoes? Or is Zen Buddhism mostly free of that?

I'd go to original Chinese sources as much as possible (Zen is derived from Ch'an, or Can in Pinyin transliteration.) A lot of what we think of as Zen in the West is filtered through Japanese traditions, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's now possible to get translations into English directly from the Chinese for some of the classic texts. The Chinese stuff is much more authentically irreverent and antinomian than the Japanese stuff, which tends to be filtered through the somewhat regimented nationalism of late 19th-early 20th century Japanese culture. (Although there are many authentic and original voices in Japanese Zen too, such as Dogen.)

However, Zen is probably a bit too post modern for some atheists, who tend to be rational and down-to-earth thinkers. For an atheist, I would rather suggest going to the source, to the words of Gotama Siddhartha himself. There is (as one might expect) some debate as to just how much of what we have from the Pali Canon (and the closely related Chinese equivalents) is his authentic voice, but the consensus seems to be that a lot of it is probably authentic, although somewhat tailored for memorisation.

I think Gotama Siddhartha's words speak much more directly to practical minds such as atheists tend to be. By all accounts, so far as we can reasonably tell, Gotama Siddhartha was king, a soldier and a man of the world, and this certainly comes across in his writings, which are eminently practical, and tailored to his listeners of the day as individuals - and his advice and instruction ranges all the way from homely advice helping householders live decent ordinary lives (while preparing the ground for deeper practices), to advice for the most ripe seekers.

The best modern translation overall IMHO is In the Buddha's Words (http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Words-Anthology-Discourses-Teachings/dp/0861714911) - this is a real treasure trove, and a really great introduction to the Pali Canon. If instant gratification is required, there's a really nice translation of the Dhammapada by Thomas Byrom online here (http://www.geocities.com/phoenixwatlao/dhamma.html). (Actually it's more a simplified paraphrase than a direct translation, but I think of all the translations extant, Byrom's is probably most like listening to the man himself in his own language - there's none of the obstacle of strange diction you get in most translations. To my mind Byrom is himself an experienced mystic, so his translations always have a kosher feel to them, as well as being as accurate as necessary without being pedantic, IMHO.)

There is a tendency in later forms of Buddhism to get a bit pretentious and airy-fairy (not to say they're bad, but they often suit a different, more "Catholic" mindset, so to speak). It's always good to ground one's appreciation of Buddhism in the words of the Buddha himself.