I've been a scientist, struggling to understand the mysteries of consciousness, near-death experiences and altered states, most of my life. Alongside my science I have also explored many alternative world views from witchcraft to spiritualism and Theosophy to chakras, but in spite of their superficial appeal they all proved deeply unsatisfactory. They provided answers all right, but the answers were dogmatic and confusing; they didn't fit with science, and neither did they lead to any new discoveries. Worst of all, their doctrines did not change in response to change, but remained rigidly dependent on ancient books or the claims of their proponents. That is, until I stumbled across Zen. I was encouraged to have "great doubt", told to "Investigate!", and taught how to do it.
Zen is a branch of Buddhism that began as "Chan" in seventh century China and later spread east to become known as Zen in Japan. Although based in the teachings and insights of the historical Buddha, Zen puts far less emphasis on theory and studying texts than do other branches of Buddhism, and far more on practising meditation to gain direct experience of one's true nature. This may be why, from its appearance in the West in the late nineteenth century, Zen has appealed to academics, philosophers and other thinkers who enjoy its strange paradoxes and who don't want to be involved in religious practices or dogmatic beliefs.
Like science, Zen demands that you ask questions, apply disciplined methods of inquiry, and overthrow any ideas that don't fit with what you find out. Indeed Zen is just like science in being more a set of techniques than a body of dogma. Zen has its doctrines and science its theories but in both cases these are temporary attempts to understand the universe, pending deeper inquiry and further discovery. Zen does not demand that you believe anything or have blind faith, but that you work hard to find out for yourself.
I am not a Buddhist. I have not joined any Buddhist orders, adopted any religious beliefs, nor taken any formal vows. I say this now because I do not want anyone to think I am writing under false pretences. Nothing I say here should be taken as the words of a Zen Buddhist. Rather, I am someone with a questioning mind who has stumbled upon Zen and found it immensely helpful. It has pushed me further and further into the kind of questions I have always asked - including the ones I have chosen to tackle in my book Ten Zen Questions. They are the sort of questions which concern the very mind that is asking the question.
Calming the mind
Asking these ten Zen questions both requires and encourages a calm mind. But minds tend not to be calm. Indeed they tend to rush about, full of overlapping thoughts, pushed here and there by emotional responses, irritated by tunes that go round and round, and generally flashing from one thing to another. It is not possible to tackle any question steadily and deeply with a mind in turmoil.
How, then, can the mind be calmed? Meditation is the obvious answer, and is the method I have used. Learning to meditate means nothing more than learning to sit still and pay attention, staying relaxed and alert, without getting tangled up in trains of thought, emotions or inner conversations. I learned to meditate partly out of curiosity, and partly because I was driven by the pain and confusion of life, and thought that meditation might help.
Later I discovered that in Zen there are techniques for training the mind to look hard, and stick steadfastly to asking questions; difficult questions. The Zen method of inquiry at first seemed quite separate from my science, and even antithetical to it, but gradually I came to realise how compatible the two methods are.
As a student, in the 1970s, I learned the meditation practice called ‘Zazen', which was described as "just sitting". I assumed that sitting still, alert and relaxed, and doing nothing would be easy, but instead I learned how hard it is. I wanted to keep trying but, like many people, I failed to get into a regular habit of meditation. Then in 1980 I went to evening classes held in the basement of his Bristol home by John Crook, a distinguished university lecturer and also a Zen teacher. John was a teacher I could be comfortable with; not a shaven headed, mysterious master from the East but a down-to-earth, English academic who had trained with monks and Zen masters and was now adapting his understanding for Westerners like myself.
Sometimes it is the oddest things that stick in the mind. I remember sitting there one evening with a group of other novice meditators, struggling to get comfortable, sitting cross-legged on my cushion and looking down at the bare wall in front of me in the standard Zen fashion, when he said that our minds should be so calm that we would hear a woodlouse crawling across the floor. Somehow this stuck with me and I wanted to be able to hear that woodlouse. I suppose the idea made me realise how much turmoil there was in my mind. There was no silence in which to hear such a tiny noise.
