Interface

Individual consciousness is an interface between dynamic natural and social environments and unconscious biological and psychological processes. At the interface, external events meet incomprehensible motivations. We learn about current affairs from television and about mental processes through meditation. Many groups in different ways address the problems of self and society, respectively. I happen to think that the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives and the Socialist Workers Party get it right for their respective halves of the total picture. What matters is not that others agree with me - they don't - but that everyone makes their own assessment. Let's not sleep walk into oblivion but try to understand and respond to the problems.

Some Buddhists claim not just theory or doctrine but knowledge of postmortem mental states whereas scientific knowledge of brain states entails that they cause mental states. I accept scientific knowledge but am open to learning about meditative experience.

An Apparent Contradiction

Zen monks look within, work on the self and practice acceptance whereas revolutionary socialists look without, act in society and practice resistance. These two ways of life are not only entirely dissimilar but also apparently contradictory. However, I believe that:

reality is one, therefore both "inner" and "outer";
both work on the self and action in society are necessary;
acceptance and resistance have to be two sides of a single coin.

We accept some aspects of reality but change others. Thus:

we accept that we need food but have changed the ways that we produce it;
we accept the law of gravity but have learned how to fly.

Inwardly, accept and let go of a personal past.
Politically, understand and resist current oppression.
We are Arjuna and the class struggle is the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

The Highest Synthesis

Indian Philosophy
Karma is action.

Patanjali
Yoga is meditation.

Krishna
Karma yoga synthesizes action with meditation.

The Buddha
Dhyana/Ch'an/Zen is meditation.
Buddhist "no soul" teaching is a middle way between materialism and soul pluralism.
Buddhist "emptiness" teaching is dialectical.
Buddhist precepts are a middle way between hedonism and asceticism.
Buddhist "working meditation" is karma yoga.
Ch'an Buddhism synthesizes Buddhism with Taoism.
Zen Buddhism synthesizes Ch'an Buddhism with Shinto nature mysticism.

Hegel
Dialectics is interaction between opposites;
                   thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Marx
Scientific socialism synthesizes economics with socialism.
Dialectical materialism synthesizes dialectics with materialism.
Marxism synthesizes scientific socialism with dialectical materialism.
It is neither mechanical materialism nor utopian socialism.

Zen Marxism is:
karma yoga;
a modernized middle way;
a higher philosophical synthesis than Hegelian dialectical idealism.

When Meditating

When meditating:

sit still;
accept what is;
do not add to it;
let go;
learn.

Metaphorically:

drain the inner swamp.

Be pure consciousness, not a motivated organism.

This accords with the Yoga Sutras:

Yoga is control of thoughts.
Then, man abides in his real nature.
Otherwise, he remains identified with thoughts.
They are controlled by practice and nonattachment.

NOTE: "...accept what is..." inwardly, not politically. Do not accept:

economic austerity;
public spending cuts;
racism;
immigration controls;
anti-union laws;
wars;
pollution;
poverty.