gimley reviewed Zen: a rational critique. by Ernest Becker
Review of 'Zen: a rational critique.' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
There are rational things to say about Zen, a method of consciousness transformation that eschews the rational, but you're not going to get to them by insisting that irrationality is ipso facto a bad thing. If you want to understand how rationality imprisons you, the koan you should look at is "show me your original face." You weren't originally rational but now it's hard to be otherwise, though it's less about rationality, ultimately and more about convention and pattern and fear of change.
Becker acknowledges his fear of death and his fear of losing the gains of western civilization which he sees under attack. This "attachment" as Buddhists would have it is what Zen aims to get you to give up--not to replace with an attachment to irrationalism but to surrender. Becker sees surrender in the old political way as giving in to a tyranny. He see's all change as …
There are rational things to say about Zen, a method of consciousness transformation that eschews the rational, but you're not going to get to them by insisting that irrationality is ipso facto a bad thing. If you want to understand how rationality imprisons you, the koan you should look at is "show me your original face." You weren't originally rational but now it's hard to be otherwise, though it's less about rationality, ultimately and more about convention and pattern and fear of change.
Becker acknowledges his fear of death and his fear of losing the gains of western civilization which he sees under attack. This "attachment" as Buddhists would have it is what Zen aims to get you to give up--not to replace with an attachment to irrationalism but to surrender. Becker sees surrender in the old political way as giving in to a tyranny. He see's all change as a change from one attachment to another. If you're attached by therapy, that can help you but because the therapists does it all for you (as they put it at McDonalds). Otherwise, you're attached to someone doing it all for themselves--a dictator--a brain washer. That's not really rational but looks that way to someone with his attachments.
We all have our attachments--things we identify with--things we believe ourselves to be--ways we claim to be hard wired.
Satori is the experience that we needn't be wired at all.