Are Fantasies Alive?

I wrote down two quotes this morning. One out of Sit Down and Shut Up, by Brad Warner. The other out of The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, by Dick Russell. I'm confused by them. I'm hearing in them that Buddhists don't think fantasies are alive and archetypal psychology views them as living beings that are archetypal. Perhaps, here again, spirit is claiming itself to be superior to soul.

"'...through the imagination man has access to the gods: through the memoria the gods enter our lives.' So it might be that psychological language must 'find its kinship, not with the logics of scientific reason or with the exercises of a behaving will, but with the arts.' 'Why are our fantasies embarrassing to tell, and why are we embarrassed hearing the intimate tales of another's imagination?...The shame about our fantasies gives testimony to their importance.' Our will and intelligence do not embarrass us in the same way, yet 'the revelation of fantasies exposes the divine, which implies that our fantasies are alien because they are not ours. They arise from the transpersonal background, from nature or spirit or the divine, even as they become personalized through our lives, moving our personalities into mythic enactments."[pg.617, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman]

"To a Buddhist everything is alive, including wells. The only things that aren't alive are those fantasies we create in our heads." [Brad Warner, pg. 240, Sit Down and Shut Up]

I'm wondering if one denies that fantasies are alive then one is denying the existence of the gods. If you've read The Holy by Daniel Quinn you might have a better understanding of where I'm coming from. What I got from that book is that the gods and our fantasies are beyond our minds but yet influence our actions. So how could they not be alive? I thought the gods are eternal and immortal.

On My Own This Morning

I finished up Hardcore Zen this morning.

"It's a frightening thing to be truly honest with yourself. It means you have no one left to turn to anymore, no one to blame, and to no one look to for salvation. You have to give up any possibility that there will ever be any refuge for you. You have to accept the reality that you are truly and finally on your own. The best thing you can hope for in life is to meet a teacher who will smash all your dreams, dash all of your hopes, tear your teddy-bear beliefs out of your arms and them over a cliff."--Brad Warner, pg.184, Hardcore Zen

I wonder how alone we really want to be in this. I think of archetypal psychologist's James Hillman's statement that meditation feeds the capitalistic-individualistic, developing ego, and personal growth fantasy. In other words, the child archetype.

I've heard the Buddha once said "work at your salvation with diligence." Why can't this be a community activity? Perhaps that's what the Sangha is for. I don't know that much about Buddhism to say for sure.

Brad Warner asks on page 184 of Hardcore Zen: "Why is it that we prefer fantasies to what our life really is?" I think of Carl Jung's statement that "Fantasy creates reality everyday." The goal in Zen Buddhism, the way I understand it, is to get beyond your fantasies and see reality for what it is. But I'm hearing thinkers like Jung and Hillman say there is nothing more powerful than fantasy, it creates our reality. It is reality. Perhaps they're speaking from the perspective of soul and Brad Warner is speaking for the perspective of spirit. And, like I've heard Hillman say many times, spirit posits itself as The Truth. Or to use another quote from Joseph Campbell, “The only problem with Yahweh is he thinks he's. God!" It's an old Gnostic saying.

Just some random thoughts this morning...

I'm Not A Believer In Evolution

The other day I had a family member tell me that they believed in evolution. I bristled. I almost responded by saying I don't believe in anything. But then I thought do I really know that? There must be a belief somewhere up there that I believe in. Anyway, like usual, I ran across a quote in a book that I'm currently reading that speaks to this. The idea of believing in evolution, or anything for that matter, just doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

"Everything exists in the moment. This moment is the basis of all creation. The universe wasn't created the Biblical six thousand years ago or even the scientific fifteen billion. The universe is created right now and right now it disappears. Before you have time to recognize its existence, it's gone forever. Yet the present moment penetrates all of time and space."-- Brad Warner, pg. 80, Hardcore Zen

Solidarity and Moral Purity

A quote by Brad Warner:

"The moral high ground is a lonely place. It seems like there’s only ever room for one up there. I used to try to stay there. But it was too sad. So I came back down."--Brad Warner in THIS blog post.

I've always admired Stephanie McMillan's clarity (quote below). I think she's done a great service by defining what solidarity means. This is useful to anyone involved in any kind of political struggle, which is most of us whether we know it or not. I think it was Aristotle who once said: "Man is my nature a political animal." In other words, we're animals and were of the polis, or city.

"Someone asked me to explain what I think solidarity is. True solidarity goes beyond building support for someone else's struggle (though it includes that). It is to identify that struggle as your own, to grasp your common interests, and to take responsibility for fighting your common enemy on your own battlefield. And to do this in a way that is collective, mutually supportive and mutually strengthening."

Cheating On One Religion

I read this a few days back. Since I don't get out of Washburn County much let alone the country, it's interesting to learn how the Japanese handle religion.

"People in America are very committed to their religions. A religion to them is like a wife/husband or girl/boyfriend. You can only have one of them! If you are a Christian and you do yoga, you are cheating on Jesus!

"The Japanese, on the other hand, are very religiously promiscuous. They’re like polyamorists when it comes to religion. Lots of people over there go to Buddhist temples on the Buddhist holidays, Shinto shrines on the Shinto holidays and maybe even occasionally to Christian churches on the Christian holidays like Christmas or Easter. Lots of non-Christian Japanese people have church weddings, often with foreign guys pretending to be preachers. It’s no big deal."--Brad Warner on his blog titled: Hardcore Zen

Seeing Through My Practice

"I remember a student of religion telling me about his T.M., his meditation. Somebody in the seminar said, 'What about the political world?' He said, 'That doesn't matter. Computers can run the political world, the whole country, much more efficiently, and that frees us to pursue enlightenment with meditation.' Do you see the complete harmony between central dictatorship, fascism, political callousness, and the self-centeredness of the spiritual point of view? It opened my eyes: I saw the present cults of meditation not so gentle, no so harmless as they like to be, but a vicious bunch of totalitarians. They can't see the individual--which you see only if you look for soul, look with soul. They can't see an individual person, let alone an individual thing."--James Hillman, pg.187, A Blue Fire

I'm going to go after Hillman's definition of soul next. I remember in one of Brad Warner's podcasts he talked about in Buddhist philosophy there is no such thing as a soul. So if I'm understanding it right the soul is a Western idea.

Zen Quote

"In Zen we have no goals. We may have a general aim for our practice. But we understand that things won’t come out the way we imagine them."--Brad Warner

Moving Towards Mythology

I've mentioned before that I have an interest in Zen and I practice sitting zazen. I've also mentioned that I'm a substitute rural letter carrier. So on days when I have to work I end up sitting in the car for atleast five hours a day. That gives me a lot of time to listen to podcasts. I've had to work the last couple of days so I ended up listening to some of Brad Warner's from over at Hardcore Zen. Close to ten hours worth, actually.

I enjoyed the podcasts. They taught me a lot about Buddhism, Zen, and meditation. But ever since I've started sitting zazen and taking zen more seriously I often think of this quote by Robert Bly:

"So, for us, mythology is more helpful than enlightenment or to put it chronologically, years of mythology need to come, accustoming the soul to darkness, before the soul is ready for enlightenment."--Robert Bly in the November issue of The Sun Magazine back in 1983

I know almost nothing about the mythology in the Zen tradition, or Greek mythology for that matter. So I'm finding myself moving in the direction of learning mythology and understanding the psyche from a depth psychology perspective.