Zen Buddhism – emphasising the transitory nature and ultimate emptiness of everything, Zen can appear at once peaceful, baffling, wise, nihilistic, and downright surreal to western eyes. Martin Heidegger – the modern German philosopher said western philosophy had ignored the issue of BEING ITSELF, and he attempted to construct an account of existence from scratch with his 'phenomenology'. Is the Zen concept of “enlightenment” the same as Heidegger’s “authentic being”, or what?

1. An introduction to Zen
Buddhism... and Heidegger!
~or~
Two accounts of AUTHENTIC BEING (Because
it’s not difficult enough introducing just one
scratch-head philosophical world view)

2. The Buddha
• Siddhartha Gautama, aka the Buddha, lived
about 500BCE, in North East India or Nepal.
• A prince, shielded from the outside world, at
29 left his palace and saw poverty, age,
sickness and death and had a bit of a crisis.
• Realised suffering is everywhere, left his
family, renounced his wealth, took up the life
of an ascetic, travelling, hanging out with yogic
hermits and begging on the streets in search of
an answer.
• Unsatisfied, he pushed his asceticism further
and further, starving himself to the point he
collapsed while bathing and almost drowned.
• Fed up and still no closer to finding an answer,
he ate a decent meal, sat under a tree and
vowed not to get up until he had found
enlightenment.

3. • After 49 days under the tree, at the age of 35, Buddha is said to have
attained enlightenment.
• He realised The Four Noble Truths, which say that life is suffering, but
there are steps we can take to free ourselves from it.
• Mastering the noble truths leads to Nirvana, a liberated state of peace
free from fear, ignorance, greed and hatred, in which you cast off the
boundaries of the mind – and also personal ego/identity.

4. Important Buddhist themes
• Balance – Buddhism is the “Middle Way”.
• Non-attachment – everything is transitory.
• No desire – desire is the cause of suffering.
• No ego – you are transitory too. Much of our
suffering comes from clinging on to ego. The
mind creates it.
• Oneness – we are all part of everything and
everything is part of us.

5. Zen Buddhism
• When Buddhism reached
China it merged with the
native Taoist philosophy and
the result was Zen Buddhism,
which also flourished in
Vietnam, Korea and Japan.
• “Zen” derives from “Chan”,
which literally means
meditation.

6. • Zen is one of the most extreme forms
of Buddhism in rejecting the authority
of dogma and scripture – that is a
form of attachment.
• The stress is on meditation – and
mindfulness, paying attention to the
moment, the act of being, being-
through-doing.
• Teaching is passed directly, personally,
from master to student.
• The true nature of things cannot be
explained in writings or grasped
logically.
• Everything is ultimately nothing, and
cannot be expressed in words.

7. Zen koans
• Zen koans are little stories or quotes designed to confuse, to
shock the listener/reader out of everyday thinking.
• They allude to/point towards enlightenment rather than
stating it directly, as that’s impossible.
• Hence why they often appear surreal or nonsensical.
• Eg...

8. Taoism
• Taoism predates Zen, and is a native
Chinese philosophy.
• Key themes include removing oneself
from everyday society and politics and
living in harmony with nature.
• The principle of “non-action” – or
“letting be”
• Tao = The “Way”
• “The Way that can be spoken of is not
the constant Way/The name that can
be named is not the constant name”

9. Heidegger
• Martin Heidegger (1899-
1976) was a modern German
philosopher.
• Not a household name, but
hugely influential, especially
on Existentialism.
• Most famous work: Being
and Time – sought to answer
“What is the question of the
meaning of Being?”

10. Phenomenology
• A school of philosophy that sought to a return to first-hand experience –
the “phenomena” themselves – to explain the world.
• To chuck out tried old traditional philosophical/metaphysical concepts
(mind/body, reason/experience, free will/determinism) and start again.
• Heidegger’s mentor Edmund Husserl thought philosophy had hit a dead
end and proposed we go back to basics – “bracket out” what we think we
know, go back to first-hand experience, and build up an explanation of
the world from there.

11. • Heidegger took on this emphasis on
analysing first-hand experience. But
where Husserl focussed on what we
can know, Heidegger focussed on
what we are.
• He said western philosophy since the
Greeks had been so concerned with
knowledge and ethics and so on, it
had ignored the question of being –
what IS being, what is it to BE?
• He was an iconoclast – he wanted
nothing more than “a destruction of
the history of ontology
(philosophical ideas about what is)”
– a clean break with traditional
metaphysics and its traditional
pitfalls.

12. • But he wrote like this:
“The projection of its (Dasein’s) ownmost-potentiality-
for-Being has been delivered over to the Fact of its
thrownness into the ‘there’. Has not Dasein’s Being
become more enigmatical now that we have
explicated the existential constitution of the Being of
the ‘there’ in the sense of the thrown projection?
It has indeed.”
• Key term: Dasein = The ‘there-being’ or the
‘being that is there’ – describes us, or a
consciousness in the world: “The being for
whom its own Being is an issue”

13. Common Themes
• Why do some think Heidegger is Western
philosophy’s best bet at establishing a dialogue
with Eastern philosopy?

14. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
HDGR: Fallenness
In everyday life Dasein becomes one of, and
interchangeable with, people ‘there’, hence
turning away from the ownmost-ness of its being.
Dasein disowns the full extent of its possibilities,
moves away from itself, becomes alienated from
itself. It lets the ‘them’ convince it ‘they’ hold the
secret to life, and the fullest and most genuine
possibilities of being-in-the-world.
Falling is not a state of rest. It is a ‘turbulent motion’
in which Dasien becomes entangled in itself. It is
still a way of being, but a way alienated from
Dasein’s true ‘ownmost possibility of being in the
world’.

15. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
ZEN: Ego/Self
In attachment to objects, beliefs and ambitions, vanity and desires, one can
never be at peace and attain true understanding:
“After birth… people learn bad habits from others in the course of their
seeing and hearing them… Getting fixated on what others say they turn
the all-important unique Buddha mind into a monster, mulling over
useless things, repeating the same thoughts over and over again… Going
from one hellish state to another, from one animalistic state to another,
from one ghostly state to another, from darkness to darkness in an
endless vicious cycle, you go on experiencing infinite misery for the bad
things you have done, with never a break… As soon as a single thought
gets fixated on something, you become ordinary mortals. All delusion is
like this. You pick up on something confronting you, turn the Buddha
mind into a monster because of your own self-importance, and go astray
on account of your own ego…” (17th
century master Bankei in Cleary,
2001, pp.4-5)

16. 1! Fallenness and ego/self
For both Heidegger and Zen/Taosim our everyday mode of being is a
tranquillised state, a mode in which we live our lives blind to, or fleeing
from, the true nature of our being.
We are tempted into this state not so much by conscious choice but by an
understandable response to the world we find ourselves in, and the
beings we find ourselves with (our ‘thrownness’ in Heidegger). However,
this is not our primordial and authentic state. It is the opposite of
authentic being, the opposite of enlightenment, a trap into which we fall
and must struggle out of as best we can if we wish to grasp our true
nature and potential.

17. 2! Nothing and emptiness,
uncanniness and bliss
HDGR: The nothing and uncanniness
In Heidegger ‘notness’ defines what is. Without nothing, there is no definite
‘here’ or ‘there’. Nothing ‘founds’ the world:
“Far from being a negation of all things, the nothing is the possibility of
things: This possibility, in Heidegger’s interpretation, is the world itself.”
(King, 2001, pp. 94)
In face of this void, oblivion, infinity, Dasein feels ‘uncanniness’ (unheimlich)
– and ‘angst’ in the face of the truth of its own being-in-the-world and
possibilities - because the accompanying sense of insignificance is
crushing. Dasein flees to the familiar and self-assured company of the
‘them’, where it can “dwell in tranquillised familiarity”.

18. 2! Nothing and emptiness,
uncanniness and bliss
Zen: Emptiness and bliss
In Zen, as well as Taoism, the ultimate reality is nothingness, or ‘emptiness’ -
the world is empty; the ‘nothing’ is implicit in everything.
We are born with a pure ‘Buddha mind’ that is already at one with this
ultimate nothingness, but through everyday living retreat into a limited,
circular, habitual way of being that is hard to break out of.
When we glimpse the infinite emptiness of the world from this state it is
scary and daunting. We feel insignificant because we realise that our own
being is essentially empty, and our ego groundless. But it is in this empty
state that we find authentic enlightened bliss. The uncanniness we feel in
the face of the fundamental impermanence and emptiness of the world,
in Zen, may be transcended and transformed into bliss when we grasp
our freedom and the true nature of our being.

19. 3! Impermanence and being-
towards-death
HDGR: Being-towards-death
Our death is always with us, as part of our existence, but we
ignore it, run away from it and forget it. Our death is our
limit, the thing that makes our being and our possibilities
finite. If it were not for this limit, we would have no
impetus to do anything, no reason to stop procrastinating
and get things done. Indeed, if our being were infinite, it is
debatable that we would have consciousness at all.
Without the possibility of negation (notness) our Being would
not be an issue for us. Our death is absolutely our own,
and the realisation of this points to the insurmountable
gulf between ourselves and others. Our being is unique and
isolated, no matter how much we lose ourselves in the
they-self. This points us towards our own Being, and
hence authenticity.

20. 3! Impermanence and being-
towards-death
ZEN: Impermanence
It was the realisation of the universality of disease, suffering
and death that first set the Buddha on ‘the path’. The
realisation of our own impermanence is a pointer towards
enlightenment.
But in Zen the concept of impermanence is wider and not only
personal – everything is transitory, everything is in
constant flux.
Though we may experience everything as multitudinous and
finite, the ultimate reality is the infinite. Everything is one,
and everything is nothing. Since everything is essentially
infinite and empty, ultimately we are “not born” and do
not die.

21. 4! Action, tools and use
HDGR: The ready-to-hand
In our everyday existence we do not passively view our
environment, we interact with it. Everything ultimately relates
back to Dasein – it is impossible for Dasein to comprehend
something that is not in relation to itself. Everything is defined
by this context.
A hammer exists because Dasein has created it in order to
manipulate its environment to shelter and comfort itself. But,
through its use, the hammer disappears for Dasein. We do
not contemplate our tools while we use them. It is only when
these tools break down, or are not to hand, that they become
an issue for Dasein, and Dasein really appreciates what they
are and what they do. One may thoughtlessly drive back and
forth to work every day of the week, yet when the car breaks
down, it, or a suitable substitute, is suddenly the focus of
concentrated attention. Again notness defines what is.

22. 4! Action, tools and use
Zen: Archery and One Hand Clapping
In Zen, tools also disappear with use – it’s said a good archer, for
example, must be his bow and arrow. In Zen this is
transcending the ego and traversing the void between the
self and the world.
The essential nature of notness in utility is also a familiar theme
in both Taoism and Zen. Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching
reads:
“Knead the clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing
therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have use of the
vessel. Cut out doors and windows in order to make a room.
Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand , and you
will have use of the room.” (Lau, 1963, pp.15)
The nonsense of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is
one of the most famous Zen problems (or koans) in the
western world. Things are what they are only in relation to
other things – again everything is defined by context.

23. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
HDGR: Authenticity
Authenticity in Heidegger can be summed up as the recognition and
unification of all of Dasein’s constituent parts. Dasein recognises its
being as a whole - how we find ourselves in the world (past), our
everyday ‘now’ and our possibilities (future). This is one unified structure
and when Dasein realises this to its full extent, then Dasein is authentic.
What makes this possible is “Being towards one’s ownmost, distinctive
potentiality-for-Being.” (Heidegger, 1962, pp.372)
Being authentically cannot be reduced to particular opinions or behaviour
patterns - It is not that one is either authentic or fallen, because being is
not static. One is always moving between the two.

24. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Zen: Enlightenment
While Zen and Taoist enlightenment certainly involves a grasping
of one’s being as a whole, it is not just this.
The concept of enlightenment would seem to go beyond
unifying of the elements of ones being and involves the
unifying of everything, the grasping of the totality of being in
general.

25. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Is the Zen concept of “enlightenment” the same as Heidegger’s
“authentic being”?
In Heidegger there still exists a void between one’s own Being
and that of others. In enlightenment one is said to transcend
the self and become one with everything, including the void.
Furthermore, Zen enlightenment is said to be contented bliss.
For better or worse, authentic being does not come with such
an unambiguously enthusiastic recommendation.

26. 5! Enlightenment and
Authenticity
Being and Time was only the first part of Heidegger’s project to
clarify the “question of the meaning of being”.
He only got as far as ‘clarifying’ Dasein’s being.
No second part was ever written because the questions raised
by Being and Time were too many and too problematic for a
simple ‘second half’. Instead Heidegger began to turn towards
art and poetry as possible candidates for a ‘language of
Being’ - He had found the language of everyday things was
simply not adequate to talk about Being.
It is almost certainly no co-incidence that in the Zen tradition it is
said that enlightenment, the true nature of things, the
Buddha mind, the essence of Zen and so on, cannot be
adequately explained in words.