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I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
And if anyone actually read the book, Zen was about processing childhood trauma.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a series of lectures about philosophy told through the lens of a real motorcycle trip across the country interleaved with recollections of his personal history developing the philosophy, going through a breakdown as a result of schizophrenia, and recovering the personality lost through electroshock therapy. He was a bit of a megalomaniac and failed out of traditional academia as a result of his mental illness which his son likely shared to some degree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly, the Western idea of Stoicism seems to focus mostly on controlling or even suppressing your emotions (at least on surface level), while the Stoicism you rightly call "Roman" (thanks for that, btw) is much more holistic and more of an ethical framework.
Stoicism in Ancient Rome was COMPLETELY about controlling your emotions, though. And in Greece it was never that big of a deal. The stoics we remember today are all Roman. Marcus Aurelius, Epicurious, Seneca. Meditations is largely Marcus Aurelius soothing himself with logical arguments. Im not doing it full justice but the passages read like “A whole is not less than its parts, Humans are intelligent, therefore the…
This is so false it deserves comment. For example, the SEP for Stoicism [1]. You'll notice that the first entire two sections are Physical Theory and Logic. Ethics comes later and it isn't until 4.3 (after Telos and Virtue) that you get to indifference. From the intro:
"Stoic philosophy was, from Zeno onwards, conceived of as comprising three parts: physics (phusikê), logic (logikê), and ethics (êthikê)."
I think you are over-indexing on one work by one Stoic. There is much, much more to actual Stoicism than "controlling your emotions".
I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
Any time some topic of some asian culture that has been shared into america comes up this sort of thing dominates the discussion.
I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
Do non-westerners do this? Go through lengthy "it's not this it's that" explanations trying to display superior knowledge of what the real genuine thing from somebody else's culture is? Any time some topic of some asian culture that has been shared into america comes up this sort of thing dominates the discussion.
There is, though, something especially cheap about how it is mostly done today. At least we got treasures like the Cantongqi/Sandōkai out of it in the past. (Or maybe I just committed exactly the same error by invoking the Sandōkai.) I'm sure it was done similarly back then, but likely mostly in actual conversation.
Maybe enough of today's commented noise will filter down to a small number of some particularly astute internet comments which will be studied in the year 3226, but I doubt it. Today's best thinking is still found in books and articles. Which has always probably been true, but it used to require some additional amount of work to hear foolishness.
Around 2015, I found myself managing back end and machine learning engineers (not researchers) at the same time. Many of the back end engineers wanted to do more ML. Some of them did well when given a chance, but others wanted to revert to back end within a few months. At the same time, one of the ML leaders wanted to step away from ML and only do back end work to support ML. As I studied these dynamics, something oc…
I saw the same thing and always wondered how you can manage it effectively. I had a team of data engineers that wanted to do more data science, and 2 data scientists that both wanted to be data engineers(one of them argued that everyone wants to be DS and so it was too crowded, saying that they could make more money as a DE). I also remember a specific instance where, one day, my friend ranted about how he needs to s…
I started my career doing mostly full stack work. I couldn't get away from the front end part quickly enough. I had intuition for simplifying UI flows, but none at all for aesthetics. As requests for aesthetic changes came in from our excellent designers, they felt completely arbitrary to me, even though they probably weren't. Most of my career was as a data engineer, data engineering manager, or leading an ML-heavy org. That space fit me so much better.
I loved having a few self-starting front-end devs in my orgs - they could take various tools we were creating for ourselves and make them quite a bit more useful. But it was also always a stepping stone as they typically wanted to work on the public facing part of the product.
I feel that the Zen used in the West and the Zen in East Asia are quite different. I think the Western Zen is probably the one from the 1970s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It usually carries a sense of equanimity and beginner's mind. But in East Asia, Zen actually emphasizes aimlessness or non‑purposefulness. The point where I really feel the difference is that Western Zen seems to be about how to t…
Do non-westerners do this? Go through lengthy "it's not this it's that" explanations trying to display superior knowledge of what the real genuine thing from somebody else's culture is? Any time some topic of some asian culture that has been shared into america comes up this sort of thing dominates the discussion.
Western Zen has also adapted to fit certain needs, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just that, as an East Asian, when I clicked on a post about Zen, what I expected and what I actually saw were different.
In fact, from what I've seen on Korean YouTube and elsewhere, when something tied to one's cultural identity gets modified, it's a fairly universal human reaction for someone who knows the original to say, 'This seems different, doesn't it?' What you're talking about often tends to become a kind of power struggle over 'who gets to define this culture.' When the insider's definition differs from the outsider's, that dynamic frequently plays out. It's a common trait of online communities.
However, this is usually influenced by the dominant demographic of the community, so generally speaking, the community's majority tends to shape the norms. In that sense, it's usually the outsiders who need to adapt. I'm trying my best to do that too. HN is fundamentally Western-oriented, and I try to adjust to native speakers like you, even if it means slightly altering my approach. The problem is that our ways of thinking differ in so many ways that for me, what feels like a low-cost critique can read to this community as a high-cost one. That gap is something I find quite difficult.
In any case, it's just a fresh perspective for me. I don't think Western Zen is bad (and that's an important point).
It's like this: if an actual Chinese person goes to the US and eats Panda Express orange chicken, they'll say, 'This isn't Chinese food.' But is that really the Chinese person's fault? Localization is only natural. When you think about it, it's simple. Most people don't stay on this site for long (I stay about two hours a day, so I guess I'm a longer-term user). Many people don't even leave comments. But when they click on a title that interests them and find it different from what they expected, they might leave a comment.
And isn't that part of what makes life interesting? The fact that you and I think differently, that our predictions don't always match. Rather than framing it as a 'non-Western way of thinking,' I'd ask you to understand it as a gap that arises because you're a native of a site watched by people all over the world.
In any case, I don't think the Western adaptation of Zen is wrong. Cultures naturally get localized. Just like how I feel a sense of unfamiliarity when I see K-pop Demon Hunters, but that's a natural reaction. I just hope you'll see it as a third-party observation that certain things feel different. Isn't it better to have a diversity of perspectives?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be done with doing, would appear to require passive income?
No need for an income at all if you are going to be a monk. This is the problem with modern spirituality, we take teachings meant for ascetics and try to apply it without a teacher to our, very far from acetic life. Mediation s goal isn't to help you be more productive. Prayer isn't for getting a better car or in lieu of life insurance.