Good evening. My name is Wendy Lewis, and this evening I am going to talk about something that we don't talk about a lot, which is critical thinking. We often address not thinking and non-thinking, but we don't talk about how to think. So critical thinking is not judgmental thinking, it's not negative thinking, but it's a deconstructive process, deconstructive of our habitual modes of thinking, including how we relate to ideologies like Buddhism and its doctrines. For the last two years, I've been in a graduate program in theology.

[01:02]

So I've been doing a lot of critical thinking because that's what you do in a master's program, is preparing you for your PhD when you start writing. So it's been on my mind, well, how does critical thinking work? How do you apply it? And what's its effect or its consequence? Well, before Shakyamuni articulated the Four Noble Truths, which are a foundational Buddhist teaching, he practiced various spiritual methods and with different teachers. And when he encountered these teachings, they had become forms of dogma or doctrine. and they had been interpreted into different schools, and they emphasized different aspects of spiritual understanding. So all of these methods, views, interpretations contributed to Shakyamuni's eventual realization, and also his familial and cultural conditioning contributed to that.

[02:19]

And we all bring those things with us to Buddhism, to practice, to the teachings, those things in ourselves. And three interpretations that sort of came to my mind in Western Buddhism are a kind of psychotherapeutic interpretation, bodhisattva ideology, and the ideal of compassion. So there's a lot of other ones, but those are three that I've noticed most. And one of the things about psychotherapeutic interpretations is, and I do this, it seems like when you know a little bit about psychotherapy and psychology, you can sort of carry around this little hip pocket collection of terms and definitions and sort of apply them to yourself and to others.

[03:24]

And I think that that's not really what psychotherapy is about, but it kind of is what happens when we interpret it through Buddhism. And all of psychotherapy is... It's necessary. It's been helpful to me. And it can be applied in sort of hierarchical categories and sort of the idea of conditioned norms. Bodhisattva ideology sort of thinks of a bodhisattva as doing things that we think are good, good deeds, kindness. And this can, you know, be everything from somebody who brings you a cookie or substitutes for you when you go on vacation to people who have huge impacts in the world.

[04:26]

Healthcare, martyrs who we know who've tried to make a difference and have suffered, and politicians who seem to be working towards general good. So a lot of times as Buddhists we apply this term bodhisattva to non-Buddhists as a kind of praise for their goodness. And compassion I think may come to us partly because a little bit more easily easy than what we call wisdom because we hope people won't harm us or be entered indifferent to our condition as a human being and yet you know when we think about how we obtain all the things that are we need in our lives like clothing and food you know and fuel for our vehicles that

[05:33]

take us or bring these goods back and forth. When you start looking down a little deeper, it turns out that a lot of people are really being exploited so that we can have these things. And, you know, when I think about compassion in those terms, the impact is a little deeper. And I was once researching a blurb about... this chocolate company. And I went to their website and there was this photograph of this woman sitting on the ground and her skin was covered with dried mud and she was surrounded by some stuff she was sorting. And the description said that the workers put mud on their skin to protect it from the sun. And so there's this woman sitting on the ground. And I just thought of the juxtaposition of her with this sort of elitist chocolate company, you know, with all these different grades and types and everything.

[06:41]

And it made me think, I sort of got uncomfortable about chocolate and I still eat it. So it's just interesting, you know, how this works. You can have that impact and yet... I'm still eating chocolate. And, you know, you can think of that in terms of the coffee we drink and sugar, butter, all these things that just are... And produce, you know, that we just expect to appear to be ready to use and that sort of thing. So in a way, compassion can sometimes be close to indifference. I read a story in The New Yorker, and it was called Twins. One paragraph in it sort of really struck me. They lived in the valley, four miles from the river, and whenever the waters rose, the gray river coursed along the low arteries of the city and swamped the heart of Northside.

[07:42]

The wealthy lived on Cincinnati's seven hills, and when the flooding came, they gazed down from their hills, troubled. So sometimes compassion... can work that way. It's a kind of a looking down, a sort of troubled by conditions and catastrophes. And that's why compassion, Paul mentioned this in a recent lecture, needs the perspective or balance of wisdom to remind us where we stand and how we perceive the world from that place and how to develop a sense of irony honesty and responsibility from that perspective. Recently, some of you, I think most of you know this, the Zen Center developed a new abatial structure. And in this structure, there'll be three sort of the highest teachers who have institutional authority.

[08:49]

And in the first go, The three people who were chosen were, you know, white, heterosexual men from Christian backgrounds. And this shouldn't surprise us. There's nothing wrong with it. And yet, how interesting that that's what, as a community, that was, you know, our choice. But when you think about it, well, who in those positions is really going to hold full authority, not just at Zen Center, but in the world? Because this is all, you know, This is all, we're a reflection. So I thought of just very, as a very simple exercise. Imagine you came into the Buddha Hall this evening, and this lovely Gandharan Buddha with its Grecian features was on that side, and the Tara, female Asian figures, was on the main altar. Now, I'm not asking anyone to...

[09:52]

feel that they should feel a certain way or think a certain way. But how would you respond? Would that be like uncomfortable, joyful, puzzling, annoying? And so the, you know, to whom we give authority and those in whom we assume authority to reside are ways of looking at things that requires a kind of a critical thinking. How did this happen? Why is this always okay? These things are almost unconscious for us. And through studying Western Christianity, it occurred to me that our interpretation of Shakyamuni's life is probably based on pretty insubstantial evidence, as are the traditional accounts of the life of Jesus.

[10:58]

There's a book called, A Marginal Jew, Rethinking the Historical Jesus. And the theologian who was asked to write this book, his name is John Mayer, in the introduction he recalls asking himself, when he received these requests to write the book, why join the legion of scholars who have peered narcissistically into the pool of the historical Jesus only to see themselves? And so this narcissistic issue of, for all of us, whatever tradition we choose, is a form, it's a kind of form of, this charismatic desire, you know, wanting to take on that charismatic role of holding the truth or knowing the truth and assuming it applies to everyone. So the interpretation of Buddhism that we've inherited could actually be...

[12:09]

interpreted to be for the privileged because Shakyamuni was privileged. And that's how his background is presented in the stories. In the version we have, you know, whatever happened to him, he probably could have gone home, you know, or to some relative or something, you know, just kind of the worst for wear after his efforts. And we take it on faith. that he lived as begging for his food, sleeping outdoors, and indoors during the rainy weather, and where indoors? Who gave him that place to stay? And, you know, that sort of thing, these questions that might start to come up. But whatever life story is accurate, we tend to identify with certain aspects of it and, you know, think that... those characteristics are what the Buddha taught or who the Buddha was.

[13:10]

And this is very ordinary thinking. I think that. The Buddha said this, you know, and it's true. And I agree. But when you think about it, the Buddha came to his realization through critical thinking, looking at the dogma and the doctrines that were being... practiced and believed at the time, and applying this critical thinking, you know, sort of undoing them, deconstructing them. And in a certain way, it's not surprising that he ended up going off alone eventually. And, of course, took with him all that he had learned, everything he was. In the introduction to a marginal Jew, Mayer went on to say, there are certain great questions that each human being has to work out for himself or herself.

[14:20]

We learn from past quests to be sure, but we cannot substitute the lessons of others for our own personal wrestling with the central problems of life, problems that each person must face squarely alone. In one of Dogen's fascicles called Henzan, which is translated as extensive study and also thorough exploration, Dogen describes this study and exploration as a flip or a somersault or a cartwheel. He says that this study and this exploration should precede studying the Four Noble Truths or the Sacred Truths or advancing towards realization. He says that it's about studying this lump of mud and seeing through the thickness of the skin on one's face. This study is a study of eight years, 15 years, 30 years, a lifetime of years.

[15:27]

So that's in the fascicle. And I was really struck by the thickness of the skin on one's face. I read somewhere that beginning medical students, and I asked someone, and this is true for students of psychology as well, go through this initial period of hypochondria. They see all these symptoms and they must have this condition or know someone who has this condition, and then they start thinking of, you know, sort of diagnosing everybody and themselves. And... I think sometimes when you go to a medical practitioner, it seems like they're suspicious and very, you know, sure there's nothing wrong with you from the very beginning. And others are so interested, it seems they can't wait, you know, to find out what's wrong with you and fix it. And then there's this kind of somewhere in between people who I think of as listeners.

[16:34]

They... They're not sure and they're not dismissive, but they kind of listen and, you know, really apply their diagnostic abilities, you know, to what you tell them. One of the reasons I've noticed this is that I had something wrong with my, I thought, my hip for quite a few years. And I went to the doctor. There's nothing wrong with you. You're getting old. Sent me to all these specialists. They all kept looking at my hip. And then it turned out I went to a chiropractor and the problem was in my back. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with you, you're just getting old. Okay, okay, you know, but then it would get worse. So it was just very interesting going to all these different practitioners. And actually, I don't feel resentment about that. I'm just so, it's so curious, you know, how they were all so sure.

[17:35]

There was nothing wrong with me. And then some were more curious. I can't find anything wrong. And I ended up having surgery. And I think that was about six months ago. And that experience really has made me think about what practice is, who I am. What is the meaning of my life? Because that was sort of a little balancing point for me. I'm almost 60, this happened. Anyway, so what's valuable? What has meaning? So I think in a similar way to medical students, we often sort of begin to understand the precepts from a kind of hypochondric perspective. And, you know, we examine all our symptoms of being human, and we examine those in others.

[18:43]

But eventually I think we kind of start to suspect that the precepts are not really best studied from a self-referencing point of view. The precepts, or the Buddhist moral imperatives for non-selfishness and non-harming, is the way I think of them, they come to be a way of seeing the world through a kind of clarity and spaciousness. And I think freedom is spaciousness, and clarity is the recognition of contingency. And it's not necessarily a pleasant perspective, I think it can be very excruciating and it's also very joyous because it releases one from being judgmental all the time and anxious all the time.

[19:48]

I don't quite know how that happens but there's these little moments, I think, where you can see that when you're studying the precepts for a long period of time. So studying the thickness of the skin on our face means examining our self-referencing attitude towards everything, including practice and the teachings. This sort of self-referral or narcissism is interpreting the practice and the teachings through our preferences, and usually without noticing that we're doing that. So I wonder sometimes, you know, how conscious I am or we are of our preferences, our preferential interpretation of Buddhism here in our situation.

[21:01]

And there's a... I think Zen Center is one of the most generous and open places I've ever known. And we also have our limitations, you know, and there's ways people feel excluded. So, you know, how can we look at both of those things always at the same time? So by applying critical thinking, noticing that we're applying our preferences and interpreting things, things that way, I think we develop that spaciousness and clarity and also a kind of honesty about our limitations. So I think what happens with the psychotherapeutic interpretation, psychotherapy is actually a system of healing. And all those terms are not really as simple as they seem at first.

[22:07]

And I think just as in psychotherapy, where a therapist develops through their experience and critical thinking, critical evaluation and examination, a kind of compassion that's informed. by that kind of critical thinking. And bodhisattva ideology, while interpreting goodness and kindness as bodhisattva activity, which it is, it also may dismiss the possibility of bodhisattva activity in everything that arises. Mara plays an important role in the stories of the Buddha's enlightenment. And Mara can be seen as an enlightening being. Stephen Batchelor describes Mara as Buddha's devilish twin.

[23:10]

As long as Buddha lives, he is constantly relinquishing Mara. For Mara is the self to Buddha's selflessness, the fear to Buddha's fearlessness, the death to Buddha's deathlessness. The two are inseparable. Mara is really Gautama's own conflicted humanity. Now, I've read a couple of times, and I couldn't find where, that compassion often arises more quickly and more easily than wisdom. But when wisdom arises, it goes deeper. And I don't think that that's a judgment, but I think it's a promise about, you know, studying the thickness of the skin on our face, how, in a way, we... find compassion easier to understand because we want it to be directed towards us and that sort of thing. But I think that when wisdom arises with compassion or starts to inform compassion or more deeply inform compassion,

[24:28]

then we can develop this sense of irony and responsiveness. One of the difficulties of applying wisdom and critical thinking is that it's not usually met with a great deal of enthusiasm. You know, it doesn't sound like fun, and I don't think it is, but it does. There is something funny about it is that I think it can actually develop a kind of sense of humor in us about how intense we can be about practice and the teachings. Through my study, we've done a lot of work I've done in the program is studying post-Vatican II theologies. And in the 20th century, they developed this historical critical method for looking at the origins of Christianity and the church.

[25:33]

And a lot of the theologians and priests who applied that were disciplined, defrocked, excommunicated by the church. And one theologian who was called to the Vatican several times but wasn't actually ever disciplined. Some of his friends asked him why he didn't leave the church. And I think this is the question that critical thinking always comes up against. If I don't like it, why don't I leave? If you don't like it, why don't you leave? And so it's always like you're starting again, starting again. And though critical thinking might results in leaving or leaving and returning. But critical thinking is always contextual. You know, it happens within us and within our institution and within our tradition.

[26:37]

Now, this theologian, when he was asked this question, said, where would I go? I mean, where would he go? That was his whole life. He'd been a priest for 50 or 60 years. So where would he go if he left the church? And what would his critical thinking mean then? So that's how I understood his, where would I go? So I think of the intention of critical thinking is not destruction, but it's deconstruction, deconstruction. And this deconstruction... The intention of it is towards consciousness, responsiveness, and realization. And I think the sort of essential piece of it is this continuous and intentional listening all of the time and sometimes saying, what?

[27:49]

What? You know. When we chant the Heart Sutra, I know, most of you know this, and some of you may not know this, but the speaker is Avokiteshvara, who is the hearer. And the hearer deeply practices Prajnaparamita, wisdom or critical thinking. So that's my instruction, and that was the perspective from which all my thinking came for this talk. And that's all I have to say. And what I would like to do is just to see how it feels to end this talk, to offer my closing vows to the Tara statue, and you can join me or not, because we're gonna bow anyway.

[28:53]

But thank you very much.

[28:56]

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