Am I Conscious Now?

	Book review on Ten Zen Questions by Blackmore, Susan (2009) Reviewed by Peter Fenwick, 2009 published in Network Review No 99
	(order this book from amazon.co.uk)

For 25 years Sue has been sitting on her Zen cushion  leading a Zen life in parallel with  her academic life, and  those of us  who have known her over this period have seen the slow seeping out of Zen knowledge into her work.    We remember the time  when she would insist that she was not conscious, indeed, insist that she was not there, professing (with great charm) the absence of her 'self,' and rigorous in her scientific understanding that the self was a construct, and only a construct.  There is no 'I' that perceives, or acts, or thinks, although there are of course actions, perceptions, and thoughts.   It is easy to see in retrospect how, in her book on NDE experiences Dying to Live (1993)   she could only take the position that the self is a construct living  in a constructed world with constructed phenomena, and so the NDE is only another transient construction.    One of my first tangles with Zen Buddhist understanding was encapsulated in the almost koan-like 'How does the Zen master choose his tie?'  For if the self is simply a construct, then the poor Zen master will never choose his tie and I am sure would be relived at the current trend in sartorial elegance, where ties are no longer necessary, indeed, deemed reactionary.   But that doesn't help.  How does the Zen master choose his tie?  To find the answer, turn to Sue's 'Ten Zen Questions.'

Let me say straight away that this book is a delight. She starts with 'Am I conscious now?'  Then, with the laser of scientific discipline, starts to unpack that very simple but yet profound question.  That leads seamlessly on to the next question, 'What was I conscious of a moment ago?'   Next she asks, Who is asking the question?  This strikes at the central concept of Who am I?  and is followed by the intriguing questions of Where is this? How do thoughts arise?  and then questions concerning time and memory. 

A true scientist has a laboratory.  Those of you who have been on a Zen retreat ('sesshin')  know only too well and painfully that the laboratory of the Zen initiate is the Zendo.  Here you sit on your cushion with your left leg crossed over your right, both heels touching the cushion, full lotus for those who came to Zen early in life and preferably have an oriental gene in their make-up (did you know that the oriental hip has a different angle to the Western hip, thus making a full lotus easier?), half lotus for most  and a few (those of us over 70 for example) who will never achieve even that.

Sue's Zendo is her garden shed.   This is her crucible of illumination,   and there are wonderful descriptions of the activity of her mind as she sits there looking out on her  garden with its flowers, and with her cat purring - was that a purr she heard? - beside her.  But every  Zen pupil also needs a tutor, and Sue has been lucky  in finding a Zen Master, John, and being able to sit in sesshin with him in the mountains of Wales. 

As Sue follows the Zen trail she comes up against the confusions many Zen students will recognise. These arise as the sense of the constructed ego slowly falls away and the student comes more and more into the present moment, sitting closer to the point of perception.  By the time the perception has been processed by the brain, thoughts and concepts arise, and, as the Buddha said, When the opposites are present, the Buddha mind is absent.  In the initial stages of letting the mind still, and coming closer to the true nature of reality, it is even more difficult to understand who we are, as we are not.

On one occasion, Sue notes that in her existential difficulties she asked the Zen master 'If the acts appear to flow from me, but I don't do the acts, then who is responsible?' To which the answer was, Take responsibility.  Which adds another layer of confusion to the understanding of the Zen mind.  

When she reaches the questions When are you?  Are you here and now?  What am I doing?  Sue comes to the very edge of recognition of how perceptions arise and she is able to look over into the void from which they  arise.  I found myself willing her to jump into this void as I read the book, so that she could finally give up the ego and reach sartori, or enlightenment (awakening).  In my enthusiasm I stupidly sent an email to Sue asking,   'Why didn't you jump?'  To which the answer came back, There is no you to jump.  She could have added, and no void into which to jump.

Finally she comes to those fundamental questions we all have but on which few of us work as hard as Sue has done on herself to answer.  Will I be reborn? Will I live after my body has died?  Will I go to Heaven or Hell or indeed anywhere?  Or will my consciousness just be snuffed out like a candle?  She  points out that at the heart of this is the great question of self and the moment.     'John has always said to me, Let it come, let it be, let it go; and it is the self that  prevents this.'   She realises that the moment is full of arising and falling of perceptions but there is no 'I' to see them, no 'I' to hear them: they are not happening to her; they are simply happening.

Sue sent her manuscript to her Zen teacher and he read it through and commented on it from the Zen perspective.  John flags up the age-old issues in Zen enquiry:  what are the covert assumptions that the student brings to the study?  How do these positions structure perception and create the world in which the student lives?    He points out that at times in her study Sue had been 'picking and choosing,' forgetting the ancient warning in the Hsin Hsin Ming 'the great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose.'    If you already have some understanding of Zen,   I think you might find it interesting to start with this final chapter, 'Response of a Zen Master' and then go on to Sue's analysis.  If you are a Zen novice then I suggest you follow Sue's path  in her questions and her discoveries.  I shouldn't give you Sue's conclusions as it will spoil the journey for you, and I do really want you to read her book.    Perhaps I won't be giving too much away to say that the closer you get to the point of perception, the greater is the understanding that perception arises, is, and goes.   And that is what it is. 

Sue, I know that you are not there, and in thinking  that I can feel the blow of the Zen master's stick on my shoulder, reminding me that in our many meetings you have arisen, existed and disappeared,  but  I am delighted to recommend your book, which has arisen before me (if there was a me in front of which it could arise).  It should be compulsory reading for anyone in consciousness studies and certainly on every psychology course.  If psychology and neuroscience graduates could bring the level of honest perception that Sue achieves to their understanding of themselves and their subject, consciousness research would follow an entirely different and  more progressive path. 

 

Dr. Peter Fenwick is President of the Network.

 

(order this book from amazon.co.uk)