Do not seek the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions.

 There is a Zen saying “Do not seek the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions.”

That sounds easy, doesn't it? Consciously seeking the truth is a pain in the . . . well, suffice it to say it can be exceptionally frustrating. Just the other day I found myself in the middle of a discussion about Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The FaceBook post that started it pointed out that Thomas Edison was rather aggressive in his competition with Tesla to the point of doing some rather unscrupulous things. That lead to someone saying that to bring it up now was mean, which lead to talking about our perception of truth. After a lengthy discussion someone rightly pointed out that there were only two people who know the truth, and they are both dead; viz. Edison and Tesla.

Later I wrote a blog about the Keystone pipeline project. In it I referred to the British periodical, The Guardian. And, before anyone points it out again, yes I know the Guardian's reputation. The blog had hardly been posted when my son sent a long note about the Guardian's reputation. In return I acknowledged that I was aware of their reputation but had good reason to refer to them. Looking back on the exchange, his “truth” about the Guardian sounded like it was taken straight from the Daily Mail, which is the Guardian's conservative counterpart and chief rival.

Shall we get into a discussion about 'what is truth?' It does seem that we're going to end up concluding that what generally passes for truth is nothing more than a well established opinion. You've all read the famous quote by Abraham Lincoln, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” How clever I thought he was for that statement. Actually, he might really have said that, but if he did it was an undocumented quote. How often do we do the same thing? Unless one is writing a thesis or other academic work it is not uncommon to use someone else's clever combination of words. If Lincoln was actually just writing a letter it is unlikely he was even aware. Whoever heard of footnoting a letter? But the point of all this isn't to criticize Lincoln or anyone else. The point is that there are those of us who would share/declare the “fact”, the “truth”, that this statement was originally made by Abraham Lincoln, or maybe Henry Thoreau, or maybe Voltaire, or maybe Mark Twain, or maybe Albert Einstein, or maybe Oscar Wilde or maybe Thomas Jefferson. And for the sake of good academic behavior, I got that list from en.Wikiquote.org which led me to www.classy.dk. At en.Wikiquote.org I read that in his Provincial Letters: Letter XVI, written December 4th., 1656, Blaise Pascal made the statement “Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” roughly translated, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” Even though it does appear that Pascal was the first to turn this phrase, the only one who knows “the truth” is Blaise Pascal and he hasn't been seen around for a few years.

How many times have you heard, or perhaps even said something like 'the truth of the matter is that if you had done what I said this wouldn't have happened.' Generally it seems quite logical. In July of 2014, while working as a National Park Service volunteer, my lady and I encountered a couple standing much too close to a Black Bear in order to take the bear's picture. We attempted to politely tell them they were too close but they ignored us. The end result was that the bear turned and lunged at them. They began to run. We screamed at them to not run and put ourselves between the terrified visitors and the bear. 'The truth of the matter is that had they moved away from the bear this wouldn't have happened.' Even now I would hold that such a statement is valid and most likely accurate, but is it the 'truth'? Could the bear, who had already been annoyed by the visitors, not have lunged even if they had listened to us and started to move away? The results could have been the same. So, while historic experience and park rules confirm that they should not have been doing what they were, my statement of 'truth' was still, in fact, an opinion.

The three greatest users of truth are politicians, religions and advertising agencies. The three most likely to modify the truth or make it fit their position are politicians, religions and advertising agencies. This is an opinion, not truth, but its validity can be supported. Since it is further my opinion that the elected official is the walking, breathing definition of the adjective 'vacuous', and they are all certain that they are the holders of 'the truth', it seems to me that it is miraculous that our Congress has ever made anything work. But I won't go any further with that. I promise.

I do believe, however, that one can demonstrate that 'truth' has changed a great deal over the course of history. In the early days of the development of the automobile the truth was that you couldn't breathe if you went faster than 30 miles per hour. People have been put to death because they challenged 'the truth'. Even today there is a large group of people in the United States who call anyone who challenges their belief system evil and claim that we do not 'know the truth'. There are those of us who base our belief concerning the creation and development of the world on scientific discovery. There are those who say that we are wrong and going to burn in Hell because the 'truth' is written in their holy book. I believe that, if you could take a poll, you would find that the devout scientist is really hesitant to use the word 'truth'.

This has been far from an academic consideration of the meaning of truth. My college should take back my diploma if I were to claim that it were. But it does seem that we have raised the question as to whether 'truth', as commonly used, is little more than a well established and widely accepted opinion. If you like dealing with complex issues and arguments, check out Wikipedia's site on “truth”. It is quite extensive and has 81 footnotes and 60 references and seeking more.

But I have digressed from the Zen saying - “Do not seek the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions.” I apologize.

It is interesting, however, in light of the Zen saying, that I ended up with the hypothesis that what generally passes for truth is nothing more than a well established opinion. Of course, if I put it that way, then I'm going to have to define “what generally passes for truth”. But I'm not going to bore you with that. I bet you have a very good idea of what I mean. (sorry philosophers and academics!) While it may appear that I have painted myself into the proverbial corner, which is exactly what I was beginning to think, it does appear that this might be coming together.

Buddhism teaches that there are two truths - absolute and relative. Since there is no way that I can even begin to explain this teaching which has developed over 2,500 years and been filled with 2,500 years worth of debate, I'm going to commit the sin of over-simplification. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Schreiber, Ehrhard, Diener, 1991) states that Paramartha-satya (ultimate truth) is “the absolute truth as opposed to the conventional truth or relative truth of the phenomenal world.” In other words we have a perception of what is true. That is conventional truth.

Quantum physics might actually help us here. I can say “the truth is this table is solid.” That would be accepted by everyone standing around my table. They would all shake their heads in agreement unless there's a quantum physics scientist in the group. She would probably say, “that's not true. The truth is . . . .” and then go on to explain how the table just appears solid. Conventional truth is that the table is solid. Absolute truth is the reality of quantum physics.

The marvelous Zen meditation master, Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching (1998, Broadway Books, p. 130) explains the difference with an analogy of knowing Paris. If you've been to Paris, you have a concept of Paris but that isn't really Paris. It's a concept of Paris. Even if you've lived in Paris all your life, it is still a concept as opposed to the reality of Paris. Relative truth is our concept of of reality. Absolute/Ultimate truth is reality.  He concludes “Look deeply to try to overcome the gap between your concept of reality and reality itself.” To a meditation master like Thich Nhat Hanh the means to that end is meditation. I won't disagree with that but I'm going to take it in another direction and say that this is where we turn back to our Zen saying.

If we can assume that the saying is talking about relative truth and we have established that relative truth is, by a mundane westerner's definition, a well established opinion and by a Buddhist definition a concept of reality, then the saying is proposing or could be rewritten 'do not seek the well established opinion, the concept of reality. Only cease to cherish relative truth, the concept of reality.' If we give up opinion, our relative truths, our concepts of reality, what happens? According to teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh, through meditation we become enlightened. We encounter the ultimate truth.

But I know you're not going to let me get away with that, unless you are a Buddhist student. Since the vast majority of my readers at this point in my blogging career are westerners, you're going to insist upon an application. Very well.

Let's go back to my question 'if we give up opinion, our relative truths, our concepts of reality, what happens?' What is a western answer to that question? Would you not have an open mind? Either that or you've gone blank.

There is a great teaching story for this. There are several versions but the one I first read was about Nan-in, a Japanese Zen master during the Meiji era. There was an American university professor who was a “expert” in Zen. The professor traveled to Japan and sought an audience with the famous master, Nan-in. As was the custom, Nan-in served tea. He kept pouring tea into the professor's cup until it was overflowing and the professor could not keep quiet. “It's overfull!” exclaimed the professor. “It won't hold any more.” Nan-in looked at his visitor. “You are like this cup,” he said. “You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

“Awe!” someone is going to say to me, “why didn't you just say that 1,814 words ago?!”

To which I would reply. “If you really wanted to know the meaning of the saying you needed to experience having your cup overflow.”  

If I may be so bold . . . . .

(picture from on-line open source. Zen saying. Many people will see "truth will set you free" as a  reference to the Christian New Testament John 8:32 credited to Jesus even though that was not the intent.)