I take back everything I said in my book and in this web page about the Zen process being long and difficult, requiring years of practice and a will to face the truth no matter how hard you may want to resist.

A guy who reads this webpage kindly sent me a copy of Andrew Cohen's magazine What Is Enlightenment? so I could check out their review of my book (they thought it sucked ass). And while leafing through the rag and chuckling over the dialogue between Andy and his pal Ken Wilber I came across an ad headlined "How to Meditate Deeper Than a Zen Monk!"

According to the ad, a powerful new audio technology called Holosync will allow you to reach the same rarified state of enlightened uber-consciousness as the great Zen monks of old in minutes.

It's based, they say, "in part on Nobel Prize winning research on how complex systems (human beings, for instance) evolve to higher levels of functioning."

Wow. Nobel Prize winning research! Complex systems! Higher levels of functioning! "A precise combination of audio signals gives the brain a very specific stimulus that creates states of deep meditation." And here I've wasted decades staring at blank walls for hours on end when all I had to do was slap on a pair of headphones and "achieve super deep meditation at the touch of a button!" There's even a toll free number you can call to receive the tape for free (a $19.95 value!).

Yeah, well, if you're the type to fall for that kind of pitch you're definitely reading the wrong web page. There is no Enlightenment Machine. Never has been and never will be. It's a real shame people believe this kind of stuff. But they do.

It's easy to see how this sort of thinking works. Technology can be a wonderful thing. Look at all the stuff science has given us. Lap top computers, iPods, swivel rotary wankel engines. Technology has improved so many aspects of our lives it doesn't take much to suppose that technology may one day enhance meditation to the point where we can find Enlightenment at the touch of a button.

But makes assumptions about technology and about meditation that simply are not true. Technology works like this. You got a problem. Say you want to listen to music while you ride the train to work. But you're never sure just what you're gonna want to hear any given morning and you don't want to carry your whole CD collection around with you everywhere you go. So you develop a portable hard disc capable of storing a couple hundred CDs on it and voila! iPod! All your troubles solved!

So to come up with a technical solution you look at a problem, you think about it a lot, you manipulate lots of symbols around in your head, you test your symbolic logic against the hard facts of the real world, and you come up with an invention that fixes what was bothering you. It's a very good way to deal with things.

But meditation comes from a completely different place. It's not about thought at all. All machines, no matter what they do, are human thought solidified. They can only ever function within the boundaries of the thoughts that went into their creation. Meditation is about seeing past the limitations of thought, going to places thought cannot possibly reach.

Now the idea of going beyond all thought may sound exotic. But that's only because we tend to place way too much faith in thought. Thought really doesn't go very far. It's nothing more than electrical impulses bouncing around in that three pound lump of meat you carry around in your head. Nothing more. The place beyond all thought is right here. Nothing the least bit exotic about it at all. Thought can never hope to capture what is right in front of you and within you right this very moment.

A machine can only ever operate within the limits that thought has set for it. Say you think that using bio-feedback might be a good way to enhance your Zen practice. Maybe you've decided that Zen meditation is all about increasing your theta brain waves and decreasing your delta brain waves (or whatever, I never paid a lot of attention to that stuff). You hook yourself up to your bio-feedback thingy and you train yourself to bliss out on all those delicious theta waves. Bing! Instant Zen, right?

Wrong. Zen practice has nothing to do with setting up some goal in your mind and then trying to use the practice to achieve that goal. It don't work like that. Real Zen practice is purely choiceless. It's all about seeing what is at this moment. If a clear mind comes, a clear mind comes. If a cloudy mind comes, a cloudy mind comes.

Now if you believe a machine — the product of thought made into matter — can take you beyond all thought, well, feel free to call that toll free number and get your tape. As for me, I'll stick with staring at walls, thank you very much.

Brad Warner is the author of
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies
and the Truth About Reality

Also by Brad Warner: Zen is Boring!

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