c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Les Kaye spent over 30 years in the high-tech corporate world. He is currently the abbot of Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View, Calif., and author of “Zen at Work” (Random House). He can be reached at medatwork(at)aol.com.)

(UNDATED) A disturbing but thoughtful portrayal of how the thinking mind relates to the phenomenal world is provided for us in Plato’s “myth of the cave.”

In this allegory, Plato depicts humans as prisoners, forced to look at shadows on the cave’s wall, seeing merely projected images of things of the world. Mankind accepts the shadows as the things themselves, as reality itself.

For Plato, freedom requires we leave the cave to go where light illuminates the true nature of things. His story contends that the human mind is easily deceived but it is possible to become free of confusion by expanding our capacity to reason, that thoughtful people can find truth by shining the light of inquiry on shadowy images.

Later Western philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries believed all men could be enlightened by expanding their capacity to reason. Their premise: intellectual training opens the mind to see beyond its limited, biased views. But something vital is overlooked. The emphasis on the power of logic and rational thinking does not account for emotional tendencies getting in the way of our ability to see things as they are.

Fear, desire and ambition conspire to convince the mind that it needs to fool itself, that it must create delusions to protect its flattering, defensive self-image. In situations that threaten the ego, reason is at risk of being carried away by emotions and the self-deceptions they create.

Seven centuries after Plato, half a world beyond Greece, the legendary Zen monk Bodhidharma is reported to have sat in meditation for nine years, facing the wall of his cave in northeastern China.

Bodhidharma was not a prisoner; he was there by choice. For him, meditation practice was the expression of inherent freedom. In this allegory, he willingly entered the cave of his mind to see his delusions clearly and thereby express his freedom from them.

Bodhidharma’s cave _ the place of enlightenment, the metaphor of his continuous spiritual practice _ is the opposite of Plato’s. For Plato, the cave is the place of unenlightenment, a place to escape. Yet both are places where delusions appear, so in that sense they are similar. However, Bodhidharma understands about delusions, how they distort understanding and interfere with honesty.

To be honest in everyday life is not always easy when we are in Plato’s cave. Yet when we are part of a society that values honesty, there is help in being honest in daily life, in the form of parental guidance, religious education and social norms.

On the other hand, to be honest in our own mind is a greater challenge, as delusions appear over and over again.

In his book “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” speaking about the difficulty of communicating with honesty, Zen master Shunryu Suzuki explains, “When we say something, our subjective intention is always involved. So there is no perfect word; some distortion is always present.”

We have all seen it, the way highly intelligent people make poor decisions or act foolishly when distracted and fooled by misleading, projected images. No one can watch our thoughts and feelings for us; no one can train us from the outside, not parents, church, school or society. We have to train ourselves; we have to leave Plato’s cave and enter Bodhidharma’s cave by our own efforts.

The caves are the same; only our attitude is different. The caves philosophers talk about is the world itself. Our attitude determines what cave we live in, how we choose to see the world. To be honest in our own mind, to be free of the delusions that create shadows, we have to continually clarify our mind.

And if we feel strongly about the need to be honest in our mind, if we recognize how easily we fool ourselves, we will readily enter the spiritual practice that enables the mind to avoid the strong undertow of self deceit. We have to enter Bodhidharma’s cave so we can see delusions for what they are _ shadows on the wall _ and not be fooled by them.

If we assume our own mind is free of delusions, or if we rationalize them away, we are choosing Plato’s cave, falling into the trap of relying on intellect and reason to show us the truth. But logic and reason alone cannot bring enlightenment to the mind as Plato promised. We cannot pursue reason without distortion if we are convinced that the very act of pursuing reason is itself inherently “pure,” untouched by ego, by subjective intention.

Acknowledging the difficulty of being honest because of our human tendency for self-deceit, we must return to Bodhidharma’s cave. We need spiritual practice, not just philosophy, to live the enlightened life.

DEA END KAYE