After years of reading the classics and more recent publications, watching YouTube-channels, and listening to podcasts with spiritual people explaining different techniques and philosophical terms of various religions and traditions (aiming for the development and advancement of the individual), one is genuinely surprised after coming across a person who actually talks about these things in a brutally honest, funny and realistic way. Besides his extremely worthwhile books "Zen Confidential" and "Single White Monk", priest of the Zen-tradition Jack Haubner has an awesome and much-needed YouTube-channel as well.
Hey Jack! How are you feeling in this January of 2022? Where are you writing this, and how's life over there in the Omikron-phase of the pandemic?
Greetings Antti! I am writing this in Vienna, on a dark, rainy Sunday afternoon, the hum of my girlfriend's washing machine providing a nice domestic score while I unlock the secrets of the universe through your interview questions. Speaking of Omikron, I may have it. Woke up kinda sick this morning and my girlfriend has just finished recovering from it. I may not live through this interview, I'm saying.
You were brought up Catholic, but drifted away from that tradition after starting to study philosophy. What else can you tell me of your childhood and early adulthood? Are you from the West Coast, perhaps from some promised land of comedy clubs (something you have knowledge of as well)? Do you have an explanation for the phenomenon of so many American Catholics (and for example Jews as well) leaving their tradition for, well usually Buddhism, besides just becoming adults in their perhaps narrow-minded households?
Definitely not from the West Coast! I am a Midwestern Catholic boy by birth and disposition. However I spent most of my life in California, and I miss that ubiquitous L.A. sun.
And yeah, Catholic and Jewish people populate many a dharma center. What is it? Is it because we are primed for spiritual experiences through our native monotheistic religions which then can't or don't deliver these experiences? I had a lot of training in how to be spiritual as a young Catholic. Mass every Sunday (Latin mass no less), Confession, Communion, Confirmation, religion class, spiritual books in the household where I grew up, conservative Catholic politics everywhere I turned. Et cetera and so on. So to be honest, I had all this expectation built up with no actual spiritual payoff. I prayed and prayed to a lifesize statue of the Virgin Mary, for example, when I was a kid, but nothing ever happened. She never winked at me, never spoke a word, never even flicked her toe (which was crushing the head of Satan). She just stood there in all her chaste plaster glory.
Speaking of Jewish people who are into Buddhism, your book "Zen Confidential" features forewords by the amazing Leonard Cohen, who was practicing and enhancing his creativity in the Zen tradition like you. Personally I heard Leonard Cohen playing in the background at our home quite a lot growing up, and the best live show I have ever seen was hands down him playing here in Helsinki in 2008 I think. But I've never thought of him as a Zen-monk in any way really. Regardless, Zen can be just a technique stripped of all religiosity you use in your daily life, whatever you do?
Leonard hit his prime, I swear to God, around the time you saw that concert. By then he'd developed into a wise old Yoda BuJew who was writing love songs to God and dharma poems for all of us. Dude was on fire. (A nice, consistent, helpful campfire.)
Zen can "be just a technique stripped of all religiosity," as you say. I think it can be more than that, too. A way of life and death, and not just an arrow in your quiver.
While many religions have a huge number of different schools, currents and traditions, Zen Buddhism is usually described having two, namely Rinzai and Soto. As you are practicing in the Rinzai tradition, what took you on this particular path, and did you try out the other more known path or paths (or any other spiritual path for that matter) before choosing to stay in the Rinzai school? Do you play with other traditions at the moment, besides the Zen-stuff?
The sole thing that took me down the Rinzai path was 1) meeting my mentor, and then 2) meeting his teacher. The Rinzai path intrinsically appeals to me because it's so damn simple. Zen has few moving parts, my teacher used to say. I.e. you can take it anywhere, into any context, setting, country, universe, dimension.
At heart I'm like many people in my demographic in that I do play with other traditions. I'm reading the Dalai Lama's book on the Heart Sutra now, I converse regularly with a hermit friend in the Tibetan tradition, I am forever dipping my big toe in the Thomas Merton pool of writings. Ultimately though my heart is with Zen. It's good to pick a team and play ball, I've found. Otherwise you remain the eternal dabbler.
Speaking of techniques and religions, do you think of the Zen-tradition as a religion, or a technique, or a way of life? What kind of experiences do you have from Zen-schools or people who represent the more open-minded and on the opposite side the more dogmatic (if we can use these terms) sides of the tradition?
It's tricky to call Zen a religion. It has religious-y feeling stuff like candles, chanting, statues, incense etc. But ultimately it's a practice that deconstructs and dissolves beliefs rather than a system of faith that reinforces them. But the more I practice the less I know what to call Zen, how to think about Zen, or what Zen even is. The less said the better. (Wait a minute, that's not right. I have a whole YouTube channel and Patreon page where I talk about Zen!) Zen people can be quite dogmatic, by the way. It's comical to watch. We really do attach to our forms and customs and rituals sometimes!
While the experiences of "enlightenment" (or similar terms) differ a lot from person to person , between different techniques or psychedelic substances and so on, the one thing they have in common seems to be a gradual or momentary life-changing shift in perspective. What are you experiences of such states, if you feel like sharing some of them?
A priest friend used to tell me "There are no enlightened people, there's only enlightened activity." When you have the "experience" there's no one there to experience it, and so there's no experience at all. "Zero!" my teacher used to say. Just losing yourself completely in whatever you do, be it zazen, cleaning your cereal bowl, making love, sending an email. That's it. Lose the self. Until the self pops up again. Then it's time to re-lose.
One day years ago I was listening to a lecture by a Zen-priest while working alone at a kitchen, when my perspective suddenly shifted dramatically. The only way I'd like to describe it now is "becoming the canvas". While this did not stop me from continuing to work, this experience was very different from anything I had experienced before while meditating or under the influence of different substances. I'm pretty sure it was just something the teacher said, proving the words of the "guru" (so to speak) can shift our states of mind dramatically? Or maybe it was something that was on its way anyhow?
After my shift in perspective gradually returned to so-called normal within a span of maybe two hours, I had a strong urge to discuss about it with different Buddhist teachers, and I sent an email to many well-known western teachers or scholars of Buddhism. While some of them wrote back to me something like "You have experienced the whatever level of attaining whatever, which I like to call whatever", most of them just answered "Forget about it, and continue your meditations". Do you think the extremely subjective and personal nature of these experiences results in people not really wanting to comment on them, or are they almost always just something the mind produces while still definitely travelling towards a major change?
Such a good question! My own teacher's approach was generally along the lines of "Forget about it and continue your meditation." It's easy to attach to these experiences and spend the rest of one's life chasing them. (Lord knows I've been guilty of that.) In the Ten Oxherding Pictures (a traditional Zen teaching) we watch a guy chase an ox through the mountains. It's a metaphor for the spiritual path/quest for and discovery of enlightenment. In the end the guy winds up in the marketplace, standing there, invisible. He's back at square one. But is he the same? Is square one the same? We have to live in this world, we have to manifest as human beings. Zen is not about escaping from the human path through enlightenment experiences. It's about less and less suffering. That's the whole Buddhist path in a nutshell: No suffering. Everything else is a red herring.
When it comes explaining what these shifts in states of perception really are, now in my forties (after studying these topics and trying out different techniques for about twenty years) I tend to think of them as neurological changes in brain chemistry (operation), in the symbiosis between the two hemispheres or senses (I'm looking at you Dr. Iain McGilchrist). What do you think, or does it really matter what the human-ape thinks, as long as it works?
To paraphrase the Bard, "There are more things on heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our neurology".
While any schmuck can preach their opinions and philosophies on their YouTube-channel without having too much knowledge about the subjects they are preaching about, you actually know what you are talking about (when it comes to the Zen-tradition), plus you are very down to earth and full of humor, which is extremely refreshing in all kinds of spirituality. Was this your goal all along, as writer and a YouTuber, or did it just happen?
I've been fortunate enough to fail my way into a good sense of humor. That's how you get one. Failure. You head right and success jukes left. You show up with a square peg and life is standing there with a round hole. It's hard to take yourself seriously when you're standing there with your square peg and life is standing there with its round hole. What I mean to say is, make sure you have both a square peg and a round peg. Lots of pegs, that's what I'm saying.
Many people are genuinely shocked when discovering for example that Alan Watts (without downplaying his person or entertainment of ideas in any way) was a heavy drinker until his death, but there are actually many examples of "spiritual drinkers" in the Zen-tradition, and other traditions as well (Tantric dudes come to mind). While I wouldn't personally recommend drinking heavily to anyone - God knows I've had my serious problems with alcohol - do you think there are some stereotypes when it come to spirituality and for example substance use and sex that could use some updating?
Good question! I think initially many of us feel liberated from uptight Western spiritual norms by the hard-drinking, sex-loving Zen master stereotype. Fine. But a little of that goes a long way. The problem with these stereotypes is that they rob us blind, they keep us from seeing how intimate the practice is and how much true Zen looks just like us and no one else.
When I took my vows I pledged not to be attached to substances or no substances; not to be attached to sexuality or no sexuality. Do you see the difference? I didn't vow to never have sex, I vowed to do my best not to attach to sex. But staying a virgin for life and shying away completely from sex - isn't that also possibly an attachment to sex? So this is the way to understand the Zen master who has a glass of wine or has sex with a partner. But the idea that it's somehow "Zen" to drink and screw in excess is pretty lame and junior varsity.
My teacher knew Alan Watts, by the way. Someone asked him what he thought about the guy. He said "Too much drinking, too much smoking, too much talking". (A harsh assessment but there it is). I love Alan Watts. He was my first on-the-page Zen-teacher.
People think that making a YouTube-channel or content is easy: Just sit in front of the computer and start talking, post the video online and the views just keep increasing, resulting in you becoming so wealthy you can leave your shitty day job. But this is not the case now is it?
No, it totally IS the case! I made my first video in three minutes even though the video itself was over fifteen minutes long. I posted it, and just then the doorbell rang and someone from YouTube was standing in the hallway with a bag of bitcoins. "There's more where this came from," she said. "Just keep giving us that sweet sweet dharma." It's been smooth sailing (literally. I own a yacht.) ever since.
I will say this about making YouTube videos: having to sit there and edit sixty minutes of your own face and your own voice down to about ten or twelve minutes is some of the most humbling work I've ever done. I had no idea how annoying I look and sound.
Thanks for this extremely fun and interesting interview! What are your plans for this another pandemic-ridden year?
I plan on finishing my novel Love in the Land of Like: a Folktale from the Future. I'm in love with this project and it's been a bear to work on, but I think I'm finally making some headway. I live in Vienna, and they have this thing here called winter, so for the next few months I'll be dreaming about Southern California.
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