Hearing the Sutras, Proper Belief...

Nathan quotes  and comments a bit from Chapter 6 of the Diamond Sutra, and I wanted to comment on that as well.

The relevant part of Chapter 6 is:

Subhåti said to the Buddha, “World Honored One, in the future will there be living beings, who, when they hear such phrases spoken will truly believe?"

The Buddha told Subhåti, “do not speak in such a way! After the Tathàgata’s extinction, in the last five hundred years, there will be those who hold the precepts and cultivate blessings who will believe such phrases and accept them as true.

“You should know that such people will have planted good roots with not just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three, four, or five Buddhas, but will have planted good roots with measureless millions of Buddhas. All who hear such phrases and produce even one thought of pure faith are completely known and completely seen by the Tathàgata. Such living beings thus obtain measureless blessings and virtue. And why? Those living beings have no further mark of self, of others, of living beings, or of a life; no mark of dharmas and no mark of no dharmas. If living beings’ hearts grasp at marks, then that is attachment to self, to others, to living beings, and to a life. For that reason you should not grasp at dharmas, nor should you grasp at no dharmas. Regarding that principle, the Tathàgata often says, ‘all you bhikùus should know that the Dharma which I speak is like a raft. Even dharmas should be re- linquished, how much the more so no dharmas.’

The heading of the chapter I'm quoting from says "Proper Belief is Rare."  The thing about Buddhist texts is that they tend to be more mentally challenging than the monotheists' writings; there's more subtlety going on here than might meet the eye at first.  In Subhåti's  question to the Buddha,  "such phrases" mean the teaching of the Diamond Sutra itself.  Like the Lotus Sutra, it's simultaneously self-referential and pointing outside of, that is, beyond the text of the Sutra itself.   As has been commented by others,  this pointing refers to one's appropriation and manifestation of the Dharma (including lack of attachment to it) in one's own life. 

There's one other point I'll make here: the rare "proper belief" is the mindset of not being concerned about any outcome here.   Furthermore the "people who have planted good roots" are those who have belief in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, but that belief is a belief borne of observation having first taken refuge, as can be seen by reading a little further down in text I've not quoted.

But this is way too too much analysis.  It has so much analysis, that in fact what I wrote has nothing whatsoever to do meaningfully with reality.

Let me put it this way.  Consider Case 29 of the Hekigan Roku:

A monk asked Daizui,
"When the great kalpa fire is inflamed, the whole universe¹ will be
destroyed. I wonder if 'that' will also be destroyed or not."
Daizui said,
"Destroyed."
The monk said,
"If so, will 'that' be gone with the other?"²
Daizui said,
"Gone with the other."

This is clearly related to the same thing mentioned in the Diamond Sutra. (For what it's worth, you can read a Sanbo Kyōdan commentary by Yamada Koun here.)

A "proper belief" mindset is one in which belief,  the question of belief,  doubt, and/or lack of doubt just doesn't arise.  It just does not matter in relation to the resolution of the Great Matter. This is not to say that one is not practicing good deeds, nor does one stop practice/refuge.  Of course not.   But this "proper belief" mindset is  not even like  not being aware of being wet when swimming.

無 does not mean "nothing." But it doesn't mean something either.

I'm reading something by Koryu Osaka on the 公安　無.  And he wrote what's in the title of this post more or less, or at least that's attributed to him somewhere in that text.  No matter.

I'm reading stuff on Buddhism in the blogspace, stuff that seems re-hashed, and to some degree recycled.  I've rarely, if ever, recycled anything, myself; I can't fault those who do, but I wouldn't recycle anything on this blog until I re-edit a bunch of old posts and publish them together.  At least that's my plan.

But the stuff I read on Buddhism in the blogspace...it tends towards being quite ...um...not what I'd intended to be blogging about in the Buddhist blogspace (please don't get me started on celebrity meatspace-op blog posts either, but chacun a son goûts.)  And there's still that feeling I've had of late...everything is exactly the way it should be.  Flaws and ignorance and hatred and all.   My own hatred and anger and stupidity and basest rage and all that comes with that and all that is misplaced, disowned, lost, and forgotten or repressed. That too is exactly as it should be - it is as though it is neither overdetermined or underdetermined; it's n  equations in n unknowns, so to speak.

It's all  無.     Those Buddhist blog posts, this Buddhist blog post, it's all 無.  Ditto for self/no-self,  poisons, celebrities, misplaced interpretations of sutras, vestigial rantings about George W. Bush, etc. etc.

It's exactly the way it should be; it's all the product of aggregates that have come together, dependent on previous conditions, states, actions, etc, to be exactly the way it is now.

Is this making any sense at all?  Hope so.  And the nature of the "self" is just like this.

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right

Yesterday I had a colonoscopy for the first time in my life.   Probably most people who read this blog who aren't over 40 or so have little idea of what that actually entails.   To put it bluntly, you eat a very low fiber diet for a couple of days and then the day before you have the colonoscopy you're supposed to have a liquid diet until...it's time to take the "super laxative" they  prescribe for you.  And then there's predictable results.

You take that super laxative again (in the regimen I was prescribed) a few hours before you're supposed to show up at the hospital for the actual procedure.  After the second ingestion of the super laxative, along with a liter of water, you're not supposed to eat or drink anything until the procedure.  Suffice it to say, when you're at the hospital, you really aren't in any shape to do much of anything.  You're dehydrated, your electrolyte balance has gone blooey,  and your mind can't really focus on anything. 

Being at the hospital in this shape, when for all intents and purposes you're otherwise healthy is strange, to say the least.  I was in the "short stay" area of the hospital, but it still was a hospital, I was in a hospital bed wearing a hospital gown, etc. etc. etc.  The TV had some kind of "hospital advice" channel for new mothers.  Someone had left a "Weekly Standard" as reading.   I tried reading some blather about the "Tea Party," and didn't get far.  Then I went through 2 episodes of "Law and Order" on the TV (even now I haven't a clue what the story line was).  They wheeled me into the place where the colonoscopy was to occur,  gave me some kind of Valium derivative mixed with fentanyl  - and I was out.

Anyway, I had the predictable meal afterwards, slept, ate again, etc. etc. slept,  and then I woke up this morning.

And I sat.

And everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.   

It probably is related to the microflora ecosystem in my gut and its relative changes after the procedure, as well as a whole host of other aggregates and things, but ...anybody else ever feed profoundly good after something like this?

Words cannot open another's mind...

That's in a koan somewhere (Case 27 of the 無門関 (Mumonkan, or The Gateless Gate), to be exact.) Also see here for a different source.)  I have heard different commentaries on Case 27, but this one has seemed so apt for me when dealing with certain people.  Here is the case from the second source, which I'm using because it has the Chinese original, from which it's possible tease out meanings that I haven't seen yet :

Case 27 Nansen's "Not Mind, Not Buddha, Not Things"                   二十七　不是心佛
南泉和尚、因僧問云、還有不與人説底法麼。
A monk asked Nansen, "Is there any Dharma that has not been preached to the people?"
泉云、有。
Nansen answered, "There is."
僧云、如何是不與人説底法。
"What is the truth that has not been taught?" asked the monk.
泉云、不是心、不是佛、不是物。
Nansen said, "It is not mind; it is not Buddha; it is not things."

Mumon's Comment無門曰、南泉被者一問、直得揣盡家私、郎當不少。
At this question, Nansen used up all his treasure and was not a little confused.

Mumon's Verse 頌曰叮嚀損君徳 Talking too much spoils your virtue;
無言眞有功 Silence is truly unequaled.
任從滄海變 Let the mountains become the sea;
終不爲君通 I'll give you no comment.

The operative phrase, "無言眞有功" can indeed be translated in various ways; perhaps in another way to put it, once can say, "Words have no merit," or, conversely, silence has accomplishment.

This is a ridiculously useful teaching.

We in the USA are somehow silently,  unconsciously inculcated by Dale Carnegie, it seems.   It seems we are taught we should "influence" people, by appealing to their desires, including, but not limited to, a "feeling of importance" and "life in the hereafter."  I know that I'd been taught that I need to try to both reach people and also submit - surrender - to "legitimate authority."  About the latter, well, that's a subject for another post - it has political implications where I do not wish to go right now. 

But, as far as "getting through to people" is concerned, it is undeniable that there are people with mindsets, very educated people in some cases, that you simply cannot rationally reach. They're true believers, or so they present themselves to the world.

It doesn't quite matter what they believe in; I have met doctrinaire communists with the same mindset as  Republican conservatives - they are so close psychologically it's astonishing, except that I think the latter more consciously tries to ape the mannerisms and public paranoia as the former from time to time.

(And no I do not put New Atheists in the same category as doctrinaire fundamentalists, but that's another digression.)

How to deal with such people?

To open your mouth (or keyboard) to try to hammer home the truth with them will do nothing.   To speak kindly and as persuasively as one can will also accomplish nothing - at least not at first.

It seems the best strategy is not avoidance of the issues here, or acquiescence to odious things presented matter-of-factly.   That is, I'm not saying let hateful words simply be accepted.  But do not expect such people to be taught.

This line of thought had its origin in some on-line thing by a relative who posted something on line that led me to a series of links that led me to a website for some right-wing talk radio demagogue that I'd never heard of before.  The website points to the usual hateful, ignorant stuff that appeals to the baser instincts, that seeks to motivate by appealing to resentment.  (See these photos for a sample of the mindset involved. Ugh.)

Why, I thought, would any sensible person spend their lives cultivating such anger and resentment? IT MAKES NO SENSE!  I mean, I can imagine folks driving home in a long commute, with this sewage bubbling on through from from the AM band, feeding resentments that provide the narrative to the worried lives that they lead. But it also MAKES NO SENSE to think that there is anything I can do or say that can "change" that relative's mind, because such a person will try to respond with the "walls" of reasoning they've put up.  Any such words might challenge their entire reason for being.  Moreover, exposure to such things teaches one to respond to such challenges with hatred and resentment - it is learned in an almost (maybe more than almost?) Pavlovian way.

There's no point in taking that head-on;  it's bad 功夫 (kung fu).  It's also in a way not compassionate; and it is ineffective at removing the poison of hatred such people may have.  And, as the 公案  (koan) notes, 無言眞有功 - in silence there is truly merit or accomplishment.

It is a far better strategy to practice being the person of accomplishment one rarely encounters.  Such a person could not be harmed also by words of hatred either, though they may defend against them. That takes effort.

All of the above is going through my mind as I will be visiting relatives and friends for a couple of days.   Many words will be spoken amongst us.  Some folks I know are pretty set in mindsets I wish no one was trapped in. If one sentence comes for from their lips the profound acute suffering of the world is shouted with thunderous echoes that reverberate through the heavens as does the soundless sound.    And if I say the wrong thing such a thunderous reverberation will result that will only amplify the misery of all beings.  While part of me is concerned about what to say, when to say it, and what not to say, I know have enough familiarity with 話頭 (watoh) practice that I'm fairly confident there won't be major problems. 

I mean, geez, I've seen this stuff work in practice.  I wish others did too.

Here is a good link re: 話頭  practice.

My Buddhist reponse to the demise of Osama bin Laden..and other Buddhist reponses.

My first thoughts on the subject were summed up as "Osama bin Laden is dead.  The greatest threat to your freedom is still right between your ears."

And I'm sticking with that response.

I kind of agree with Kyle's bit here (nobody could sensibly, to me, argue that bin Laden dieing the way he did was in any way not related to the self defense of the forces involved and the self-defense interests of this country).  And while yeah, we're to practice compassion even for the likes of bin Laden, given that we are all in some nexus of responsibility for each other.   But the guy and his henchmen were trying to kill folks to establish their view of "heaven" on earth. Or whatever.

But the fact is the media uses this whole TERROR thing - continues to use it - as an excuse to distract you from whatever it is you need to do in your day to either propagandize you or sell you junk or both.  And the fact is you distract yourself with this whole TERROR thing (or this whole THE BAD PEOPLE ARE USING THE TERROR THING TO EXPLOIT YOU! or the whole THOSE PEOPLE ARE ACTING OUT OF UNBRIDLED IGNORANT BLOODLUST!) because the crap you've got to do to get through the day is bo-ring! Or not fun enough. Or too painful. It's, you know, dukkha, right?

If you were Echō speaking to Hōgen, and if you'd asked him What is Buddha, Hōgen would have replied, "You are Echō." 

I do find it odd that there are a few who, when asked which "r" do you feel (yeah, we're all thinking like Tarantino now) that it is neither relief or regret that some folks feel, but remorse.  I could understand relief, for obvious reasons.  I could understand regret, because bin Laden wasn't brought to trial, and because al Qaeda #2 and #3 are still out there.   But "remorse" at this stage is odd.   Yeah, I heard there was screaming and chanting of USA! USA! USA! Ah, so? Is that you? Does that not scream, "Don't be distracted?"

I felt remorse when Katrina hit and I was in the UK, and how people were telling me how sorry they were for a largely preventable tragedy.  I felt remorse for all the indignities that non-Europeans had to suffer in the wake of 9/11. I felt some remorse (but more frustration and outrage) at the invasion of Iraq,  Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc.    That was stuff we could do something about.  But when al Qaeda went to war against the US (I felt remorse that there wasn't a declaration of war),  the moral and ethical action was to fight him and his cohorts until they lacked the ability or will to fight any further, and no more and no less. It's the principle of  武道 - būdō - the way of war, you know? 

But geez - if you want to act effectively, compassionately, and wisely  in a world of ignorance and hatred and terrorism and pitifully narcissistic responses to the  misery in which we find ourselves,  how can you do that if you are not acting out of complete sincerity moment to moment; how can you do that if you have decided to ignore the soundless sound, your true face before your parents were born,  or to put it still another way, that you are you?

Right Speech: Carefully Choose Words When Speaking for a Group

There's a confluence of experiences I'm having, which are seasoned slightly with the recent posts of Nathan on Ayn Rand and Brad Warner on folks who write to him asking him to be their "teacher."

First, I never liked Ayn Rand; I never could get past the first few pages of her agit-prop simply because I'm not much of a fiction reader, but also because the more I learned of her life the more I came to see her philosophy as a spectacular failure. If the proclaimer of a philosophy can't seem to get it to work in their own life what good is it outside of one's self?

Ayn Rand was so obsessed with the individual and the oh-so-great things that only they bring into the world that her writing never seemed to convey the gravity, splendor, and power that groups of people have. Individuals do things, for sure, but to say the individual is somehow superior to the group is to be out of whack with whether the master is holding a shippei or not.

To speak and act on behalf of another is something that seems so foreign to Rand that there's good reason I think her writings, to me, seem completely irrelevant, or orthogonal to how real people must really act in this real world. In the real world, the correct action may do more than save a cat that Nansen is holding hostage, and requires one to take risks that pale in comparison to whether or not one is producing the right turning words, or so it might seem.

To act so effectively means for us to step outside ourselves, even though we cannot know for certainty how our words and actions will be perceived. Is Brad Warner's non-teaching on-line ethical or not? It's not for me to answer, and frankly the ways in which I have to speak and act on behalf of groups of people in my own life weigh far more heavy to me than that; though I'd not be surprised if what Warner is writing/doing weighs on him.

This I know: if one is not mindful, one can fall into the mud. If one is mindful, one may still fall into the mud.

More on the interplay of mental disturbance, culpability, and interdependence

In thinking more about the Giffords incident, for some reason I was reminded by Case 43 of the Mumonkan; wern't you?  Ah, I jest.

首山和尚、拈竹篦示衆云、汝等諸人、若喚作竹篦則觸。

Shuzan Oshõ held up his shippei [staff of office] before his disciples and said, "You monks! If you call this a shippei, you oppose its reality.

不喚作竹篦則背。

If you do not call it a shippei, you ignore the fact.

汝諸人、且道、喚作甚麼。

Tell me, you monks, what will you call it?"

Mumon's Comment

無門曰、喚作竹篦則觸。

If you call it a shippei, you oppose its reality.

不喚作竹篦則背。

If you do not call it a shippei, you ignore the fact.

不得有語、不得無語。

Words are not available; silence is not available.

速道、速道。

Now, tell me quickly, what is it?

Mumon's Verse 頌曰

拈起竹篦      Holding up the shippei,

行殺活令      He takes life, he gives life.

背觸交馳      Opposing and ignoring interweave.

佛祖乞命      Even Buddhas and patriarchs beg for their lives.

I had been thinking about the shippei as a metaphor for Loughner's mental condition, which, if true, opposes the reality of the interdependence of his condition and those around him and the sources that triggered his ideation.

But Mumon's verse ... well that astounded me.  But that's it.

(Update: Or perhaps a better metaphor is the political vitriol, which opposes the interweaving of action and thought.  Which makes the last verse that much more meaningful.)

BTW, it's sort of like a joke: if I have to explain it...

I'm still a tiny bit bothered that some folks might not have "gotten" my post yesterday on Prejudices, Stereotypes and Preconceptions ("PSP").


So, maybe I'll ...explain...

I realized on writing what I wrote yesterday that I'd kinda sorta written a koan.  In addition,  I thought I was writing a post on PSP, but as it happened, I realized that the post was kinda sorta self-referential...and so I couldn't explain it without putting my own PSP into your head.  Or would I have been?  (Cogitate on that, if you will: a large part, if not all verbal communication tends to be of forms arising from PSP.)

Part of the "structure" of any koan,  is to induce into the practioner's mind the "koan mind" that can be elicited by the koan.  So it would have been difficult for me to "explain" the koan without destroying it, so to speak (which is why Dharma talks on koans are not good for "bringing the answer" into sanzen).

And therefore the "point" of the post would have been diminished somewhat.

I'm reminded by that post of words I think I remember that Douglas Hofstadter wrote in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid,  in commenting how Mumon's commentaries read much like the koan cases themselves.  Hofstadter wrote, considering symbolic logic, programming language theory and automata theory as  the context, that  in koans the "source language" appears very similar to the object language.

And so it is with my post of yesterday.

Zazen as a Physical Practice in the Rinzai Tradition

Barbara, at her About.com Buddhism blog has a nice intro to the perennial issue of newbies and foreign (to them) forms in Zendos.

I figured that rather go into the "gentle dissuasion" that I was met with on my first visits to Rinzai Zendos (both in NY and in the Pacific Northwest) and its relative benefits, I think a more important point that needs a response here is this:

So much of Zen is practicing with the body. Zazen, shikantaza especially, is body practice, not brain practice.

The response I would have is that in my experience, in the White Plum Asanga tradition there really isn't the same kind of physical practice that there is in the Rinzai tradition; it seems to be  one of those things that got lost in the mix when the Yasutani folks mixed Soto and Rinzai.  To say that there is "especially" physical practice in the Soto tradition is basically I would submit  might possibly be due to an unfamiliarity of the tradition in the Rinzai school.

I don't have time to go into it now, but there is actually a very different kind of physical practice in the Rinzai tradition relative to the Soto tradition; it's not empahsized less relative to the Soto school at all, in my experience.  Part of it involves how to work with the hua t’ou; and the fact that koan practice is the furthest thing there is from intellection. Another  major part of this physical practice is using the breath in a way that simply isn't taught in the Soto school; it comes in large measure from Hakuin himself.  

I'll go into this more in an upcoming post.

More on Zen, Politics, Authenticity, and "Lay versus Monastic Practice"

Evidently I am able to comment on Barbara's Buddhism blog.  She was mentioning Jack Kornfeld's schtick, and I'd had replied to Barbara's remark:

There's also the old and ongoing problem of adapting monasticism to lay life. Buddhists have been struggling with this for centuries. 

 I know once source from whence this might have come.  It is mentioned in The Eight Gates of Zen, an introductory text on Zen for the White Plum Asanga affiliated Mountains and Rivers Order, in which  I practiced for a while when I was in NYC.  I'm sure Barbara's well familiar with this book; having mentioned on her blog several thoughts that have parallels in the book (among them, that 無 shouldn't be done while driving, which is of course true).  Now don't get me wrong in the least - this is a fantastic book, and I recommend reading it, especially if you're new to Zen practice. In that book there is a great deal of space given to the "monastic versus lay" dichotomy, and while I find no problem whatsoever with those who wish to take a monastic/hermetic lifestyle, I did realize after several years of practice out here in the Pacific Northwest, with the example of my own teacher as temple and family guy, as well as learning the history of the Hakuin- Kosen Imakita  lineage to realize that this dichotomy is absolutely irrelevant to my own practice.

I remember the times I'd sit and have to interrupt it to do things for my son, and I'd feel guilty about not being able to sit longer! In retrospect it was completely absurd to worry about this!  My "teacher" needed his milk, warmed, in a sipping cup.  I JUST. DIDN'T. GET. IT.  The Whole Thing was right where I was, and I was putting John Daido Loori's words in my head, as another head, when I had a perfectly good one. Well, like they say about apps and the iPhone, there's a koan for that. (Case 39.)

So I can empathize with Barbara when she replied:

As someone who struggled for years with formal Zen training while raising two children by myself and working a full-time job to support them, I say it’s damn hard to combine lay life with anything resembling standard Zen training.

Because, like her, for years I didn't realize that there is no such thing as standard Zen training. Sure, there's koan curricula, methods for shikan taza, Zen-related arts and "athletics" (for want of a better word).  But it's all, all singular.  It's akin to that quote in the famous Zen movie, Beetlejuice.

[in the waiting room of the afterlife]
Barbara: Adam, is this what happens when you die?
Receptionist: This is what happens when *you* die.
[points at a gaunt man smoking]
Receptionist: That is what happens when *he* dies.
[points at a woman cut in half on the sofa reading]
Receptionist: And that is what happens when *they* die. It's all very personal. And I'll tell you something: if I knew then what I know now...
[shows her slit wrists]
Receptionist: ...I wouldn't have had my little accident.
[the dead people laugh] 

It's all very personal.  That's why political people don't stop being political people when they take up a practice, and non-political people don't necessarily become politically aware and engaged. Mutatis mutandis  about Barbara's recent post about Kyle.

She's spot on there. There's just about 10,000 ways that this point is true.  You do become "more authentic" with this practice, but not in a way that is intentionally more authentic...'cause that's that être-pour-soi again.

It's really easy to put another head on top of the one we already have.  There's 10,000 ways to do that, too.

And so to my final point in my comment on Barbara's blog: It does seem to me that American Zen - heck, probably all forms of Buddhism as practiced by the worlds bourgeoisie is predicated on the existence of leisure time.  As an engineer, I have been nurtured in the benefits of making stuff to give people more leisure time and use it more effectively.  However, traditionally human existence has not been this way.   If we are to be serious about our practice we have to be serious about really alleviating the sufferings of all beings. I don't know how Jordan's able to be a Marine (and I absolutely admire his practice), but I simply cannot fathom how Tom Armstrong lives his life now, and deeply respect him for it. 

I have it way, way easy, and I know I don't even know how easy I have it.  I know Bernie Glassman tried to move in the direction of helping the homeless in his Greyston thing, and maybe that's still working well; I haven't read more on it lately.  I do know there's a multitude of beings that it is absolutely critical for me to help today though, as part of my own  job and family life and career.  So while I can say I have it easy, and I have worked to cultivate skills to make it "easier" for me, I  know there are others who have it what seems to be hopelessly difficult to me. 

More about zazen and "brainwashing"

I will expand a tiny bit on what I alluded to here.

Gniz says:

It's important to understand that meditation is a constantly changing process, and as such, our brain is going to be in varying states throughout. At times, the act of meditation could lead us to being in a more receptive, less intellectually critical mindstate.

In fact, a lot of teachers will tell us that this is EXACTLY where meditation leads. They won't say that it's a less intellectually critical mindstate, they'll call it "being free of opinions" or "emptying your cup" or "thinking non-thinking."

Let's be clear. I'm not implying that being free of the continuous machinations of the intellect is a bad thing, because it's actually quite nice at times. But there are some dangers involved. The first is that people who are overly ambitious will strive to cultivate being in this "balanced state" at all times, and may actually create a scenario where they are less mentally aware and less in touch with reality as opposed to more in touch with it...

There are some dangers with spirituality and meditation. People should be aware that you are playing games with your own perceptions, with reality, with your mind. To varying degrees you may become more likely to take on new beliefs in a state where you are either less aware and discerning, or perhaps just confused by a new experience that you can't process on your own...

For myself, I'd almost rather just sit and meditate and put absolutely NO descriptions, religious connotations or other mental constructs onto what it is that happens in these times. 

And Brad Warner says:

The general public doesn’t really have a clue as to what a Zen teacher is. So the model they usually chose to base their assumptions about what a Zen teacher ought to be is that of a religious instructor...

And so the idea has come down to us a hundred and some years later that Zen is a religion. I’m aware that there has been considerable debate about this. But mostly the debate has been framed in terms of the question: “Is Zen a religion or a philosophy?” I used to side with the faction that said it was a philosophy. But I’m not so sure this is even the right question anymore.

It has occurred to me lately that Zen is not a religion or a philosophy, but might better be seen as a form of art. 

 I side with the "Zen Buddhism is a religion" folks; if a religion is not first and foremost a set of behaviors to which one applies skill, regardless of institutions, deities, and funny clothes, then what good is it?

For medical benefits? That seems somewhat unnatural in the same sense that people in armies don't fight and die for their country, they fight and die for their brothers and sisters so they may live.

Furthermore, if your practice is only on your cushion,  it's not even like an artificial flavor versus the real flavor.   You have a verisimilitude of practice, sometimes.  But it's like having the keys to a Ferrari but only driving it out of the garage and into the driveway and claiming you "drive" a Ferrari.  No, this needs to be done as much as one can, in every situation.  And only you can be there to do that, and when you're there doing that, there is no brainwashing.

Now on to the bigger question, as raised by Gniz: having great faith and great doubt does not mean great faith is invested in your teacher and great doubt is invested in everything else that might run counter to what your teacher says. In American Rinzai temples in the tradition established by Soen Shaku we chant from the Mahaparinirvana sutra:

Atta Dipa

Viharatha

Atta Sarana

Anana Sarana

Dhamma Dipa

Dhamma Sarana

Anana Sarana

Which means:

You are the light
Dwell
Rely on yourself
Do not rely on others
The Dharma is light
Rely on the Dharma
Do not rely on others

Any teacher which ain't teaching this, to get slightly fundie about it, is not teaching a Buddhism as taught by Shakyamuni.

Suspension of opinions includes opinions about the teacher.  If he's on a pedestal you're light years away.  And if you can't see your closeness to Pat Robertson, Mother Teresa, Pol Pot, Ben Stein, Sean Hannity and Michael Moore, you're not there yet either.

Regardless of what an unscrupulous teacher might say, and they are there, in this practice you cannot check your brains at the door.

This is embedded in the structure of the most fundamental of Zen koans; e.g., Case 39 (see here for another translation and commentary) of the Mumonkan says:

CASE 39. UN-MON AND TRAP INTO WORDS

As soon as a monk stated Un-mon, "The radiance of the Buddha quietly and restlessly illuminates the whole universe", Un-mon asked him, "Are these you are reciting not the words of Chosetzu Shusai?" The monk replied, "Yes, they are." Un-mon said, "You are trapped in words!" Afterwards Shishin brought up the matter once more and said, "Tell me, how was the monk trapped in words?"

Mumon's Comments:
If you are able to grasp Un-mon's unapproachable accomplishments and follow through the monk's corruption (of being trapped into words), you will be the leader of humans and Devas. If not, you cannot even save yourself.

A fish meets the fishhook in a rapid stream,
Being too greedy for the bait, the fish wants to bite.
Once his mouth widely opens,
His life is already lost.

 Yunmen (Ummon) is saying the student is "trapped in words" or  has "misspoken" in response to his student quoting another's poem.  The context as to why the student quoted the poem is not given but clearly what was expected here was the student's expression of his understanding.  That's why you can read all the koan commentaries you want til the cows come home (just when do they come home?) but a reputable teacher won't confirm anything unless it's truly, authentically your expression of your understanding, and if he doesn't, you're going to understand anyway.

So no, Gniz, nothing to worry about.  Just keep going.