Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores the concept of freedom through the conquest of self.

Per the Dhammapada, we should direct straying thoughts. The path to happiness is through quieting these elusive thoughts with single-mindedness, which brings freedom.

We struggle from confusing wants and needs and forgetting the primary goal: freedom.

This freedom is not worldly (economic, political, or social). It’s freedom from the ego. When the ego drops, it’s like a curtain falling, revealing the reality. This is the noumenal world described by philosopher Immanuel Kant.

We are caught up primarily in the phenomenal aspect of life, seeing the world through the lens of egocentricity, which acts as a barrier to our understanding reality itself.

Lola shares Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which characters are completely focused on shadows on the wall. The spiritual task is to turn around and see the light that creates those shadows.

The Buddhist parable of the poisoned arrow. A monk has all these questions for the Buddha about afterlife, etc, and says he’s giving up if the Buddha doesn’t provide answers. The Buddha responds by asking if a wounded man would refuse to have the arrow removed until he knows all the details about the shooter. The Buddha's teaching is to remove the arrow of suffering. Not provide all the answers.

Lola tells the Tibetan story of the servant obsessed with learning the secret of miracles. The Master’s advice is to recite a mantra, and to not think of monkeys as he does so. His resulting experience is the lesson.

Lola then discusses the Sanskrit gunas (qualities in man). The importance of cultivating sattvic (fine, high frequency) qualities like sensitivity, love of beauty, and inner harmony. We can choose to exist as inner noise or as a temple of sacred silence.

Many assume that Plato's Republic is about government. Then why is its subtitle: The Conquest of Self? If the book is about conquering the self, then the "philosopher king" represents our wisdom, the "guardians" our will, and the "laborers/merchants" our desires/appetites.

Lola explores Plato's idea in the book of regulating art. Rather than think of it as censorship in a republic, look at it in terms of what art you want to expose yourself to. An important step in self-conquest is observing what emotions art evokes in us.

True philosophy is “love of wisdom,” she concludes, not complex “philosophical” ideas. Originally philosophy was an instruction to go within, and utilize the "noetic quality" for transformation.

Sep 5, 1987

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee draws on the Dhammapada to emphasize a core principle of spiritual success: vigilance, or watching. The fool is careless and enslaved by desire. The master has firm resolve.

Man is the only creature on Earth with the ability to choose. Unlike animals and plants, whose lives are determined by nature, humans possess a mind that allows for conscious choice.

Man is not born a true being but a becoming. He is a state of perpetual movement between opposing attitudes and emotional states. This becoming is marked by a continual search, an inner groping.

Lola calls it “faith without an object.” This search for something greater raises the perennial philosophical question: Who are you?

Lola discusses philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who calls man a “project"—one who creates himself by his own effort. Man is born an opportunity, a possibility, who must become actual.

The crucial action is making an aware choice, choosing one’s life with full consciousness, rather than simply letting decisions happen passively, out of convenience, desire, or external pressure. Also, not choosing is a choice.

Lola discusses two schools of thought: the Essence-Central School, which holds that man is born with a ready-made essence that merely needs to unfold (like an acorn becoming an oak), and Existentialism, which maintains that man is born as pure existence, and his essence must be actively created.

Lola recaps the core principles of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths:

The First Truth is the fact of suffering (dukkha), which arises because life is constant change, and change can never satisfy the human desire for permanent pleasure.

The Second Truth identifies the cause of suffering as selfish desire—a constant "thirst" or fire that only burns brighter the more it is fed. This desire unrealistically expects life to satisfy every selfish whim, which is as absurd as expecting a banana tree to bear mangoes.

The Third Truth offers hope: because suffering has a cause, it has an end. Extinguishing the fire of selfish desire leads to a state of wakefulness and joy, known as Nirvana.

The Fourth Truth provides the solution: the Eightfold Path, which she explains in detail.

Finally, Lee illustrates the deeper meaning of the Middle Way using the story of the Buddha and a disciple, who was over-exerting himself in ascetic practice. The Buddha showed him a stringed instrument, explaining that to make music, the strings must be tuned "neither too tight nor too loose—it has to be just right." This is the path to enlightenment: balance between extremes.

Lee explains how we can take the Middle Way between the world of appearance and the world of inner states of consciousness. The ultimate goal of continuous self-watching is to withdraw energy from the inner "clamoring crowd" of confusion to nourish the "new man" within. Through constant mindfulness and attention to the present moment, a window opens, and one experiences life not as a pure, empty, and all-encompassing presence. Aug 29, 1987

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, continues her discussion of the Dhammapada.

She warns us against mistaking the false for the true, urging us to look into our hearts and follow our true natures. Spiritual texts are meaningless without direct action.

Lola discusses the seeming conflict of seeking external rewards while professing detachment from the fruit of action.

Truth simply is. It is the truth of being, which human effort must uncover. Our chief obstacle is the web of conditioning. To find truth, one must deliberately extract oneself from this accidental conditioning of our societal pressures, and even our religious background.

The price of truth is rigorous personal effort. That is our payment.

Lola presents the story of the Siddhartha Gautama as the ultimate example of dedicated effort. His great renunciation, his adoption of the ascetic path, and his eventual realization that extreme mortification weakened his concentration. This led him to the “Middle Way."

The climax of his journey was under the fig tree where he vowed to remain until he found the way beyond death and decay.

The key to liberation is inwardness. The ancient Greeks believed the heart was the seat of wisdom and intuition. The heart is always pulsing in the present moment, unlike the mind, which is trapped in the past and future.

The question, "How do you go in?" is answered simply: "You simply stop going out." Inwardness is achieved by stopping the mind’s outward movement toward thoughts and desires.

Lee says to abandon the ways of the "lazy cowherd" who spends his time counting others' cows by merely reading the interpretations of the actual scripture instead of investigating the scripture itself—and seeking direct experience.

Aug 2, 1987