A Zen master in the Cyber Era

By Juan Chamero

For some friends of mine I’m a renaissance man reborn in the late 90 of the last century. Being rather old at that time and as a (secular) Zen master instead of trying to get a stable “satori” (1) and intern myself as a monk in a Zen monastery I decided to start working again within this “damn” modernity. I’m married, with three sons, two of my second marriage. What to do then to earn for a living?. Initially I intended to teach western people some useful Zen techniques under the name of “Zen Fitting” a body mind discipline. It probed to be fine, I gathered thousands of students, and a bunch of disciples coming from all over the world to whom I guided to strive for excellence (to overcome themselves not their neighbors). However this peculiar “job” I loved was not sufficient to maintain my family. So I decide to go back to my old profession as a “Systems Consultant” but I had to get rid of my obsolescence inertia first. I still remained tied up to the “main frames” realm that was my “Yang” side, and Systems Theory, Operations Research, Mathematical Modeling and Systems Simulation my “Yin” side. I never imagined myself working with a PC as my sons did. Fortunately as they were teenagers at that time of “big changes” I begun gaming to the Cyber Era and learning with them.

In small scale this experience was a kind of micro “Clash of Civilizations”, the rather formal, slow and heavy systemic reasoning against the culture of the trial and error, reasoning versus intuition, pondering versus spontaneity, push buttons fast and without inhibitions. I entered with my sons to the world of “pop art” solutions, unbalanced, asymmetric, and lack of coherence but providing at least one practical solution to “something”. We were fully embedded in the Internet bubble big boom, trying to learn as much as possible in the less time as possible. What a experience for a Zen master!. As an analogy I imagined myself trained like a “samurai”, fighting against all type of men and beasts and now of a sudden faced to fight against million of different types of extremely tiny mosquitoes!.

Working this mode as an “Internet expert” within the bubble and trying to follow its expansion I could manage myself to earn for a living with dignity. I started my revival in the IT Cyber arena year 1994 and accompanied the bubble until its collapse about years 2000-2001. Well I learnt a lot!. As a Zen master I learnt about new ways of thinking. When collapse arrived It was the turn of “wise ones” reflections like “I foresaw this!”, “I told you this was by sure going to happen!”. Concerning me this experience was extraordinary, rejuvenating, funny, euphoric, perhaps too much. As a Zen master I asked myself again “where is the truth now?”, “where is the middle way?”. But that belong to my next comment about The Cyber Era. Thanks!





Comments:

Yin-Yang is perhaps the most important symbol of the Far East culture. It depicts two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. Yin, the darker element, is passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night; yang, the brighter element, is active, light, masculine, and upward-seeking and corresponds to the day; yin is often symbolized by water, while yang is symbolized by fire.

The macro and the micro: Within the Yin-Yang conception and specifically within the ancient Japanese Do-In wisdom, the micro is in the macro and the macro is in the micro, both interrelated in the domain of full thinking. Learn to fight against mosquitoes could be as useful as the art of fighting against beasts; some micro economy principles and wisdom will apply to macro economy and vice versa. We will come back to this wisdom when dealing with algorithms and models. We suggest seeing: “Hacia una Nueva Forma de Pensar Zen” (in Spanish, “Towards a New Way of Thinking”).

Satori: is the illumination process, is to see things different of a sudden, spontaneously without looking for it. The satori state could last a second a fraction of a second of last along life. It frequently (used to) comes by meditation, by training, by acting but in any case without looking for a rational compensation. As long you “look for” some fruit you destroy the satori prompt. It is a body mind state impossible to describe by words so take this explanation like something that “tend to” in my vision now here in this specific moment of my life. With a mathematic analogy is like to see the infinite and its different categories clearly but changing your body mind accordingly seeing all things “different” but at the same time just the same.

In the beginning, the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains
Then, the rivers left to be rivers and the mountains left to be mountains
Finally, the rivers were rivers and the mountains were mountains.

Is it the same state the first and the third?. Of course it is not!.