Early on, he investigates the "checksum" parallel of two-signal computing, and decision making based on neural chemistry that is pre-cognitive or before volition, despite our tendency for our brain to shout over our impulses. Thoughts themselves are shown to be all we are: "if there are thoughts and we are aware of these thoughts, then what we are is that which is aware of thoughts, You and I; we are consciousness." Read this section and this will make more "sense" than my concision may present this intricate but accessibly conveyed food for thought.
As to our "apparently hard-wired propensity that people have to infer that entities with plans and intentions cause the things they observe around them," I needed more. Hathaway cites Stephen Pinker about this supposition that we create a "theory of mind" to attribute causality to someone (often a God to punish us), but this section was under-explained. He appropriately turns to Daniel Dennett regarding the ego as narrator, a character in our own work of fiction--we write not our autobiographies but our biographies, Hathaway avers. Our self-identity rests on our imagination.
Of improvement, no rational system can totally please the one looking for answers. Looking within ("know thyself" and the examined life) for answers may fool us. "We have made of ourselves the author, and the author knows if the story is over he or she is finished, out of a job. There must always be a new chapter to write." That impels us to strive for goals, progress, or achievement. What Zen counters: an end to such ideals. Instead, an acceptance of one's mortality, and the freedom from grasping to what will vanish or decay. "Unhappiness stems from not accepting life as it is and instead clinging on to an image of what we want it to be." Rather, Zen offers enlightenment from within, not from without "to walk a path of quite [sic] joy, of serenity and inner peace that is always underfoot, and, as walked in the present now, lasts and does not fade in the murk of the remembered past or anticipated future." This passage demonstrates the calm with which Hathaway conveys himself.
Despite this very Buddha-dharma perspective, the treatment's light on the message attributed to the Buddha. He keeps the Asian vocabulary to a minimum. Hathaway stresses rather Taoist influence in its depths as the teaching passed through China. He elides this (saying it can be looked up elsewhere), but emphasizes that "wu wei" or "do nothing/ going with the flow" fits better with the Dao's spirit than with its superficial gloss of dharma. Whatever its derivation, it's not a system but an attitude: Zen lets us let go of our own burden, as if waking from a nightmare to find we're safe in our own bed. Wu wei encourages us to act without will or intention, to kill the ego and to stop needless striving.
Yet, we cannot seek our own release. It's a Catch-22: we cannot aim for the target we want to hit. While his chapter "Not Catholicism" disappointed by its facile caricature of that faith as teaching that one can do whatever harm one wishes as long as confession absolves the sinner, and then it's back to dirty deeds, Hathaway tries to teach, if via that poorly chosen example, how Zen demands commitment without time off during the week: it's not as if one does one's duty once on Sunday.
Reading on, I understood slightly more why Hathaway may have stereotyped Catholicism: his passion, after a "kensho"-like experience that hit him one day in Portsmouth, England, changed him from a rational skeptic--apparently non-religious and very fact-oriented--to an advocate for Zen. That term's stripped here, notably, of "Buddhism" as common qualifier or accompaniment. "In Taoism, just as God is an invention we made up between ourselves to explain nature, so the SELF [he capitalizes this as EGO to show its dominance] is an illusion we have spun into existence to explain our inner nature to ourselves. Enlightenment is realising this is so."
While I would have liked more on Taoism's influence on a more purely anarchic (in the positive sense), liberating Zen, Hathaway reminds the reader to stop reading about it. "Don't believe in Zen. Don't intellectualise and rationalise it. That is anti-Zen. Experience Zen yourself, directly. Practise zazen. Be mindful. Just that. Only that." He goes on to observe how religions are "ex vivo" (out of the living") in that they affirm an afterlife or reincarnation; Zen remains "in vivo," tethered to the here and now, yet not bound by it within the ever-present, eternal moment. Out of its creative anarchy, its creative principle moves everything.
Tricky, as this expands into a challenging take on Zen's analogous affinity with quantum physics and our own creation of our own perceived universe. He lost me a bit with this partial koan: "the universe would exist only as a probability wave if there were not living beings around to make it real." I anticipated this might lead to Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere, and a few pages later, there it was. Later, Hathaway ties such a derivation to a link from ancient Greek for moral dimensions of Zen. This material proved rewarding, if for a small book too compressed at times to take in; with about a dozen typos, sometimes the casual style mixing with lofty concepts needed clarification and editing.
He concludes by encouraging us to take on Zen with the practical, experienced integration of it not as merely "dianoia" or book-learning, but "noesis." As a lived knowledge become understanding that goes beyond words, he promises that if we sit and we then practice mindfulness not as an activity but as within our spirit, the transformation will be telling, if beyond verbal expression: "Very soon all your questions will be answered." (Amazon US 1-23-13. I was provided a copy by the author; I found this a stimulating and provocative book worth reading.)
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