One of the major problems in the practice of Zen Buddhism and Hasidism is the treatment of "strange thought."
According to Zen Buddhism, the discovery of reality and of one's true nature is possible through practicing wu-nien (non-activation of thought). The idea wu-nien itself indicates that thoughts are basic hindrances to Zen meditation. In Hasidism, one is expected to contemplate God constantly no matter what else he is engaged in. Conflict between thinking about God and about worldly affairs is almost inevitable when the latter prevails over the former. Therefore, we must ask: How can a Hasid avoid such conflict and still maintain the awareness of God despite being engaged in secular affairs? And how can a Zen disciple exterminate all thoughts during meditation?
Hasidism uses the term machshaboth zaroth (strange thoughts) to mean bad or distracting thoughts. The Mishnah called them hirhurei yetzer hara' (thoughts of the Evil Impulse). Maimonides discussed how to avoid them while engaging oneself in religious acts. (Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlandler (New York, 1954), 384-91). Hasidism developed its unique solution to the problem based on the post-Sabbatian doctrine of ﾒthe descent of the Zaddik for the uplifting of evil.
In Zen Buddhism bad thoughts are called mang-nien (delusive thoughts) in Chinese or zatsunen (miscellaneous thoughts) in Japanese. In the present essay I use the term strange thoughts to represent the Hasidic concept of bad and distracting thoughts.
Prior to the development of Zen Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism had available several methods of meditation, all of which were introduced to China from India. Kumarajiva (350-409) introduced the following five methods of Indian Buddhist meditation:
1. Meditation by breathing - to unify discuvrsive thoughts through counting breath;
2. Contemplation of impurity - to reduce greed and lust through imaging the impurity of a corpse;
3. Contemplation of compassion - to control anger and malice through observing beauty and kindness;
4. Contemplation of causality - to reject bias and prejudice against reality and to attain right understanding through knowing that everything comes into being by causality;
5. Contemplation of the Buddha - to be free from the fear of sin and to attain peace and purity through visualizing the figure of the Buddha and reciting His name.
The method generally adopted by the early Zen masters from Bodhi-dharma to the Fifth Patriarch was similar to the fourth type: to attain right understanding through observing purity of the mind and the emptiness of reality. It is likely that they contemplated the empty nature of thoughts when they arose in their minds. Tao-hsin, the Fourth Patriarch, taught the novice to observe the pure emptiness of their bodies and minds at the beginning of meditation:
Furthermore, when your mind gives rise to unwonted circumstances and a certain feeling is thereby awakened, contemplate immediately that they cannot possibly arise. When this kind of mind is generated, it does not come from any one of the ten directions; and when it departs, it has also no place to go. If you contemplate always the non-arising of attaching sentiments, of major and minor sensations, of delusive thoughts, of illusions, and of miscellaneous thoughts, and if the disordered mind pays heed to the non-arising, then you will gain emancipation.
He recommended also contemplation of the Buddha as an effective way to practice meditation:
The well-born male or female practitioner who wishes to attain the samadhi of the one practice [ichigyo zammai] should sit in a quiet and empty place, and must discard distinguishing thoughts. He must not be captured by the forms of the objects. Instead, if you concentrate your mind on only one Buddha, recite His name exclusively, correct your posture and properly face the direction where this Buddha dwells, and continuously center your thoughts on this one Buddha, then you will see all the Buddhas of the past, of the future.
Tao-hsin's successor, Hung-jen advised the novice to visualize the Chinese character for ﾒoneﾓ as the object of meditation. Either visualization of the character for ﾒoneﾓ or contemplation of the Buddha is an apparently simple yet actually difficult way for solving the problem of distracting thoughts. Compared with this, contemplating the emptiness of thought and delusion could be more effective in eliminating such thoughts from the mind if it can really convince a man of the emptiness of being. But it would be hard to dismiss the impression of sophistry in the claim of the nonrising of a thought which actually has arisen in the mind, as Tao-hsin has done.
When the conflict of impurity and purity was denied by Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, at the rise of his southern school, the problem of thought also was disposed of by his doctrine of wu-nien (no-thought). He declared: "No-thought is not to think even when involved in thought." He dismissed the entire process of thinking from the level of consciousness rather than advocating an uprooting of capricious thoughts each time they appear in the mind. No-thought was a sort of transcendence of circumstances. No chance for attachment to thoughts or distraction of attention could be expected because "to be unstained in all environments is called no-thought."
In addition to no-thought, Hui-neng recommended that his disciples destroy the passions from the outset:
The wrong in others is not your own crime,
Your own wrong is of itself your own crime.
Only remove the wrong in your own mind,
Crush the passions and destroy them.
This measure was maybe necessary for unskilled meditators as an auxiliary safeguard against possible disruption of meditation that might be caused by passions.
However, the ultimate problem was neither in attachment nor in destruction. Hui-neng's doctrine of no-thought was an inductive con-clusion which he arrived at from the fact that thought is essentially successive and not coexisting. It is impossible for us to maintain two different thoughts in the mind at the same time. And it is even more impossible to keep the mind pure with thinking about something, for thinking is successive and an elimination of a certain thought does not guarantee extermination of other thoughts which may follow. Thinking causes further thinking. If anyone wants to attain Nirvana, he simply should cut off all of his own thinking. No matter how much he thinks and deeply probes, his present thinking is not more than an extension of the old one, though it may be an improved one. Therefore, Hui-neng felt that to think or not to think of purity is nonsense. Thus, to control either good or evil thoughts was not so important to the school of Hui-neng. They knew that a good thought stimulates another good one and eventually much good results, and in the same manner a bad thought brings many bad ends, as Hui-neng said:
If people think of all the evil things, then they will practice evil; if they think of all the good things, then they will practice good.... If you think of evil things, then you will change and enter hell; if you think of good things, then you will change and enter heaven.
The approach of Hui-neng's school to distracting thoughts was laconically explained by Huang-po as follows: "If you desire to annihilate circumstances, you must immediately forget the very mind."
"No-thought (mu-nen)" is an unfamiliar concept to Western people. The state of no-thought is not identical with being out of consciousness. Although wu-nien means no-thought or non-activation of thought, the doctrine of wu-nien never denies the significance of the successive stream of thinking behind (or beneath) the level of the ordinary consciousness. As Hui-neng said, "No-thought is not to think even when involved in thought." Obviously, Hui-neng was aware of the substructure of human consciousness. Besides the ordinary level of thinking in which thoughts succeed one after another, he noticed there is another level of thinking which continues without interruption. By no-thought, Hui-neng meant to reduce the process of thinking to the so-called subconsciousness, where everything is in unity and undivided and where man's subject is connected with the absolute reality. Observing successiveness as the nature of thought, Hui-neng built the doctrine of no-thought as follows:
Successive thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present thoughts, and future thoughts follow one after the other without cessation. If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there will be no place for attachment to anything. If one instant of thought clings, then successive thoughts cling: this is known as being fettered. If in all things successive thoughts do not cling, then you are unfettered. Therefore, non-abiding is made the basis [for no-thought].
No-thought is comparable to a subterranean stream of water. When the stream of consciousness comes up to the surface of the mind, it produces various waves of judgment, thought, attachment, passions and so forth; when it runs beneath the mind like subterranean water, it irrigates everything equally without causing any storm of dichotomy. Therefore, when a person is disturbed by distracting thoughts, the best solution is to stop the entire process of thinking in the level of the ordinary consciousness and to switch it to that of the subconscious. Huang-po recommends to a person who is troubled by thoughts: "Right now, just examine your own mind, and when you cease the process of thinking, then naturally delusions and anxieties will not arise."
In Japanese Zen Buddhism, we can learn of Zen training first-hand in Dogen's vast writings and sayings. The following were referred to in Shobogenzo Zuimonki as hindrances to the monastic discipline of Zen: self-assertion, avarice, concern about foods and clothes, love of fame, attachment to family and the world, worries about illness and death, desire for a good housing or a cathedral, dispute and anger, indulgence in literature, dissoluteness and sex. The fact that the first five subjects received frequent attention from Dogen and his students indicates the typical problems that a person encounters in a monastic atmosphere: (1) annihilating the self, (2) living through alms in poverty, and (3) detaching oneself from worldly ties.
In Shobogenzo Zuimonki, self-assertion was mentioned twelve times, avarice thirteen times, food and clothing eleven times, love of fame nine times, family and world seven times, illness and death three times, housing and cathedral three times, dispute and anger two times, indulgence in literature two times, and sex one time.
It must be noted that sex is mentioned only once in Shobogenzo Zuimonki. However, this does not necessarily mean that Dogen's students were not disturbed by sensual problems. On the contrary, sex was surely one of the most disturbing thoughts to them. But Dogen abhorred discussing it because of the strictly ethical attitude of Dogen himself and the Chinese tradition of "the elegant attitude on sexual matters" which he learned from Chinese culture during his study in China. He positively forbade his students to make any reference to it.
"When ordinary men and women get together, whether young or old, they very often chat about things of most improper nature. This diverts their minds and makes for lively conversation. It gives them enjoyment and serves to alleviate boredom, but this kind of talk is expressly forbidden for monks. Even among laymen, it rarely occurs when good, sober, and courteous people gather to discuss serious problems. Usually it is associated with drunkenness and dissipation. Monks must concentrate on Buddhism alone. Indecent talk is indulged in only by a few confused and eccentric monks."
How did Dogen dismiss thoughts from his mind? To put it briefly, he recommended unconditional and entire devotion to Buddhism. A Buddhist must realize constantly that he is dedicated to the supreme cause of Buddhism.
Don't forget the swiftness of change, nor let yourself be needlessly troubled by worldly affairs. While in this brief dewlike existence, think only of Buddhism, and don't concern yourself with any other problems.
We are already the children of the Buddha, therefore we must follow in his footsteps. Trainees, do not practice Buddhism for your own benefit, for fame and profit, or for rewards and miraculous powers. Simply practice Buddhism for the sake of Buddhism. This is the true way.
What he recommended is a sort of Buddhist version of devequth. By reminding himself constantly that he is the Buddha's disciple, a Zen student simultaneously encourages himself in his primary assignment, that is, to practice zazen. When a Zen student cannot concentrate his mind on Buddhism, he is advised to contemplate either emptiness of being or brevity of life so that he realizes what is ultimately essential in life.
When egoistic views arise, just do zazen quietly, observing them. What is the basis of your body, its inner and outer possessions? You received your body, hair, and skin from your parents. The two droplets, red and white, of your parents, however, are empty from beginning to end; hence there is no self here. Mind, discriminating consciousness, knowledge, and dualistic thought bind life. What, ultimately, are exhaling and inhaling? They are not self. There is no self to be attached to. The deluded, however, are attached to self, while the enlightened are unattached.
As a man was born in the world with nothing, so he dies without carrying any property with him. And corpses are usually cremated according to Buddhist custom. If he does not grasp the eternity of Nirvana while still living in the world, when can he attain it?
In some other Buddhist denominations faith is basically a matter of reliance on external power. In Shin Buddhism, for example, a man receives a promise of salvation and the Pure Land through trusting in the grace of Amida and reciting the Invocation of Amida.
Shin Buddhism was founded by Shinran (1173-1262) as a denomination of the Pure Land school in Japan. He studied under Honen (1132-1212), who taught that one will be saved and promised attainment of the Pure Land after death if one recites wholeheartedly the name of Amida Buddha, Namu Amida-butu. Deepening the basic idea of Honen's teaching, Shinran reached the conclusion that it is Amida Himself who allows us to involve His name because of His unconditional mercy to mankind. Seeking the cause of faith in Amida and not in man, he established the doctrine of salvation through passivism. He denied the clerical vow of celibacy and publicly created a new pattern by allowing priests to marry. His teaching was quickly absorbed by peasant and nobility. Shin Buddhism is one of major Buddhist denominations in Japan.
In the Nichiren denomination, a man is saved and strengthened through repeating the name of the Lotus Sutra, which is believed to have an incantatory power of miracles and protection for its believers.
In the history of Japanese Buddhism Nichiren (1222-82) was a champion of the masses. Most other Buddhist dignitaries were members of the ruling society and nobility; Nichiren was a son of a fisherman in a remote province. After learning the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra, he reproached all Buddhist schools in Japan on the ground that they did not trust in the Lotus Sutra, and predicted a calamity for the nation because of their distrust. His prophecy came true with the Mongolian Invasion of Japan in 1274. He taught that trust in the Lotus Sutra and invocation of the its name, Namu Myoho Rengekyo, was the only way to avoid national and individual calamities. His teaching spread especially among people of the lower class. The strength of this sect is shown by the fact that today more than one-third of Japanese Buddhists belong to the Nichiren denomination and its offshoots.
In contrast, Zen Buddhism advocates faith through self-reliance and self-endeavor. The maxim of Buddhism is:
Birth and death is a grave event;
How transient is life;
Every minute is to be grudged,
Time waits for no body.
Zen discipline is a running competition with the swiftness of time. Man must win every moment and minute in the race of perfection against morality. Indeed, there is no extra allowance of time fro Zen disciples to entertain nonessential thoughts. Dogen reminded his students of this:
Without arousing this wholehearted will for the Buddha Way, how can anyone succeed in this most important task of cutting the endless round of birth and death? Those who have this drive, even if they are stupid or evil, will without fail gain enlightenment.
Next, to arouse such a mind, one must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. This realization is not achieved by some temporary method of contemplation. It is not creating something out of nothing and then thinking about it. Impermanence is a fact before our eyes. Do not wait for the teaching from others, the words of the scriptures, and for the principles of enlightenment. We are born in the morning and die in the evening; the man we saw yesterday is no longer with us today. These are facts we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. You see and hear impermanence in terms of another person, but try weighing it with your own body. Even though you live to be seventy or eighty you die in accordance with the inevitability of death. How will you ever come to terms with the worries, joys, intimacies, and conflicts that concern you in this life? With faith in Buddhism, seek the true happiness of Nirvana....
I repeat, don't forget this truth. Think only of this very moment, and waste no time in turning your minds to the study of the Way.
To study Buddhism means, according to Dogen, to practice zazen before everything else:
The most important point in the study of the [Buddhist] Way is zazen.... Therefore, students must concentrate on zazen alone and not bother about other things. The Way of the Buddha and Patriarchs is zazen alone. Follow nothing else.
The Spartan attitude of Zen was best expressed by Shuho Myocho: "To wipe out thoughts means to practice zazen!" There is no better way than zazen to overthrow thoughts in Zen.
The Treatment of ﾒStrange Thoughtsﾓ in Hasidism
ﾒStrange thoughtsﾓ were major problems to Jewish mystics who desired to purge their minds in order to think about God all the time. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Peremyshlyany was reported to have crushed undesirable bad thoughts through visualizing the Tetragrammaton YHVH. So was it for Rabbi Nahman of Kosov. But Rabbi Nahman of Gorodenka (d. 1765) could not get rid of strange thoughts, even by immersing himself in cold water in the midst of winter, until he asked advice from the Besht.
The Besht based his solution for the problem of strange thoughts upon the Kabbalistic idea of tiqqun (repair, restoration) and not on the Stoic method of denial. Rabbi Moses Hayyim Ephrayim, a grand son the Besht, in comparing the method of Menahem Mendel of Peremyshlyany, said: "I say according to what I have received [from my grandfather] that each thought has a full stature [of mystical vitality] and they come to people because they want tiqqunim [repairs]."
Tiqqun is a unique concept by which the Kabbalah explains the need of restoration of the universe according to the original design of God. The Kabbalah explains that shortly after God created the universe a catastrophic destruction, which is usually called "the Breaking of the Vessels," occurred in the circulation system of the Holy Light. Although the repair was done immediately, the dross of the crushed vessels was never collected. It was scattered all over the dark places. The dross subsequently was metamorphosed into evil. The evil is called kelippoth (barks, shells), for it contains nitzotzoth (the divine sparks) within. The divine sparks, which are a reflection of the Holy Light impressed on the surface of dross, were captured by the kelippoth because the latter cannot activate themselves without receiving life from the sparks. It is vital to release those sparks from the kelippoth and to return them to their original source in heaven in order to exterminate evil and to restore order in the universe. The work of restoration (tiqqun) is quite dangerous, for it is necessary to overcome evil at all costs. There is no one in the world except a human who is capable of carrying out this mission. And the sparks will be redeemed when he devotes himself to prayer and good deeds with intent of their redemption.
Realizing that good is encaged in evil, the Besht developed the method called ha'alaath machshaboth zaroth (the elevation of strange thoughts) to uplift the divine sparks from "strange thoughts":
One should know especially how the light of divine sparks fell into the kelippoth. Strange thoughts come at the hour of prayer for the purpose of their tiqqun. He must separate and remove the bark, and elevate the divine spark out of it.
This statement by Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph distinguishes between "to remove the barkﾓ and ﾒto elevate the divine sparks." However, there is actually no need to separate the holy element from the evil of strange thoughts. Hasidism believes that both good and evil ultimately originated from the same root in God. Therefore it is possible to uplift either good or evil by recalling their divine origin in God. In most cases, the uplifting of strange and bad thought is carried out by reversing the negative aspect of thoughts into positive ones, like reversing a negative picture into a positive one in photography. In fact, "reversal of strange thoughtsﾓ (hippukh machshaboth zaroth ) was often used as a synonym for ﾒthe elevation of strange thoughts," as Moses Hayyim Ephrayim commented: ﾒAnd they reverse all of the [strange] thoughts into good ones so that they elevate them to the holiness.ﾓ This is illustrated in the following example:
As known to us, the wife of Potiphar used to beautify herself [mithpaeret] before Joseph very much. According to the Midrash,31 in order to tempt him she did not wear the same dress in the evening which she wore in the morning. Joseph the righteous did not feel desire for her beauty [tiphereth], but her beauty aroused in him a desire for the highest beauty [tiphereth 'eliyon] which is the symbol of his father [Jacob who was called] Tiphereth Yisrael [the glory of Israel]. And this is the interpretation of the verse ﾒAnd he fled and got out of the houseﾓ (Genesis 39:12), that is to say, he fled from her corporeal beauty, and excited himself to escape to the outside, out of this world, so that he clung to the highest beauty.
The parable says that Joseph did not succumb to temptation by her corporeal beauty but was actually incited by it. Hasidim were not indifferent to corporeality. On the contrary, they were very sensitive to worldly affairs and there were always numerous potentialities of temptation in their daily life despite their strong dedication and continuous efforts to stay in devequth to God. Above All, they were members of secular society, unlike the monks of Zen Buddhism, who had renounced worldliness. Hasidim had to engage in business, work, and family matters in order to continue their lives. As a result, they were often visited by various worldly thoughts. Three major categories of "strange thoughts" are noted: (1) thoughts of bodily desires, such as sex and food; (2) thoughts of business and commerce; (3) thoughts of interpersonal relations, such as pride and fear. In Hasidic works, the most frequent references are to thoughts of the first type.
What should be done if a corporeal desire comes to visit a person against his will? What should be done with external temptation or incitement which occurs beyond our control as in the case of Joseph? There must be some external reason for its occurrence. The Baal Shem Tov concluded that God is responsible for the appearance of strange thoughts. It was the Besht's profound insight that strange thoughts result from external sources rather than one's inner psychic imagination or libido.
If one of you were to look at a pretty woman all of a sudden, think of where she gets such beauty. If she dies, surely her pretty face would vanish. If so, from where does she get this beauty? In any case, it appeared to her out of the divine power which was immanent within her, and which gave her the power of beauty and ruddy complexion; there is the root of beauty which is the divine power. And why should I not draw a portion of the divine power for my sake? It is good for me to cling to the source and root of all of the worlds in which there are all kinds of beauty. And thus should you conduct yourself when you look at other corporeal things whatsoever. For instance, looking at a tool, one should think of how the tool took on a beautiful shape, though its material is essentially worthless matter. The beauty and shape is a matter of spirituality and vitality, out of which the tool came into being, and which is also a part of the divine element from above. In the same manner, when one eats, one should think that the taste and sweetness of a food has emerged from the vitality and sweetness of heaven which is its divine essence. There is also a divine essence in a plant which we see. The plant exists and stands [as other creatures], for the divine essence is effused from above everywhere. If you look at things while observing thus in the mind, then your act of looking is surely identical with the worship of the Infinite One, blessed be He. And it is, therefore, effective to dismiss capricious thoughts.
By adopting a panentheistic idea that every thing contains some degree of spiritual essence which originates from God, the Besht built a philosophy of affirmation and sanctification. Every thing could serve the divine cause through affirming the positive value of its holy origin. Man should no longer abhor seeing things which tempt his bodily desires. They come to meet him in order to remind him of their holy origin and their need of repair. Man's only duty is to accept and to sanctify them for the sake of heaven. They come to him in order to involve him in the divine cause and in the worship of God. There is no ultimate reason to reject and deny corporeality. Strange thoughts, though not welcomed, must be accepted and sanctified in order to sublimate them.
Rabbi Dov Baer, the Great Maggid, explains the special reason for the visit of strange thoughts to man's mind:
When a king has a son who is in an indecent place, he goes to the place because of love of his son in order to bring him back from there. In the same way, a thought is often conceived in the mind of man because of the higher worlds descend from above.... If he is wise and can discern with what Kabbalist category the thought is related, either with love, with awe, or with beauty "although it has emerged from matters of this world based on physical desires" he is able to sublimate it. He knows that the same thought needs to be repaired at the very moment either in love, in awe, or in beauty, because it was damaged through the Breaking of the Vessels. And it is now time to elevate it. Therefore, a thought descends from the higher worlds and enters into man to be uplifted from the Breaking by virtue of devequth to the Creator, blessed be He, in accordance with its own category.
Strange thoughts, according to the Great Maggid, result from damage of the higher worlds caused by the Breaking of the Vessels in the primordial state of creation. They come to man not blindly but purposely at a certain defined moment which is considered to be most effective for their restoration. "Strange thoughts" are neither capricious nor random; they come down to man out of the necessity of cosmic repairs. In a sense, man is a catalytic converter to purify evil to good.
Besides strange thoughts which originated from the higher worlds, the Great Maggid counted another type of thoughts which come to a person especially in the hours of prayer. They are evoked by the power of transgressions committed by the same person before prayer. Thoughts of this type visit especially during prayer in order to remind him of his sins and of his need for repentance as well as the redemption of thoughts.
What seems to be amazing and astonishing to us is this: Why do strange thoughts come at the time of prayer or while preparing the heart for prayer? The matter is to be explained thus: they descended on a person through his sin and crime, and crave for elevation during the service of prayer.
Strange thoughts interrupt one's concentration and devotion to God. Hasidism found a unique reason to justify the interruption. Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph admitted that there are ups and downs in one's manner of serving God. "It is impossible for a person to maintain one condition alone," he explained, "because such constant pleasure is no longer pleasure." The formula "A constant pleasure is not pleasure" is credited to the Baal Shem Tov. If a pleasure, no matter how pleasant, is continuous, our sense goes numb before long, and we even find it boring. Therefore, intermission and pause is indispensable to maintain pleasure and to refresh our sensitivity to pleasure. Hasidism used the idea to explain inconsistency in devotion and positive consequence from it:
If every people serve the Lord, blessed be He, in consistency, He is not able to receive pleasure, for a constant pleasure is not pleasure. But when a person keeps himself away from Him, and later the person destroys all of the obstacles and clings to the worship of God, then a great pleasure rises to the Lord, blessed be He.
A decline of faith should not be regarded as blemish. It is, as a matter of fact, a good chance to repent and return to God so that a great joy will overwhelm both God and man.
The elevation of strange thoughts was founded on the doctrine that the divine sparks are confined deep inside evil and that they are in need of redemption. From the Kabbalistic viewpoint, elevation of the divine sparks poses no theoretical difficulty. But it is doubtful whether strange thoughts can be elevated, for they belong to corporeality. However, most Hasidim, including the Besht himself, did not follow such strict categorical distinctions. Only Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady strictly distinguished between good and evil in terms of ethics. He too did not deny the possibility of elevating evil. However, he limited the ability to do so only for the perfect Zaddik.
They maintained a view that evil is ultimately dependent on the divine essence of good; therefore it is reversible and can become good. Evil can become ﾒa chair for goodﾓ as soon as people realize its positive meaning and attempt to restore the original order either through reversing corporeality to spirit-uality or through repenting their own deeds. Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph reported: "I heard an interpretation of the verse 'Surely there is no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins' (Ecclesiastes 7:20), that is to say, that it is impossible to do good without sin, which appears in the midst of the good from some sort of motivation."
In any case, the denial of reality was not regarded as appropriate to the spirit of Hasidism. Hasidim's main policy was to accept reality as it is, no matter how deteriorated from the ideal situation, and to find its positive aspect in order eventually to sublimate the entire reality. This affirmative attitude towards reality no doubt provided an accessible way for the masses to follow Hasidism.
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak tells this story of two Zaddikim and strange thoughts:
When the Zaddik dwells amidst the kelippoth [that is, in the secular society], superficial thoughts disturb him.... There is one [Zaddik] who rejects a thought completely from himself, while there is another one who grasps it only in order to reverse it for the sake of God's work; for example, if an evil love comes, he reverses it into love of the Creator, blessed be He.
A Zaddik of Hasidism belongs to the second type of man, the one who enriches his life by reversing a negative into a positive value. Why does he reverse it? Because ﾒGod, may His Name be blessed, is the root of every thought, and out of Him emerge all thoughts,ﾓ answered Moses Hayyim Ephrayim. This answer was, however, refined in its tone and wording after substantial modification of the original idea issued by the Besht. We can hear the Besht's words more vividly in the report of Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph, who collected his master's saying firsthand during the Besht's lifetime.
It is a major principle that no obstacle can separate man and God during the study of the Torah and worship, even when several strange thoughts arise before him, for they are [mere] clothing and covers in which the Holy One, blessed be He, hides Himself. In any case, after he has learned that the Holy One, blessed be He, hides Himself there [in the strange thoughts], there is no longer covering-up.
As I received from my master [the Besht]: when a man finds strange thoughts, for instance, when thinking of coition, he should cling to its root, namely, to the category of "Love".... And the Glory of God is hiding in it.
The desire of coition should be transmitted to the category of "Love" because the male organ for coition symbolizes the Berith (Covenant) between God and Abraham, and Abraham represents the category of "Love" based on the verse "Truth to Jacob and love to Abraham" (Micha 7:20). In short, every kind of desires belongs to the same category.
God Himself hides within strange and bad thoughts! If it is so, why should we abhor them? Because "there is no place empty of Him," we encounter Him everywhere; therefore we must be honest everywhere.
J. G. Weiss defined the essence of the Besht's teaching as "the way of worship through corporeality." He summarized its doctrine as follows: "The real worship of God is through corporeality and not through fulfillment of the commandments." However, this is a misinterpretation of Hasidism. Despite its positive attitude toward cor-poreal reality, Hasidism never considered corporealities either as an indispensable condition for faith in God or as the essential basis for worship. Weiss based his argument primarily on the following words of the Great Maggid quoted by Rabbi Abraham Hayyim of Zolochev (1750-1816):
Rabbi Dov Baer, may his memory be for the life of the world to come, told the meaning of the Gemara (Kiddushin 64), "I have created the Evil Impulse, and also created the Torah as spice for it." Behold, the fable does not match its moral, for they put spices for meat and the essence [ha-'iqar] is the meat and not the spices. But here it says that the Torah is the spice. And he told, it is true that the Evil Impulse is ha-'iqar, and man should serve the Lord, blessed be He, with excitement which emerges from the Evil Impulse.
Weiss obviously understood the Hebrew word ha-'iqar only in the sense of "essence" instead of "basis." To see the Evil Impulse as essential for faith is rather a strained interpretation. The real focus of Dov Baer's argument was "to serve God with excitement." The Evil Impulse could be ha-'iqar (the basis) for faith, because it is vital for the religious life to have agility and excitement, attributes of lust, which emerge from the passions of the Evil Impulse. But the Evil Impulse itself was clearly regarded by Rabbi Abraham Hayyim to be harmful to ordinary people. In the continuation of the same discourse, Abraham Hayyim commented: "And to a person who is in the lower stage, God does not allocate such a mighty Evil Impulse which is beyond his control. Instead, He gives every individual an Evil Impulse which he can control." Once again Weiss has neglected the full context of the words of Dov Baer, the Great Maggid:
"The [Evil] Impulse is ha-'iqar [the main dish] of meal and the Torah is spice for it." How do we relate this? Rabbi Dov Baer, may his memory for the life of the world to come, said: It is true, for without justice and mercy the [study of the ] Torah cannot ascend to heaven. Therefore man must serve the Lord, blessed be He, in all of His commandments with strength of the [Evil] Impulse which is in him, making a Good Impulse out of the Evil Impulse in order to work with the Lord, blessed be He. Lest he should stumble before the lusts of the [Evil] Impulse... like all other creatures, the Lord, blessed be He, created the Torah so that he might, despite the power of the [Evil] Impulse, distinguish between the forbidden and the permitted.
The passage quoted by Weiss on the previous page seems to be less accurate than this in preserving the original statement of Dov Baer, the Great Maggid.
According to the other source, Or HaEmeth, Dov Baer said that the Torah was compared with the spice because as spices sweeten the taste of the meat the Torah corrects the Evil Impulse.
"[Oh, God,] You have created the Evil Impulse, and also You have created the Torah. Thus You give us the power to conquer the Evil Impulse and to sweeten it through the Torah as spices for [the meat in] the pot."
Rabbi Dov Baer taught the need of strength for worship but never suggested any positive significance of the Evil Impulse itself. The Evil Impulse was accepted by him simply as a matter of reality. What he says is that man should recruit strength, which is inherent in the Evil Impulse, since man is no longer capable of ascending by power of the Torah and the commandments, through which he was expected to refine himself. But both the study of the Torah and the performance of the commandments become routine and apathetic among people. Thus the sacred deeds, which once had been vital means to bring people closer to God, lost their power.
Hasidism unmistakably placed the Torah and its commandments, not secular affairs, at the center of life. Lusts and desires in secular life become meaningful only after man's victory over temptation. According to Hasidic teaching, there is no hint of encouragement of secular indulgence. Rabbi Dov Baer warned his disciples not to be stained with corporealities: "When a man is befouled with transgression and cleaves to the Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak, the filth will spread in heaven as soon as the unity with God is achieved during the prayer." Therefore Rabbi Dov Baer teaches that "it is appropriate for him to keep away from lusts and strange thoughts."
The elevation of strange thoughts implies that a man still has a chance to sublimate his life for God's sake despite his inclination to corporealities. The Hasidic doctrine of the elevation of strange thoughts is a gentle invitation to worship for a degenerate and desperate people. The real nature of the doctrine is to stimulate a highly moral responsibility: self-examination. It was an ethical challenge raised by Hasidism to humanity in general. The biggest trouble for man is the "constant war against the Evil Impulse with whom man fights day and night." Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph explained the reason for the need for self-examination:
One must examine which stage he is in. This is necessary in order to know how to conduct himself. If his mind is inclined to exploit and to plunder, then he should learn that his mind inclines to the Left Side. Therefore he must turn it sharply to the Right Side. If his mind inclines to do charity and benevolence, then he should know that he has found favor in the eye of God.... Since man consists of good and evil, the body inclines after material and corporeal lusts, while the soul inclines after spiritual things in order to subdue his material, [nay,] in order that the material too eventually will incline to spiritual things. One must destroy his desire for every corporeal pleasure and choose the way to Torah for the purpose of making spirituality out of corporeality.... Behold, the Evil Impulse awakens only by eating, drinking and other physical pleasures.... But when he conducts himself in the way of Torah as mentioned above, the Evil Impulse is unable to come into him and dwell in him.
No matter how spiritually degenerate a person is at the present moment, Hasidism believes, it is still possible for him to overcome the situation if he too follows the accessible teaching initiated by the Baal Shem Tov, and to restore eventually the original authority of the Torah through observing its commandments. There is no way of worship in Hasidism if one does not begin with sanctification and sublimation of corporeal life.
Comparison
The Hasidic treatment of strange thoughts is similar to that of Zen only in that both seek grounds for the dismissal of thoughts. According to Zen, thoughts are ultimately empty, while according to Hasidism they are divine in origin. Zen detaches from thoughts because they are empty and non-essential. Hasidism sublimates and releases them to heaven because they were originally rooted in God. Although the subject of thoughts is common to both Zen and Hasidism, Hasidic masters frequently mentioned sensual desires as typical examples of strange thoughts. This reflects the fact that Hasidism was essentially a religious movement of a secular people. It is interesting that the meaning ﾒto uprootﾓ has never been seen, thus far, in the Hasidic discourses on the problem of strange thoughts. The usual meaning was "to destroy," to keep away from,ﾓ or ﾒto rejectﾓ those thoughts. Thus, Hasidism rarely imagined the possibility of uprooting strange thoughts. Instead, they admitted the constant generation of bad thoughts as a matter of reality. This is in contrast to Zen's belief that ﾒdelusions will not arise to themselves unless the mind is activated.ﾓ In Zen Buddhism, self-assertion is counted among the wayward thoughts. It is the last posses-sion to be thrown away by a monk who already has nothing after renunciation of the worldly life.
A total difference between the Hasidic and Zen attitudes of distracting thought is seen in the affirmation of thoughts. While Zen Buddhism denies from the outset the significance of distracting thoughts, Hasidism discovers cosmic significance for them: their descent and ascent are a necessary to mend the damage caused by the Breaking of the Vessels in the higher worlds and to restore the original order of the universe. Hasidism opened a completely new way of life through this unique and positive view: celebration and sanctification of life under any circumstance. A human being shall no longer be oppressed by guilt on account of bad thoughts. Those thoughts remind him that he too can be a partner of God by lifting them up to heaven.
1: Introduction
3: Problem of "Strange Thoughts"
4: Annihilating Selfhood and Attaining Ecstasy