82. Systems & Analysis
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What is a system?
It has inside and outside —
all dharma beings.
We ended the last section with the suggestion that you consider the design of your Zen practice from a creative perspective, rather than as a pat system that others can teach you to follow. More like jazz than classical music. In other words, be prepared to improvise. This does not entirely eliminate, but places reasonable parameters around, the issue of doing zazen right, as opposed to getting it wrong.
If you take this approach to zazen, you cannot get it wrong. Since it is essentially an experiment, even unexpected results are findings. The only thing is to modify the approach, redesign the bench test and perhaps modify your expectations, then mount the experiment again. Not only is there no success without failure, there is no control without relinquishing control. And no failure without success, actually.
In the context of Zen, any suggestion of systematic analysis is understood as applying to a work-in-progress, an approach in which the approach itself is subject to modification on the fly. Sitting by the seat of your pants may be an apt metaphor.
My approach to systems and analysis may seem laughably simple and naïve in the context of technical endeavors such as engineering and architecture, to name a few. But it is derived from an engineer of formidable accomplishments, one R. Buckminster Fuller, who I was fortunate to meet a couple of times in my education in Design thinking. His geodesic domes, while the most familiar and famous of his accomplishments, are only the tip of the iceberg of his body of work.
Amongst the insights I picked up from Bucky, as he is affectionately called by his disciples, is the concept of semantic modeling, as well as the definition of a “system” as any entity that has an inside and an outside. This would include most of the many particular things that we may name as being evident in our world, including biological organisms such as animals and plants, as well as insentient systems such as the planet, the solar system and galaxies. But of course, human organizations and business corporations qualify as well. So a system for analyzing systems would seem to be a natural and useful tool to have.
The simplest geometric figure that creates an inside and an outside is the tetrahedron. So the simplest, irreducible expression, or model, of any system, however complex, reduces it to four main components with their six connectors. Each connector may be considered a vector that works both ways. As Bucky asserted, if you can name the four constituent components, and describe the six connections, it can be said that you understand — or perhaps a better word, comprehend — the system under consideration.
The chart attached may be considered a 2-dimensional rendition of a 3-dimensional tetrahedron. Here the four are rendered as squares A, B, C, and D, the connecting edges as 1-6. Red and black color-coding allows discriminating primary and secondary objectives of the person analyzing the system, or the person we most want to effect, positioned as component “A.” Each component can be sub-divided into four internal units as well, to address more complex systems. More to come on that.
A simple example from brick-and-mortar retail would place, in order of priority, the customer first in A, store associates second in B, products and services in C, and the store environment itself last, in D. The most important marketing objective of management would then be to define how a customer perceives the store associates, or A-B. If the employees of the store drop the ball and alienate the customers, it really doesn’t matter much what merchandise you have, or the ambience of the environment. How you want associates to relate to and treat customers can be covered in a training program, B-A
The other components and their connections can be similarly defined in great detail. The secondary objectives relate to behind-the-scenes activities not directly visible to the customer but necessary to the operation of the enterprise, such as product knowledgeability training programs (B-C) and the flow of merchandise through the store, i.e. unloading the trucks and stocking the merchandise (C-D). In the era of online retail, some of the components have gone virtual, but the dynamic is similar.
Applying this chart to meditation as another example, looking at zazen from your perspective you might place yourself in A, posture in B, breathing in C, and attention in D. Then analyze your relationship to each of the three to reveal where you are having the most difficulty. Is it with your posture, your breath, or your attention? What is the relationship of posture to breath, or breath to your attention, et cetera?
Use this model to take a closer and more complete look at your livelihood, or any other dimension of the Eightfold Path. What are the four components of your everyday life? What objectives would you like to establish between them? How does zazen fit into that picture? What are your objectives for zazen? What are the relationships between the four observations that Bodhidharma proposed for zazen: breathing; physical sensations; emotional mood swings; and mental concepts?
Any dharma being, sentient or insentient, can be similarly analyzed. The archetypal teacup used as an analogy to existence and non-existence, form and emptiness, et cetera, would subdivide into form, function, materials, and forming process, for example. The four fundamental forces of physics would fit the model, indicating 6 connections between the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force, perforce expressed as mathematical formulae. Or there would be 12 formulations in total, if the relationships between the forces are asymmetrical, requiring that each be formulated differently as A to B or B to A. I leave it to those who can do the math.
To those who suggest that the tetrad, as I refer to it for short, is too simple to analyze most systems, which consist of more components, I offer the attached tetrad holarchy, a diagram that connects a system of tetrads into an expandable network, fractal in its scalability. Larger systems subsume smaller systems and smaller systems are integrated into larger ones using the same basic geometry. In the case of the retail example cited above, the three outside systems may represent vendors, advertising and other agencies, financing institutions such as banks, et cetera. The outer and inner connections may all be regarded as channels of communication between the associated organizations. I will not delve into more detailed discussion or explanation here but leave it to your imagination to play with the models to analyze, organize, and systematize your own systems, if that is not too redundant.
In closing, let us remember that the various teachings from Buddhism, from Buddha’s Four Noble Truths to the most complex enumerations of the 108 delusions, or the 52 stages of the bodhisattva, are all models of reality, from a Buddhist perspective. They all fit the modern trope of being the map and not the territory, and are meant to help you model your own reality on a sounder, more complete basis. Please take them and make them your own.
Zenkai Taiun Michael Elliston
Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”
UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.
Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell
