Jessica Fayerman's Articles on Lions Roar

In a fun new piece for The Under 35 Project, titled "Of Starships and Sangha," Jessica Fayerman explores an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew members find that they must be mindful in order to save their ship, and ties the episode to the themes she's been studying in her Zen practice. "It is most important that [we] avoid random thoughts that might change the reality of what we’re attempting to do… When you begin the attempt, there will be stress. It’s only natural that [our] concentration will shift." For those of us who sit zazen, these words have a familiar appeal. Who tells us these words? Perhaps it is a kind, encouraging teacher, guiding us along in our practice. Maybe the words are the gentle admonishment of a fellow practitioner, coaxing us on as we stare down our zafus right before the first period of a sesshin. Regardless, the words come from some fellow Buddhist, right? Wrong. That delicious quotation comes from Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Counselor Deanna Troi of the Starship Enterprise. Jean-Luc and Deanna – we Star Trek geeks are on a first-name basis with them – were not leading a sesshin. They were providing much-needed encouragement to the entire crew of the Enterprise. It would seem that due to an intergalactic snafu, the random thoughts of crew members were becoming…well, real. The only way to bring the Enterprise back to safety was for each and every one of the crew members to be right here, in the moment. Oh yeah – and this was a matter of life and death. I recently attended a Star Trek event — a movie theater screening of two Season 1 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The producers remastered many of the old episodes, and held these screenings across the country to announce the release of another season of the series on Blu-ray. It was a geek’s paradise. The first episode they showed was entitled “Where No One Has Gone Before.” Like many good Star Trek:TNG fans, I generally thumb my nose at most episodes from Season 1, and for that reason, it had been years since I had seen this one. While everyone around me geeked out on the heightened clarity of the special effects, I geeked out for a completely different reason: the lessons that the crew learns on the Enterprise are not all that different from the lessons that we learn in the zendo. The episode begins with the arrival of a starship engineer and his gentle, self-actualized alien “assistant” (otherwise known as The Traveler) in order to tinker with the ship’s warp drive. Soon after the beginning of said tinkering, something goes awry: the Enterprise lurches forward more than two million light years in a matter of seconds. Whoops – this is a rather epic blunder. As Lt. Commander Data helpfully points out, the amount of time it would take the subspace message that the ship sends out about the incident to reach Starfleet would be fifty-one years, ten months, sixteen days…[cue Picard barking at Data to shut up.] During the warp drive malfunction, it becomes apparent (at least to precocious scamp Wesley Crusher) that it was not the starship engineer who was responsible, but The Traveler. Over the course of the experiment, Wesley observes The Traveler “phasing” in and out of “emptiness” — the exact word used in the script -- and realizes that The Traveler has the ability to propel the ship and mold reality on the power of his thoughts alone. Wesley knows that this is more than just a telekinetic parlor trick. Accordingly, Wesley asks The Traveler whether anyone else has figured out “that space, time, and thought aren’t the separate things they seem to be?” Interesting. One is immediately reminded of Katagari-roshi’s teachings (see Each Moment is the Universe) that time isn’t necessarily linear, and that time, space, and mind aren’t necessarily separate. But I digress. During the course of an attempt to bring the Enterprise back home, The Traveler’s apparent mental fatigue causes the ship to be propelled forward even further. One billion light years from home, the Enterprise just isn’t in Kansas anymore. It would seem that way out here, reality is nothing more than the manifestation of crew members’ thoughts. The Traveler bemoans how it was a mistake to bring humans out here so early in the development of their civilization because they have not yet learned how to focus their minds. Well, gee, maybe if more people prior to the twenty-fourth century had learned how to sit zazen… The result of this lack of mental control is that reality becomes unpredictable (and frequently comical), with crew members’ thoughts popping up out of nowhere. The Klingon Lt. Worf reconnects with an old childhood pet (which looks a bit like a wild boar with spikes), while another crew member finds himself to be part of a string quartet dressed in full eighteenth century garb. One male crew member walks down the corridor wearing a woman’s Starfleet uniform. Captain Picard himself goes face-to-face with “emptiness,” as he nearly falls out of a turbolift door opening into empty space before pulling himself back. I wonder why the writers chose Picard, the Enterprise’s wise and compassionate leader, to have this particular experience. Perhaps Picard, although close, wasn’t quite ready to take the step off of the top of the 100-foot pole? The Traveler explains to Picard that he can manifest the reality of thought to get the Enterprise home, but that the chaos resulting from the crew members’ random thoughts could derail the whole operation. Picard gives a pep talk to the crew over the intercom, including the opening quotation. He then adds: "I must have your full attention. In a few moments as we attempt to warp back home, it is… absolutely vital that you center your thoughts on your duty or upon the welfare of the one called 'The Traveler.' Think of giving him some of your strength… You will attempt now to concentrate completely on either your duty of the moment or upon The Traveler, on his well-being. Think of him as someone you care deeply about." Sadly, the director of the episode did not include any shots of the crew members as they followed Picard’s instructions. I guess the director did not think that such shots would be interesting because they would likely depict the crew members simply attending to their duties. Since I’m a geek, however, I immediately pictured several thousand crew members sitting zazen. They sit zazen on the bridge, in the corridors, in “Ten Forward,” on the holodeck, in the turbolifts… the Enterprise is transformed into the universe’s largest mobile zendo and the crew, its sangha. Ultimately, the crew’s collective mindfulness efforts are successful: the Enterprise returns home and The Traveler phases completely out of existence. I find this episode particularly thought-provoking. I wonder: was Picard’s pep talk a simple call to mindfulness, or is there something more there? At least conceptually, Picard’s talk reminds me of when Zen master Panshan addressed the congregation, saying: "When there are no affairs in the mind, the myriad things are not born In the inconceivable mysterious function, where would a speck of dust alight? The Way itself is formless, but because of form, names are established. The Way itself is nameless, but because of names, there is classification."* If Picard had said this instead, wouldn’t the supposed effect on the crew have been exactly the same? After all, it is the crew members’ minds that lead to those myriad, crazy things. In essence, Panshan’s names and classifications aren’t any more real than those chaotic thought-realities on board the Enterprise. If I was some weird Picard-Panshan hybrid, I might have said something like: "Don’t get hung up on form, Enterprise crew. Your mind creates form. All of those perceptions, memories and thoughts that have been manifesting that separate, absolutely-convincing reality for each one of you – all delusion. That delusion is keeping us from getting home. Wake up. Be here. The Way [home] is formless." Another aspect of this episode that I find interesting is the fact that it was only through the collective efforts of the crew that the Enterprise got home. The crew didn’t function as a group of individual units, but as a sangha. It makes me reflect on why so many people – myself included – choose to practice as part of a group. After all, it is perfectly easy to sit at home. Not only does sitting with a group help me stay on task with my sitting – with a full schedule, zazen is the most frequent casualty of my day – but I find the energy of group sitting beneficial. There’s a palpable energy in a packed zendo, with practitioners silently conveying messages to one another of nurturing and support. It is simply easier to sit among others who are also experiencing the joys of monkey mind, with painful knees to boot. It invokes the cliché that we really are all in the same boat (or starship) together. Be here – right here, right now. Find a sangha. Sit zazen. Make it so. *Translation by Andy Ferguson.

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