The Zennist

Falling into the imagination and with it the flesh

The Bible is not one book but a compilation of many books so that trying to find the red thread of Christianity is next to impossible.  Buddhism has not lost its red thread.  It's still very much alive and well.  But finding this red thread involves intuition and not one's mastery over words. 

What Siddhartha awakened to can only be found by direct intuition (Zen = dhyāna). It transcends words and the six senses; all conditioned things including even thought.  Still, it serves as the basis of all his discourses: they invariably hinge on that intuition.

Unfortunately, our secular age depends upon the flesh or in Buddhist terms, leading a conditioned life which guarantees continuation in samsara.  Most of us are aware of how the modern mind prioritizes things. Its first duty is to having a good time, followed by sex, then marriage and finally the baby!  Dharma is last.

With Christians it is about the same. God and prayer are there to get them out of jams due to their love of the flesh.  They hope to be constantly forgiven having yielded to the temptations of flesh.

Those who believe in the afterlife will only return to a world of imagination, the sixth sense.  While those who believe in absolute death or annihilation will go back to the womb from whence they came.  But Siddhartha taught us the transcendent which is the true antidote to desire by which we fall into the imagination and with it the flesh.

The conditioned is suffering not the unconditioned

I have no problem with a simplified view of Buddhism but let's be honest it's not Buddhism but it's rather a simplified version of something like Buddhism. 

Let us look at the first Noble truth from the teaching itself.  "And what, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering?  It should be said: the five aggregates subject to clinging.... This is called the noble truth of suffering" (S.v.425). 

Breaking this down for the modern mind what is suffering is invariably all of conditioned existence.  Our attachment or clinging to conditioned existence which includes this corporeal body is the cause of suffering.  This is the Noble truth of the cause of suffering. 

Stopping clinging or attachment to the conditioned is the cessation of suffering.  The eightfold path that leads to the gnosis of the unconditioned (nirvana) is this stopping of suffering.  In the Pali Nikāyas, the only thing explicitly said to be unconditioned is nirvana. All other things, mental and material, are conditioned. 

In the Nirvana Sutra it says, "If the Buddha-Nature is seen, there will be no seeing of a [Buddha] nature in anything."  In other words, if one is caught up in conditioned phenomena one will not be able to see their Buddha-nature.

From here we can say that real Zen training involves learning to differentiate the conditioned from the unconditioned and then break our addiction to the conditioned which is no easy matter.

A ride in an endless illusory world

Whether we realize it or not we are always trying to turn the reality that confronts us into words then from words into a fiction that we can manipulate or at least have some control over.  In this fashion, words are as useful as they are dangerous.  They can be used to express the truth as much as they can be used to lie and to deceive.

In George Orwell’s totalitarian world the lie is disseminated through the Ministry of Truth.  But even before that happens from a Buddhist perspective the lie has already taken hold of the person who is born into this world. 

The corporeal body that the person is attached to is the lie insofar as the person does not realize that they are attached to something which is not their true spiritual self.  It is alien. 

This false self in Buddhism is the anātman.  It is more of a thing of suffering than joy or pleasure.  Our six senses help to guide it and make it through its short lifespan only to embark on another one after this body ends.

We have enough fuel (upādāna), which is produced by desire (taṇhā), to go on forever.

Ordinary people take refuge in their corporeal bodies and especially the anātman which is made up of the five aggregates, namely, form, sensation, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.  We can call this the holy lie to which all human beings and animals are attached.  The body's death in no way ends this journey.  It is just a continuation into another rebirth vehicle by which to take a ride in an endless illusory world.

Intuition: transcending letters and words

Depending on where you live in these troubled times you might need a certificate of vaccination ID which some have called COVID.  However, with Zen, a paper certification of enlightenment is not required.

What is required is kenshō which means direct insight into our true nature.  It is a special kind of intuition.  I hasten to add that much of the literature of Zen, which includes koans, makes it almost impossible to understand Zen without kenshō.

Still, all of us believe in the beginning that a study of Zen's literature will take us to kenshō.  But how does Zen dissuade such people?  The short answer is it doesn’t.  Such people have to find out the hard way. 

There is no easy path to Zen because the person on its path is usually a wily and deceptive creature!  Much of Zen is designed to thwart the attainment of kenshō for these kind of people (in old China Chan/Zen was very popular, it was the literati who claimed to understand Chan).

Today, a typical Zen Center is more like a gathering of victims and other dysfunctional types—a tad short of Marx’s lumpenproletariat.  They attend because it is the appearance of Zen that attracts them; not the reality of Zen which demands a deep journey into one's psyche.

If one is lucky, more and more they will find that Zen’s intrapersonal path can be very difficult to stay on.  To resurrect our lost intuition, which is what Zen is really about, as far as training goes it aims to rid us of our dependency on letters and words going to the very heart of Zen.  Here spirit or Mind transcends letters and words.  Giving up this dependency is no easy task, few accomplish it.

Our inner nature

The six senses and the five aggregates are all external according to Buddhism, but we need to look at what ‘external’ really means in this context.  A more nuanced view of external means lacking in, or totally devoid of inner nature or spirit. 

This is to say that our Buddha-nature or atman is not an external thing which even includes our feelings and thoughts.  Our Buddha-nature or atman is first-person but also primordially internal.  And anyone who would dismiss the Buddha-nature because it is not apparent to the six senses or because it is unthinkable, fails to understand basic Buddhism.

Buddhism is really talking about the true self versus the external illusory self—a construct of a "me" which is the illusory self, kind of like the voice in our head.  All this is external.  It is hardly internal where lies the holy grail of our quest.

The Zennist is on a quest for this grail.  But as the reader can see the difference between external and internal is quite subtle and difficult to comprehend. 

All the koan cases we love to read but find almost impossible to understand have the sweet fragrance of truth.  But our approach to these koans is the same as our approach to Zen overall it is too external.

Thus far, all of our endeavors to find the truth have been pretty much external.  Philosophy seems perhaps more directed towards the internal or the first-person.  But this is no pat on the back for philosophy.  It too is adrift on this vast external ocean that lies before us.

A mysterious light

An awakened teacher spiritually radiates the teaching which is not dependent on words or physical signs.  Invisibly, it penetrates through all conditioned things even our day to day life.  We can't desire it nor can we grasp it.  It comes to us having surpassed our darkness; only when we are thoroughly empty of the desire for the conditioned.  This explains why many can start Zen but few if any will complete its demanding journey.

When Zen is transmitted from one culture to another the only thing that is transmitted is the culture which is reshaped by the new culture but nothing is spiritually transmitted.  The unconditioned light of Mahayana (mahāyana-prabhāsa) embraces the world but the world does not know or recognize it.  Those empowered by it are its worthy teachers.

Almost all traditions of Zen do not teach this although it is fundamental to the the Lanka School 楞伽宗 from which Zen arose.  This is at the core of Zen’s great mystery and why it is so easy to misunderstand Zen.  This light explains how the Buddha actually taught but it also explains a Buddha’s compassion.

It should be obvious that deluded beings only follow conditioned reality as it unfolds and reveals itself in their day to day life.  But Zen is always pointing beyond it to what cannot be grasped by the senses.  It is not about this world but points directly to what transcends it.  And Zen fails miserably when it tries to minister to the needs of its parishioners who are trying to repair their broken lives and misdeeds brought about by their desires for the conditioned.

Religion has been canceled

What would our life be like with the cancellation of the sacred or the same, the religious?  Would the sacred change into something external and even psychological?  Would our previous inward devotion to the absolute or ultimate reality become a turn towards devotion to secular values? 

It might be like turning a personality disorder into a religious quest, a struggle for personal identity such as having the right to be schizoid or narcissistic or a psychopath.  In other words, we have the right to be insane!

Submitting to our personal delusions and excesses is not the same as submitting to a higher quest to see our true nature which transcends the all-too-human world with all of its foibles and imperfections.  I suspect that this is a displeasing message for those who are attached to their all too human natures; who still regard the idea of freedom in the form of escaping one's responsibilities which the youthful, immature mind takes delight in.

Very much of modern culture is still immature (foolishly optimistic) and sees very little wrong with the cancellation of the sacred that ends up getting rid of the religious mind which is on the quest for the absolute which is beyond the dyad of birth and death.

 

Receiving the unconditioned transmission

I have been thinking about transcendence versus attachment for sometime.  I speculate that this is a major portion of what Buddhism is about.  Reality as we know it is just the appearance of the unreal which is always conditioned, never unconditioned or truly real.

The goal of the would-be-bodhisattva is to realize the unconditioned then enlighten the very thoughts within the mind.

This is exemplified by the mantra found in the Heart Sutra (Xīnjīng), namely, Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha/ Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, awakening, hail! (awakening to the unconditioned).  The translation of this mantra is fairly simple but what it means is far more subtle than a literal translation can offer. 

Human beings as a rule prefer to stay on this mundane shore of samsara which is the conditioned world.  They crave the body that came through their mother's birth canal.  They are very attached to these bodies.  They could not care less about going beyond, that is, reaching the unconditioned. 

But this mantra is all about going beyond all conditioned things including this body and even its most sublime thoughts and aspirations.  What we aspire to including the one who aspires must also be transcended.  This puts us into a hopeless position or so it seems. But how can we receive the unconditioned transmission by holding on to what is conditioned?

Transmitted by the Buddha

The term Zen or in Sanskrit dhyāna is more about a process than the actual enlightenment of Siddhartha. Supposedly, Bodhidharma said: Seeing your true nature is Zen. Unless you see your nature, it's not Zen.

The process of Zen leads up to seeing or intuiting this nature or svabhāva. Still, this nature transcends even Zen and what the human imagination can construct. This is "book Zen" but also Buddhism. Words and the ideas they evoke are not the same as directly seeing one's nature. Far from it.

Zen as a process is more about getting the student to drop analytical thinking and turn to the direction of intuition. This is somewhat like shifting from over-reliance on the left hemisphere of the brain and shifting over to the right hemisphere where lies intuition which supersedes a jumble of ideas.

The difficulty of achieving intuition should not be underestimated. It is not easy to make the transition from analytical thinking to direct intuition.

The true transmission of the Dharma only obtains by a path of intuition or Zen. Our all-too-human efforts will fail, but that is not entirely a bad thing from Zen's perspective. This is coming to Zen's Great Doubt 大疑 in which all human efforts fail. It is only in this emptiness that one is for the first time open to being transmitted by the Buddha.

The context of Zen

The context of Zen it could be argued lies in the world of first-person realization in the example of Siddhartha sitting under the Bodhi tree. Just what exactly this realization was we cannot know unless we personally become awakened.  And this pretty much becomes in impossible challenge to overcome from a personal standpoint. 

Even with this realization it cannot be handed to another as if it were some kind of material object. Our scholars can write about Zen but direct intuition of Zen ever remains outside of normal human communication whether in academic circles or in religious circles.  Realization transcends the human being most notably consciousness or in Sanskrit vijñāna (lit. in two parts knowing).

A more accurate interpretation of Zen will show that Zen is essentially mystical dealing exclusively with intuition. The term intuition has been used to describe any process of acquiring first-knowledge that differs from conscious thought and bypasses the six senses and various modes of thought.  For the modern mind this is terra incognita.  In that regard one must be cautious but not overly cautious.  And one must be prepared to give up their hastily drawn maps of Zen's territory.