The Zennist

Moving closer to the real problem

Zen and with it Buddhism over the years has turned out to be somewhat of a flop:  a low budget movie with not much of an audience.  These days it mainly survives in academic circles.  About all that resonates with the public is doing seated meditation and listening to someone chant a mantra.  In this interpretation it is about learning how to relax in a stressful day today world.

But wait a minute, my complaint is really about youth which is almost always impulsive and in the final analysis wrongheaded.

Relative to this day and age where emotions dominate becoming stuck on various ideas which then become either fanciful or ideological, we are far from being able to appreciate the subtlety of Zen and most of all Buddhism.  The subtlety of which I am speaking is about being able to transcend language going to that mysterious place from which our illusory existence begins.

“There is no language to describe Chan [Dhyāna, Zen]. One must achieve his understanding through an enlightenment experience” (Dahui 大慧).

When language fails to enter into Siddhartha’s awakening and convey it to us, what then must we do?  (At this point we are still hoping that language will give us a clue.)  Here we have arrived at the point where both Zen and Buddhism fail to meet the expectations of the public who depend upon dichotomous knowing/vijñāna (perceiver and perceiving knowing).  Truth be told, it is this kind of knowing that dominates the Western mind keeping it from true reality.

Slowly, we are moving closer to the real problem that we face today which is our inability to go where the mystics went; to see that which is beyond the sphere of language.  Worse still, we have little or no respect for these mystics.

The Way of Normies

The average person doesn't know anything about Buddhism; they can barely keep up with the silent demands of their own changing culture.  I guess you could call them normies who barely get by in life after their youth begins to fade away or some tragedy befalls them in their youth.  In Buddhism we call them puthujjana/pṛthagjana which means an ordinary worldly person or even a blockhead.

Over the years I have found it difficult to deal with these kind of people. Frankly, they suffer from a kind of false superiority that they can't let go of.  When they ask a question about Buddhism I only see a state of confusion on their faces when my answer doesn't meet with their expectation. 

Normies usually have a very closed mind.  They like bumper sticker type answers.  For example, Buddhism is about dealing with unhappiness (duhkha).  This is far away from Buddhism’s core.  Yet, surprisingly, Buddhism is very open; it’s not hiding anything even the language is straightforward.

A modern-day Buddha, speaking to normies, might put the problem and the solution this way.  We are continually trapping our self in a real life simulation-game in which birth, death and rebirth are part of the game.  The end that the modern person hopes for, that is, complete annihilation will never come either.

In this simulation, we take as our self the very avatar-simulation itself, not to mention, the external reality that it lives in.  Our body and all that comes with it having passed through our mother’s birth canal is not who we really are.  It is an avatar; a character in the game.  In order to realize our true self, which is not the avatar who gets immersed and lost in the life simulation game, we have to transcend the avatar in the game.

This puts Buddhism in a much different light. It's not trying to help us rebuild our avatar or to bring a measure of peace and sanity to our avatar.  Buddhism is about transcending both the avatar and the game itself.

Wisely, Buddhism tries to avoid arguments with the supporters of the Normie-world.  People attached to their normie beliefs are very difficult to bring to true knowledge and are simply not worth Buddhism's time.  All that Buddhism can say is here is the direction you must go, the rest is up to you.

 

The main culprit

No authentic spiritual path is about surrender or acquisition. It's all about transcendence.  But transcendence and what it really implies is little understood in the modern world.  Our collective spiritual IQ is very low. 

Much of the mystical literature that deals with transcendence is not well understood.  Language cannot convey it adequately insofar as language is tied to the imagination (S., manas) or the six sense. 

Right now we are like a video game player passionately attached to our avatar body in a simulation world—even our death and what comes after it is in the simulation world.

Nor should we expect to meet the transcendent based on our all-too-human consciousness.  This consciousness has to be transcended which is little more than dichotomous knowing (S., vijñāna) in which we are stuck in a dual mode of perceiver and perceiving.

Human consciousness (S., vijñāna) is something like the main culprit who makes our senses and their objects seem so real.  But at some level in our consciousness we're still holding out that the transcendent is something we can perceive or will perceive in the future.  It doesn't work that way not at least in Buddhism.

Spirit is beyond mankind's senses

Unfortunately many these days who still adhere to religion mix a lot of modern secular values with it.  Everything they believe has to be verified by the six senses but this is not the path to truth. 

The Tathagata or Buddha is fundamentally about Spirit.  And Spirit is beyond mankind's senses including imagination (the sixth sense in Buddhism). 

To make a direct connection with Spirit is both difficult but doable.  Nor is it something for the imagination (S., manas, the sixth sense) which believes it will eventually discover enlightenment or be saved by some future enlightened being. 

Language is all we have to convey what this spiritual connection is.  And it's not a very good tool.  Spirit, for one thing, is not in us anymore than the music we hear from our radio actually originates from within the radio.

Buddhism’s main focus is on what Siddhartha realized and expounded upon from his realization (buddhatā).  It is the primary context of Buddhism.  His nirvana was not some idea (a mental image) but rather a direct connection with Spirit which is the base reality of the universe.

Fundamentally, Buddhism is meant to transcend the human life form which can never reach fulfillment.

Secularized Buddhism?

Buddhism is in no way rooted in the secular any more than the teaching of Buddhism is intended to appeal to the common person (P., puthujjana).  According to the Buddha the good farmer doesn't sow the bad soil first but only last. 

If these words sound strange it is only because the huge majority of people are only used to thinking in a, worldly, secularized way.  This also means that a great majority of people cannot think outside of their secular box.

Left on their own the huge majority of people will regress to a life of meeting their most basic, raw biological needs than any kind of higher need or calling.  Historically, all established religions are popularized by the world of the aristocracy who then impose the religion on the common people. 

If we were to envision a purely secular religion, in many respects, it might resemble Marxism which sanctifies materialism but also nihilism.  This is really a life of blind servitude and duty to the state which seeks to further a collectivist mentality that can’t see beyond the mundane veil.

The history of Buddhism in the West has been an effort to view it as a secular religion.  Those who have popularized Buddhism have turned it into an external practice through the promotion of sitting meditation and adherence to certain rituals and codes of conduct.

The great simulation game of life

Some scientists have surmised that the DNA molecule is really an antenna (a fractal antenna).  The person is a transcendent broadcaster that resonates with the DNA of the corporeal birth body.  Hence, one feels that they are inside of a human body when in fact they are not. 

If the broadcast part wants to experience another human life after the passing away of their previous body it must tune into a recently fertilized egg.  Gestation then is really about transferring the previous life-impulses into a new emerging life inside the mother's womb becoming another avatar in the great simulation game of life.

It is only a matter of time until scientists figure out the mechanism of transfer, in which one life/avatar transfers into another life.  This discovery will catapult us into a more realistic understanding of what life is really about. 

Now, we are in an endless stream of rebirth (samsara) from which an escape seems impossible.  According to the Buddha:

“A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on.  A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find... A being who has not been your father... your brother... your sister... your son... your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to find” (Mata Sutta [Samyutta Nikāya]).

The maintaining of ignorance and craving (desire for what is external to one's true nature) helps to make certain samsara.  Until the voyager (player) realizes the lodestar (attains nirvana) there is no way to leave samsara.  It is the bad infinite.  Buddhism's real hell is being stuck in samsara again and again.

At times it seems like some evil entity or race of demons set us up to be players in a simulation game in which we never experience ourselves as the player but always as the avatar.  True religion which Buddhism is, is not about praying to some God to help our avatar in the simulation but to realize the player and distinguish ourselves from the samsaric game of life.

Clinging to the false self?

The Buddhist teaching of no-self (anātman) is better stated: overcoming the false self.  If one decides to read Buddhism this way it ceases being so enigmatic. 

At the same time, we can see that Buddhism is a path of transcendence which is about overcoming the powerful attraction of the false self (anātman).  Nowhere in the Buddhist canon did the Buddha teach there is no self (P., natthattā).

Adding to this, the Buddha also teaches that no-self is suffering (yaṃ dukkhaṃ tadanattā).  This is not a good state to be in, in other words.  Logically, the Buddha would not teach no-self as a refuge (saranā) from suffering. 

But if our actual self mistakenly yoked with a false self, yes, there would be suffering.  And we would have to learn how to overcome this suffering by first comprehending just what the false self is.

But the modern Buddhist is not interested in learning anything about the false self.  Sometimes I think that modern Buddhists, who are agnostic or atheistic, imagine that Buddhism is a religion just made for them.  It is not.  Buddhism is perhaps the most profound religion on the face of this planet.  When we follow its path it gets more profound.

Dangerous knowledge

Dhyāna (Zen) like its counterpart gnosis moves in the direction of transcendence, that is, transcendence of all phenomena.  It seeks to go beyond even the human range of perceptions and this includes perceiving and perceiver.  It is like a cup of water poured into a vast ocean.  Nothing fundamentally changes, but there is a decisive shift that takes place from the amount (quantum) of water to a boundless ocean.

Accomplished transcendence in Buddhism is our first connection with unconditioned spirit which is beyond all the six senses and our dualizing consciousness (S., vijñāna).

Spirit has found itself and looking back it understands that it really never left its home.  While others have to take this on faith the one who has experienced spirit by  spirit, directly, knows it absolutely; yes it even transcends faith.

The result of this gnosis is to throw light on the amazingly unreal status of human beings and maybe to help them escape from the seemingly endless cycles of suffering.  Mankind in its present state of ignorance still does not understand how the passing of one life connects with the cells of the next life, only to become another life subject to suffering.

The great wisdom gained from gnosis has been repeatedly under attack throughout history.  Incredibly, it is knowledge that is even considered dangerous for the religious and for the political authorities.  This type of knowledge cannot be allowed to spread.  But it does, especially in Buddhism.

Cannot be allowed to spread

Dhyāna (Zen) like its counterpart gnosis moves in the direction of transcendence, that is, transcendence of all phenomena.  It seeks to go beyond even the human range of perceptions and this includes perceiving and perceiver.  It is like a cup of water poured into a vast ocean.  Nothing fundamentally changes, but there is a decisive shift that takes place. 

Spirit has found its home and looking back it understands that it really never left its home.  While others have to take this on faith the one who has experienced spirit by  spirit knows it absolutely; yes it even transcends faith.

The result of this gnosis is to throw light on the amazingly unreal status of human beings and maybe to help them escape from the seemingly endless cycles of suffering.  Mankind in its present state of ignorance still does not understand how the passing of one life connects with the cells of the next life, only to become another life subject to suffering.

The great wisdom gained from gnosis has been repeatedly under attack throughout history.  Incredibly, it is knowledge that is even considered dangerous for the religious and for the political authorities.  This type of knowledge cannot be allowed to spread.  But it does, especially in Buddhism and Vedanta.

Is information stored in our brain absolutely true?

The most difficult kind of lies to overcome are the lies in our own mind, lies that we believe are not lies but factual and reliable information.  But then who seeded our fertile minds with all these facts many of which are lies? 

We actually live in a fictional world in which assumptions work well in this fictional world .  Yet we are being deceived.  We believe also that the information stored in our brain is absolutely true.  But then it's only true relative to the fictional world we are living in.

When we have to look within at the information stored in our own mind, we have to admit that much of it for us is questionable.  Some of it or most of it could well be false in the final analysis.

In the big picture, we have so much to learn but we can't possibly learn it if we have a lot of wrong information stored in our brains.  And when somebody undertakes the practice of Buddhism or Zen Buddhism does it benefit them to have a mind full of what might be false information?

And what does it mean to have an open mind, just be a sucker or a stooge?  In Buddhism we have to look at our mind, not in terms of the information stored in it but how mind really functions and the limits of that functioning where begins our journey to the true world.

According to the Buddha, even although something be thoroughly believed in, it may be empty, void, false; on the other hand, something not thoroughly believed in may be fact, truth, not otherwise (M. ii. 170).