The Zennist

Its very substance

We can see dependent originations of Mind. In fact the entire cosmos is a dependent origination of Mind. Galaxies, solar systems, planets and moons, are all originations of Mind as are all creatures. Paradoxically, we can’t see unoriginated Mind. It is completely invisible like gravity.

Right this very moment, all of us are attached to the illusory spectacle of existence—the originated Mind. And yet, its seems quite real for us. Sill, all of it is unreal. We can’t imagine that true reality is invisible and immaterial. It is difficult for us to believe in something which has no discernible marks of its own. Because of this, those who seek the true meaning of Zen have to start with the unreal and work their way to the unoriginated Mind which is the only reality. Ch’ing-yüan described it this way:

Before I studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters and waters.

We have swallowed the unreal world hook, line and sinker. All that we see is the originated Mind which is phenomena. In order to know and to see the unoriginated Mind, which is empty of marks, we have to negate the totality of the unreal until we reach the indescribable real. Ch’ing-yüan again describes this phase of Mind as follows:

When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge. I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters.

This is a very profound state. But this is still not enough. Using an analogy, Ch’ing-yüan mastered the ability, with effort, to see the gold of the golden lion apart from the lion shape. But he was still unable to effortlessly realize that gold does not obstruct shapes; that the entire universe is Mind only! When he finally came to this final vision he described it this way:

But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.

This is the highest form of Zen. It goes beyond all effort—it is effortless. Now, no matter where we look the world is like beautiful gold. Bliss enters our heart because we see all things arising from unoriginated Mind and all things returning to it. The universe we perceive, in other words, is a mighty vibration of absolute Mind which is always and ever at peace with itself.

One final note, if you see mountains as mountains and waters as waters without sensing the light of absolute Mind from which all this is generated—you haven't begun the long journey of Ch’ing-yüan.

Satori churr

He [Hakuin] let out an involuntary shout and began weeping uncontrollably.

—Hakuin Oshô Nempu

In the biography of the Zen priest Hakuin it is said that he “realized the understanding he had gained from all his satoris had been greatly mistaken.” Anyone who has sincerely sought Zen satori is more than likely to be in the same boat as Hakuin prior to his great awakening when he was forty-one. Delusion can be very subtle.

It is not too difficult to learn why Hakuin wept. Anyone would weep who finally discerns darkness from light. True satori, in Hakuin’s case, revealed both the true and the false. In other words, the nature of truth must reveal not only itself, but the false, also, which are false satoris.

It really wasn’t the churr of a cricket by which Hakuin, it is said, become one with the Lotus Sutra. It was the animative light of the Buddha which is eternally working in samsara to liberate all beings that he recognized in a split second. In fact, he also recognized that the Buddha’s light never departed for highest nirvana. It is always here. Thus, the story of the Buddha’s death and entry into final nirvana has been greatly exaggerated.

I think the great disease of Zen, which few overcome, including Zen masters, is to mistake extraordinary concepts for genuine awakening. In genuine awakening one turns the Dharma wheel instead of being mesmerized and turned by it. Or we can put it this way. One minute you are following your thoughts; then the next minute you are the very creative source of those ordinary thoughts! What is more, this is the way it has always been since beginningless time. The problem has been, all along, looking at the tail and not the head or source. When Hakuin looked at the source, hearing the cricket churr—be became the source instantly. He couldn’t escape his wonderful fate! I hope we can all weep for joy one day.

Zen salvation

Death, as personified by Mara, is the great evil of Buddhism. There can be no proper salvation without overcoming death. Similarly, nirvana means nothing if death is not overcome. Thus, nirvana, if it is to mean anything soterlogically, cannot be rendered as annihilation or extinction. To be saved, therefore, is to know and to actualize the undying which is nirvana.

But the idea of facing our death with equanimity, knowing fully well that we will be cutoff and destroyed nowise fits within the range of an acceptable definition of salvation. If it means anything to be saved, salvation means to be saved from death; being distinctly free from that which dies. By comparison, one who can meet his death with equanimity is no better off than one who cannot. Both are destroyed.

To illustrate this, let us imagine someone who is dying in pain. Just before this person dies, they become suddenly filled with great love for the world. Even their pain soon abates. But is this salvation? It may not be. It is as if this person were still in a dream. Despite the great love he feels, he is still a dreamer; still sleeping. The dreamer hasn't awoke.

With regard to Buddhism, imagine that our meditation is non-aggregated with respect to the five aggregates which make up the psycho-physical being. During this meditation we have been able to focus on a point which is beyond the three dimensions in which the five aggregates are situated. In this ecstatic concentration we realize that we are no longer affixed to our body which we have been connected with ever since we were born. All along, we have been grasping the passive afterimage of a psychical projection. Next, we learn how to reenter the body and to decouple from it while it still continues to live. This state would be characterized as salvation.

Arguably, salvation only occurs when we have witnessed the undying in which we are included. In light of this, the idea that nirvana is like an extinguished flame is preposterous. The analogy is directed at the non-localness of being, not its extinction. In this sense, we are liberated when we are no longer transfixed to the locality of the corporeal body which is subject to death.

Finding a teacher

If you don’t understand by yourself, you’ll have to find a teacher to get to the bottom of life and death. But unless he sees his nature, such a person isn’t a teacher.

— Bodhidharma

Superior students look deeply within and seek the sublime path to pure Mind. They put aside mental images and opinions, lifting the veil of conditioned existence to see the unconditioned Mind. Their merit is extraordinary because they understand what is to be realized and what to be rejected.

Mediocre students look inward but find that their mind is only a jumble of confusion and nerves. They don’t understand that the little mind of thoughts hides the big pure Mind. They are constantly plagued by fears and doubts. As a consequence, they seek out an excellent teacher whom they believe will help them learn to turn inward; to find the right inner path to pure Mind. Their merit is average. They often go astray but return more times than they leave.

Inferior students never look inward because they are always living on the outside. They have no idea what pure Mind means or that Buddha Mind is pure and free from extraneous thoughts and ambitions. Their mind is a confused mind which is dull, easy to anger, and unsatisfied. Such students are drawn to inferior teachers who have never seen even a hint the Buddha-nature; who impose external practices, and rules. Spending many years with such teachers, these students have no idea what the Buddha taught.

The more a beginner engages with introspection, as it were, peeling away the occulted layers of mental images, mental chatter, and the emotions, the better chances they have of finding a good teacher. In fact, they may only visit this teacher once in their lives. But this is all it takes if they have been looking within for a long time.

Overall, what we are dealing with is a profound mystery. We are looking for the source of our being which is the animative power of all life. But just remember that it can be found. Bodhidharma used it to go to China and Joshu used it when he put his sandals on his head. It moves all of us as we practice to find the true source of our practice! To the extent we are out of touch with this radiant source the more we require good teachers. But not all teachers are good.

The greatest problem in Zen today is that there are too many inferior students and too many bad teachers. It is almost as difficult to enlighten oneself as it is to find a good teacher whose body is surrounded by an aura of compassion which opens the undying door. Zen master Ch'ih-chueh had it right when he said the following:

"The fact that this path has not been flourishing in recent times is because teachers and disciples give each other approval and recognition, ignoring cause and effect, duping the people, claiming themselves able to uphold this school. It is like sculpting a sandalwood icon out of dung - no matter how long a time passes, it simply stinks. You should get away from such people as soon as possible. Apply your own concentrated attention, apply your own eyes and brains, develop yourself, stand on your own. One day your own eyes will clear and will radiate light shining through the whole world. Only then will you live up to the aim of your journey."

In one respect, searching for the perfect teacher can a way of putting off what we should being doing right now. It short, it can be a dodge. It is better to follow Zen master Ch'ih-chueh’s advice. And here is the reason. Our Buddha-nature fundamentally knows itself. This is to say, it verifies itself. The only reason it doesn’t know itself at the moment is because our minds are not looking within where this bright nature is found. Our minds are elsewhere. On our own, we can at least break this bad habit of using our mind to seek externally.

Ah, grim death. Hakuin’s poem is correct: “He whose insight penetrates here is truly a sage.” But what is it that exactly dies and what goes on? According to the Buddha, it is the the Five Aggregates which are conditioned that die. The mind, on the other hand, has two choices. After death it can link with another body at conception. The other choice it has is that it can purify itself and attain some degree of distance from the Five Aggregates. In either case, the mind is not subject to death.

As an antidote to death, many of us believe in an afterlife. There is nothing wrong with this. Certainly, the Buddha taught an afterlife and of higher worlds for the righteous. But these days, our culture has taught us to cling to conditioned reality and accept death as final. For the most part, people don’t care about about liberation or higher worlds. They see liberation as biological death. In addition, they believe there is no such thing as rebirth.

Other people are convinced that their religion guarantees that when they die they will go to heaven. But this cannot be. They have only seen the conditioned world of samsara. Their idea of heaven is just an artifact which is created and conditioned by their imagination. They have never once gone beyond the pale of the conditioned to catch an actual glimpse of the unconditioned which is undying. Their death will confront them just like a horrible dream. In the process of dying, their mind will be at the mercy of powerful conditioning forces which will take rebirth in strange forms.

It is only by knowing and seeing the unconditioned, i.e., nirvana, that we finally escape rebirth into worlds in which death is present. In the meantime, the Buddha exhorts us to purify our mind. When mind gradually becomes pure, in proportion, does the mind link with higher worlds in which suffering is less and the unconditioned becomes easier to know and to see.

Clouds

What we see of our mind is often a cloudy confusion of dialogues, confused metal images, emotional yearnings, regrets, and other kinds of more subtle disturbances. At times our mind can be overcast and depressed when there is a significant object loss. Or our mind can become easily angered when we fear to have lost face.

On other occasions, our mind can become almost transparent, as if the sun of wisdom and its radiant blue sky might suddenly appear before us. When the clouds of our mind thin out, in which the storm of suffering briefly abates, it is then that we have communion with something indescribably transcendent. This is what gives us immense hope, viz., that on the otherside of this thick veil of mental clouds is a celestial world or heaven (in Buddhism it is called ‘sagga’).

“Purblind is this world. A few can clearly see. Like birds escaped from a net the few to heaven go” (174).

While the Dhammapada’s words may sound foreign to our ears, there are higher worlds than this present one if the coulds of our mind thin out. Now and then we catch a glimpse of such a world or a beautiful reminder of it with the help of nature, herself.

Make no mistake about it, it is not easy to see through our clouded minds especially when we frequently create our own dark storms in the same way we create the dreams which often bewilder or terrify us.

Ironically, we are the first victims of our conjuring like an apprentice sorcer who can’t undo the spell he has cast. The magical enchanting play of our cloudy mind mesmerizes us, both internally and outwardly.

While our world may seem dark and cloudy, the Buddhas are still exerting their compassion towards us. Suddenly, a moment will come for us when the clouds begin to show a strange light from the other side. It is times like these that we come near the Buddha who wants to show us the way to nirvana. Indeed, the Buddha is not the cloud maker. He is the light maker, the best of those who shine. From his vantage point there is a beautiful heavenly world for us where all that is gray is the only thing which passes away.

The rustic life

Looking back, a simple rustic life living in the mountains is often the best way to begin the long inward journey. One has to be faraway from the din of human civilization which, as a rule, civilizes wrongly. In my case, my nearest neighbor, Tommy, lived five miles from me. I lived in an old ranch house in the almost uninhabitable foothills of California, not far from Angles Camp by way of a 57 Chevy pickup.

In such a life, we can escape from the prison of worldly life. Ironically, the worldly life is, itself, an escape from a life dedicated to finding the meaning of life. Let no one tell you that you are running from responsibility. The life of truck and barter is the irresponsible life from which we should all run. Such a way of life denies everything spiritual. It wishes to dominate the heart instead of being its good provider.

Living in the deep silence of nature alone, one learns to appreciate such simple joys as fetching and cutting firewood for the winter. I still can remember the smell of oak sap mixed with fresh crisp morning air. But even the beauty of nature is only skin deep. We soon lose interest in her most beautiful displays. There eventually grows to be a sadness about everything. Call is samsara. It is almost as if the Buddhas are saying, “You have a long ways to go—the journey hasn’t begun. Get off your romantic ass and study.”

Darkness fell over the woods. My samsara grew. Later, the moon shone brightly from between the clouds over the trees. I lit the candles on my small shrine. I burned some incense then opened a book on Huang-po’s sermons reading it by the light of a small kerosene lamp. Nothing made any sense as I read. I was peaceful; I had meditated previously. So what was wrong with me? I thought to my self, “It must be the translation. That’s the problem.” But it wasn’t the translation. I was clueless as to what Mind meant.

Looking back now, how was I supposed to know that Mind is like a special kind of aether which animates every living thing’s body; which is also the very substance of thought?

Despite the difficulties with apperceiving such a Mind, nevertheless, one can have knowledge of this Mind. The Buddha, himself, spoke of abhijnana (knowledge by direct acquaintance). At the time, however, my ordinary mind was completely deluded; both deluded by the Buddhism I was taught, which was hinayana, and my own wrong assumptions about Buddhism.

I had not spent enough time like the son in the Lotus Sutra dumping out dung. I still had to remove a huge pile of it from my being which consisted of wrong assumptions and the inverted habit of searching for truth based on the Five Aggregates. In this particular parable in the fourth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the son, we learn, is not prepared to meet his kingly father whose wealth is beyond measure. He had run away from his father many years earlier living a life of poverty as a result. The son symbolizes the unenlightened, secular mind while the king symbolizes the sovereign Mind which is an immaterial power.

Like the son, I ran away, too, delighting in the world of the Five Aggregates; living a life of spiritual poverty; unable to recognize Mind’s animative light. In the Lotus Sutra we learn that eventually our Mind-father finds us in our spiritual poverty. But the first encounter with our father’s power, knocks us for a loop. Then our wise father deploys a stratagem so we won’t be frightened shitless the next time when we behold the kingly Mind.

To be sure, the rustic life is a good place to clear out a lot of dung. The job has to be done thoroughly, however. Every bit has to be hauled out so that we are comfortable with both dumping and being empty of views. Only then, will the kingly Mind approach us, drawing us closer to him.