The Zennist

Being on the right track

The Buddha spoke of two kinds of selves. The first one is the personal self, or as some Buddhist refer to it, the conventional self. This is the one we know as our self. It has a history. I was born on such and such a date. It has feelings and moods. It has longings. It is full of passion and sometimes, despair. This is the self that goes to work and raises a family. This is the self that experiences suffering and gets sick. This is the self that ages and eventually dies.

Shut your eyes; feel your self. There is no escape from it. When you say, “I”, this self is saying, “I”. Or when you say, "I am not I,” this self is saying this. Of those who claim there is no self, it is the conventional self which claims there is no self. Paradoxically, we affirm and deny the conventional self with the conventional self. The self beyond the reach of the conventional self is silent and indifferent. It is undeniable, despite our denial.

Of the second kind of self that is beyond the scope of the personal, conventional self, it is absolutely unconventional. It is transpersonal and transcendent. In whatever direction we look, that is, either within or without, it is not there. It has no location. It was never born, hence, it cannot suffer or die. It is the noble witness, according to the Buddha. It is the lord of the conventional self. Nirvana is realized in the depth of this self. The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path is really a path to this transcendent self insofar as the seeker attains nirvana in this very self according to the Buddha. What else might nirvana be attained with if not the very self (pratyatman)? It surely cannot be attained by the conventional self which subsists on the corporeal, being subject to destruction.

We can only approach this self by giving up the conventional self; by letting go of it thoroughly and completely. According to Dogen Zenji, “If the Way (marga) were attained by knowing that the self (atman) is Buddha, Sakyamuni long ago would not have undergone the hardships”.

Many Buddhists, and for that matter, many non-Buddhists, are confused about the self (or should I say “selves”?). Suffice it to say that when we empty out every possible idea about a self; and we are looking at our body, marvelously, no longer belonging to it, as if now it belonged to another, we are on the right track.

This entails that

Several years ago I discovered that the Buddha discourses were almost self-contained so that it was fairly easy to deduce many implications and new propositions. In other words, there is a kind of entailment process going on in the Buddha’s discourses which has been overlooked by both clergy and scholars. If, for example, Mara the Evil One is equated with the Five Aggregates, as scripture states (cf., S.iii.195), then a relation is entailed between Mara and the Five Aggregates. Thus, everything that can be said about the Five Aggregates applies to Mara.

On the other side of the coin, while Mara proclaims his dominion over the sensory world, i.e., the Five Aggregates, the Buddha, by contrast, transcends Mara’s world. He has dominion over the transcendent (paraloka), this being nirvana. The Buddha has nothing to do with the Five Aggregates which entail the “no-self”. His world is not a part of Mara’s overarching sensory kingdom of samsara.

Like in the English poem, Beowulf, Beowulf is not what the dragon Grendel is. There is no overlapping ambiguity between the two characters. Dragons like Grendel do not rule or sit on thrones. They hoard rather than give; they do not teach, nor cooperate, or even interact with other beings (except to destroy them). The have no compassion. They are utterly cruel. In a way, Mara the Evil One is like a dragon. It is worth noting, that the Bodhisattva, before he becomes a Buddha, battles Mara and defeats him and his armies. Through this battle, the Bodhisattva is transformed into a Buddha which is the Mind decoupled from the carnal body which is under the bondage of Mara.

Mara, as mentioned before, has complete dominion over the sensory world which is the world of samsara with all of its transitoriness, suffering and insubstantiality (anatman). Mara doesn’t wish sentient beings to escape from his world of suffering, either. He makes them to see that there is no higher world. Mara wants sentient beings to be clothed in the Five Aggregates, believing that these aggregates are the true self or atman. Mara, naturally, offers no path in the way the Buddha does or a means of crossing to the other shore. To do so would admit a higher, transcendent world (paraloka).

Against the world of Mara, the Buddha reveals the mysterious Noble Eightfold Path whereas Mara reveals nothing of the sort. The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path leads us out of Mara’s evil world of samsara to the transcendent world of nirvana. This also entails a path to the undying as well as a path to bliss (sukha) which is the opposite of suffering. The inner self (pratyatma), also, is what realizes nirvana—not the no-self or anatman, which is the Five Aggregates.

This may sound strange to many Buddhists, especially, the proposition that Mara and the no-self are entailed whereas there is no entailment between Mara and the self (atman)! But on many occasions, the Buddha taught, unequivocally, that the Five Aggregates are not the self. This means that Mara is entailed with all that which is not the self. Therefore, we might conclude that the Buddha stands for the self because he renounces any identification with the Five Aggregates (i.e., anatman) saying, “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.”

The negative chain of entailment goes somewhat like this: Mara the Evil One = Five Aggregates = no-self (P., anatta; Skt., anatman) = suffering = change = death = etc.

Killing Zen

There are two kinds of people who generally contribute to killing the heart of Zen. They are beginners and the curious. The beginner should not be confused with the learner. The learner possesses an intuitive drive as in, “I am going to figure this out no matter what.” Not only this but learners love to learn. They like to “dive into things”, as the expression goes. Every learner is prepared to jettison all of their beliefs if they present a barrier.

By comparison, the beginner is just chasing dreams and personal expectations. Perhaps the beginner has a romantic view of what it means to know and to see, spiritually. Progress for beginners is difficult even after being with a teacher for a decade. The beginner is never intuitively aware to the extent of grasping the essence or kensho (i.e., understanding) of what they are doing in studying Zen. The beginner wants to be given something which acknowledges or recognizes them as being important. This is the bane of the beginner insofar as they are seeking affirmation outside of themselves. To be sure, the beginner’s mind is closed off to intuition. Ironically, they often mistake their ignorance (avidya) for enlightenment (bodhi). In this regard, they can’t think out of the box. In fact, they don’t even know that they are in the box.

The curious, on the other hand, are just sight-seeing. They are spiritual tourists. They can never enter the sacred precincts of any religion because of their penchant for seeking after the superficial. Their goal is to indulge themselves. But their core beliefs remain unchanged, being always shallow.

Of the two, beginners are perhaps the worst. They are the ones who are most likely to kill the living spirit of Zen if an unwary teacher gives them any amount of power. In this respect, the heart of a beginner, unlike the curious, is vain and ambitious. Such qualities are often mistaken for the of leadership.

The movie, Amadeus (1984), I think, aids us in understanding the difference between the beginner's mind and the mind of the teacher who is the one who knows the heart of Zen. In the movie, the character, Antonio Salieri, played by F. Murray Abraham, represents the obsequious beginner (Obsequiousness proves to be one of the paramount traits of the beginner.) Of course, Salieri, himself, was an accomplished composer and knew music theory extremely well. Nevertheless, Salieri was a beginner in the sense of wanting to have the creative gift that Mozart possessed—and the fame. The learner, by comparison, would only try to resonate with Mozart; to experience a little of his gift. His own limitations would have certainly been highlighted which would afford him the opportunity to purify himself so that he might resonate even more with Mozart.

If the beginner's mind gets a foothold in Zen, which often seems to be the case with American Zen, there is no end to schisms, political infighting, and false Zen. The curious have the effect of turning Zen into an oddity of no relevance.

Getting lucky

Punya is often translated by the English word ‘merit’.  This is not a good translation. Generally speaking, Western Buddhists have the wrong impression about punya. They often see it as merit accumulation. When the average Western Buddhist donates to a Buddhist teacher or a Buddhist center, he or she may do so without understanding the implications of punya.

Punya is more akin to the English word ‘luck’.  According to the Buddha, luck or punya is based upon giving (dâna), spiritual discipline (shîla) and mind development (bhâvana).  When taken together, the three add up to strengthening our powers of deliberation or, the same, choice.  As a result of this strengthening, we find that our choices often lead to good fortune.  What has to be kept in mind is that the strength or weakness of our connection with the true nature of things is always prior to the choices we make.  If our connection is strong, then it follows that we have a certain amount of influence over the trajectory of our choices which lead to luck.  If not, our choices will eventually lead to misfortune.

Asian Buddhists generally have the right idea of punya.  To strengthen their affinity with the true nature of things, they give, as compared with Western Buddhists, hefty donations to a Buddhist temple or to a great teacher who has spiritual power.  In this way they fulfill dâna. When they follow the Five Precepts and cultivate proper discipline, they fulfill shîla.  When they mentally cultivate the Buddha’s teaching on a daily basis, trying to actualize his wise words, they fulfill proper bhâvana.  All this leads to luck. To appreciate more of the essence of luck, Native Americans say that a hunter can be very skilled with his weapon, but without luck he won’t find any game.  This is why most ancient peoples gave to the wise, cultivated virtue, and contemplated wise sayings.  It insured that they had strong connections with the ultimate nature of reality so that their choices would often turn out for the better and eventually lead to awakening.

Baptized by the light

Gaining an insight into our true spiritual nature proves to be the most difficult part of Buddhism. In Zen Buddhism, almost its entire effort is directed towards spirit’s recollection by a variety of means such as koans, direct dialogue, or by studying the words of the Buddha in the Sutras. At any rate, when we come to grasp our spiritual nature, it is the most important event in our entire life.

In the mysterious spiritual transmission of Zen, what is actually being transmitted is spiritual light or the same, the spiritual flame. Concerning this spiritual transmission, several works such as The Record of Transmitting the Light (J., Denkoroku) are primarily spiritual narratives in which the spirit is being received from his teacher. They are not so much historical accounts as they are spiritual accounts in which someone, so to speak, is baptized by the light.

This spiritual light is known by a variety of names such as ‘Mind’, ‘pure Mind’, ‘Suchness’, ‘Emptiness’, ‘Buddha-nature’, ‘Dharmakaya’, not to mention a number of other names such as ‘Self’ or the ‘Unconditioned’. The name, itself, is of no importance. What is important is first to receive the experience of this spiritual light which is a transcendental experience. By it one is thus able to sever the powerful hold the body has over spirit.

Before this experience, both the physical body and mentations dominated us. We knew of nothing else. Because of this we continually reconnected with body and mentations called, rebirth. By force of habit, what is intrinsically a neutral image eventually turned into this is mine; I am this, this is my self. We became ensnared in the grip of craving the body; having pride in the body; and the wrong view of the body foolishly believing it to be a refuge instead of spirit which animates this finite body subject to destruction.

Zero density

The world we live in, including the bodies we inhabit, can be thought of as a spiritual super density. Everything that we perceive is a density of some sort even our thoughts. According to the Buddha, we can only say of this density with its riot of shapes, that it is name and form (namarupa).

But what if, for example, we were to focus on one point of this super density? Quite logically, if we could, it would be zero density. Would we be, then, in another world? Would there be no time or space as we know it?

For ancient meditators, the ability to focus on zero density was mastered. It is not the case with modern man. Quite the opposite, modern man can only focus on ever wider densities. In fact, he has almost lost the ability to focus on a single point of this density. As a result, he remains bound to various worlds and, of course, samsara. In fact, we could say that this whole age has lost it spiritual capacity to engage with the radical, transcendent nature of being.

The whole thrust of meditation concerns breaking the trance of this super density which has engulfed us through our own desire for it. For this reason, we cannot muster the inner strength to see beyond the ever-changing veil of our mental densities. It repulses us while, at the same time, enticing us to pay homage to it.

We can only transcend the veil of density if we are able to confine the mind to a single point (ekakaracittassa) as if to singularize it. If we are successful, in the exact moment of confining our mind, thusly, we reach the pure transcendent Mind which is a pure animative power. Short of this breakthrough, one is only engaged in trying to conceive of a material point that is still a density.

It can take a person five or ten years to accomplish such a meditation who is serious! Our powers of concentration have become so weakened by the toxicity of modernism, that many people do not even have the simple capacity to control even their own thoughts. Their thoughts move them, in other words. They are so programmed by modern culture so as to be unable to even think it is possible to think outside of the box of this super density we call our world. But only beyond this density is nirvana to be found which is deathless—for what absent of any density is immortal.

Grasping space

Zen master Ming-pen once asked: “How can someone apprehend space by trying to feel it with their hands?” He raises a good question. But this has not stopped the majority of Zen students from trying to apperceive the pure Mind by using their sensory awareness; turning to each sense, such as sight or hearing, trying to grasp it. They’ve even gone so far as to claim that sensory awareness is all the Buddha taught hardly realizing that sensory awareness is passive and limited. This awareness only waits to receive sensory input. To put it another way, sensory awareness has never been aware of the pure Mind which animates the temporal body. Neither have our eyes or our ears. We have neither smelled it nor tasted it; nor have we touched it.

To apperceive pure Mind we have to realize it. Zen has always been about realization (siddhanta). It has never been about sitting in meditation or practicing awareness. Again, these efforts are like trying to apprehend space by feeling it with our hands. To appreceive Mind we have to search for it on its own terms; in its own habitat. We have to adapt to it, in other words. If we wish to catch trout in a mountain stream, we don’t walk up and down the stream calling for the trout to come to us, or try to swim after it. These actions are inappropriate. Only a fool would attempt to catch a trout this way. The pure Mind is like this, too. How can sitting still or just being aware catch the divine trout called, pure Mind?

We can spend a few years in retreat or a few months dedicating our efforts to the realization of pure Mind. This is all well and good. But all our good efforts will be crushed as long as we harbor our own theories about Mind or delude ourselves into believing that some experience we had last year or a week ago is the realization of pure Mind. Yet, while we struggle to realize pure Mind, it is right before us. We couldn’t worry or move an inch without pure Mind animating us. Still, even knowing this is of no help.

Our inability to comprehend pure Mind is because we are deeply attached to what is animated, constructed, and finite—not to what is animating, unconstructed, and universal. Our thirst for the Five Aggregates, which constitute the psychophysical being called, satkaya, has made us forgetful and weak. The more, in fact, we covet the psychophysical being the more forgetful we become of our true nature.

We have been engaged with the human continuum for so long, in countless rebirths, so much so that we’ve almost lost our spiritual heart that naturally resonates with pure Mind. In fact, if this resonation were not actively taking place right now, we would be dead. More importantly, we need to understand that if we were to resonate with pure Mind we would be in unison with it. We might say, “Yes! That’s it!” This is right realization. Indeed, to resonate with space, one needs a space-like mind; only then can the two vibrate in unison. And so it is with our mind when it vibrates in unison with pure Mind. This is the only way it can be realized. Right now, by our thirst for the psychophysical, we are resonating with the psychophysical. The consequence of this is that we are in phase with suffering.

Our efforts to realize pure Mind, like pure space, need a radical overhaul. We are never going to realize pure Mind by using our senses, but only by turning to the very substance of our mental life. This is the mysterious landscape where the journey begins.

My journey really began when I was helped by the late Bishop Nippo Shaku. I can remember one of his lectures which opened my eyes to the real goal of Buddhism. For his lecture he presented a large ink brush painting to an audience of college students at San Jose State College in San Jose, California. It looked like abstract art. I couldn’t make anything out of it. The black lines went everywhere. Then Bishop Nippo, smiling, said, “This is your mind” pointing to the black brushstrokes. Then he said, looking at us with a grin, “And this is pure Mind” pointing to the white paper. His lecture taught me two very important things. First, there is an actual realization in Zen without which there is no Zen. Secondly, pure Mind is not to be found by thinking about it as if it were another kind of thought. It dawned on me after the lecture that it would take real effort on my part—day in and day out—to catch a glimpse of this pure Mind. After Bishop Nippo’s lecture, it took me six months to catch a glimpse of it. Then it took me another forty years to sense this wondrous medium everywhere, which I call "pure Mind", although it has many other names.

Global warming and peace

Buddhist have another theory which may explain global warming. The following is from the Manicora Jataka of the Buddhist canon.

"If, indeed, a king is unrighteous, the sky (deva) sends rain out of season, and does not send rain in season. Fear of famine, fear of disease, fear of sword--these three fears are suffered."

It may well be that, collectively, human mind-intentions have an impact upon the more subtle fields of nature. It has been proven through research done at Princeton University by Robert G. Jahn & Brenda J. Dunne, that human consciousness does interact with physical random systems such that randomness no longer remains random due to the force of consciousness, itself. This concept is fully explored at this website for those who wish to pursue the heady details of this research: Click here

Buddhists have long understood that consciousness (citta, cetana, manas) is not passive. Our body is an artifact, according to the Buddha, which was "previously composed and intended" (Pali, purvam abhisamskrtany abhisañcetitani). Given this, it is not unthinkable that the collective mind or psyche can affect, adversely, nature given enough time.

By the same token, the collective mind can heal if it intends such. And here is the rub—aye the rub. It almost goes without saying that there are strong evil minds in the world who wish to bring harm to all sentient beings. Right now they seem to have the upper hand. But this can very quickly change. As astonishing as this sounds, it is only necessary to daily think of peace—a peace that is like pure light so that all it illuminates resonates with this peaceful radiance.

There is no reason to believe that our minds cannot change things from bad to better; from violence to peace. But we must stay focused upon peace, continuously. Every act must be peaceful, from taking off our shoes to sweeping the driveway. In the smallest things we do, we must do them peacefully. In this way we bless our would around us which is now energized with peace. In truth we are peace building by making peace powerful in which it becomes something almost solid. It is our religious duty to do this. And surely peace will come as will blessing rains.

A priority of Zen

There is not a lot to study in Zen. Oh sure, we can read about the history of Zen and learn a lot of interesting facts. But if we have not seen our true nature, this isn’t going to help us very much. We’ll just turn into the likes of a stray dog sniffing around. The same goes with knowing a lot of rituals. Regrettably now, it is Zen’s business in Japan to do funeral rituals. This is why it is often referred to as a funeral religion. In such times as these, there is no market for real Zen. People have become materialists worrying more about the disposition of their dead ashes than the eternal Buddha-nature which moves them about.

If we wish to find our true nature before we kick the bucket so we won’t become ghouls hanging around our corpse wondering what to do next, we have to pay attention to the teachings of the great Zen masters and the Buddhist saints like Padmasambhava and others. They have found their true nature. They offer us a lot of clues which are very important in the search for our true nature.

Our true nature has many synonyms in Zen. It is called “true mind”; “one mind”, or “Mind” with a capital ‘M’. Sometimes it is called “pure Mind" or “Buddha Mind”. The only importance of stressing these terms is to pound it into our heads that there is something within us which transcends ‘us’ which, nevertheless, we can discover on our own if we put enough effort into its discovery. Make no mistake about it, finding it—even a tiny bit of it—can relieve us of much of the burden of worrying about becoming demons or entering hell after we give up the carnal body.

If Zen has one surefire technique for finding our true mind, which is the mind shorn of its mental vibrations, otherwise called, pure Mind, it is to look for it, inwardly. If we are lucky to have found a good teacher, he or she will be like a coach always pushing us in the right direction. They will ask us over and over again, “Hey, have you been looking for this pure Mind? Have you being turning your awareness away from the external world to look for this Mind within your own being? Do you know what your ordinary thoughts are made from? Do you know what caused Bodhidharma’s feet to move to take him to China?”

As with any search, 99% of what we will come across won’t be what we are really looking for. In the Mahavairocana Sutra there are listed 160 kinds of defiled minds (in the commentary there are only 60 such minds listed), anyone of which we can believe is the pure Mind which will, as a consequence, cause us give up our search. If we are to discover the pure Mind of Bodhi, which is like getting the sprout of the Bodhi-tree, we have to transcend all these defiled minds. So we have a lot of work cut out for us.

Here are just of few of these defiled minds which hinder our recognition of the pure Mind. Covetous mind, non-covetous mind, angry mind, mind of perfection, foolish mind, mind of cleverness, mind of conformity, doubtful mind, mind of gloom, clear mind, mind of accumulation, combatant mind, struggling mind, mind without struggle, mind of god, mind of man, mind of woman, mind of a merchant, etc.

Concerning the covetous mind, this means the mind that is attached to the sense fields through which the external world is perceived. If we go looking for the pure Mind in this jungle of sensations, we will never find it. As for its opposite, the non-covetous mind, it just means to be indifferent to searching for the pure Mind. If one can just identify these two minds they will be going in the right direction. We can think of these defiled minds as being like reflections on the waters of pure Mind. They might look like undisturbed water, but they are not.

Until we directly behold the pure Mind within the march of our own being, we are under the force of the defiled mind which takes on a variety of different appearances. To meet this challenge we have to be earnest in our search. We can’t take up the practice of Zen out of curiosity or use it to help us cope with the covetous mind, or the angry mind, for example. The goal is to mystically see the pure Mind—nothing else. This is our priority. By the same token, our priority is not learn how to cope with various kinds minds which, apparently, we are not in earnest to transcend. In this respect, it is a fool’s errand to believe that various kinds of defiled minds can be reformed into nice defiled minds that are easy to live with.

Zen realization

In early Zen the Sanskrit term, ‘siddhanta’ was mistakenly translated by the Chinese character ‘tsung’ which generally refers to ‘school’. Siddhanta, however, means ‘realization’—not school. To speak of a Zen school is to miss the boat of Zen. Zen is only about realization.

So what is realized? According to the Buddha, speaking in the Lankavatara Sutra, the Sutra that Bodhidharma is reported to have transmitted, it is “Buddhahood” that “is a stage of imageless, unborn, and to be inwardly experienced by one’s self (pratyatma), when the mind becomes fully controlled and purposeless (or spontaneous) deed are accomplished.” This, to be sure, is a mouthful of words and ideas. But it is easier than you think to comprehend.

If you can see your real mind as being totally devoid of images, that is, devoid of vibrations or wave formations; realizing that such vibrations emanate right from you (who is also devoid of images and vibrations)—then you are hot on the trail of genuine Buddhahood.

But before you can even get this far (and this is pretty far), you have to be introduced into the pure Mind by either a great guru (Tib., lama) or some great Zen master (the ones in Japan are far and few between--recently one just died). Short of this you have to ask Buddha Dipamkara (light-maker) for help. I can only tell you he is here.

Dipamkara was there for the Buddha before he became enlightened, and he is there for you if your heart is sincere and you don’t care about anything except surrendering your carnal thoughts and body to his compassion. One day it happens, a huge dynamic light hits you like a thunderbolt. All you can say is, “Awesome!” For those with a Christian background, it is when Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was dead sure this power was Jesus and you will be dead sure this is Dipamkara Buddha, the light maker.

After this, the road to real Zen opens. But it is along road because you, yourself, still don’t know how to generate the pure light of compassion. This is what separates the Buddha from the Arhat. The latter can’t generate any pure light of compassion.