The Zennist

Zuo chan (zazen)

 

The Chinese character for sitting (zuo) is 坐.  From it we derive the term zuo chan or the same, zazen which is the Japanese equivalent.  The character for zuo (Wade-Giles "tso") is a compound character that shows two people sitting on the earth each facing the other.  As the reader may instantly surmise, the character is polysemantic.  It just doesn't mean "to sit".

 

It is significant that the pictograph 'zuo' shows two people facing each other unified by the earth because it suggests, in general, the notion of introspection which means, in a way, to face oneself.  Zuo chan, or zazen can, therefore, mean to self-introspect in a zen way.  This is exactly what Zen meditation is: that by the self we should know the self (i.e., the ultimate spiritual medium knows itself devoid of interference/perturbations).  

 

Judging how typical zazen is practiced in a Zen center, it is a poor imitation of zuo chan.  In a typical Zen center zazen, one is just following form which amounts to a ritualization of zazen.  What is achieved by this practice is the ability to sit for long periods of time—perhaps, nothing more.  

 

To accomplish real zuo chan, i.e., zazen, the Zen adept has to distinguish (prajñâ) their lump of flesh from the side of spirit that is not yet interfacing with the body.  This is very crucial, the point being that the adept must be situated toward the entire body as if surrounding it, including the breath.  On the other hand, to be 'aware' is only to interface with the body as one might enter inside of a vacant house and walk though its rooms becoming in a word, in housed.  

 

Truly, it is an accomplishment to fully realize zuo chan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beauteous moment

The importance of living a beauteous life cannot be under emphasized.  Indeed, the history of Zen breathes such a life.  I would argue that much of Zen is about learning to tune into the beauteous.  It is in the beauteous moment that we access truth although the immediacy of it hides pure Mind.  It is important to understand that the immediate has to be unfolded which is a road of wisdom.  

In the beauteous moment what we perceive is the object emerging from pure Mind which is still imbued with its clearness, felicity, and purity.  Such a moment is truly wondrous and equally puzzling.  

Now there is something important to say about beauty that is not beauty.  In other words, what many have come to believe is beautiful is not really beauty at all.  It is attractive.  

Something which is attractive influences us by appealing to the senses.  Beauty, by comparison, makes no such appeal.  In the beauteous moment all of our senses are, in fact, ecstasized.  (Ecstasy is from the Greek word “eksistemi” which means to stand aside from; astonishment; to change one’s opinion.)  To have our senses ecstasized by beauty entails astonishment, a profound change of being, and a radical shift of views.  By comparison, attraction is different.  

Attraction is just a form of seduction, as a falling into other.  One, for example, can become attracted to violence or the spectacle of war and torture.  This includes sexuality.  Marilyn Monroe, for example, was attractive to men, sexually.  But she was not actually beautiful.  As a matter of truth, no man or woman is beautiful, no matter how attractive they are.  Only those who can reveal the beauteous moment are beautiful persons.  Some great artists can do this, to be sure.  This is why we love and admire them.  And we can say that the Buddha, of all beings, was most beautiful. 

The vertical life

I thought about this yesterday: to think out of the box eschews a horizontal approach–it requires, instead, a vertical approach.  However, all we know as humans is pretty much the ‘horizontal life’.  Only in the rarest of moments do we perceive the vertical.  It is moment of indescribable beauty or even strangeness.  This is the moment when the world is seen to be emerging from pure Mind.  The beauteous moment is still hallowed with the ineffable mystery of Mind.  Both the seeker and the artist see it who remain its true votaries.  The rest do not see beauty although they think they do.  They see their desires which they imagine are beautiful.  After all, they enjoy life in the box—not the sudden vertical leap out of it.

To take up the path of Zen means to love the vertical life.  It is also looking for the beauteous moments and after discovering them, learning to open up to them, thus to become baptized in beauty’s glow many times.  This is why the pilgrimage to truth takes so long—the inbeauteous has to be gradually shed.  To shed such, one must deepen their contact with the beauteous event many times over, eventually, to experience the first dawning rays of pure Mind, itself. This is the only way that I know how to approach the Bodhi-tree.  All other paths are inside the box—living the horizontal life.

I hasten to add this, but what we know as play in our early childhood is the practical training of learning how to find the beauteous moment, although sometimes beauty is also very strange and certainly unexpected.  A child that really plays is almost in a kind of meditation (dhyana).  

Playing as a child, I remember building a small rock dam across the creek that flowed past the ranch house when I was a preschooler.  I can remember, also, watching the tadpoles in the pond when spring came.  And then I might chance to see a metallic blue dragonfly buzz by.  I can still recall watching the clouds on a beautiful day or picking wildflowers along the stream.  For a child this is real play.  But experiences like these served to open me up to beauty.  Nature was my playmate.

One last thought, it is easy for the box to become a steel strongbox in which we become frightened to push away the heavy lid that separates us from the divine.  This means we have lost our faith with nature and above all, we have lost faith in Mind’s countless attempts to converge with itself (beauty) rather than fly apart from itself.  Our faithlessness really stems from our fear of being anointed by the very medium of life, itself, which is outside of the box (we think of it as death).  However, our spirit is meant to go beyond this human box.  Those who seek to keep it enclosed are doing great evil both to themselves and others. 

Becoming the iceman

In rebirth, the focus of non-local spirit has fallen into sympathy with this body as its subject.  It has done so by its desire (not to mention its ‘thirst’) to become particulate (skandha).  

As now this body, we sense being trapped ‘in it’—although we are not really ‘in it’.  Spirit has, nevertheless, subjectivized itself in rebirth.  It is now under the domination of the corporeal body (this is why it is a ‘subject’).  By continuing the desire to become particulate, spirit fragments itself (fission).  Spirit is no longer singular (eka) but pluralized (skandha) having lost its identity in this sundering.

Being thus conditioned, our subjectivized state of being, through the body, is connected to the perceived objective world by means of our senses.  This means that our body and the world are not actually separate.  This division is an illusion.  The subject side is constantly being affected by external things and, in turn, the subjective side can effect changes, or reactions, upon the external world and other bodies.  

In this subjectivized welter, we’ve lost our spiritual identity.  We are unable to sense being the universal medium of mind, itself, that is naturally free of the body—both its becoming and its cessation.  More to the point, we are unable to detect pure Mind, which is neither subject nor object.  Both are, in fact, empty.

The problem that faces all of us, is somewhat analogous to an iceman in water which is filled with many icy things and other ice beings.  If spirit or pure Mind is water, by means of desire, it is forming into an icy man (skandha).  As a result, spirit senses only becoming iced.  It is always leading itself to icy states of being.  Consequently, it doesn’t know of a counter direction to its predicament—a means of escape (nirvana).  Futhermore, as our iceman body melts and cracks, we know only suffering.  If, on the other hand, we’ve caught of glimpse of the water element (dhatu), which remains unchanged even in icy conditions, the burden of suffering is lifted from us.  We also realize that our true self (i.e., the actual) is water—the taste of deliverance. 

Illumination

A great teacher’s spiritual power consists in lighting up the path as in the example of a light or torch illuminating a dark cavern.  With a light that illuminates our quest, it is possible to find a way out of the cave of ignorance (By the way, if you have ever been in a mine with no light, you cannot see your hand even if you put it in front of your eyes).  

In this respect, a great teacher is not a leader because a leader might also be in the dark unable to see.  In this case, a leader would be foremost among the blind.  In fact, there are many religious teachers today acting as leaders without a light.  The are just as blind as their followers who believe in the teacher’s tales of progress.  

To be sure, a great teacher is like a light.  When he shines it is possible to see the path; and depending upon the strength of his illuminative power it is possible to end rebirth in this lifetime.  But what is more important, the student can see the path for themselves, the way it really is thereby gaining confidence, accordingly.  Of course, in the Buddha’s example, eventually when the light goes out, darkness again resumes.  

After the Buddha died many exclaimed, “Too soon has the light gone out in the world.”  When this happens, only then do the leaders come forth—those in darkness whom are foremost at leading others in darkness.  Judging by their ambition, they have no wish to bring a light into the world so that all might see, clearly.  Their only desire is to have followers who might serve to reinforce the belief in their own enlightenment.

For those who wish to seek out a great teacher there is great risk because not all that glitters is gold—and some lights are sulphuric.  Siddhartha, before he became awakened (buddha), went through several teachers.  Besides the two teachers Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, both with whom Siddhartha eventually became dissatisfied, there was a teacher by the name of Bhaggava whom Siddhartha visited before he studied with Alara Kalama.  In addition, Siddhartha studied with two Brahmin women, Saki and Padma for a total of seven teachers.  The odds weren’t good even for Siddhartha!

In any case, the light does not often come into the world sufficient to draw the many to its source.  Too many people are like children (bala) who are still very much infatuated with the darkness of the world; who imagine that they will be one of the lucky ones who will realize fame and fortune.  Not even a Buddha can convince one transfixed on the acquisition of fame and fortune of its peril.  

The world, to be sure, does not love its saviors.  The great majority would hang a saviour first before they would hang a person of wealth and fame.  As much as we don’t like to hear this, it is a brute fact of life.  Mankind, for the most part, does more evil than good.

When a true teacher brings the light into the world, as with all lights it also illuminates itself.  What the Buddha taught is so simple to grasp that too much reflection on the notion risks obscuring its elegant simplicity.  To awaken, and thereby realize our true nature which is deathless, is only a matter of cognizing, directly, the animative power than enlivens our material body (rupakaya).  By turning to it does one cross the great current of samsara.  But also by turning to it does one see the light that the Buddha brought to the world long ago.