When I read classical Zen literature, I like to see how the Zen ancestors handle ‘Mind’ (not the small mind but the big one). It tells me a lot about the depth of Zen in that period and obviously I learn just how important Mind was in the formation of early Zen.
For example, recognizing the essence or nature of Mind which is utterly pure is what made Hui-neng the Sixth Patriarch of Zen. There is no doubt. What he realized was the very substance of this universe from which all things are composed. If Mind were not this fundamental and primordial there would be no need to take up a quest trying to realize it.
The major problem that Zen faces today is that it doesn’t completely understand the importance of Mind in Zen. To give one example, the late Zen master Shunryu Suzuki, referring to the “Zen mind” and also the “big mind” in his book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, said “This mind is whatever you see. Your true mind is always with whatever you see.” But Zen master Huang-po had a different take on Mind. (I wonder if Suzuki knew this?)
According to Zen master Huang-po, Mind is unborn and it has neither form nor appearance. If one sees something they’ve missed seeing Mind. Huang-po also said that if Zen students do not awake to this Mind substance they will be seeking the Buddha outside of themselves. They will forever remain attached to forms, pious practices and so on.
Going back to Zen master Shunryu Suzuki’s book, the Zen mind he writes about is the same as everything. However, for some of Zen’s luminaries like Bodhidharma, Hui-neng and Huang-po, the Mind cannot be everything because all ‘things’ are changing—not unchanging which is the case with Mind.
Modern Zen’s views about Mind are more than often confusing and makeshift or completely lacking. Like God, Mind becomes in modern Zen Buddhism like the clown’s wax nose that can be shaped into any form.
On this same course, the treatment of bodhicitta (i.e.,the awakened Mind) is conspicuously absent in modern American Zen centers and their literature. And when it is taken up, which is rare, it is is rendered, for example, as the “mind of love”! Yet, bodhicitta’s importance cannot be overemphasized. There can be no Bodhisattva stages without bodhicitta and by implication, no Bodhisattva and no Buddhahood! Much to its credit, Tibetan Buddhism has a good understanding of bodhicitta and luminous Mind as well. In other words, it is not hard to find bodhicitta in Tibetan Buddhist literature not to mention a good accounting of Mind.
Should, from all of this, we form the opinion that Zen never discussed the subject of bodhicitta, very early in the formation of Chinese Zen, we do find evidence of bodhicitta being clearly mentioned by none other than the Sixth Patriarch’s disciple, Ho-tse Shen-hui (684–758).
Friends, you have all been able to come here so that you can all generate the unsurpassable bodhicitta. It is extremely difficult to encounter the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and true spiritual compatriots. Today you are going to hear something you've never heard before. In the past you never encountered it, but today you have.
The Nirvana Sutra says, “The Buddha asked Kasyapa, ‘Would it be difficult to throw a mustard seed down from Tusita Heaven and hit the point of a needle on the earth below?’ Bodhisattva Kasyapa replied, ‘It would be extremely difficult, World-honored One.’ The Buddha told Kasyapa, ‘This is not difficult. For the correct cause and the correct condition to meet—this is what is difficult!’
“What are the correct cause and the correct condition? Friends, your generation of the unsurpassable bodhicitta constitutes the correct cause. For the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and true spiritual compatriots to cast this unsurpassable bodhicitta into your minds such that you achieve the ultimate emancipation constitutes the correct condition. For the two to meet is excellent. You must each and every one of you generate bodhicitta!
Since you have already come to this ordination platform to study the perfection of wisdom, I want each and every one of you to generate the unsurpassable bodhicitta both mentally and orally and to become enlightened to the cardinal meaning of the middle way in this very place! (John R. McRae, Seeing Through Zen, 55–56)”
Modern Zen, is seems to me, spends too much time trying to satisfy its clients; trying to meet their expectations, in other words (whatever these expectations might be); and while doing so neglects the important duty to be faithful to Mind.
I know that often things and people in the distant past tend to get romanticized, but I'd agree with the author that there's a real difference between Huang Po and Suzuki and how each percieved. Huang Po was the real deal, simply put, living with hunters but remaining a veggie, etc. His teachings, sayings, etc. are truly mind expanding. I've read Suzuki several times and each time came away with the impression that there's just not that much there there.(: Modern zen is truly a degredation of classical Chinese zen. This author writes things that no one else does and is very instructive.
Posted by: Frank | October 22, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Interesting article. It seems to me that Zen centers are still teaching with the purpose of practitioners gaining realization of the "big mind" that you mention in your article. At least the centers I've experienced.
As the words of a Zen teacher are just pointers to their actual experiences, could it be that Huang-Po and Suzuki are using different phrasing to point to the same thing?
Posted by: Sterling | October 22, 2009 at 02:38 PM
I agree! I see so little understanding of Big
Mind/Small Mind. I have run into several new age zennists that feel so strongly that nirvana equals samsara that they go on having sex and drinking!
But I do not feel there a discrepancy between Huang-po and Suzuki.
Huang-po was speaking to a bunch of monks who were stuck in learning the doctrine in books so he spoke to the a certain way to break their habit. When he spoke of mind he was reffering to Big Mind only.
Suzuki makes the distinction between big and small mind very often for lay people.
I am wondering where you get the idea that Suzuki felt that big mind was everything? That has not been my impression.
Small mind (ordinary mind) appears in the realm of big mind (Buddha mind). If the small mind is never still it never gets lessons from the big mind. The more time we spend in big mind, the more our small mind expresses bodhicitta.
Posted by: overtheillusion.blogspot.com | October 21, 2009 at 01:11 PM