The Zennist

What the Buddha sees and experiences

Arousing or manifesting the Mind that is bodhi which in Sanskrit is bodhicittotpada (bodhi-citta-utpada) is by no means an easy accomplishment since it involves seeing and experiencing the way a Buddha sees and experiences the world.   One can certainly have a direct insight into Mind but it is not transformative enough to knock our socks off whereby we are able to see and experience the world the way an actual Buddha does.  This is because we are still hampered by a powerful propensity to continue to cling to conditionality which includes our psychophysical organism.  Even if we win the current (sotâpanna) , which is a mystical state that makes us aryan, our propensity to cling to conditionality doesn’t vanish.  We have only received, in a manner of speaking, a broom by which to sweep out the accumulated dust of our all-too-conditioned life.

As strange as this may sound to the modern skeptical ear which distrusts everything except its vanity, arousing the Mind that is bodhi is being in the presence of the Buddha although he is non-physical.  We can imagine the Buddha saying to us, “I can see that you’ve already entered the current.  That is good—I wouldn’tbe here if you hadn’t.  But what I am going to do now is directly empower you so that you can see things the way I see and experience them which is the real meaning of bodhicittotpada.  It is only going to last maybe two weeks because you are not fully perfected, but during this time you will get a good idea what real Buddhism is about and how to perfect yourself.”  

With that, a very powerful presence enters your physical body; more powerful than anything you can imagine.  Once it seats itself in your heart the world becomes completely blissful and light filled—in fact, the bliss is almost overwhelming.  Everything is nothing more than a configuration of the One Mind.  Anyone who is close to you or around you senses the bliss also, it is that powerful.  If you can imagine seeing the real Buddha long ago, those with excellent karma I can imagine were so filled with bliss they could hardly stand up.

This is a nutshell of what arousing the Mind that is bodhi is like.  Make no mistake, it is a powerful experience and can affect others.  It is not something one hears talked about in Buddhism.  Nevertheless it is discussed in the literature.  If people think this is the machinations of a crackpot, they’ve never studied Buddhism, correctly.  Their skepticism and disbelief is their bad karma speaking.  They are essentially trying to kill the Buddha but more exactly, they are killing their own ability to realize their Buddha-nature.  

Falling into rebirth, again and again

As far as dependent origination is concerned, the arisen thing and its perishing is much different than the  source of the arisen thing and the subsequent return of the arisen thing to the source which happens after the complete cessation (nirodha) of the arisen thing.  

Dependent origination is analogous to waves, made from water.  They arise from and disappear back into the water.  We can say that these waves originate dependent upon water.  Likewise, our thoughts arise from pure Mind and return to it.  But the only part we are aware of is the inception of a particular thought and its end.  We are not acquainted with the actual source of thought which is pure Mind.

The so-called twelve links (dvadasa-nidana) of dependent or conditioned origination enclose and define the conditioned world in which rebirth, perpetually, takes place this being symbolized by the wheel of samsara.  Outside of samsara is the unborn and unconditioned world of nirvana which is the source of the arisen thing and the arisen thing’s complete ending or nirodha which is a return to the source.

Expanding on the notion of dependent origination, when we apply the aforementioned to the notion of the Tibetan Bardo which in Sanskrit is antarâ, which means ‘between’, the being that has just died, who is actually in the process of being reborn, is in between looking at entering a coarse world, a subtle world and parinirvana, which is the transcendence of the wheel of dependent origination.  Owing to the being’s karmic propensities, the being is reborn in either coarse worlds or subtle worlds but does not attain nirvana because it is so hyper-subtle.  Only those who have awakened to what is outside the wheel of samsara escape the coarse and subtle worlds.  The rest still continue to transmigrate, blindly, from one existence to the next.

The notion of dependent origination in addition to its implications is very subtle.  I can see why it is very seldom mentioned in the Buddha’s discourses.  The Buddha said: “For such a generation this state is hard to see, that is, specific conditionality, dependent origination” (S. i. 136).  While our ultimate state is the source, itself (our so-called Buddha-nature), in which the first-person is bewildered (avidya) as to its true objective state, nevertheless, we generally fall into rebirth either into a coarse or subtle state. 

Koans: metaphorical compositions

What is a metaphor? In Greek metaphora means “a transferring to one word the sense of another.”  For want of a better term, koans, generally speaking, are metaphorical compositions.  While they have a mundane appearance, they are meant to disclose pure Mind.  A mundane phrase from Zen master Joshu such as “Go wash your bowl” is a metaphorical phrase intended to point to Mind.  But insofar as the Zen student has never encountered the luminous Mind he has not the slightest idea how washing his bowl connects with this Mind.  His answer would only be the result of guessing.  This is not good enough. 

In case XV of the Mumonkan we read that Ummon asks Tozan, “Where have you come from.” What everyone is unaware of is that the entire question is one big metaphor which is really demanding of Tozan that he demonstrate is realization of Mind.  But Tozan doesn’t get the metaphor.  If he had, actually, awakened to this Mind he might have replied to Ummon with, “Come here you old rice bag and I’ll show you it!”  Ummon may have even decided to test Tozan further to see where his mind was.  And if Tozan were awakened to it, the outcome would be a draw and eternal friendship.  

Looking at the next case, the question put forth by Ummon, “For what is it that you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?” is another metaphorical phrase.  The “For what is it” is pointing directly at Buddha Mind, a Mind that is totally unlike our deluded, conditioned mind.  Did any monk realize it?  I doubt it.  I would have been more kind than Ummon asking, “What puts on this robe at the sound of the bell?  Aren’t you working night and day trying to uncover it?”

Koans cannot be cracked intellectually.  In fact, their development was meant to stop the intellect dead in its tracks.  The attempt to answer koans intellectually is to be on a fool’s errand.  Even taking a koan at face value is to be on a fool’s errand.  

All koans point to the ineffable, cardinal principle of Zen which is Buddha Mind.  Make no mistake, this principle points not to the simplistic act of chopping wood and carrying water.  Yet, devoid of this principle we couldn’t lift an ax or a bucket of water or put on our clothes.  The witless prithagjana (worldly people) might cut wood all day and carry water back from the well but the Zennist knows, first hand, the light that picks up the ax and carries the bucket of water back to his retreat cabin in the woods. This light is eternal life.  It is beyond the reach and range of birth and death.  To encounter it, directly, is to join the Buddha club, the invisible Sangha of light. 

Zen fiction

The Buddha’s discourses implicitly affirm an unconditioned substantive principle but also instruct us in what is not substantive, namely, anâtman (= not the âtman)  such as the Five Aggregates.  According to the Buddha we should abandon conditionality which includes anâtman.  

Because of this fact, Buddhism made possible the eventual development of Zen’s Mind to Mind transmission; Mind being unconditioned in sharp contrast with the temporal, conditioned mind which is always in a state of flux (âshrava).  

The transmission of Mind is not by way of a lineal transmission from teacher to student insofar as Mind is universal—anyone can intuit this Mind with good karma and right effort.  When the Mind to Mind transmission appears in the form of a lineal, teacher to student transmission, this becomes the dawn of ‘Zen fiction’ because the true Mind has never been, actually, given to another or received from another.  To be sure, the somewhat romantic Zen stories we love to read are almost all fictional.  They “almost certainly did not occur” according to John R. McRae (Seeing Through Zen, p 5).  

The main purpose of Zen fiction, as I see it, is to draw our attention to the esoteric teaching of the Buddha which is about the realization of unconditioned Mind which should be obvious in literary works such as the Record of Transmitting the Light (Denkôroku) (Francis H. Cook’s translation is great).  

We always need to keep in mind that according to Zen master Chung Feng, “Zen is the name of Mind.  What is Mind?  Mind is the substance of Zen.”  Thus, Zen is really about the teaching and realization of Buddha Mind.  This is what characterizes Zen: an awakening to this universal, unconditioned Mind. 

As some of you are maybe aware, this is where The Zennist blog and Dark Zen differ with the institution of Zen.  Zen Buddhism, as far as the Mind to Mind transmission is concerned, is authentic only insofar as those who claim to be Zen masters have actually awakened to the principle of Zen which is pure Mind (the awakening is the  authentic transmission from the Buddha).  All else is accessory and subject to suspicion. It tied to Zen fiction. 

Don't become disheartened

It is easy to become disheartened in our study of Zen Buddhism often feeling that we are not up to it; wishing for a Maitreya or wishing we had been born in the True Dharma Age.  Such a view is pernicious, however.  It causes us to want to find quick answers and mediocre teachers who treat us like children.  It also makes us feel like we have no brains.  It makes us lazy, too.  Truth be told, everyone who seeks enlightenment has this view.  The good adepts, eventually, dump it.  They continue to go on looking for their lost ox of Buddha Mind. 

Truth be told, there is no reason to become disheartened.  As a human you are born in the time of the Buddha, the Buddha being the pure Mind which you are unable to see right now—but it is there.  You are also born in the time of the Counterfeit Dharma Age and the Last Dharma Age (saddharma-vipralopa).  During the Counterfeit Dharma Age there is only the outward show of Buddhism.  It looks like real Buddhism but it isn’t.  In the Last Dharma Age people just don’t care about awakening to the transcendent.  Buddhism, its real meaning, is all but forgotten. 

It almost goes without saying this, but the Last Dharma Age is our all-too-human mind that couldn’t care less about Buddhism.  We don’t have faith in the transcendent; we could not care less about pursuing any path.  In the phase of the Counterfeit Dharma Age, we become interested in Buddhism but our interest is superficial.  In the True Dharma Age (saddharma) we understand the Way leads to Buddha Mind which lies within us.  We have all these ages within us.  It is up to us to decide which age we want to stay in.  If you happen to believe that the True Dharma Age is wearing robes and following the precepts, you are probably in the Counterfeit Dharma Age, although you believe otherwise.  If you believe that the True Dharma Age is just living in the here and now, you are most likely in the Last Dharma Age. 

Inner and outer meditation

We might be able to boil meditation down into inner meditation which would be esoteric and outer meditation which is exoteric; which is also the kind of meditation we see taught in Zen centers.

An example of inner meditation would be to treat the physical act of meditation as symbolic. To sit down on the cushion means the wish to realize our true, fundamental nature which is luminous Mind.  Sitting up straight means to have a mind free of attachment.  To sit cross-legged means the intention to realize  the unmoved nature of mind.  Concentration would be to conquer unskilled states of mind.  Right samadhi or contemplation would be to see the truth as it is for itself, not as we have heretofore imagined it to be.  All this, I need to add, has to be supplemented by deep study of the Buddha’s discourses since he points out the true Way.

Inner meditation is meant to reflect, if not match, the awakened Mind of the sages and Buddhas.  We are able to accomplish inner meditation only because we are intrinsically the awakened Buddha Mind although we can’t remember this Mind right now.  We suffer from a kind of spiritual amnesia, in other words.  If at once we recognize it, it is like a drop of water falling into the mighty ocean.  We cannot be deceived anymore.  We are one and awakened.  

If, on the other hand, we don’t become directly acquainted with the Mind, fully recognizing it, how can we become enlightened?  Even though we wear robes and live apart from the mundane world we remain clueless prithagjanas (worldly people).

This brings us to outer meditation the kind of meditation we see practiced in Zen centers and in training monasteries in Japan by monks hoping to become Zen Abbots so they can inherent their father’s temple and its wealth.

Another name for outer meditation is ritual meditation.  This meditation rests on the Five Aggregates of physical shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness.  This, by the way, is Mara the demon whom the Bodhisattva battled with before he became Buddha, the awakened one.  Outer meditation is only aware of the aggregates.  It does not believe there is anything beyond them.  In this condition, the first-person is a passive witness to the outer forms, in addition to his thoughts that continually arise and disappear like the waves upon the ocean.  This meditation is for people who are immersed in worldly obstructions; who lack spiritual wisdom (prajñâ); who are skeptical of the Buddha’s esoteric teachings.  In other words, this is prithagjana meditation. 

We cannot get to first base by relying on outer meditation.  To believe so is to be a fool on a fool’s errand.

Ensnared in the many traps of samsara

It almost goes without saying, that according to the Avatamsaka Sutra, when one arouses the Mind that is bodhi (bodhicittotpada), which is the same as complete and utter enlightenment, this is not a spiritual vision that can be understood by a prithagjana, a common person, who has had no such experience.  From this highest vantage point the awakened person knows this is true.

“What is seen as multiplicity is the Mind imbued with the formation of evil habits; because of such delusions, one clings to form and appearances regarding them as real" (Lankavatara Sutra).

But from the perspective of a prithagjana, who has not experienced authentic Bodhicitta (bodhicittotpada) his understanding lacks surety.  It is based, entirely, on belief.  It is not by direct realization.  A prithagjana would be deluded to surmise from this that he understands the way a Buddha does.  He has awakened to nothing.  He is bound down in Mara’s Five Aggregates a slave to delusion, hatred and greed.  Even if this same person were to put on the robes of a monk and practice zazen for many years he would still be an unawakened prithagjana.  He cannot say with absolute certitude, as the Buddha said to Subhuti, “You should know, therefore, that ultimate truth is everywhere one.”  This same prithagjana cannot distinguish between phenomena in their defiled aspect and phenomena in their pure aspect because he is submerged in ignorance or avidya.

When awakened beings teach they never reveal the actual enlightenment because the actual enlightenment is beyond the net of words and their meanings.  Awakened beings only provisionally set up words and meanings calling things, for example, conditioned and unconditioned.  The deluded prithagjana chases after words and their meanings which gives rise to logomachy, a riot of different and conflicting interpretations.

The ultimate truth of which the Buddha speaks about transcends all thought objects and discursive practices.  The ultimate truth cannot in any way, through language, be represented.  In addition, no practice can approach it because it does not depend upon a particular practice.  But the prithagjana does not understand this which is why he remains a prithagjana who continues being ensnared in the many traps of samsara which, ironically, are all found in a Buddhist temple!

The prithagjana cannot take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha because they do not have any form and are transcendent.  He takes refuge in the Five Aggregates, the Dharma of mere words and the Sangha of deluded followers.  Still, out of compassion the Buddha “Manifesting spiritual power while among the masses, he radiates light to make them wake up, revealing the realm of the enlightened” (Avatamsaka Sutra).

Having in mind Zen is about Mind

For many Westerners, their first image of Zen is a row of  monks with shaved heads, wearing black robes, sitting in meditation.  But this image has nothing really to do with Zen Buddhism’s real message which is best reflected by this passage from a sermon by Zen master Ma-tsu (Mazu) (709-788).

“All of you should believe that your mind is Buddha, that this mind is identical with Buddha. The great master Bodhidharma came from India to China, and transmitted the One Mind teaching of Mahayana so that it can lead you all to awakening.” (Cheng Chien Bhikshu, Sun-Face Buddha, p. 62).

Ideally, the institution of Zen including Zen centers exist to support the individual in trying to awaken to Buddha Mind, or the same, One Mind.  However, joining a Zen center or putting on robes of a Zen monk are not going to awaken anyone to anything profound.  Learning to sit in zazen is not going to be of much help either because, for the most part, the practice of zazen has more to do with the maintenance of a proper, physical posture.  The emphasis, in other words, is not on mind but upon posture which then becomes a ritual.  

If the goal of Zen Buddhism were not directed to the One Mind teaching it would, eventually, fall prey to some kind of dogma—even a dogma of just sitting.  But since our focus begins with our own mind, which for us is immediate and natural, we begin by facing the right territory of our search for Buddha Mind.  This is depicted in the first step of the famous ten oxherding pictures, which is the search for the ox, the ox being the symbol of our true nature which goes by many names in Buddhism.  As we should expect, our vision is impaired by a forest of wildgrass, broad rivers, mountains and trails that go deeper and deeper—all of this symbolizing the wild nature of our mind that hides the awakened Mind.

If our ideas about Zen Buddhism are superficial we will never find the ox.  We will spend the rest of our life going to some Zen temple deluding ourselves that some substantial progress has been made, or find another religion that suits us better.  At this point, Zen ceases to be Zen insofar as the realization of Buddha Mind is all but ignored, replaced by dead rituals, such as just sitting, overseen by a teacher who has no realization of Mind; whose authority is institutional rather than the Mind to Mind transmission.  At this stage disputes arise as to what the real meaning of Zen is.  Yet, if we turn to look at Zen literature, such as the Sayings of Chung Feng, we find that “Mind is  the substance of Ch'an (Zen).”  Bodhidharma came from the land of the Buddha's birth in order to expound the teaching of Buddha Mind.  He taught those of his day how to realize it.

 

A brief history of Zen

I think a fairly compelling case can be made that while Ch’an or Zen became the dominant Buddhist school during the second part of the T’ang Dynasty, the term “Ch’an” had not yet been turned into some kind of esoteric or metaphysical term.  It just refered to Buddhist meditation or dhyana (P., jhana).  Eventually, Ch’an or Zen would emphasize the realization of Buddha Mind.  

Before the appearance of so-called “Ch’an Buddhism” in the T’ang there were masters who taught dhyana or meditation.  The names of 21 dhyana (Ch’an/Zen) masters are listed in the biographical work, Kao-sêng-chuan  completed in 519 by Hui-chiao which, by the way, does not include the name of Bodhidharma.  It is  over a hundred years later that we find the biographer Tao-hsüan listing 135  dhyana masters of which Bodhidharma and his close disciples are noted.

The early formation of Ch’an Buddhism does not rest on a particular school named “Ch’an School.”  The prominent school was named “East Mountain Dharma Gate.”  Before the creation of this school by Tao-hsin and Hung-jen there were probably only small groups of dhyana practitioners.  One such group was Bodhidharma’s that was named the Lanka School because it used the Lankavatara Sutra as a vehicle of transmission.

It is the popularity of East Mountain Dharma Gate in the T’ang Dynasty that Zen as we know it begins to outline itself.  It drew the attention of renowned literary figures and Empress Wu (684–704). It is through the East Mountain Dharma Gate that the Zen lineage begins with Bodhidharma, Hui-k’o, Seng-ts’an, etc.

The main spiritual emphasis of East Mountain was the “Mind to Mind transmission” (i-hsin ch’uan-hsin).  When the student’s own purified mind resonated with the principle or absolute Mind, he was granted the Dharma.  What we can gather from this is realization of Buddha Mind is the main feature of Ch’an Buddhism.  Also, invoking the name of the Buddha to purify the mind was an important aspect of the practice of East Mountain. 

 

Faith in Buddhism

Faith or srâddha in Buddhism, unlike with almost all other religions, is not that difficult to establish if we understand where Buddhism is actually coming from.  We establish faith in Buddhism when we believe that what animates us and, for that matter, all other beings is what, directly, the Buddha awakened to.  

By each of us looking within it is evident that our thinking or our speaking is but a manifestation of this spirit or animativeness.  Our very life depends upon it.  This is what separates a corpse from a living being.  We are intimately connected with it through the first-person although we have not yet realized it like a Buddha or even a beginning Bodhisattva.  

When Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma, “What is Buddha?” Bodhidharma answered by saying: “Seeing one's nature is Buddha” [chien-hsing shih fo]. The Emperor then asked:  “Does the master see his own nature, or not?” Bodhidharma replied: “I see the Buddha-nature.” The Emperor finally asked: “Where does [ Buddha-]nature exist?' Bodhidharma replied: '[ Buddha-]nature exists in activity' [tso-yung]."  This also helps to explain the reason behind Bodhidharma saying, of sentient beings, “Not one of them understands the movement of his own hands and feet”!  

When we realize our true nature or Buddha Mind, first hand, we awaken, directly, to this animative principle (it is synonymous with âtman, cetas, citta, manas, etc., depending upon the context).  Until that time, we can have faith just by moving our hands and feet, or speaking, or chanting—even by chopping wood and carrying water.  The gestures of the old Zen masters such as when Joshu straightened his robe, bid us to have faith, including the words, “Go wash your bowl”

All this helps to explain why Buddhism is the religion of light and why when we remove the adventitious defilements from our mind it becomes radiant or clear light (the very animativeness itself).  But this same light appears to not exist when it is formed and phenomenalized, like water that has become a whirlpool or ice.  Unawakened, we mistake it for material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies or consciousness (the Five Aggregates).  As a result we become a slave of these temporal phenomenalizations.  We  lack any faith.  

Once we are established in faith, it is only by penetrating through phenomena, which is the real meaning of meditation, that we are able to return to our self and experience illumination (the animative principle itself).  This is also the Buddha Mind which is undying.