The Zennist

The concept and reality

There is a huge difference between a conception of pure Mind and pure Mind, itself, as much as the difference between a conception of fire and a real fire.  This distinction is, unfortunately, little understood and is one of the main reasons Zennist never realize their true nature (i.e., pure Mind).  

When the realization of pure Mind actually occurs there is no way to describe it.  Language is inadequate.  It is like a finger pointing to nothing at all even though something is present.  Despite this, pure Mind illuminates our entire being.  For the person who has just intuited pure Mind it is quite real—more real than their psychophysical body.

If we just assume that a conception of pure Mind is the real pure Mind we have strayed into delusion.  Our path of Zen is no longer a proper path but a fool’s errand.  Again, the error is to be unable to distinguish a mental construct of pure Mind from the real pure Mind.  This is why we often need Zen teachers who are capable of helping us to let go of our conception of pure Mind.  On the other hand, if we cannot find a good teacher we must be very cautious about our insights.  They may help in giving us direction to where be must go (which is pure Mind) but they are not the same as pure Mind.

A first-person science

When we enter the world of Buddhism, we are no longer dealing with the world of third-person science which I hasten to add is not cognitively exhaustive.  In the world of Buddhism, we are dealing, exclusively, with what I shall call a first-person science.  This science is about knowing our true nature, directly. 

In the West, there is a broad ugly ditch between third-person and first-person science.  This divide mainly owes to third-person science which will not accept the claim that all reality is not knowable by the third-person perspective.   It also refuses to accept the fact third-person evidence is not the same as first-person evidence. What third-person science is suffering from is 'scientism' which is a philosophical claim about science—not a scientific claim.

I realize that many western Buddhists are hooked on science. But it is basically a third-person understanding which amounts to a commonsense conception of the world. This is all well and good for a modern culture. But it is inadequate for the study of Buddhism which stems from a first-person perspective, that is, the ability to conceive the absolute essence from within).

Good karma is a big help

I think sometimes what is meant by good karma, when it comes to Buddhism, is our ability to understand what the Buddha is saying.  Believe me, I have encountered people who don’t get it even though they are so-called practitioners.  If a person heavily relies on externalities such as attending Zen temples, wearing robes, and sitting on a zafu, they’ve missed 99% of what the Buddha taught who, by the way, remains the head of the so-called Zen lineage which is more like a Sangha of the spiritually awakened.

These same people take the Zen koans at a literal level so that Zen masters seem like crazy people in the example of a monk asking Ummon (C., Yunmen), “What is the Buddha?” and Ummon replying, “It is a shit-wiping stick.”  However, Ummon’s reply was not meant for worldly ears.  He was in a Zen temple.  It’s for awakening.  On the same track, we are not to regard the Buddha as a person.  In Zen, Mind is the Buddha according to Bodhidharma.  

The monk’s question was really about absolute Mind.  But such a question cannot be answered with dead words—that is not a liberating method.  The monk wants a direct experience of Mind even though he is fettered with ideas about what Mind is.  These ideas or understandings have to be cut away in a flash.

These kinds of encounters are a golden opportunity for a Zen master to paralyze the monk’s bad habits of trying to gain awakening.  The Zen master must strike fast and hard with some  unexpected gesture or words.  Hopefully, in an instant the monk will catch a flash of pure Mind, directly. Then the monk will be filled with unbelievable light sealing his realization. 

In this instant two hearts become one.  That which animates the Zen master and that which animates the monk are one.  This is the real Buddha—the Mind.  Afterwards, everything the Zen master does, I can imagine, is hilarious for a newly awakened monk.  Ummon was no crazy guy, nor is Zen Buddhism easy to master.  A person needs good karma.  

Getting to the middle

 Zen can often explain things that are somewhat difficult for the average person to understand when it comes to the Buddha’s Dharma by the middle (not to be confused with the Middle Way).  Here is an example of what I mean.  I will start with this passage from the Nikayas.

“All exists (sabbam atthî) and all does not exist (sabbam natthî) “without veering towards either...the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle” (S. ii. 76).

Here is how Zen master Hui-hai (720–814) handles this not-too-easy problem of where Buddhism stands in regard to existence and non-existence.

Q:  I am very found of the Mahayana, but how shall I study it with success?

M:  He who awakens (to mind) can achieve success; he who is not awakened to it cannot.

Q:  What shall I do to be awakened to it?

M:  It comes only by intuition.

Q:  What is it like?

M:  It resembles nothing.

Q:  If so, it should be ultimately non-existent.

M:  That which is non-existent is not ultimate.

Q: Then it must exist.

M:  It does not exist, but it is formless.

Q:  If I do not awaken to it, what shall I do?

M:  It is of your own accord that Your Reverence fails to awaken to it; nobody is preventing you. (John Blofeld, The Zen Teaching of Hui Hai, p. 124).

I have always tried my best to explain, so to speak, the unexplainable.  Unfortunately, we—all of us—live in the world of existence and non-existence.  We are like fish.  The Buddha is like a turtle who has been on land.  His teaching is too difficult to penetrate for most people.  It only comes by way of intuition, according to Hui-hai.  But do not become disheartened.  If you see a clay pot then see it get smashed, believe it or not, you can see what survives.  The clay of course.  This is why we must see pure Mind.

The substantialism of the Buddha

What do modern Buddhist writers and scholars mean by ‘substantialist view’ as it pertains to Buddhism?  Distilling the contemporary Buddhist literature that mentions this term, they mean by it any belief in essence; such a belief being hinduistic which amounts to a put down.

Despite this, it is difficult to makes sense of this term in light of the actual discourses of the Buddha because the Buddha did not deny the âtman (essence) in unambiguous terms.  In fact, the general thrust of his discourses, when it came to the five khandhas/skandhas or aggregates, was only to reject views of âtman—never the âtman, itself.  Views of âtman are entirely based on the five khandhas.  In addition to the Buddha's rejection of such views, the Buddha also rejected annihilationism.  

To reiterate, âtman views the Buddha informs us, are based on the khandhas.  The Buddha says, for example, “When there is form, bhikkhus, by clinging to form, by adhering to form, a view of self arises [ditto with the rest of the khandhas]” (S. iii. 185-186) (The brackets are mine.).  What the Buddha is saying here deserves more attention.  Form or rûpa is transitory; by implication the âtman cannot be transitory nor can it suffer.  The same goes with the remaining four khandhas, that is, feeling, perception, volitional impressions, and consciousness.  The Buddha then tells his followers that these five khandhas are not the âtman which in Sanskrit and Pali is rendered anâtman and anattâ.  

Relative to the khandhas, the Buddha is telling his followers that the âtman—the Buddha’s âtman—transcends the five khandhas.  Of each khandha the Buddha says: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (âtman).  This rejection further implies a knowing of what the âtman is, certainly enough to say that this particular khandha is not my âtman.

Buddhism teaches a unique form of substantialism or essentialism.  Buddhism is not non-substantialist. Âtman in the Buddha’s hands is a transcendent essence or substance which is beyond the grasp and scope of the five khandhas; the khandhas acting as the basis for the formation of views of âtman.  This leads to the question, is the counter to substantialism, this being non-substantialism, just a cover by which to smuggle annihilationism into Buddhism?  I am inclined to think so.

Dogen pantheism

Dogen's thinking has it roots in Japanese Tendai which is not the same as in China.  It is called honkaku hômon which believes that the appearances of things in the phenomenal world are aspects of the Buddha.  The term honkaku or original enlightenment appears in the Chinese translation of the Awakening of Faith Treatise (Daijyokishinron). 

For the Chinese, enlightenment means realization of the unconditioned; what is beyond the phenomenal world.  In Japan it gets twisted around to mean understanding of things within the phenomenal world which amounts to a kind of absolute phenomenalism.  This was exactly Dogen's thinking since it seeks the absolute in the phenomenal rather than transcending it.  Said another way, it boils down a kind of pantheism, that is, the universe conceived of as a whole is the Buddha. In this respect, Dogen’s Zen is far from Chinese Ch’an. We see it here.  Dogen says:

"The real aspect is all things. All things are this aspect, this character, this body, this mind, this world, this wind and this rain, this sequence of daily going, living, sitting, and lying down, this series of melancholy, joy, action, and inaction, this stick and wand, this Buddha's smile, this transmission and reception of the doctrine, this study and practice, this evergreen pine and ever unbreakable bamboo" (Shobogenzo, Shohô-jissô, section on "The True Nature of the Law"). 

The essence of what Dogen is saying, by analogy, is the shape of the clay pot is as real as the clay from which it was formed.  But it is only by discrimination that there is the pot shape which, seemingly, stands in contrast to the clay.  The Lankavatara paints a much different way of looking at the world  than pantheistically.

This mind is the source of the triple world; when the mind goes astray there appears this world and that; recognising the world as such, as it is non-existent, [a wise man] does not discriminate a world.

It's the means, not the end

There is always that tendency in the West to mistake Zen for an end state rather than a means (I think I sometimes do it).  Addressing this problem I came across this list from Ruth Fuller Saskai’s paper, Zen, a Religion (Anthology of Zen, p. 111).

“Zen is a kind of nature mysticism; Zen is a kind of existentialism; Zen is a kind of mental therapy; Zen is a discipline of which blows and conundrums are used as teaching devices; Zen advocates a humble, retired mode of life, the main activity of which is the practice of meditation; Zen aims at the attainment of satori and with satori comes total knowledge and understanding; Zen is everyday life; Zen is complete freedom; the man who has attained the aim of Zen, that is, satori, is beyond law, beyond the regulations laid down for human society.”

All of the above are not entirely correct or entirely wrong.  However, they overlook the fact that Zen was a means the Bodhisattva Siddhartha discovered by which he awakened and thus made an end to suffering.  This means is dhyâna in Sanskrit or in Pali, jhâna.  In Chinese it is Ch’an.  In Japanese it is Zen.  The Buddha discovered four levels or states of dhyâna/Zen.  Quoting from the Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary it provides us a good idea of what these levels are.

“It is the technical term for a special religious experience, reached in a certain order of mental states.  It was originally divided into four such states.  These may be summarized:  1.  The mystic with his mind free from sensuous and worldly ideas, concentrates his thoughts on some special subject (for instance, the impermanence of all things).  2.  Then uplifted above attention & reasoning, he experiences joy & ease of both body and mind.  3.  Then the bliss passes away, & he becomes suffused with a sense of ease and  4.  he becomes aware of pure lucidity of mind & equanimity of heart” (p. 286).

Zen intends to reach the pure nature of true thusness (tathatâ) which according to the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng is Buddhahood; which I hasten to add, is thoroughly unconditioned.  After reaching this sublime, enlightened state Zen has been surpassed.  The means of Zen is somewhat like constructing and using a bow drill to make a fire, the goal being a fire to keep everyone warm.  The big mistake is to believe the bow drill is the fire.

Buddhism is a Dharma

The West doesn’t know what to call Buddhism.  Is it a philosophy?  The answer is no, not in the modern sense of the word.  Is  Buddhism a psychology? Again, the answer is no.  Is Buddhism a religion?  Not in the Western sense of what religion means which is mainly about worshiping God.

From the Indian perspective Shâkyashâsana (the cultus of Buddhism) is a Dharma.  So  what does Dharma mean within the Western framework of religion?  Unfortunately, Dharma has many definitions depending upon the context in which it is to be used.  It is somewhat like the Chinese word Tao which is translated with the English word “way.”  

Surprisingly, the best meaning of Dharma which comes closest to West’s idea of religion is to be found in the Manava Kartavya Sastra which comes from the Mahabharata.

"It is most difficult to define Dharma.Dharma has been explained to be that which helps the upliftment of living beings.Therefore, that which ensures the welfare of living beings is surely Dharma.The learned rishis have declared that which sustains is Dharma” (Shanthi-parva 109-0-11).

Ultimately, that which sustains all living beings is spiritual which comes by various names in Buddhism.  To try and directly commune with that which sustains all living being is a contemplative process which is dhyâna.  The Buddha discovered four levels of dhyâna by which he attained awakening or bodhi.

Perhaps the closest thing we have to the Indian notion of Dharma in the West is mysticism.  But mysticism comes in many different shapes in the West.  It is always looked upon with suspicion; even downgraded as an immature form of religion.  Of mysticism, Josiah Royce will say: 

“Mysticism is the always young, it is the childlike, it is the essentially immature aspect of the deeper religious life.  Its ardor, its pathos, its illusions, and its genuine illuminations have all the characters of youth about them, characters beautiful but capricious” (The Problem of Christianity, pp. 216—217).

His remarks turn the relationship between mysticism and religion upside down insofar as religion—not mysticism—is the immature aspect of mysticism; its inadequate form.  If the mystic directly communes with what sustains all of life, religion can only manage to worship an abstract representation of this sustaining spirit which is often more human than transcendent.

Trying to pigeon hole Buddhism as being a religion or a philosophy will never work.  Because of this, the West is not quite ready for Buddhism.  Perhaps the worst of all attempts at pigeon holing Buddhism is to think of it as a form of secular humanism.  This view is too limited.  It totally misses what is truly great in man, namely, spirit and his capacity to awaken to it.

The best of all possible shores

The Buddha's teaching as it relates to our human birth and death predicament, being sandwiched between the two, attempts to provide us with a personally verifiable picture of reality mainly in two senses.  Firstly, there is conditioned reality which is relative and, secondly, there is unconditioned reality which is ultimate.  The latter is what we hope one day to attain.  

The outlines of this are seen in the simile of the raft in the Alagaddupama Sutta.  A man is walking down a road and sees this bank to be dangerous and frightening and the further bank to be secure and not frightening.  To get to the other bank or shore he requires a means such as a bridge or a raft.  The man then constructs a raft to reach the other bank.  He strives with all of his might to cross to the other bank in his raft there, eventually, to find safety since the other shore is beyond the dangerous and frightening bank he just left.  When he makes it to the other bank he does away with the raft no longer needing it.  It was only a means for bringing him to safety.

Sentient beings live on the bank of samsara which is conditionality; which is never other than dangerous and frightening.  The Buddha’s teachings are the means to the other shore which is unconditioned and free of suffering, but his teachings are only useful for the crossing over—not for retaining.  Moreover, his teachings are not intended for helping us to enjoy this shore that is dangerous.

For most of us, the simile of the raft makes perfect sense.  On the other hand, some modern Buddhists have a different interpretation.  I have noticed it gaining traction over the years.  Yes, it is quite bizarre. The advice might go something like this.

The Buddha’s teachings are, to be sure, useful—but not all of them.  Use them for what you want and ignore the rest.  They are like a useful raft for getting what you want out of this life.  In a way, your needs and desires are like the other shore.  Ultimately, there is no real unconditioned other shore that we need paddle across, so ignore things like nirvana and anything that smells of transcendence.

I have seen this advice in one form or another.  It is bad advice—possibly the worst if not the most evil.  We should all be on this shore preparing ourselves to cross to the other shore.  There is nothing of lasting value on this bank.  Our youth eventually turns into old age and death.  Without a break, we are reborn again being conscious of another body.  But the modern mind is not about to give  up its delusions, its hostility and greed.  This shore, moderns  believe, is the best of all possible shores! 

Being fooled

Just recently I came across this quote from Mark Twain: "It is easier to fool the people, than to convince them they have been fooled."  Nobody has said it better than Mark Twain.  His words are also loaded with implications, for example, whoever tells a convincing lie first—gets it out to the public—it is difficult to convince the public that what they believe to be the truth is, in fact, a lie.  I have experimented enough with how quickly the public can easily become hostile by taking their pet beliefs, such as the Big Bang theory, and attacking it.

It’s true that nobody wants to see themselves as being a sucker but it is equally true that nobody finds it easy to let go of the lie if letting go means admitting they’ve been duped.  In academia, especially in the sciences, paradigm wars are many and ugly.  What progress we might hope for is going at a snail’s pace because the majority of scientists, for example, believe that the sun is the equivalent of an atomic bomb in the sky (hot fusion).

Buddhism suffers the same fate.  Teachers who have convinced their followers of the lie that the Buddha denied the self don’t believe much of what The Zennist says even though it is said with countervailing evidence that is substantial.  If, for example, the Buddha prized the no-self doctrine or in Sanskrit anâtman, why then did he say to his monks that they should abandon desire for whatever is no-self (anâtman)?  Why did the Buddha call the Five Aggregates which he repeatedly said are no-self, murderous?  We can only conclude that the no-self doctrine is murderous and false.  But this comes as a shock to most Buddhists.  It means some of them have been wasting their lives following a lie when the real truth the Buddha taught is to reject our psychophysical bodies as being our true self.  We have to look elsewhere for whom we really are.

Buddhism is really trying to teach us that in investigating who we really are, it is to be found in the unconditioned—never the conditioned.  This is why the Buddha always says that our psychophysical body (S., pañcaskandha) cannot be our self because it is never other than conditioned.

But truth hurts.  Those who sense the hurt the most often end up by waging war against the truth.  Rather than admit they’ve been duped so as to get on with real Buddhism (yes, life is short), they come after people like I.  We are the bad guys—the demons from hell.  But we are not what they imagine us to be—quite the contrary.