I don’t think we in the West have sufficiently understood, in a general way, that Buddhism and especially Zen Buddhism are not based on a particular knowledge or a particular kind of knowing so much as they are based on ‘awakening’ (bodhi, sambodhi). In other words, I wouldn’t put awakening, strictly, under the category of knowledge although it leads to direct gnosis.
I think awakening is somewhat different having more to do with overcoming a kind of spiritual sleep in which one is deeply immersed in a dream like state of being which prevents true knowledge or the same, prevents us from seeing things the way they really are. Part of maintaining this dream like state requires of us that we live a certain way which excludes awakening. We will not allow our dream, out of habit, to come to an end. Foremost, we will not allow ourselves to be put under a special kind of psychic pressure which will bring us to awakening.
Using the example of the Buddha, his unsurpassed awakening consisted in awakening from the sleep of being immersed in composite existence, being unable to see directly the single essence from which all is composed. Presently, our minds won’t allow such an awakening. Perhaps we enjoy the sleep and would prefer to have a knowledge that comes from within the dream. Even moving gradually towards awakening might prove to be difficult. In other words, we are not really looking to awaken. We would rather find a better dream if possible.
As far as the method of awakening goes, I don’t think the institution of Zen has the final answer. Neither koans nor sitting in zazen are sufficient to propel us out of the dream of composite existence. By habit, we are so nailed to phenomena, both external and internal, that it seems unlikely that we can ever awaken from the dream, so pervasive is it. We have even developed rationalizations for not looking beyond the veil; to stay asleep as if life is a journey from one dream to another; life and death being within the dream.
Still, we must have faith that one day, in the near future, we will see the essence or substance of Mind from which our thoughts and the external world are composed. Our life has within it the ability to help us awaken because we are that substance of Mind despite the fact that we are transfixed to what we are not, unable to awaken to the obvious. The second we let go of this dream, we see what we really are and what this universe is composed from which we are free from.
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