The Zennist

The rise of the non-material

At some point in its development, Quantum Mechanics signaled the beginning of the ascendence of non-material science (or a priori science) over empirical science.  Said Werner Heisenberg:

"Modern atomic theory is thus essentially different from that of antiquity in that it no longer allows any reinterpretation or elaboration to make it fit into a naive materialistic concept of the universe. For atoms are no longer material bodies in the proper sense of this word . . . The experiences of present-day physics show us that atoms do not exist as simple material objects."

We would not be wrong to say that if we could look at the foundation of our material world we would find nothing in the usual sense of the word, matter—certainly not atoms.  The foundation of our material world would be, in fact, non-material which in Buddhist terms lies beyond the six senses with which we apprehend our material world.  

We are reminded of an earlier voice that flipped the empirical world upside down.  This was Irish philosopher Bishop Berkeley (1685–1763) whose philosophy essentially said that only the mind and its ideas are real.  There is no material reality that is external or outside of mind.  We might even go so far as to say that matter is just resistance which puts it into or at least close to the non-empirical realm.  The man who pounds the table and says, “Here is matter!” is really only saying, “Here is resistance.”  He has no idea what resistance means.  He draws a blank.

We have all been brainwashed to believe that there is only the material world—there is no non-material reality which underlies it.  However, living in our material world we are only able to look at the material side.  We are reassured that our universe is determined by certain mechanical laws.  We look at the skies at night and see what appears to us to be an orderly universe.  But this is only half the picture.  It hides the non-material, the non-local, quasi-realities, and mind-like properties.

As a matter of fact, we do not know from whence this material world of ours arises, nor do we know to where it returns.  We can only make educated guesses.  In some respects, our world is a complete mystery, although we would like to believe otherwise, acting towards it as if it were real and true. 

In Buddhism we can witness the West’s uneasy transition from a mechanical world view to a non-material one.  Western Buddhists tend to believe that Buddhism denies such a non-material thing as the âtman which in Sanskrit refers to the primary animative principle of the universe. At least this is the way the hermeneutical work, Nirukta, describes âtman, which happens to be a work older than Buddhism itself.  For Western Buddhists, only the material is real.  And when the human body dies, that’s it, there is no more continuation of life.  But the problem is that death is what happens to us in a bio-material form such as a human body.  From the non-material or unconditioned standpoint, we do not die.  This is what the Buddha is teaching.  

He also teaches us not to identify with our psychophysical body through which the material world takes shape.  Fundamentally, we are not material beings but rather non-material beings.  The more of us has never been born nor will it ever die.

How to remove the concept of I am

At almost an unconscious level we are trying to identify with both our corporeal body and its mental functions, both coarse and subtle.  This is where the concept of “I” or asmimâna arises from.  Asmi in Sanskrit means literaly ‘I am’ so that with mâna we get the idea of a mental concept of ‘I am’.  In the Catusparisa Sutra the Buddha says:

Seclusion is the highest happiness for him who is content, who has heard the dharma and who perceives it.  Causing no injury in this world is happiness, and self-control towards (all) living beings.

Indifference to the world is happiness, the transcendence of (all) desires; the removal of the concept “I” (asmimâna) is the greatest happiness.

But there is more.  Also with asmimâna I conceive (mâna) or imagine I am (asmi) something determinate. A this.  This this, however, presents a problem. Given primordial avidya or non-knowledge, I cannot as yet distinguish between the non-empirical absolute and the  non-absolute empirical. I am still in a condition of involution getting entangled and confused, always trying to identify with the empirical world.  I might even imagine that there is no other world but this for me.

The problem with this extends to my corporeal body and mental functions which appear to arise and fall within my head.  I am identifying with this such as my ordinary thoughts.  I am this which is also a mental concept.  How do I remove it is the pertinent question?  If I meditate, so as to look within myself, there appears thoughts mixed with sensations and feelings, including internal dialogue and internal images.  For me this is who I am.

However, if, so to speak, I am able to bore through the rind of thoughts, sensations and feelings, including my internal dialogue and mental images, I will at once enter the non-empirical.  Here, there is nothing determinate—no this, in other words.  Asmimâna has nothing upon which to attach.  It was born out of non-knowledge or avidya.

Two different terrains of Zen

Reading Zen, especially, older works, can be a difficult task, especially, if we are looking for something in Zen that is not there.  For example, looking for a panacea to help us solve our psychological problems.  To be frank, Zen will not take us there.  It's road is not like that—nothing is permitted to pass through Buddhism’s no-gate which includes our psychological problems.  Zen's teachings are not therapeutical.  We may wish to see a forest of trees, but Zen is describing, let's say, a desert.  The approaches are each different, as they should be, because one is Zen and the other is not the Zen we find in much older works. 

A psychologized Zen, in the example of Joko Beck's book, Nothing Special: Living Zen, is nothing at all like reading Jeffrey L. Broughton's excellent work, The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen.  Let’s imagine we sat down and read books back to back.  So what is the connection between the two books besides the word ‘Zen’?  One is like a forest of trees; the other is a desert.  Their terrain is altogether different.  Yet, to expand my point, both are in California.

Zennists can make and wear robes, build temples, teach zazen and even give sermons.  But this is not the terrain of Zen that Broughton’s book is looking at.  The two are quite different.  I should also point out that modern Zen is have less and less to do with what the Buddha taught.  It’s all moving in the direction of what can only be characterized as Zen psychology—which is not real Zen.

Back in the early 1960s my thinking was not like the popular thinking today.  If a person had mental problems they usually went to a psychiatrist or to the state hospital for ECT—not a Zen center to sit in zazen hoping things will get better.  Zen appealed to me because of its mystical orientation which was still connected with philosophy.  I will even go so far as to say that Zen, for me, was closer to the emerging category of psychedelic drugs.  I viewed satori as a kind of natural mind expansion.  Enlightenment, I thought at the time, was a new way of seeing our old reality.

The Zen, shall we say, of Joko Beck is butting heads with the Zen of Jeffrey Broughton.  There is hardly any connection between them except in name only.  With such a wide separation, I expect Zen to go the way of yoga.  It will be watered down, dumbed down, institutionalized, and split, itself, off from Buddhism.  The last thing will be the formation of Zen nihilism (Zen has no meaning) along with secular Buddhism which is already nihilistic.

Detecting people who are not going to make it

I guess if I wanted to I could make an instrument for detecting people who are not going to make it in Buddhism very far; this includes Zen Buddhism.  I mean by this, they are not going to awaken to the One Mind.  They are too far gone with their views.  Their position is deeply entrenched; they are not going to change.

In my questionnaire, I would be interested in the respondent's opinions about “faith” or “belief” (the terms are interchangeable).  I have found, over the years, that would-be Buddhists (mainly Westerners) who are uncomfortable with terms such as “faith” or “belief” are generally, materialists.  The philosophy of materialism, let me be frank, is inimical to Buddhism and, above all, to its correct understanding.

In my questionnaire, I would also be interested in seeing how respondents answered questions about “reincarnation,” “OBEs” (Out of Body Experiences), and “NDEs” (Near Death Experiences).  If they are indifferent or have a bias towards such phenomena I would seriously question their ability to get very far in Buddhism.  I find such negative opinions, that one can dismiss reincarnation from their practice of Buddhism and still comprehend the meaning of Buddhism, almost ludicrous.  This also includes the Buddhist tenet of karma.  

My questionnaire would also be interested in the respondent’s answers about hauntings, ghosts, demonic possession and other such paranormal phenomena.  Dismissing such phenomena out of hand indicates that the respondent has a closed mind; who has not studied the evidence.  This also tells me that they have a low opinion about spirituality and all that it entails.

I would also be interested in the respondent’s answer to matters about Hinduism, âtman and voidness.  Of especial interest to me, would be the respondent’s opinions about the so-called void and, possibly, their unconscious reification of it into some kind of Buddhist absolute (which it is not).  I would want to know their attitude towards an absolute, especially the âtman.  I would also want to know their reactions to Vedanta and mysticism such as that of Plotinus.

These questions and others, would have the general aim of ferreting out potential materialists and irreligionists who mistakenly believe that Buddhism is not a first-person science that is based upon first-person verification.  This is in contrast with a third-person science that is based upon empiricism (knowledge of external objects).  Moreover, the third-person science has a prejudice towards the first-person standpoint in the example of pure Mind and consciousness (which in Buddhism is the transmigrant).

 

Over reliance on teachers

On some Buddhist chat rooms the beginner is told to first find a teacher, as if learning what Zen Buddhism is generally about is a great mystery.  However, Buddhist and Zen scholars often do quite well without a teacher.  Alan Watts did okay, and many others who were interested in Zen and Buddhism.  If you wish to study the history is Zen a teacher really isn’t required.

While it is true that many Zen monks in the early formation of the Zen school traveled around China interviewing great teachers who some believed were enlightened, their stay wasn’t long with this teacher.  The most difficult part of finding the right teacher is how does one distinguish an awakened teacher from one who isn’t awakened?  With this new problem, hasn’t one merely shifted their personal difficulty of making heads or tails of Zen to, how do you tell a real Zen teacher from one who is not enlightened?

I must admit I did this, too—and learned the hard way.  I guess I thought this Zen abbot could help me discover what Zen was really about; maybe even help me gain satori.  It is not that easy.  Even if a beginner should find a nice teacher, one with whom they feel comfortable, this is no guarantee that they will have satori.  Going from our defiled, maculate mind to the pure, immaculate Mind proves to be extremely difficult and subtle.  It doesn’t dawn on you (at least in my example) that Zen is asking the adept to see the very substance of their thoughts which is also the substance of this universe!  How mind blowing is that?

Finding a teacher, using myself for an example, only works best when you are capable of learning what to search for within your own mind which is like looking for a small, pure diamond in a huge pile of black sand.  If the beginner isn’t ready to look for pure Mind as if it were like this diamond, not even the best teacher will be able to help.  We first must spiritually mature.  That may take a few years.  Reliance on a teacher before this maturity develops as it should is almost a waste of time.

The journey and the trip

The word ‘journey’ has several meanings.  It doesn’t have to be related to traveling a certain distance arriving at a certain place.  For example, we can speak of a journey of faith or a journey into the realm of new experiences that provide us with new information or knowledge.  A journey can be a journey into the higher reaches of consciousness.  Zen Buddhism can also be a journey.

A ‘trip’ doesn’t have the depth of a journey.  A trip can be relatively short.  We all remember in our early school days taking a field trip.  I can remember taking a train trip to San Francisco in the early 1950s.  When our family arrived there, we took a trip to the zoo.  Trip can also refer to a drug or LSD trip or a power trip; even a stimulating experience as in this is real trippy. 

If we apply these terms to Zen Buddhism, Zen is all about a long spiritual journey.  We are trying to realize our pure Mind which requires that we change in order to resonate with Mind.  On the other hand, being curious about Zen; doing some zazen for a while, is really just a trip.  Even joining a Zen center or a Dharma center can be just a trip which is far from being a spiritual journey.  Yes, trips are nice but there is not the same kind of commitment as with a journey.  With a trip no change is required of us.  We are almost like tourists.  We are here to see the sights.

To get anywhere is Zen Buddhism, the journey is an inward one.  What is most primordial in us, which seems to be pushing forward, is trying to make its way through a huge dark jungle.  There is no authentic joy in this.  Occasionally, there wonderful moments but as yet no penetration through the dark covering in which we will see our primordial Buddha-nature in all its luminosity.  If this is just a short trip we’ve have already planned to travel only so far.  We have other obligations such as our family.  We might even take a trip to India and visit Bodh Gaya where, supposedly, the Buddha gained enlightenment.

Was Zen finally speaking to me?

Several years after World War II, my teacher studied with Hodo Tobase in San Francisco. Tobase was part of the Soto Mission from Japan. The name of the temple of the Soto mission was Sokoji.  My teacher was a graduate student who was a part-time monk at the temple.  There was also a Japanese nun who resided there.  My teacher told me that Tobase was a Zen master and a rather famous calligrapher. His main duties involved serving the Japanese community in the city which went to the Soto temple. 

The image of Zen Buddism back then and into the 60s was still with the glow of something mysterious and deeply spiritual. It hadn't as yet turned into Za-Zen (lit., sit down Zen). Zen was still trying to find its voice in America; to speak to us about its most profound message. But, in my estimation, Za-Zen took over.  The quest of Zen to find its voice in America in some ways failed. So here we are today.  

It is difficult to find a Zen temple in the West not almost completely dedicated to teaching sitting meditation.  Zazen practice turned into almost a cure-all for what psychologically ails us.  As a result, what Buddhism and Zen are really about gets pushed to the back burner.  Just sit is the most important part of Zen.  But in truth it is not.  Sitting is a tool.  Just like reading the sermons of Zen masters or the words of the Buddha.  Being mindful is also a tool not only of our actions but of our thoughts, as well.  These tools are useful.  However, they are not ends in themselves.

Earlier, when I mentioned Zen trying to find its voice in America, what I meant by this is that Zen, in a way, must speak directly to us in a spiritual way.  It has to tell us at some point that it is about seeing our true nature in addition to providing us with some useful clues about this true nature or essence.  During those early formative years with my teacher I didn’t hear the voice of Zen.  It had not spoken to me.  I almost became a Zen priest parrot, you could say—or a priest monkey.  Finally, I began to see a direction in Zen.  Was Zen finally speaking to me?

As fate would have it, I was about to begin the most fascinating, wild and crazy adventure I could imagine, and all because I was deeply interested in the real voice of Zen; not just sitting on my backsides.  This is when I met the rotund, bespectled Bishop Nippo Shaku who was teaching at the California Institue of Asian Sutdies. 

I am in the moment, now!

A lie taught in some Zen centers throughout the West is that Zen is about living in the here and now or just being mindful of the present or moment.  With this, I envision some latter-day Zennist  just living only through his or her senses—maybe like Zippy the Pinhead, the comic strip character created by Bill Griffith.  A Zen Zippy might say of every such moment, “Wowza!” Or he might say, “I am in the moment, now!”  During zazen our Zen Zippy could sit for hours becoming almost like a bump on a log.

Should we regard our Zen Zippy as speaking for Zen?  Are you kidding?

Our Zen Zippy is living a life submerged in sense-certainty.  It amounts to the certainty that what we perceive at the time is really like that.  But a Hostess Ding Dong is not just a Ding Dong.  It is a product created from various ingredients.  We might further say, that to know a Ding Dong is to be able to make one.  The Ding Dong in the package is not the truth of Ding Dongs.

For a modern Zennist to try and live in the moment  of sense-certainty is almost a form of insanity; moreover, it cannot convey truth beyond the particular which it claims.  The tomato growing here is limited to this tomato.  But what about the countless other tomatoes that we can’t see?  Do they not exist?  

Sense-certainty cannot tell us why, for example, Joshu answered Mu to a student’s question,  "Has a dog the Buddha Nature?"  It cannot tell us what the One Mind is or the unconditioned Mind.  It is clueless as to what kensho or satori mean, or what it means to be a Buddha (one who is awakened—but awakened to what?).

Our Zen Zippy at some point may even fall into a kind of solipsism which is the immediacy or direct presence of the Five Aggregates experienced as a series of individual moments.  From this ‘ghost cave’, which is transitory, our Zen Zippy can easily dismiss the spiritual world which the Buddha is teaching his followers to realize.  Instead, he grasps every moment of the aggregates.  He is recording the data received by the senses of the body.

This is not Zen’s kensho but the lowest from of knowing.  While it claims, otherwise, to be true knowledge because it is directly aware of only ‘this’, not distorting it in anyway or intellectually shaping it, the Zennists soon finds that there is nothing more to this.  If anything it is the perfect expression of impermanence (anitya).  It is suffering for us because we have identified with it.  Nor is it our true nature.  It is the nothing that is.

Watering it down

It is difficult for me to buy watered down views of Zen Buddhism such as, Zen is about living in the moment, that is, the here and the now, or that Zen is about maintaining a stillness and awareness of mind living a life in harmony with nature.  Such views don’t do justice to Zen.  Given the vast amount of Zen literature, the overarching context of Zen is not about how to cope with our modern life, a life we only partially accept which has no spiritual meaning or purpose for us. 

We should not forget what Zen master Zongmi said, “Zen is the essence of Buddhism.”  In this respect, Zen is about kensho.  This is directly seeing our Buddha-nature or if you prefer absolute Mind which is empty of modifications.  It just like raw gold before it is made into something.  It is all about gnosis of something profound and transcendent.  But now a warning.  It is easy to lose sight of this.

If the roots of Zen go back to the Lanka School in China which was still, primarily, Indian, based on the Lankavatara Sutra, the task put in front of Chinese Buddhist practitioners was to make Indian abstract terminology concrete which fits with Chinese culture.  For example, the Chinese spoke of the cosmos as "mountains, rivers, and the great earth." Our essence was expressed as a "drop of water in the source." Our true nature was expressed as "original face and eye." Such concrete terms (and there are many more) were important for Chinese Zen.  This doesn't mean that Chinese Zennists didn't understand, fully, Indian Buddhism, they did.  They just had a different and more poetic way of expressing Indian Buddhism.

But when Chinese Buddhism arrives in Japan, for Japanese Buddhists, the world is, itself, absolute—we are Buddhas already.  This means it rejects the long hard work of gnosis which aims at the absolute.  Japanese Buddhism wrongly assumes there is nothing over and above the phenomenal world.  We see this in the Tendai sect in Japan.  It is not the same as Chinese T'ien-t'ai. Tendai believed that the appearance of things were aspects of the Buddha.  This is still, arguably, the basis of Dogen's Zen.  I don't mean to imply that all of Japanese Zen is this way, it is not.  Nevertheless, Dogen's Zen has made a substantial impact on Western Zen — and not a good one if we compare it with Chinese Zen which is largely missing in Western Zen practices in which the emphasis is on Dogen's just sitting.

Behaving our way to enlightenment

 One cannot, so to speak, behave their way to enlightenment in the example of trying to suppress thoughts or concepts.  This includes trying to live in the moment or just sitting, doing zazen.  Such attempts are ways of behaving. This is not the same as seeing the pure Mind, directly.

This brings us to an interesting problem when we read Zen literature.  Much of it, indirectly, teaches or suggests behavior while other parts of it teach that the Zen adept has to aim for seeing, directly, the pure Mind in the way one might see an object.  When Zen master Bankei says,

But the unborn Buddha-mind has no connection with those sticks of incense. It's just being at home in the Buddha-mind, not straying into illusion, and not seeking enlightenment beyond that. Just sit in the Buddha-mind, stand in the Buddha-mind, sleep in the Buddha-mind, awake in the Buddha-mind, do everything in the Buddha-mind—then you'll be functioning as a living Buddha in all that you do in your daily life. There's nothing further.

Bankei’s words seem to suggest behaving in a certain way.  One, first of all, cannot be in the Buddha-mind without realizing it, directly.  Then one is at home with it.  How can one miss a mountain, or miss a vein of gold once they’ve actually seen it?  What distinguishes a Buddha from an ordinary being is the fact that they’ve realized their Buddha-nature as an object—they see it.  And ordinary being doesn’t see it.  He looks into his mind and sees only thoughts and feelings.  Nothing else.

When Zen master Huang-po says, “If only you will avoid concepts of existence and non-existence in regard to absolutely everything, you will then perceive the Dharma.”  But this is not quite true.  Avoiding concepts of existence and non-existence is not the same as seeing the pure Mind, directly, which is beyond concepts of existence and non-existence!  Here Huang-po seems to stray into that territory where behaving a certain way seems the appropriate path, at least for a beginner.

If you would only rid yourselves of the concepts of ordinary and Enlightened, you wouldfind that there is no other Buddha than the Buddha in your own Mind.

It’s true to say that awakening to Mind there are no longer any concepts of ordinary and Enlightened.  Everywhere you look the reality you saw before  has suddenly changed from the inside out.  Now everything is just a phenomenalization of the One Mind.  But key to achieving this is, directly, seeing the pure Mind or the same, the One Mind.  One can’t simply behave their way to the Buddha-mind.