The Zennist

Two realities

Just as a foolish person might see a sharp distinction between water and ice, people wedded to their senses and the relative knowledge gained by them conceive of a division between spirit and material forms.  But truth be told, there is no such division if absolute reality is mystically intuited. 

From Buddhism's perspective there are two kinds of reality.  The first consists of our psychophysical body and the world channeled through its senses and interpreted which is never other than impermanent, suffering and spiritless.  It is conditioned. The second reality can only be mystically intuited in which the first reality dissolves into it, losing its power over us, seen to be an illusory projection.  The second reality is unconditioned.  This second reality is absolute spirit or Buddha-nature which is radiant, blissful and eternal.  The first reality is a configuration of the second which means it doesn’t really exist. 

But reading this or thinking about it never gets us to the second reality.  We are somewhat like the fool seeing the glass of water and the cubes of ice in it, not understanding through what they are actually one and the same.  We still stand outside of true reality condemned by our strong passion and desire to find ultimate worth and meaning in the first reality despite the fact that its knowledge is relative and empty.  There is no spirit here.

Not even the greatest teacher in the world can begin to lead us to the required mystical intuition that releases us from the first reality’s bewitching phenomena if we are not open to receiving such; if we are incorrigible and skeptical to a fault.  This is like pulling down the shades to let in the light!  What is gained is but darkness.  While most of us believe we are capable of realizing true reality we are deluding ourselves.  The more we defend the first reality which is false the more we have set ourselves against truth.

The Zen system can only go so far

Neither Zen Buddhism nor Buddhism, for that matter, are well understood by those who are in a rush to learn something about both.  In other words, the problem is driven by impatience. Such people simply lack the discipline required to study the subject as it should be studied which can take many, many years. Faced with this impatience, the solution, it seems, is to sit and meditate as if meditation were just a matter of sitting. This also assumes that sitting is a fast track to understanding Zen.

This is where the modern Zen or Dharma center finds its place; basically to meet the needs of people who want, quickly, to understand Zen without too much hassle. 

Yes, for the impatient ones, a helpful system can be devised without too much effort which might consist in a lot of sitting practice followed up with mindfulness practice.  Whether or not the system actually takes the follower where they wish to go in a year or so, is another matter.  The system might very well not work which I think is often the case.

In my own example, the so-called Zen system lost its charm after a year or so.  The system, in other words, could only go so far even with my obedience to the system.  Pleasing a teacher and the system that wasn’t working is not the same is setting one’s mind on awakening to their true nature, whatever that nature is supposed to be.  For me, the quest turned in this direction rather than to the system itself.  It also taught me that sitting on my arse is not, technically speaking, meditation or dhyana/samadhi.  It is a ritual (gyôji 行事).

Meditation has nothing to do with posture.  One can sit and meditate, cut firewood and meditate, walk many miles in the foothills and meditate, eat and meditate and so on.  Meditation is about how we use our mind.  In my example, my mind was utilized to seek, inwardly, pure Mind.  Then after one catches a glimpse of pure Mind, meditation then becomes continually entering into samadhi with this pure Mind, again and again.  This I hasten to add is what Zen master Shen-hui (670-762) meant by “sudden enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation.”

 

 

Beginning beginner

First faced with reading Zen literature in my Asian studies class I was flabbergasted.  I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.  Still, I was intrigued by it.  There was certainly a charming aspect about it.  

At that time, I could see the divide between Eastern literature and Western literature.  The semantic scope of Western literature went from the name or sign to the concept.   In Zen, it seemed to want me to go beyond the name and the concept.  Over the months I began to understand that my concept of something was not the same as the real thing in itself.  Sure, it was important to have the name and the concept connected in your head.  When my foreman instructed me to put those small cans in these boxes (I was working at a cannery), I already came with the name and the concept connected—all in my noggin.  Then the real task began which earned me a paycheck. 

No matter how much my teacher in class (who was a friend of D.T. Suzuki) tried to explain Zen and its terms I could make no meaningful connection.  My first time out of this conundrum was—as simple as it sounds—when I realized that these Zennists were talking about some kind of special experience.  That became the first of many clues that I had to wait for.  They just didn’t occur as a read a book on Zen.

As for the mechanism of how this came about, I can’t say exactly.  I just know that one day I got it.  However, I will say that one has to stay engaged with Zen, continually.  Read and forget doesn’t work.  It is more like read, admit your ignorance with regard to various passages and sermons and ponder deeply, then wait for the answer.  Your answer could take a year or more.  Do not give up once you’ve started.

 

Which side is western Buddhism on?

While neuroscience seems to be going back in time to the age of Newton with its theory that consciousness comes, ultimately, from matter which has somehow managed to turn into brains, modern physics, in the opposite direction, has already declared that matter comes from spirit (Max Planck: Dieser Geist ist der Urgrund aller Materie)!  But which side does Western Buddhism seem to be on?  Is it matter or spirit?

A wild guess, I think it is moving to the side of matter in which mind or consciousness is produced in some way by the brain.  But is this what the Buddha taught?  No, not at all; nor should Western Buddhism be moving in this direction.  If anything Buddhism, Yoga, Vedanta and most of Hinduism should be categorized as “spiritual science” which rests on the notion that there is, fundamentally, no matter.  The ultimate basis of things is, instead, spirit.

But how can the West resolve its dichotomy between neuroscience and physics, especially, QM (quantum mechanics)?  It doesn’t seem as easy as it should be.  A physics resting on consciousness or spirit, is not easily understood by the masses.  It is much more convincing to first see colorful images from a f MRI of the brain; then be told that this is where consciousness comes from.    

This dichotomy has not been absent from Buddhism insofar as Buddhism is turning into a kind of Asian psychology with it own special therapy which soon attracts those who have fallen prey to neuroscience’s advertising.  The first sign of this is best recognized when a Westerner declares his personal skepticism of karma and rebirth; who is also fascinated with the notion of no self and emptiness which he believes to be  nothingness.

The harder path is away from materialism which holds that consciousness is a product of the brain which is not, in the final analysis, a scientific theory but, instead, a philosophical one which explores conceptual possibilities.  The world of spirit, on the other hand, is what we are now as first-persons; persons who see colors and smell roses; who have thoughts, ideas, hunches and mental representations; who can even realize their own true nature from which are composed all the just named phenomena and much more.

Rebirth of suffering

Over the years I have come to think of rebirth and suffering as the rebirth of suffering.  There is good reason to think this way insofar as the Five Aggregates are suffering and are what is reborn, which we must bear.  

What is born as beings or sattva becomes manifest in the Five Aggregates and yes, undergoes suffering as a result.  This is not only birth but also rebirth since birth is dependent on former karma or deed.  As a result, as conscious individuals or agents we are constrained by old karma; we have to wrestle with it.  Our consciousness, we need to bear in mind, is laden with sankhâras or old karmic impressions that have previously been willed out (our former life).  Again, this is all suffering in one degree or another.

All of our present actions are now new karma (navakamma).  They might be thought of as nascent karmic impressions and, naturally, determine the extent of our future suffering.  The Dhammapada says it well.

“Mind precedes all mental phenomena, mind is their master, they are produced by mind. If somebody speaks or acts with a corrupted mind suffering follows him, even as the wheel follows the drawer [ox]” (1).

The desires, beliefs and principles to which we adhere, these being our deeds, will surely have future consequences and most likely suffering.  If we could actually see the process as it is going on, we have unconsciously creating our world before we step into it. If, on the other hand, we speak and act with a purified mind which means it is empty of defilements, eventually bliss or sukha follows us like a shadow (châyâ) that never leaves us.  This is why it is important to realize pure Mind.  It only posits itself the result of which is sukha or bliss.

The light-bringers

Probably the overarching aim of Mahayana, as strange as it sounds, is to bring the light into the world; not just strive for nirvana, but to deepen and increase the presence of the light which remains hidden to almost all mortals.  This idea is not absent from the Pali Nakays.  In the Itivuttaka (III, iv, v) we read of, “Light-bringers, dhamma-speakers who open  the door of the immortal” (this being nirvana), who produce radiance which according to the commentary is the “light of the Dhamma”.  We also read that, “He [the Buddha] is the maker of light for bewildered devas and humans” (S. i. 210).  Still more, “The light-maker, having pierced right through, saw the transcendence of all stations” (S. i. 193).

A fact very seldom shared, those who have awakened to this light (whose mind is luminous) has an unmistakable presence about them.  Whoever enters into their field senses it, directly.  This is entering the stream which, during the time of the Buddha, was not all that difficult if a person was close to him.  We can scale up from this and imagine a greater light that can dissolve the hard layers of ignorance which makes awakening seem almost impossible.  We find this idea somewhat developed in the Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Ornament Scripture) in these examples.

“Manifesting spiritual power while among the masses, he radiates light to make them wake up, revealing the realm of the enlightened. . . .”

“Sentient beings are veiled by ignorance, wandering on dangerous paths; the Buddha emanates light for them. . . .”

From this we can see the importance of bringing this light into the world which, as I see it, is the real job of a Bodhisattva—a real Bodhisattva who has experienced this light most profoundly.  This light should penetrate to a being's thoughts—to anyone’s thoughts hence taming them.  In contrast to this, the dangers of humans is illustrated in this passage from the Avatamsaka Sutra.

“Defiled sentient beings are bound by habitual confusions, to be feared; their wills cause oceans of worlds to all become defiled.”

On the other hand, when beings seek enlightenment their minds are capable of causing purity for that time.  It is only those who understand this light; who work to bring it forth into the minds of others that there is any hope for the world.  Short of that, according to the Buddha, that world becomes defiled.

Zen for the record

For the record, according to the scholars, the term “Zen school” (禪宗) was first conceived by Zen master Zongmi (Tsung-mi).  However, it didn’t become the name of a particular school until the ninth century and even then it wasn’t wide spread.  

Going back much further the Zen school has its roots in what can be called the Lankavatara Sutra tradition or Records of the Lanka, which is the subject of J.C. Cleary’s excellent book, Zen Dawn: Early Zen Texts from Tun Huang.  D.T. Suzuki has more to say about it as part of the introduction to his English translation of the Lankavatara Sutra.

“In the book called 楞伽師資記, "Record of Master and Disciple in [the Transmission of] the Lanka", which is one of the Tung-huang findings, the transmission line of the Lanka is recorded. The author 淨覺, Ching-chueh, living probably early in the eighth century apparently identified Zen Buddhism with the teaching of the Lanka, for his Fathers of the Lanka transmission are also those of Zen Buddhism” (p. xlvi).

It is important to underscore what he says.  This is more than likely solid evidence by which we can say with reasonable certainty that from the Records also came the fathers of Zen Buddhism.  Suzuki continues:

"He [Ching-chueh] considers Gunabhadra, the translator of the Sung or four volume Lanka, the first Father of Zen in China, and not Bodhidharma as is generally done by Zen historians. In this the author may be in the right, for in his day there was yet no independent school which later came to be known as "Zen", and whatever represented this movement at the time was no more than the study of the Lanka" (p. xlvi). 

Here we see Zen’s roots, but the Zen that we are familiar with is fashioned in the Sung dynasty.  With  Bodhidharma as the first patriarch of Zen his original name, it is important to note, was not Bodhidharma but, instead, Dharmatrata.  It then changes eventually to Bodhidharma.  How was this done?  This name change was executed by none other than Shen-hui in an essay he wrote entitled, Essay On Settling the Truth and Falsity on the Basis of the Lineage of Bodhidharma’s Southern Ch’an (732 A.D.).  In another work, the Li-tai fa-pao chi (774 A.D.) we find Dharmatrata now as Bodhidharmatrata who is the 29th patriarch—not the 28th patriarch!  Later a revised list of 28 patriarchs appeared in 781 A.D.

Finally, it is the Pao-lin chuan (801) or Transmission of Pao-lin (monastery), which is a document from the Hung-chou school,  that we find Bodhidharma placed as the 28th patriarch.

 

Having the instincts of the mystic

We might assume that there is no conflict in Zen that as come to the West between those who try to let Zen speak for itself and those who, because Zen seems inscrutable, needs some interpretation (eisegesis).

Are you kidding?  There is a quiet conflict going on.  A conflict doesn't have to be loud like a war.

Wearing robes, chanting Sutras, lighting candles and burning incense and doing zazen are unable to hide the conflict that centers around discovering who we really are.  One side believes that we are, fundamentally, spirit; the other side, fundamentally, a talking, animated corpse whose life means, in the final analysis, nothing.  As one Zen admirer recently told me, "Zen is not trying to accomplish anything."

Let me be clear, this conflict has important consequences.  Those who see Zen as spiritual and mystical want to see their true nature having kensho.  On the other hand, those who don't see Zen this way, may see Zen as psychological.  But what does this mean?  Zazen is supposed to bring us great benefit, psychologically.  The more we engage in it the more the benefit.  On the same track, living a life of awareness and being in the moment also proves to be psychologically beneficial.  But this doesn't take us to kensho.  We will not see our true nature, in other words.  Something more has to happen.

Spending five or more years in a monastery, going through the rituals can become a dead-end if the unconditioned Mind is not realized, eventually.  Making matters even more difficult, our senses, perception, will, consciousness, and intellect are not permitted to enter through Zen Buddhism's gateless gate where the unconditioned Mind resides. Try as we might to break down the gate and imagine we have entered—we haven't.  If we lack the instincts of the mystic we are forever barred.