The Zennist

Why answers about Zen seem inadequate

When it comes to beginners of Zen Buddhism asking special questions, it often involves a fair amount of relevant, background context in order for the answer to make any kind of sense.  Very seldom does this happen.  Asking particular questions related to Zen brings with it the questioner's own presuppositions which have a particular context.  E.g., the question, "What is Buddha-nature?" could have a context which assumes that there is some kind of adequate conventional answer.  But there is also the context, ignored by the questioner, that Buddha-nature must be directly realized on its own terms, not through something else as if what Buddha-nature signifies begins and ends in the world of semantics.

Such a question as, "What is Buddha-nature?" can only be answered in the direct meditational experience of this nature.  All subsequent questions rest on this experience.  Until the experience of Buddha-nature is gained, the context of a question about Buddha-nature is outside of what the Buddha taught.  Scholars can provide us with some of the background about Buddha-nature.  One might find a text which says Buddha-nature is ātman but that is not a context which is about the realization of one's Buddha-nature.

There are other kinds of questions beginners present which are outside of the Buddhist context so that any answer they receive seems to be inadequate.  If someone, for example, asks me, "What is dhyāna?" and I reply, it means the abandonment of mental confusion thereby to arrive at gnosis of pure Mind, this isn't going to win me any applause from the beginners.  At this point it becomes like a tug of war.  They want me to explain dhyāna in their own context.  I say it can't be done.  They want a compromise.  I say it can't be done either.  The tug of war goes on.

It is difficult for beginners and even veterans to enter the sanctuary of Zen free of suppositions and without contexts that don't comport with Zen Buddhism's context which is about transcendence.  Carrying this burden makes it almost impossible to sense what is going on; what the Buddha is really saying in other words.  This is further compounded by teachers who have compromised—dumbing down the Dharma to meet halfway with the beginner's views.  Sure, it seems nice.  Still, the teacher should not do this if he or she is worth their salt.  What the beginner needs to hear is that by dhyāna we hope to come face to face with the animative principle—and that meditation doesn't mean just sit on your arse on a cushion.  It is about the pure Mind, which we have not yet seen, trying to see itself through all the mental confusion in our noggin (if the beginner gets lucky and sees pure Mind it will be verified at once).

The beginning of faith in Zen

There is an inherent danger in relativism because it denies the truth of One Mind. Relativism affirms that there is a plurality of truths not just one. As it should be fairly obvious, one can easily slip into the abyss of nihilism if one lacks true faith in the One Mind.  But there is more.  Faith in Zen Buddhism begins with accepting that the everyday world we perceive and live in is composed from the unconditioned One Mind and that this same dynamic Mind is immediate with us, animating us.  This One Mind, in other words, gives life; we are it but don't yet recognize it.  All that we perceive is the animated, even our thoughts.

Faith is a kind of inference you could say.  E.g., where there is smoke there is fire.  Our psychophysical body is animated.  Think of this as the smoke.  The fire is close by, so to speak.  Now consider this exchange between Zen master Yunmen and a monk who, probably, had little faith in the animative power of the One Mind.  Yunmen works hard to instill faith in this dull monk.

A monk once asked Zen master Yunmen to be enlightened.  

Said Yunmen, "You make bows."  When the monk rose after making bows, Yunmen poked him with a staff.  The monk drew back. Said Yunmen, "You are not blind then?"  

Yunmen then told the monk to approach.  The monk approached.  Said Yunmen, "You are not deaf either?"  

Yunmen further continued, "Do you comprehend?"  "No, master, I do not," was the monk's reply. 

Yunmen then said, "You are not dumb either!"  The monk now grasped the point.

Without that which gives life (the animative principle) we are deader than a doornail.  But we are not dead nor can we really ever die except to believe, wrongly, that we are the conditioned psychophysical body which is born and dies (it is not who we are).  Zen master Yunmen is trying to help the poor deluded monk to be aware of the profundity of this animative principle in his daily life—to awaken to it.  Awakening, directly, to this principle then is more than faith.  It is knowledge (vidya) which is superior to faith.  It is the truth of one's very ātman, which is nirvana.

Breaking out of myth-making

Myth-making is extremely useful.  It is almost the foundation of human culture—some might argue that it is.  We construct from our imagination a system of thought to satisfy certain needs which ring more of human inadequacies, thereby, assuming that this construction agrees with reality.  The explanatory power of myth certainly extends to the modern vision of science.  However, take away the elements of myth-making, there is no science.  The same goes for religion; almost all religions.

Try as we might we cannot escape our myth-making (in science such mythologies are theoretically constructed 'models').  We can only acknowledge them and from there hope to see what is wrong with them, that is, where the major holes lie (no pun intended) and how they are intended to deceive—hopefully to make better myths!  Our various institutions are really machines of deception.  They make myths, in other words.  It is more like writing great fictional novels that seem so real.  Like you're right there.  

Turning to Zen Buddhism, its great myth is not about seeing our true nature or the absolute (J., kensho, satori), that much is really, real.  The myth is the system for getting to this transcendent abode such as a lineage of enlightened masters going back to the Buddha.  This includes the myth that sitting with legs crossed or the myth that certain forms of behavior exhibited in the stories of Zen masters will open our eyes to Buddha Mind.  Yes, Zen Buddhism is truly a myth, that is, a story invented as a plausible explanation of how truth is arrived at but which is a fiction, nevertheless.  It is 'as if' it were all true acting in order to make us treat the history of Zen as actual.

Breaking out of Zen's myth is what also Zen does, or should do.  It has to be as much about seeing our true nature or pure Mind as it is demystifying the various methods for seeing pure Mind.  If Zen has a method it should be more akin to something like Paul Feyerabend's, "anything goes," which is coordinate with The Zennist's going to our wits' end.  I need add, that we have to see Zen as a product of Song period myth-making which carefully omits that Zen was far from being iconoclastic or against the discourses of the Buddha.  This checks some of the tendency in some Zen circles to ignore the importance of realizing our Buddha-nature settling instead on zazen as the alpha and omega of Zen.

At least have a religious temperament

In its most general sense, to have a religious temperament as regards Zen Buddhism, is to seek a vision of the world whereby one becomes connected, directly, with ultimate reality by way of a special gnosis.  This is the most fundamental and nurturing consolation religion has to offer.  By it we hope to one day grow into this vision in a very real way; not just abstractly.  

In the meantime, we live our everyday lives more or less under the delusion that it all means something in the end.  All the pain and struggle must be for some reason we imagine.  But if we read history, much of this pain and struggle, in the example of war, is unnecessary.  Arguably, much of this stems from our delusion as to what is truly real which happens to be the first poison of the three poisons (the other two are hostility and concupiscence). 

It is difficult for us to turn to religion these days—even Buddhism.  In the example of Zen Buddhism, it has to fit within our schedule and our values, and certainly our philosophical viewpoint which seems fixed upon the polestar of materialism—not, inwardly, where our true nature is to be found.  In light of this, our everyday world is constituted so as to be like a prison in which we are both warden and prisoner.  From this it is easy to predict that we will not escape our fate.  We will eventually fall into nihilism in which we believe there is no ultimate reality and all truths are relative, along with moral behavior.

If it were not for this blog, I would not waste my time with people trying to open their shut minds to what I realized many years ago which in every way confirms Buddhism.  Even now I hesitate to say too much.  I am like a person who just saw a flying saucer land at his ranch and met several beings from another world or dimension.  Unless you enjoy being ridiculed, you keep this incident to yourself sharing it only with your family (in my case, the black dragon family who are aryans of the highest order).  I understand, also, that Buddhism is like a Trojan horse. It was brought to the West because it was believed it was a form of Indian materialism that denied a soul—a perfect religion for modern man. Fortunately, we just opened the gates of Troy.

Seeking permission not to change

Often, people new to Buddhism and Zen, by their questions, are really seeking permission not to practice or accept the tenets of Buddhism.  Sometimes it's worse.  It is like they are suggesting, "I am really interested in the teachings of the Buddha but I don't believe in karma or rebirth or the religious mumbo jumbo about nirvana."  Of course, some enterprising liberal Buddhists have a path for these special kinds of people.  It is secular Buddhism or secular Zen, tailor made to fit such blinkered minds when it comes to dumping the old and taking up the new. 

Having this kind of attitude that doesn't want to change, being fixed in certain patterns of thought, is not going to help one fare well in Buddhism.  These same people complain that a Zen center just taught them to sit on a cushion, and follow certain rituals with no other kinds of instruction.  But what else are they capable of doing is my question?  The ritual (行事), including sitting, is made for beginners; especially for those who are superficial; who have never looked within, so to speak, except to see that their mind is like a monkey swinging from one branch to the next—a mind almost impossible to calm down.

This is better illustrated in Vajrayana (Tib. Buddhism) in which we see a meditator on a path with a black monkey and a black elephant. The black monkey represents the scattered, restless mind; the black elephant represents the mind in a state of mental lethargy and mental defilements. Interestingly, the meditator is shown holding a rope which represents mindfulness and a goad which represents full awareness.

At one time I used to give people more credit than they deserved.  I wrongly believed they were capable of much more.  Big mistake on my part!  Such people, at an unconscious level, sense no real need to change.  In fact, they will fight you every step of the way without realizing on their part that this is what they are doing.  They are leading a poisonous lifestyle and don't even know it, but seem drawn to Buddhism, nevertheless.  But it is only in the form of seeking, tacitly, as much permission as they can garner, not to change.  This attitude is something closer to the "bad faith" (mauvaise foi) of Sartre which is a kind of self-deception.  A lie that one tells oneself while knowing that it is a lie.

Conceptualizing hides the substance

When Zen master Huangbo was recorded to have said, "To make use of your minds to think conceptually is to leave the substance and attach yourselves to form," he was saying something profound in the sense that our concepts are compositions of substance or essence; this essence being, in other words, the unconditioned Mind.  The Sixth Patriarch Huineng says about the same thing.  "True Reality is the substance of thoughts; thoughts are the function of True Reality."  As should be fairly obvious, the goal of Zen is to see this substance, not verbalize about it or imagine it can be approached by taking further conceptual approaches. 

Zen of our everyday world, however, doesn't heed this advice.  Maybe such Zen just doesn't fully appreciate the immense subtlety involved.  Or perhaps it doesn't know about it: that we must penetrate into the very substance of our thoughts and conceptions.  Unfortunately, what is going on with our typical Zen adept, he or she is engaged in conceptually trying to remove or suppress concepts so as to arrive at a conceptual thought of the non-conceptual!  Or the adept is trying to conceptualize this substance such that he or she imagines a non-conceptual substance! But truth be told, this substance or essence arrives on its own, so to speak, without our help.  We just have to be empty, at the right time, without our mind being engaged in conceptualizing or being in a state of presumption.

I am aware of the difficulty of what it takes to see this substance in light of the fact that what is going on inside our heads is a conceptual performance that has never been stopped for even a split second.  We have even learned to deceive ourselves believing that half of us is already the unconditioned Mind or Buddha Mind while the other half (the conceptual part) we only need to overpower or suppress which can be done by the practice of meditation or xichan (習禪) which we understand to be a physical practice.  But such an approach while helpful is less important than first understanding our "mission impossible" which is to inwardly see pure Mind, the substance.

To behold pure Mind, inwardly, involves kind of a strange seeking in which we are in open empathy with the idea of pure Mind while, at the same time, rejecting our conceptualizations of pure Mind, itself.  Our practice has come to the stage where we have an open channel (empathy) to pure Mind; not being taken in by the interference of conceptualizing it.  Still, substance has not arrived for us.  But we have stopped digging the hole deeper.  This, nevertheless, puts us into a better position to behold substance which is what our thoughts are made of. 

Denial of the ātman is maximal suffering

It is a truism to say, that if there were no transcendent ground such as ātman (P., attā), how might the five skandhas be condemned as false, or the same, not the ātman?  For example, when the Buddha tells us that material shape is not our ātman it is because he knows, exactly, what the ātman is.  It sure ain't material shape!  The same goes with the rest of the five skandhas all the way to consciousness. 

 When the Buddha says that material shape is not our ātman this is not a denial of the ātman as most wrongheaded Buddhists are inclined to believe, but rather it is a denial that material shape can be our ātman since, for example, material shape is impermanent as are the other four skandha.  It is only when we realize the ātman that we truly know what the ātman is not.  

 Proclaiming there is no ātman in the belief that the Buddha categorically denied it, is incorrect.  There can only be no ātman relative to the five skandhas.  But the skandhas are evil insofar as they belong to "Mara the killer" and, in addition, are considered by the Buddha to be "murderous."  The list goes on of the corruptness of the five skandhas.

"[He sees] the five aggregates as impermanent, as painful, as a disease, a boil, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as a plague, a disaster, a terror, a menace, as fickle, perishable, unenduring, as not protection, no shelter, no refuge, as empty, vain, void, not self, as a danger, as subject to change, as having no core, as the root of calamity, as murderous, as due to be annihilated, as subject to cankers, as formed, as Mara's bait, as connected with the idea of birth, connected with the idea of aging, connected with the idea of illness, connected with the idea of death, connected with the idea of sorrow, connected with the idea of lamentation, connected with the idea of despair, connected with the idea of defilement" (Patisambhidamagga II 238).

 Because the Buddha taught the five skandhas to be corrupt it follows that the Buddha taught his followers to deny that the five skandhas can be their ātman.  This is where Western Buddhists appear to be spiritually challenged. How can they draw the conclusion that the Buddha is denying the ātman because it can't be found in what is totally corrupt?  An intelligent person would think, otherwise, that what is good cannot be found in what is corrupt.  Indeed, the good transcends the corrupt.  Likewise, the ātman transcends the corrupt skandhas.  Don't look for your ātman there.

 Still, no matter how many times I blog this fact that we must not mistake our ātman for what is evil and corrupt, namely, the five skandhas, I am looked upon as the Vedanta guy.  As long as Buddhists continue to believe the Buddha denied the ātman they will eventually suffer rebirth in the hells.  The only default position for denial of the ātman is maximal suffering.

Buddhist Swiss cheese

If we substitute the word "history" with the word "Swiss cheese," instead, which is a kind of cheese mainly characterized by holes that form during ripening, we may get a better idea of how, in particular, Buddhist history works.  Critical with our Swiss cheese, some holes in Swiss cheese can be quite large or small. Also, we need to underscore the fact that the holes have no nutritious value.  Add to this, we need to keep in mind that it is from the cheese that the nutritious value comes.  

When academic Buddhist scholars, monastic and non-monastic authors, for example, write a book on Buddhist Swiss cheese, it is a fact to say not all Swiss cheese is the same.  When we read such books we could be reading a book with rather huge holes which are non-nutritious.  But then we think to ourself, "It's Swiss cheese. Swiss cheese is Swiss cheese."  But this is not so.  Some Buddhist Swiss cheese can have big holes. Still others, might have smaller holes.  If we are going to enjoy a Buddhist sandwich (i.e., learn about Buddhism), we want Swiss cheese with small holes, not big ones, in which there are more holes than cheese.

If I compare Stephen Batchelor's book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, with Pande's book, Studies in the Origin of Buddhism, both of which are, let's say, Swiss cheese, Batchelor's Swiss cheese in his sandwich is almost one big hole.  There is some Swiss cheese, but only on the edge.  But that's about all.  As for Pande's Swiss Cheese, it has a lot of small holes which means there is plenty of nutritious Swiss cheese for the sandwich. 

Most people who enjoy Buddhist Swiss cheese are used to very large holes.  Yes, they like that barely detectable, mild nutlike flavor of Swiss cheese—but, please, not too much. It is much easier to digest Swiss cheese with one big hole or maybe two than digest Swiss cheese with lots of little holes.  When I look at my small library with several Swiss cheese books in the example of E. Lamotte's book, History of Indian Buddhism, which makes a very tasty sandwich, I have to keep telling myself that modern Buddhists are not gastronomes—not by any stretch of the imagination.  

The Buddha's bait-and-switch

Asian Buddhist laypeople accept all the glitzy stuff in a Buddhist temple, including the ceremonies.  A beginner who is a Westerner is sometimes overwhelmed or taken back by all the glitter; who may consider this as a sign that Buddhism has fallen into superstition.  By the same token, the Westerner is naturally impressed with his own glitzy materialistic world.  He doesn't consider himself to be superstitious, after all, he has put his faith in science.  In fact, the Western Buddhist considers himself to be smarter and more well educated unlike his Asian counterpart.

Buddhism is a very old Indian religion.  It knows the ropes.  It also knows the fine art of bait-and-switch in a really good way (not like a thief).  Granting Buddhism time in the West, it will eventually challenge the materialism of the West.  Westerners will find themselves practicing mindfulness and sitting on a cushion in meditation.  Now think of practicing mindfulness as the bait along with seated meditation.  Include, too, the Roshi or Lama who sits on his dais giving out wonderful psychological advice.  This is about all the Westerner can handle.  They are not ready for the "switch" in the analogy of switching from an SUV to an anti-gravitic starship with warp drive. 

Now think of bait-and-switch for Asians who are drawn to Buddhism.  They are drawn to Buddhism by the grandeur of a huge statue of the Buddha or the subtle beauty of a Buddhist temple.  This is the bait which might include seeing lots of monks and nuns.  A few Asian Buddhist are ready for the "switch" who realize that much of Buddhism is bait or the same, skillful means.  I am guessing that even fewer Western Buddhist are ready for the "switch" and would rather revise Buddhism (and Zen) so that it only teaches mindfulness and seated meditation!

The sutric history of the bait-and-switch tactic is found in the Lotus Sutra. This synopsis is taken form Robert K.C. Forman's book, The Innate Capacity.

The Burning House (chapter 3)

An old, wise man returns from his travels to his large and crumbling mansion to find that it is on fire and his many sons are trapped inside. He tells them the situation and calls on them to come out, but they do not understand what the statement "the house is on fire" means, and they are absorbed with their playthings. So the father tells them that he has presents outside: goat carts for some, deer carts for others, and bullock carts for the rest. The children then hurry to come out and ask for the carts, but the father does not have them. Instead, he gives each child an enormous and magnificent cart, of a type far beyond any splendor they could have imagined, drawn by white oxen. In modern terms, it is as if the children had expected to receive push-bikes, motor bikes, and automobiles, and each was then presented with a starship. They forget their former expectations and joyfully ride on the marvelous ox carts. The Buddha explains that the father in the story is himself; the house is samsara, which is subject to decay and death and is on fire with the passions; the children are disciples; the promised carts are the various apparent rewards consequent upon following Buddhist teachings and practices; and the ox carts are true liberation.

Unfortunately, not too many want to leave the burning house.  It's more like, the house is not burning (secular Buddhist revisionism).  

Ultimate reality laughs at humans

It would certainly be a misreading on our part to assume or to even conclude that science understands ultimate reality or truth, or using more down-to-earth words, science knows what the universe is made of.  Holding such a wrong assumption or conclusion, ignores the fact that what we mean by truth, "is limited by the perceptual and cognitive endowments of our species," according to neuroscientist Dr. Donald Hoffman.  I guess you could say we are still in our species specific space-time box with no likelihood of escape or seeing through it as if it were transparent.  We may laugh at the ape or the lowly cockroach but we should not forget that ultimate reality laughs at us as we live our everyday lives. 

We tend to forget it, but we are not somehow free of Darwinian fitness which is about species specific survival and reproduction, and in particular, each individual's genetic contribution to the next's generations gene pool. We have to admit that we are not gods who are above it all; who see clearly what is going on down below; who also see the truth like Plato's guardians.  Sure, we can imagine that apparatus like huge telescopes and electron microscopes, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and fMRI help us to unlock the door to truth.  But let's face it, this is only wishful thinking.  The wonders of science have only managed, for the time being, to make the human species more capable of survival and reproduction and, at the same time, vulnerable to mass extinction as a result of war.    

For every potential door to truth mighty science believes it can open or claims it has opened, there are still more doors that are closed to it.  Science is no more closer to seeing the true world or just "truth" anymore than Plato and Aristotle were.  Science is in no position to say what truth is.  It cannot even say that there are no super humans or gods or that the Buddha did not realize absolute truth (nirvana). Science requires a leap of faith as much as a religious person does.  

Even if science were successful in developing AI (artificial intelligence) and we could buy beautiful robots like Ava in the recent film, Ex Machina, with whom we could have sex, we would still be stuck in Darwinian fitness, but this time more like the male Australian jewel beetle who is convinced that a particular kind of stubby, golden brown beer bottle is the most beautiful female jewel beetle he as ever seen.  This bottle might have a half dozen male jewel beetles on it going crazy with sexual delight.  Sure it's funny.  But having sex with a robot is just as funny even though, let us say, science develops robots with AI after a thousand years of research. 

The lesson from all this is we humans require two worlds.  One dedicated to Darwinian fitness and the other dedicated to seeing true reality.  The job of science is to protect species and the environment or is simpler terms, protect the natural world.  But for those dedicated to truth it is all about surpassing man and his species specific space-time universe.  Here the truth-seekers come into direct communion with the animative spirit which the ancient Vedas described and the Buddha perfected.