The Zennist

Good karma is necessary

One way to look at karma is to see it as either having positive, indifferent or negative intentions towards awakening to the unconditioned side of ourselves achieving Buddhahood. If this present life (the fruit of karma), including our psychophysical bodies is the result of former karma or deeds so that we have difficulty with awakening or reject the whole idea, this cannot be good for us in the future, that is, our next life.  Things could get far worse, in other words.  We have to be careful about our intentions and what we believe the Buddha to be teaching in this life.  To give an example, I would be careful about secular Buddhism.  It is creating for its followers other than good karma insofar as most are taught to be indifferent to the unconditioned (i.e., nirvana).  

With good intentions in the example of seeking the unconditioned (nirvana) our karma is good karma.  On the other hand, with the intention of craving the conditioned, not even being indifferent to it, how can such karma be counted as good?  The more the conditioned world is with us in terms of our personal craving, it is not that hard to imagine what our future will be.  How can such a life help us to win nirvana in the future?  It is only when our intention is directed towards nirvana can our karma bear good fruit.

Karma is not to be construed as a system of rules with rewards and punishments.  It is not like the Ten Commandments or even the Buddhist precepts.  Buddhist karma is tied to the world, itself; part of its natural process; its teleology.  We are shaped by an underlying purpose which is to realize our true nature or Buddha-nature which is unconditioned and primary in contrast with the conditioned world which is secondary.  While it seems natural for us to go along with the flow of the conditioned world, inadvertently, we have put ourselves under its dominion.  The result of our deeds or karma can be somewhat illustrated by bees in a large sealed glass jar.  They fly up and down but never escape from the jar—yet all the time wanting to escape from it.  This example expresses our human frustration.  We never escape although we want to.  To escape, good karma is necessary.  Take Buddhism seriously.

Transcending the monkey mind

When we start Zen, our day one, we do so with what can only be called the monkey mind (心猿). Roughly, this refers to a mind that is restless, capricious, inconstant, confused, and difficult to control.  This same mind, to borrow from Kafka, is like a cage trying to catch a bird, the bird being in Zen, our Buddha-nature.  This same mind believes it is worthy to go in search of Buddha-nature.  But it is not.  This monkey mind has to be stripped away before we can begin our voyage to the unconditioned beyond.  Thankfully, such a mind is not easy to miss!  When have we ever not been bewitched by it—almost a slave to the monkey's craziness?  Sure, I've heard the spiel about the "beginner's mind."  Most of it is codswallop.  Beginners have a lot to let go of in addition to a lot to learn and discover about themselves.  Sometimes it is almost impossible to get people to let go of their monkey minds.  I sometimes think they expect Zen to turn this monkey is to a happy healthy monkey.  Ain't going to happen.  The third slogan of Zen speaks of directly pointing to the human mind.  Not the monkey mind.

Zen first has to teach the monkey mind how to become a human mind.  This may explain why zazen is such an important part of Zen and Buddhism, in general, along with other practices such as learning to be constantly mindful, inwardly, of one's thoughts and emotions, and outwardly vigilant in one's day to day life whether it's driving a trunk or doing surgery.  This praxis helps to both control and transform the monkey mind into a human mind making it humane (oh how I love this word).  And what does it mean to be humane?  Such a state is marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for other human beings or animals.  

Believe it or not, our human mind appears to be something that we are losing.  In its stead, to repeat myself, many people are manifesting the neurotic monkey mind.  The Buddha describes the monkey as swinging through the trees grabbing one branch only to let it go to seize another which is called thought or consciousness arising and disappearing, both day and night.  There is no stability here—no respite.  I also view it as a condition of feeling always incomplete but unable to shake this feeling.  The problem becomes worse when we fear to look within, trying to avoid it.  But look within we must if we are to regain our humanity which leads me to say, just because we look like humans doesn't mean that we are.  And becoming human again is only the beginning of the spiritual life.  It only begins when we believe in a higher self. 

Koan: function that proceeds from the mysterious substance

One of the more important koans, a monk asked Jōshū (C., Zhaozhou), "Has a dog the Buddha-nature?" Thereupon, Jōshū answered, "Mu" [lack].  The goal of the koan is to awaken us to our Buddha-nature or the same, the very source of our being which moves this corpse around.  This will explain Jōshū's recondite response.   But now, with this koan, we come to a daunting barrier which will not let us enter through the gateless gate.  This barrier consists of our true nature and false images of this true nature which cannot be distinguished by us.  It's like milk and water mixed in the same vessel.  Still, the koan seems to be telling us, you have to be able to discern the difference between your Buddha-nature and a false copy or mental image of Buddha-nature.  

The difficulty of this challenge forces us to come up with clever but, nevertheless, wrong answers.  We seem to be always going back to the drawing board.  Zen it might be said is simply this koan writ large.  For the Chinese Zen mind this koan forced it to exhaust itself trying to find a 'conventional answer' until it had dropped cunning reason, completely.  Only then might one enter.  It is no different in the West.  We have a lot of cunning reason to exhaust which I dare say reveals, at times, the dark side of our character. 

I hasten to inject, but we are not without ample clues as to how to realize our Buddha-nature.  Dazhu Huihai gave us a hint when he said: This functional manifestation proceeds from the fundamental "substance" and it is by means of it that we return to that "substance".  This perfectly relates to Jōshū's "Mu" which is a function of substance which is our Buddha-nature.  It also explains our inability to discern between our true nature (Buddha-nature) and the false images of this nature since substance and its functional manifestations are non-dual like water and its waves.  Truth be told every koan, not just this one, is about function that proceeds from substance.  The goal is to realize this mysterious substance, that is, our Buddha-nature.

Encounters of a Buddhist kind

Questioner:  Do you think this empowerment was Bodhicitta?

The Zennist:  After the kalyana-mitra departed and I got back into my former habit-energy, I started to piece together this puzzle because it was still puzzling!  The thought that this was Bodhicittotpada entered my mind enough to do some research on it.  It can mean, the generation of the Mind that is Bodhi with an emphasis on its generation; its becoming manifest in a powerful way.  The Mind that is Bodhi can only be described as a kind of vital energy, but at the same time an intelligent luminosity.  It was alive.  It ran the show.  Much later I began to think of it as dynamic and animative.  Both the Sanskrit words citta and ātman also described it.  All that I knew was that I was on a path to expand this empowerment.  There was a tension between my habit-energy and the need to explore the ramifications of this empowerment.  At this stage I was like a sprout or a baby lion.  By growing in this light, it meant that I would be able to become more of it such that the conditioned side of me lost its bewitching power.

Questioner:  Were you better able to understand the many discourses of the Buddha after this?

The Zennist:  Yes.  It is as if this empowerment opened up my head—cleaned the cobwebs out of it so to speak.  The discourses that really impressed me were the Pali Nikayas and, of course, the Lankavatara Sutra.  The Nikayas helped me to simplify and crystalize the early teachings of the Buddha.  Very simply, the Buddha is teaching us that the conditioned world including our psychophysical bodies is not a refuge that we can rely on.  Only the unconditioned is.  When we see it or rather awaken to it we are in nirvana.  We see the very substance from which our world is made including our very thoughts.  In Mahayana and Zen Buddhism, many names are given to the unconditioned.  We move from being slaves of the conditioned world including the five skandhas to setting our sights on the unconditioned.  As we connect with the unconditioned the spiritual light begins to return to us again only not as strong as when we were being empowered.  It's been almost forty years since I encountered the kalyana-mitra—a lot of water has passed under the bridge.  Now I sense that I am returning to this state.  I am getting used to it, in other words.  I feel like the lost heir in the forth chapter of the Lotus Sutra who is getting closer to his father after dumping out tons of shit.  When I first met the father as in the Lotus Sutra I was awestruck.  What was going on?  I had no idea.  It reminds me somewhat of the stages of the Bodhisattva.

Questioner:  What about the people who didn't go through what you did is there no hope for them?

The Zennist:  I think what most people are hoping for is to have their cake and eat it too.  Most want to enjoy the comforts of the conditioned world and all the emotional upheavals that go along with it and still have the firm conviction that they are on the right spiritual path and need not worry.  It kind of boils down to enjoy the pleasures of the conditioned world and do zazen.  This is the same group of people who don't buy rebirth and to a lesser degree karma.  They treat Buddhism like a smorgasbord.  Take what you want and leave the rest.  But the truth of Buddhism lies in our innermost being that we can't get to in any easy way.  At the same time we don't realize how powerful we really are.  We can create positive karma that will help us to open the door to awakening.  But we also can create negative karma not caring about the inner person; with our desires set on making money, acquiring power, and exploiting others, ruthlessly.  Our world didn't get screwed up by lots of people doing good things.  It got screwed up by lots of people doing negative things believing they were doing the right things.  I have read enough history of the 20th century to know that we are slouching towards self-destruction.  It is not so much in a global sense but in an individual sense.  People are totally lost.  But a few are not.  These are the people who count most because they can change themselves, positively, making it possible for others to change and do positive things thereby creating good karma. These are the people I met with the kalyana-mitra who were smiling and joyful—not the walking dead who blinded themselves by their own deeds.  

Questioner:  Earlier you said that your empowerment with the kalyana-mitra was more of an NDE without any kind of physical injury.  What did you mean?

The Zennist:  Maybe as far as the presence of spiritual light, a sense of security and love or bliss.  I should add a sense of there being no time.  Different than a typical NDE, my experience could, to a degree, be shared with others.  It wasn't subjective in the usual sense of the word.  Even after the kalyana-mitra left, several yeas later, when the spiritual light would be manifest at odd times, it could be shared.  From this I concluded that the Buddha of old generated this light whereby some followers sensed it and others didn't.  He could easily tell those who could achieve nirvana and those who could not. 

Encounters of a Buddhist kind

Questioner:  Could you tell me some of the other strange things that happened?

The Zennist:  One I recall, vividly, was that if you spun yourself around (I did this in my backyard) the scenery was spinning around you, but you had no sensation of being connected with it.  I spun my brother and his friends that afternoon.  They were laughing and having a wonderful time.  The whole thing was paradoxical.  It was like the world was suddenly spinning around you and you were unmoved and calm.  This experience is hard to describe.  Yet it happened.  After this, I recalled the whirling dervishes and wondered if this is what they were trying to achieve.  It was also easy to control the minds of the icchantikas.  One night I recall being at Jonathan's house when his aunt was there with her husband who was in a wheelchair.  I said out loud, "You look like a monkey."  Much to my surprise she started jumping on the furniture like a monkey doing things a seventy year old woman couldn't normally do.  I could tell Jonathan didn't like what she was doing so I stopped.  Next, the kalyana-mitra decided to heal Jonathan's aunt's husband.  Within fifteen minutes the kalyana-mitra had him out of the wheelchair touching his palms to the floor.  He was sobbing profusely.  For me, looking back, this was another demonstration of habit-energy.  The kalyana-mitra was showing me that healing people with this spiritual energy without a corresponding change in their habit-energy doesn't work in the end.  By the next day he was back in the wheelchair.  He seemed to have forgotten everything. 

Questioner:  How does all this relate to Buddhism?

The Zennist:  The kalyana-mitra tried to explain it to me but I was too dumb at the time.  In other words, this empowerment was about getting me up to speed to eventually understand Buddhism in the right way.  The light around me, including the great bliss I sensed was changing me; putting me on a course whereby I would learn how to do all this, eventually, on my own.  Towards the end of this strange experience, the kalyana-mitra told me where I would be in ten years.  She said it would be in the South where trees grew much faster than in the central valley of California.  I would meet a special person and I would be using a computer named apple by which to spread Buddhism.  Almost to the day, ten years later, it happened.  I didn't get the impression that there would be some world wide event.  As I look back on that event it was more of an NDE without any kind of physical injury.  The interesting thing that I discovered when reading the Lanakvatara Sutra after this empowerment was this passage:

 “Then, Mahamati, sustained by the power of the Buddhas, the Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas at their first stage will attain the Bodhisattva-Samadhi, known as the Light of Mahayana [mahāyana-prabhāsa], which belongs to the Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas. They will immediately see the Tathagatas, Arhats, Fully-Enlightened Ones appearing before them personally, who come from all the different abodes in the ten quarters of the world and who now facing the Bodhisattvas will impart to them their sustaining power displayed with the body, mouth, and words.”

It all made sense.  There is an empowerment process that eventually takes place after one-pointedness of Mind.  What I had further to learn was the nuts and bolts of Buddhism; to see clearly and simply what the Buddhas were teaching us.  Let me say it is not easy to go from Mr. Dumb to someone who sees, clearly, what the Buddhas are teaching.  It takes years of study to finally see that this world we live in is a phenomenalization of pure Mind.  I could see, too, the perfect sense of Buddha-nature.  The Buddha was teaching that we are primordially ātman which is luminous and animative—but we can't see it.  Instead, all we see are phenomena.  Seeing only phenomena we glom onto things more and more.  It is a vicious circle as you can see.  People become so blind by clinging to phenomena such as their psychophysical bodies that they turn into icchantikas.  They have no sense or understanding of what animates them.  Not only that, they don't want to hear about it.  When the Buddha said that the psychophysical constituents (the five skandhas) are murderous what do you think happens to people who are deeply attached to their bodies?  They, too, become murderous.  Look at the 20th century.  Not only was it an age of desire but it was also an age of lies and terrorism.  Few people are awake enough to see how evil we still are.  The collective habit-energy even wants to destroy the earth.  The three poisons dominate: delusion, hostility, and concupiscence.  The bulk of mankind is evil if by evil we mean 'excessive', desiring beyond proper limits.  Yes, you can desire things.  But why three thousand pairs of shoes, in the example of Imelda Marcos, when a person can only wear one pair at a time?

Questioner:  You mentioned previously this empowerment gave you about a ten day window of opportunity to see things the way a Buddha does.  How did you lose it?

The Zennist:  It is not like a actually lost it.  It is just that my habit-energy came back.  I can remember the night the kalyana-mitra left.  I was overwhelmed with sadness.  I could again feel the heaviness and darkness of the world.  After that, I waited ten years to see if what the kalyana-mitra predicted would come true.  It did.  And yes, I have an Apple computer as predicted.  Still, this was only a beginning.  I had lots of habit-energy to get rid of which could only be jettisoned by seeing the world from the perspective of the Buddha; what I had witnessed previously.  In addition, I had to walk into the cesspit of modern Buddhism and Zen which is not an easy task since people are hooked on materialism in a big way.  Plus they are very dogmatic, if by dogmatic we mean they have an inflexible mental attitude.  I had to contend with envy, hatred, arrogance, dullness, etc.  The truly evil Buddhists were those who contended there was not an underlying essence or ātman.  They would never admit it, but they clung tenaciously to the five skandhas.  They never attacked the skandhas—no, it was the ātman or Buddha-nature they attacked.  The light of Mahayana that I had experienced they wanted to destroy. [To be continued]

Encounters of a Buddhist kind

Questioner:  I am curious about this habit-energy.  It seems to me that from what you are saying, and I am just speculating of course, that our habit-energy goes in a contrary direction to the true nature of reality.

 The Zennist:  A few years after this event I found the term in the Lankavatara Sutra.  It is "vāsanā."  D.T. Suzuki defines it as habit-energy.  Every thing we do leaves it memory seeds behind, so to speak, which are planted in what is called the ālaya for future germination.  In my own example, my particular view of the world had a habit-energy about it.  I kept maintaining it so I couldn't see much of anything else.  My earlier one-pointedness of Mind allowed me to see in a new way but when you compare this with my accumulated habit-energy it was like the illumination of a candle in a dark cavern.  I reasoned that I went through some kind of mystical process that pushed my habit-energy back sufficient for me to get a ten day view or so of the way a Buddha sees things.  This particular part of the experience taught me that, sure you can have kensho or satori, but don't forget that old habits don't die easily.  It's like a break in fog in which the sun comes out only to be blocked again by the fog.  This probably explains why Heze Shenhui said, "All those who want to learn the Tao (Way) must achieve Sudden Enlightenment to be followed by Gradual Cultivation."  Maybe off track, but this is a key difference between Buddhism and the religions of Abraham.  There is no free lunch with Buddhism.  Our actions have consequences in this life and in the next.  Sins are not forgiven.  There is no savior as much as we would like to imagine there is.   

Questioner:  If you told this to other people most would say it is subjective or you were on drugs or it was one big flashback.  What do you say to people like this?

 The Zennist:  I try to avoid people like this.  No matter what you say they are never satisfied.  It reminds me a lot of UFO sightings or encounters with beings from other worlds that some people report.  Unless it happens to the skeptic, personally, they are not going to believe it.  During this period I had other people around me who could sense this light.  One afternoon, Jonathan went to a minor league baseball game.  The kalyana-mitra had him go out on the pitcher's mound for an entire inning just standing next to the pitcher.  No one saw him!  It happened to me several times.  You just knew nobody could see you.  One time, Jonathan and I went to a martial arts event for what seemed like over a hundred people.  Jonathan, I should mention was a martial arts instructor, and very good one in fact.  As we made our way inside there was a guy sitting on a chair behind a desk wearing gongfu type clothes.  In front of him was a stack of money.  I think you had to pay five bucks or something like that to get in.  Jonathan, at the time, was over to the right of me talking with some people.  As I looked at this guy, I knew that he couldn't see me so I picked up the stack of money and brought it over to Jonathan and the people he was talking to.  Jokingly I said, "Hey, does anyone need money for the entry fee?"  Jonathan didn't know what to say.  He was half frightened and half delighted.  I put the money back.  The odd thing was that when I put the money back, the guy sitting behind the desk had not changed his position.  He had this blank stare—like he wasn't there.  While all this was happening I always sensed a powerful light—very blissful.  I felt absolutely protected.  There was no sense of fear.

Questioner:  Why do you think the pitcher didn't see Jonathan or that guy sitting behind the desk taking the entry fee didn't see you? 

The Zennist:  A lot of that went on.  When I looked at people many of them, you swore, couldn't see you while others could.  The ones who could were smiling and happy.  You could sense that they felt this bliss.  It was amazing.  The others looked like the walking dead.  They were like automatons.  Once Jonathan and I went into a restaurant full of people.  In somewhat of a playful mood. I sat down at other people's table and ate their food.  They didn't see me!  It was like the world was split into two kinds of people, the spiritually lighted and the blind.  Several years after this spiritual event I imagined that if this light came into the world (in the Lankavatara Sutra it is called the light of Mahayana) it would be weird, yet a beautiful place.  Half the people would be always blissed out and joyful while the rest would be the harmless walking dead.  Unlike the movies, they had no power.  To answer your question they were just like robots running on heavy vāsanā programming you could say lacking any ability to detect the light.  At times I felt more like a Buddhist Dante with the kalyana-mitra who was showing me the way the world looked from the perspective of awakened beings. 

Questioner:  It sounds like these walking dead are the icchantikas that you talk about in The Zennist blog.  What do you think?

The Zennist:  I have wondered about that many times when I read the Mahaparinirvana Sutra.  The condition is like someone who is photophobic, only in this particular example, the walking dead negatively react to the spiritual principle that animates their psycho-physical body.  They are at war with themselves in a very real way.  I can remember once sitting in a coffee shop with Jonathan.  Everyone in the coffee shop wasn't an icchantika.  Then this guy walks in.  He sat next to Jonathan and I.  As I looked at him the expression on his face grew angrier and angrier until finally he walked out.  He didn't even wait for his coffee.  Still others were not quite like this guy.  My friend Michael and his wife Janet turned out to be icchantikas only not angry.  One night Jonathan and I decided to visit our mutual friend Michael who was a martial arts student of Jonathan.  We rang the doorbell.  Michael answered the door.  Much to my surprise and Jonathan's he acted like a five year old kid when he saw us.  His character was much different than before my spiritual change.  It was if the kalyana-mitra had regressed him.  I didn't know what to make of it.  Then the strangest thing happened.  Not six feet appart from her husband Janet took off her blouse and bra and asked me to check her breasts for lumps.  Michael was acting like a kid all the time.  He didn't notice what was going on.  Many years later Janet got breast cancer.  Both Michael and Janet were what I would call icchantika.  Other strange things when on like this.  [To be continued]

Encounters of a Buddhist kind

Questioner:  Sometime back in 2011 you blogged about an encounter with a kalyana-mitra which means a virtuous friend.  This encounter you wrote, came seven years after your realization of one-pointedness of Mind.  You described it as being not of this world.  What did you mean by "not of this world"?

The Zennist:  That night during the summer of 1976 at my friend's dojo, I first thought my friend Bill was kidding when he said there was a deity who wanted to speak with me.  Suspecting that he was kidding, I went along with it not expecting anything.  Much to my surprise, a blissful presence entered through my heart chakra.  It was quite strong as I recall.  The next minute, whatever it was, and much to my surprise, it said to me, "Show me what you know."  At that point I went into my one-pointedness of Mind samadhi.  At that moment this presence became even stronger.  I felt that it was feminine—not male.  It was so blissful I could hardly stand up.  Bill and Jonathan, my two friends were being affected by it too, but not as much as I.  The bliss was almost overwhelming.  I thought to myself that if beings were like this all the time who would want to go to work?  Evidently, this presence had what seemed to be a personality in addition to being very wise.  In this sense I regarded it as likely a kalyana-mitra.  I learned later that I could ask it to enter me and leave.  This helped me to drive and do other things.  The bliss that the kalyana-mitra put out took some time to get used to.  Eventually, I didn't need to ask her to leave.  Communication was mainly binary consisting of yes or no.

Questioner:  Why do you think the kalyana-mitra asked, "Show me what you know"?

The Zennist:  Looking back in hindsight I think one-pointedness of Mind was like an identification card.  There had to be something in common between us.  Evidently, I tapped into something that was a higher being.  By the way, I remember asking it if it had a name.  It didn't have any use for names.  I can vaguely recall it trying to tell me that it came before names.  I mean how do you name what is before names?  With this kalyana-mitra I got the impression that it was no Jesus or savior.  As a mitra or friend, it was friendly, even humorous.

Questioner:  Have you found anything like this in the sutras?

The Zennist:  Not in the way I described it.  I seemed to be in some new kind of territory.  Looking back over these many years I have a much clearer vision of what was happening.  I was being prepared for a special kind of empowerment which, incidentally, happened a few days after my initial connection with the kalyana-mitra.  

Questioner:  What is the purpose of such an empowerment?

The Zennist:  The empowerment pushed back my habit-energy allowing enough spiritual light could enter me enabling me to see the world in its true state.  

Questioner:  How did this take place.

The Zennist:  One night Jonathan and I were blissed out with the kalyana-mitra.  Next she told me to stand up and put my arms in a special way which I did.  At this point she was dead serious.  I had no idea what was going on.  Then all of a sudden a super force entered me far stronger than the power of the kalyana-mitra.  I met it face to face with one-pointedness of Mind.  Eventually, it subsided.  Then another force stronger than the previous one entered me again.  It was all I could do to remain in one-pointedness samadhi.  I was almost overwhelmed.  Eventually that, too, subsided.  But the third energy or power was huge.  It quickly overwhelmed me.  For what seemed like a few hours I was bathed in a powerful current.  The kalyana-mitra told me not to crap out.  I had to stand for as long as it took for the energy to subside.  Eventually, it did.  Jonathan covered me with a blanket.  I had collapsed on the rug.  The next morning when I awoke I knew I wasn't in Kansas any more—you remember that line from the movie, the Wizard of Oz?  Everything was made of this mysterious blissful light.  If you looked at a tree it was blissful.  The same with the grass.  Once, the kalyana-mitra told Jonathan and I to look at the sun.  It was still the bright sun but this time the light was blissful.  You could look right into it for a long time.  My eyes didn't see it as bright.  It was a huge bliss-body, in other words.  Food, water, everything was different.  I even slept differently—hardly at all.  My sense of time seemed to disappear. [To be continued]

 

From the mind school

Besides being called "Zen School" (禪宗) other names applied as well such as "Buddha Mind School" (佛心宗), and "Mind School" (心宗).  I would have to put Zen more under the category of Mind tradition than Zen or dhyāna.  Zen is about, "illumination of Mind; seeing one's true nature" (明心見性) in contrast to no illumination (無明) or avidya.  This is a rather nice excerpt from Kalu Rinpoch's book, Luminous Mind, which for me falls under the category of the Mind School.

Mind has two faces, two facets, which are two aspects of one reality. These are enlightenment and illusion. Enlightenment is the state of pure mind. It is nondualistic knowing and is called primordial wisdom. Its experiences are authentic; that is, they are without illusion. Pure mind is free and endowed with numerous qualities.

Illusion is a state of impure mind. Its mode of knowledge is dichotomous or dualistic; it is the "conditioned consciousness." Its experiences are tainted by illusions, impure mind is conditioned and endowed with much suffering.

Ordinary beings experience this state of impure, deluded mind as their habitual state. Pure, enlightened mind is a state in which mind realizes its own nature as free of habitual conditions and suffering associated with them. This is the enlightened state of a buddha.

When our mind is in its impure, deluded state, we are ordinary beings who move through different realms of conditioned consciousness. The transmigrations of the mind within these realms make up their indefinite rounds in conditioned, cyclic existence, or the cycle of lives—samsara in Sanskrit.

When it is purified of all samsaric illusion, the mind no longer transmigrates. This is the enlightened state of a buddha, which is experience of the essential purity of our own mind, of our buddha nature. All beings, whatever they happen to be, have buddha nature. This is the reason we can all realize buddha nature. It is because we each possess buddha nature that it is possible to attain enlightenment. If we did not already have buddha nature, we would never be able to realize it.

So, the ordinary state and the enlightened state are distinguished only by the impurity or purity of mind, by the presence or absence of illusions. Our present mind already has the qualities of buddhahood; those qualities abide in mind; they are mind's pure nature. Unfortunately, our enlightened qualities are invisible to us because they are masked by different shrouds, veils, and other kinds of stains.

Going beyond the finger pointing to the moon

A kōan or in Chinese a gong'an (公案, lit. "public case") amounts to a literary device for penetrating through the conditioned world, especially, when it comes to words and concepts which act as a huge barrier when we try to see our true unconditioned nature.  The problem with koans is that more than often the cure they promise only compounds the disease.  The disease I am talking about is knowing only phenomena—not seeing the noumenon, that is, reading words with their attendant concepts, not realizing this is like a finger pointing to the moon—not the moon (noumenon).  

An improvement that shortly followed the koan was the huatou (話頭) meaning literally "word-head" which I hasten to add, has to be taken in a spiritual sense.  The huatou refers to the ultimate essence or first principle which is also our true nature (pure Mind, unconditioned Mind, etc.).  It is beyond (頭) words (話).  This, in a way means also, beyond the finger pointing to the moon.

There are many huatous such as, "If all things are reducible to the One what is the One reducible to?" "Who moves this body around?" "What were you before you were born?" Who repeats the Buddha's name?" "What moves my hands and feet?" "What is beyond birth and death?" "Who says I?" 

Each and every question—in fact, each thought in our noggin, comes from a mysterious source and disappears back into that same mysterious source from which it arose.  If these questions are like ripples of water on the Buddha's clear pond then they come from the water, itself, and return to it.  Before the ripples is the hua (頭), the unmoved, un-rippled pure water.  All of the huatous just mentioned demands that we connect directly with this unborn self, this pure Mind.

We can also think of the huatou in regard to our Buddha-nature.  What is it?  Is this nature beyond conceptualization?  If so, where is it right now in our mind?  If this Buddha-nature is empty of all characteristics, removing all of characteristics from our mind, can we see it right now and if not, why not?  What we seem always to fail to see is that, primordially, we are this nature.  Having said that, our real problem is that we have no idea what this nature looks like try as we might.  Because of this ignorance we latch on to the conditioned being carried away by samsara.  With the huatou we are being asked to identify our true nature, exactly, to come face to face with it.  If we are lucky we have a teacher and fellow students who are pushing us, making sure we are working on our huatou, not wasting our time.  The old teacher might ask us, "When you sit in zazen, who is breathing?  Who draws in the breath? Who exhales? I want you to find this fellow."

A marginalized Zen

If I haven't mentioned it before, mysticism is not that popular of a term these days; nor is Zen thought by many to be mystical.  Mysticism has been sufficiently marginalized so that it doesn't much appear in the popular press.  In Western books on Zen, the term is infrequently used.  This might be for the reason that Zen is generally associated with meditation practice in which the physical act of sitting is thought to be sufficient.  Sitting in meditation solves all problems, in other words.  Such a view, however, is false.  This crude assessment generally relies on avoiding any cogent definition of mysticism along with not studying the teachings of the Buddha and Zen masters.

If we look at W.T. Stace's definition of mysticism, who is regarded as one of the main pioneers of the philosophical study of mysticism, we can begin to see in what way we are left with no choice but to conclude that Zen is an Asian form of mysticism.  Stace writes:

"The most important, the central characteristic in which all fully developed mystical experiences agree, and which in the last analysis is definitive of them and serves to mark them off from other kinds of experiences, is that they involve the apprehension of an ultimate nonsensuous unity in all things, a oneness or a One to which neither the senses nor the reason can penetrate. In other words, it entirely transcends our sensory-intellectual consciousness" (Mysticism and Philosophy, p. 16).

An early Dhyāna (Zen) master Sengcan, who followed Huike; who became a Chinese patriarch after Huike, waxed mystical when he was recorded to have said:

There is only the vast depths of the One Reality. Ah, for the profuse diversity of the myriad forms. True and conventional differ, but their essential body is the same. Ordinary and sage are divided, but the Path joins them. If we look for a shore, it is vast and boundless, stretching out of sight to infinity. It takes its source in the beginningless reaches its limits in the endless. This runs through both liberation and delusion alike: both defiled and pure are fused in this. It includes emptiness and existence with perception still: it embraces space and time with pervasive sameness. It is like the pure gold that is not apart from the rings [made of it]. It is like a mass of water that does not fear surface ripples" (Cleary, Zen Dawn).

From the standpoint of the One Reality, which is vast and profound, all differences disappear.  This reality is the very substance of the cosmos, its presence being closer than we are to our physical body of birth and death.  Again, Sengcan said:

In the universal principle, the great thousandfold universe abides in a tiny atom without constraint, and there is room for the great length of the three times to be encompassed in a single moment.  If you see the immensity yourself, you can see through a golden wall without being blocked; you can pass through a stone cliff without experience obstruction.  This is how saintly people attain the universal principle and practice accomplishment" (Sam van Schaik, Tibetan Zen, pp. 94–95).

Later Zen master Huangbo will talk about the One Mind (S., ekacitta) and just like Sangcan will teach that all Buddhas and all sentient beings are not different from the One Mind and that,

In this One Mind there is neither arising nor ceasing, no name or form, no long or short, no large or small, and neither existence nor non-existence. It transcends all limitations of name, word and relativity, and it is as boundless as the great void. 

There is hardly a Zen master in the past who doesn't speak of the transcendent, which I hasten to add, comes with many different names and poetic images.  Still, to awaken to it is profound and mystical which goes beyond names and concepts.  One might publish a rather large book with all the mystical words of the Zen masters which might be beneficial to those starting out in Zen to help them get properly oriented.  But for most, I am still under the impression that their particular interpretation of Zen doesn't want or need the mystical side of Zen in the example of Soto Zennist Brad Warner and his followers.  Those in Soto Zen today may not want to listen to Zen master Koun Ejō who is considered Dōgen's spiritual successor.  Speaking mystically he said:

The so-called treasury of light is the root source of all Buddhas, the inherent being of all living creatures, the total substance of all phenomena, the treasury of the great light of spiritual powers of complete awareness.  The three bodies, four knowledges, and states of absorption numerous as atoms in every aspect of reality, all appear from within this" (Cleary, Minding Mind, p. 53—by the way, Thomas Cleary's book, Minding Mind: A Course in Basic Meditation, should be in your library).

I could go on and on plopping down mystical passages to make my rather solid case that Zen is an Asian form of mysticism and a rather important one to study.  Those who disagree are little more than pious Zen frauds who are following Mara the evil one; imagining they are helping Zen to grow but are actually destroying it.