A good question is with what do we attain kensho (i.e., seeing our true nature). Is it through the instrument of our senses, which are limited, or is it through the intellect or some other means? At this point we could say that any means we employ will not give us kensho. The means we employ will only alter our true nature.
The difficulty of answering this question lies in what is between our as yet unrealized true nature and its direct realization.
Rather than Zen involving cognition or just physical meditation, in past blogs I have put forth “intuition” as the means, which I emphasize, is not an actual means. You could say that intuition is more of a process of getting rid of all instruments or means, including cognition, that stands in between our unrealized true nature and its direct realization.
For Zen master Sixin Wuxin (1044-1115) intuition or dhyana is the abandonment of the workings of natural or phenomenal consciousness (karma-vijnana) which for the Zen adept is also a path of doubt since the adept has to rid himself of all of his opinions and prejudices about actual kensho.
One could even say that such abandonment is a kind of internal skepticism—more of a path of despair—directed against our very own natural consciousness which includes the entire cognition of its contents. Only then are we on the right path, you might say, fully competent to behold our true nature cutting out the middleman (our natural consciousness) which has stood between our as yet unrealized true nature and its direct realization.
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