The Zennist

Meeting the Buddha for the first time

Let’s imagine that today you are meeting the real Buddha for the first time in some temple in the mountains.  You are looking at your notes one last time; you have your questions rehearsed.  It’s time to get into the car.  Several hours later you make it to the temple.  It’s still morning.  Everything is beautiful outside of the temple.  You’re quite nervous but still manage to relax.

The moment has arrived when you get to meet this Buddha.  Finally, all your questions will be answered to your satisfaction.  This is a dream come true for you.  But all that transpires is seeing the Buddha sit looking at you.  Pleasantries are exchanged, of course, but that is all.  The Buddha just sits there and now you begin to feel awkward.  Then you interrupt the silence to ask your first question, “What is enlightenment?”  Still the Buddha doesn’t say a word.  He just sits there.

So what is really going on?  It’s simple.  The Buddha is radiating what could be described as the light of Mahayana mentioned in the Lankavatara Sutra or if you prefer he is radiating clear light Mind.  But here is the rub.  You sense absolutely nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada. Why?  Because you are spiritually blind that’s why.  You are only connected with your conditioned psychophysical body and the temporal order—that’s it.  Your questions and what you believe Buddhism to be have nothing to do with what the Buddha is radiating (which you don’t sense).  But more importantly,  what he is radiating is the teaching!  He can’t help but radiate this mysterious light.  He is like the sun in the sky shining on all things.

After you’ve seen the Buddha, the head monk says to you, “When I first met the Buddha I was so blissed out I could only bow.  It was amazing.  It is still that way every time I come near him.  More and more I am learning about it.”  You don’t know what to say to the head monk because you sensed nothing.  The head monk could be pulling your leg for all you know.

Everything in the teachings of the Buddha is designed to get you to understand this light from its own side which you converge with during awakening — the Mind to Mind transmission which is spoken about in Zen.  In fact, when the Buddha held up a flower and blinked whereupon Kashyapa smiled, both their actions were only a manifestation of this light in the same way that smoke tells us there is fire somewhere.  Both were fully one with the light.  According to the Avatamsaka Sutra:  Manifesting spiritual power while among the masses, he [the Buddha] radiates light to make them wake up, revealing the realm of the enlightened.

 

The conceit of I am

I read somewhere that the narcissist is someone who has lost their sense of self in which this loss is filled by a false self.  This reminds me of Hollywood types who spend great sums of money trying to keep their false self from suffering any injury such as aging.  The false self also has an ego who makes sure the false self is well taken care of.  Keep in mind that Freud’s ego stands for reason and circumspection.  It’s not to be confused with the “id” which it often is.

As we can see, there is no hope for the false self or even the ego who takes care of the false self—its servant.  The sense of self (our true self) is hidden under a mountain of obstructions as if it were non-existent.  The future for this kind of narcissist is not good insofar as what they are trying to maintain is a complete fiction while at the same time need fans, that is, people who look up to them being almost codependent.

In Buddhism, the narcissist is tied to the conceit of I am (asmimāna) this being the psychophysical aggregates made up of corporeality, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.  In the Majjhima-Nikaya we read:

“As they do so, they give up the conceit ‘I am’ (asmimāno) regarding the five grasping aggregates. In that case, they understand: ‘I have given up the conceit “I am” regarding the five grasping aggregates.’ In this way they are aware of the situation.” (M. iii. 115).

What leads to this powerful conceit and wrong identification?  It is attachment to what is false and illusory out of ignorance (avidya).  Since our birth, we have been deceived by appearances, especially, by the very body that we presently inhabit which we believe to be ours (in Near Death Experiences [NDEs] people leave the corporeal body.  They notice no difference except the lack of a dense corporeal body which they might see on the floor or on a surgical table.  They feel quite normal, in fact.  Some don’t even know that they’ve died).

Normal, everyday narcissism is really more about wearing a persona, a socially constructed “mask” through which one interacts with others.  The sense of self is not lost.  In fact, an individual may seek out a religious path such a Buddhism believing that the self or Buddha-nature is greater than the sum of the mask and its temporal life.  This person is not a narcissist like our Hollywood actors where the mask is far more elaborate and the sense of an authentic self is almost lost.

It is with the building up of the mask and the subsequent loss of the sense of self that nihilism comes to be and much, also, that is deceptive and immoral due to a lack of empathy.  By another name, this is malignant narcissism.  Such individuals have been participating in a long process of destroying the higher self (nātha) by living only for the mask and its benefits.  For what it means to be human is to be in Nietzsche’s words , “a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss.”  The malignant narcissist rejects the overman for the life of the beast.

Different Buddhisms that are wrong

Short of the actual intuition of one’s true nature which is sudden, which happens to be the goal of Zen Buddhism, there still are, and have been in the past, those in Buddhism who have interpreted Buddhism differently. 

Mentioned in the last blog, one might follow Zen master Dahui’s war against Caodong’s quietism or Silent Illumination Chan 默照禪  which was subsequently taken up by Dōgen which he turned into Japanese Sōtō Zen,  a Zen that doesn’t accept the idea of intuiting or seeing one’s true nature, i.e., kenshō.  Dogen sadly never understood what Siddhartha realized under the Bodhi Tree, and the purpose of Bodhidharma's mission to China, including the basis of all koans.

Some other Buddhist traditions have argued that ultimate truth is necessarily a mere absence.  This was the standpoint of the Sautrāntika in which nirvana was considered to be unreal or the absence of passions and even a kind of non-existence (abhāva) being the total absence of every thing.

Turning to Tibetan Buddhism, Tsongkhapa consistently argued that the ultimate truth or reality is necessarily a mere absence.  To be more concise, ultimate truth is the absence of inherent existence.  No matter how far and deep the adept looks within they will find no inherent existence in things—call it a state of non-findingness.  This means that things or dharmā exist in a conventional way only.  Everything for us is dependently arisen there being no such thing as an inherent existence or even an unconditioned nature or even nirvana.  You might almost say that it is absence or conventional existence all the way down!

But then such theories shut out Buddha-nature which is an underlying ontological reality, totally without thingness or appearance and certainly unconditioned.  Buddha-nature, as a pure, dynamic essence, abides in all living beings who suffer in the world of samsara.  Buddha-nature is certainly more than mere absence or quietude attained by crosslegged sitting ramrod straight on a cushion. 

I see Buddha-nature not as something new which has been added to Buddhism but more of a necessary correction by which to reestablish traditional Buddhism which  was more than just telling everyone that there is only impermanence, suffering and insubstantiality. In other words, learn to enjoy your doom 'cause you can't escape it.

What for me made the Buddha’s teaching so powerful was his teaching that within each of us is a spiritual germ that can be conceived by us—call it an immaculate conception.  It is a direct intuition by which we give birth to a Buddha body that we eventually transform into which is free from the travails of samsara.

In my own life, trying to see what Siddhartha saw, I intuited something beyond this world—unbelievable by today's values.  Still it happened.  I cannot change that.  And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we all have the Buddha-nature.  It is not an absence, or empty as in nothing. It is ultimate reality whereas this world of ours is not real in comparison with it.  Another name for our world is samsara.  It both deceives us and is illusory.  It is not our refuge.  Cling to this world at your own peril.

Selling seated meditation ignoring kenshō

Zen master Dahui (1089–1163) fought against the pernicious view that began to grow in the Zen of his time called silent illumination which involved just sitting crosslegged keeping the back ramrod straight as if posture alone had some kind of magical power.  Dahui considered silent illumination to be heretical insofar as its goal amounted to quietism in which the adept tries to become empty and still.  For these quietists, this was enlightenment. 

Those who defended this kind of Zen believed that enlightenment or bodhi was only a conceptual construct.  For this type of Zennist, realistically, what could be achieved was the condition of quietude which could be learned by almost anyone.  It just required the daily practice of sitting still for long periods of time. 

Such Zen is represented, today, by the Japanese Sōtō tradition which originally was developed in China and known as the Caodong tradition. This Zen was more of a response, if not a counter to traditional Zen and the hard work required of actually trying to realize one’s true nature which comes in a flash of intuition.

Zen master Dahui's efforts to maintain traditional Zen in the face of this new, popular approach to Zen which was largely quietist, proved difficult.  The quietist tradition of just sitting has, over the years, made Zen’s traditional four slogans seem like a useless relic of the past.

教外別傳 Kyōge betsuden

A special transmission outside the teaching;

不立文字 Furyū monji

Do not depend upon written words;

直指人心 Jikishi ninshin

Directly point to the human mind;

見性成佛 Kenshō jōbutsu

Intuit your nature and become Buddha.

A person who takes up the study of Zen should at least understand that Zen is supposed to culminate in sudden enlightenment.  Only then is Zen’s mysterious secret revealed which tells the adept what exactly was transmitted by the Buddha and, subsequently, to others in a long line.

Zen, presently, seems to be already on its last leg.  It has spent too many years selling seated meditation ignoring the fourth slogan, kenshō 見性 upon which the Mind to Mind transmission is based.

Zen is more than words and gestures

Words and gestures are not the secret of Zen anymore than the forefinger is the moon above or smoke is fire.  For Zen master Dahui, Zennists who take up koans suffer from a disease of the intellect (the Chinese literati 士大夫 suffered from this in spades).  For such people as these, they believed that the koan is self-contained, that is, the answer lies within the words (their ingenuity will solve the koan they believed!).  Also, maybe there are different interpretations and not just one (not on your life).

The source, or maybe I should say the secret of Zen, is not dependent on the koan.  In fact, it could not care less about koans.  It’s better to first penetrate beyond birth and death realizing Zen’s secret so as to attain liberation, than waste your time trying to solve koans.  In the fifty-fourth case of the Blue Cliff Record titled, Extending Both Hands, 

Unmon asked a monk, "Where have you come from?" The monk said, "From Saizen." Unmon said, "What words does Saizen say lately?" The monk stretched out his arms. Unmon slapped him. The monk said, "I have something to say about it." Unmon then stretched out his own arms. The monk remained silent. Then Unmon hit him. 

This seems to be all words and gestures as you can easily recognize.  Are you awakened—do you know Zen’s deep secret now?  I doubt it.  What do these words and gestures allude to?  Is the answer more words, more gestures?  That’s right, you nailed it, they all allude to the secret of Zen that no Zen master or even the old Buddha himself ever revealed and never will.

But now let’s imagine that I waved my staff over your heads and you all had the eyes of the Buddha.  Looking at the koans you would grin like the Cheshire Cat.  There it is!  The secret of Zen.  How skillful the old master played.  Why that old fart knew exactly what he was doing.  But these poor monks and nuns will never intuit the secret in a lifetime I bet.

Old Unmon sat there on his chair. The radiant Mind extended around him in all directions.  Did anyone pick this up when they first saw him?  I mean you could cut it with a knife it was so thick and blissful.  And still the monks and nuns didn’t notice it.  They only visited to play with words and gestures.  No wonder Zen eventually declined in China!

Our island of reality is not real.

When we become interested in Zen it is through the prism of our culture.  This includes our language and ideas that we use to try and get a working impression of Zen.  Each culture offers, let’s say, different colors from that prism’s spectrum.  But not one goes back to the original clear light before it enters the prism.  This includes the very universe itself.

Before I forget, I used the word ‘prism’ in a metaphorical sense to refer to the conversion of the original one into many.

To repeat myself somewhat, the source of our cultural reality in which I include the universe is something closed off to us.  We don't have the Buddha eyes to see the clear light before it goes through the prism.  Only a precious few manage to see what the Buddha saw.  The problem that we face in Zen is how to switch back to the original one (it is also called the One Mind) before it is conditioned by the prism.

The Buddha and the Zen masters try to teach us that our human reality is not real (it is only relatively real).  In fact, a strong case in some scientific circles is developing against reality (Dr. Donald Hoffman).  It only seems as if everything around us is real.  As mere humans this means that we are imperfect representations of the original one just like all the rest of the creatures on this planet who are also imperfect representations.  Still, we do not behold the one reality directly. We have no direct intuition of it yet.  But this is what Zen wants to teach us as impossible as this sounds. 

Unfortunately, the Zen practiced today seems almost incapable of accomplishing this task.  Looking through the prism of our culture we have swung too far to the left hemisphere of the brain (I mentioned this in a previous blog).  Our intuitional abilities that are necessary for Zen are rapidly declining—we can't see the forest for the trees anymore (understand koans).  And what we deem and defend to be real is not really real at all.  We imagine to have found an island of reality in this world.  But we are deceived.  We have found no such thing.  Again, the Buddha and the Zen masters are trying to teach us that our human reality is not real; at least not the way we imagine it to be.  Again, the only reality is the original one.

Zen in one tenth of a second

In the study and practice of Zen, one tenth of a second is plenty of time to see something extraordinarily profound—something that you’ve never seen before and maybe even thought it was impossible to realize.  In Zen this is seeing our own true nature or in Japanese kenshō 見性. It is the only way that you can become awakened or a Buddha according to the legendary wall-contemplating 壁觀 Bodhidharma.

Researchers have found that it takes about 1/10 of a second or about 100 milliseconds to judge the human face as to its attractiveness and likability, for example, or even its aggressiveness.  This is very important because, in my own example, that is about how long it took to recognize pure Mind after years of trying to see it and failing. 

If a serious student of Zen has been searching for their true nature, which is the same as pure Mind, we might expect that they have also gone through the preliminary trouble learning what pure Mind is not.  Over time, all their presuppositions get dumped by the wayside.  

Hopefully, in their endeavor, the negative begins to turn towards the positive as if really trying to see it but knowing, at the same time, they still fall short.  Overtime, the student still hopes to discover this pristine state, personally, which is somehow mysteriously embedded within them. 

This search could last for five or maybe even twenty years which, mainly, consists of looking for clues as to what this spiritual mind might be like, which involves a lot of reading and thought including a lot of disappointments.

For the serious Zen student, at times, it almost seems like they are on a wild goose chase.  Maybe it is all a big joke.  Surprisingly, for many students of Zen this thought has come across their minds several times.  For those Zennists who have concluded that Zen is some kind of spiritual joke to teach people to accept this world they live in and one day will die in as the true world means that they have failed Zen, miserably.

Such people are little more than what the Buddha called them a long time ago, namely, a pṛthagjana which can mean a fool or in general, worldlings.  This is only to suggest that when one takes up the study of Zen they must have great faith and great courage to support their faith.  For without such, no kenshō will come in a tenth of a second, a point at which one sees the true nature of reality in contrast with the illusory world of birth and death that seems so real.

Zen chat rooms and seated meditation, a waste of time?

Discussing Zen on chat room forums, generally speaking, is a waste of time.  Joining a Zen center is a little better but if the main part of the teaching is centered on seated meditation it has to be kept in mind that sitting will not improve intuition which is what Zen is all about, especially, when it comes to koans.

What both chat room discussions and the practice of seated meditation seem to have in common is that both ignore the role of intuition.  Furthermore, not all people who are interested in Buddhism or Zen have the capacity for intuition.

The English word “intuition” comes from Latin word, intueri which means to look at, gaze, pay attention to, consider, contemplate.  According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, intuition is described as “the act or process of coming to direct knowledge or certainty without reasoning or inferring; immediate cognizance or conviction without rational thought.”  This is nothing less than direct knowledge.  Intuition, you could say, leaps over reasoning and inferring.  Almost instantly the adept sees what the Buddha saw. 

Historically, the Buddha’s practice of dhyāna came from the ancient Indian tradition of contemplation.  This tradition can be thought of as a process of introspection whereby one abandons mental scattering and turbulence leading to direct intuition of the absolute.

Dhyāna for Buddhism and Zen, if it is successful, is the sudden removal of what has always hindered the adept’s ability to see, face-to-face, pure Mind or Buddha-nature before mentation is aroused.  This is intuition at its best.

This kind of intuition comes after many years of getting one’s spiritual ducks in a row which means that the adept has been studying for many years, with an open mind, hoping to have direct intuition of the absolute.  When it finally comes after much struggle, it is totally unexpected and brief.  It is almost like it found the adept when the adept was in the right frame of mind for it to enter, as weird as that explanation sounds.  It is the Buddha’s kill shot that brings the adept back to life!

Personally realizing the secret of Zen

I have been working on trying to put a book together.  It is not easy to do because the sense of the book is for someone who decides to get serious about realizing the secret of Zen this being also the title.  I am writing it in the second person, using the pronoun “you,” which gives it a more personal sense.  Here is an example.

Today’s Zen institutions have either consciously or unconsciously decided to adapt to the ways of the world so that Zen is supposed to teach you how to get along with people that you either don’t like very much such as a co-worker, or people you dislike for no apparent reason.  They just irritate you.  Zen is also supposed to help you handle your everyday tensions and problems including anger and depression.  Also, Zen is supposed to help you stop your addictions such as smoking or substance abuse. 

Do you see what is happening?  To be frank with you, none of this is what Zen is supposed to do!  You’re supposed to have all your ducks in a row before you undertake the upward climb of Zen's path.  Zen requires a person who is hardy, yet humble and open to radical change—not some crybaby who can’t let go of their toys.  Yes, it’s typical to want some help if you have mental problems.  But in Zen, it’s different.  You are pretty much on your own.  It is assumed that you are a mature person.  Think about it, it’s your responsibility—not your teacher’s—to raise yourself up by your own bootstraps.  Without a love for this arduous, mysterious path of Zen you will eventually falter.  Wanting to learn the secret of Zen should be foremost on your mind.  Everything else is secondary.

This is unedited but it gives you an idea of what I am trying to get across.  I want to be frank with the reader.  The journey will not be easy.  The adept, as I write, will be put eventually between a rock and a hard place.  They will eventually come to their wits’ end in what Zen master Dahui called “great doubt.”  This is a serious spiritual crisis since everything the adept used in the past to realize the secret of Zen has utterly failed.

The good news is I have personally done all this and much more.  Let me tell you this, it is one fucking adventure like no other. The reader just needs faith and the courage to stay on the path. 

The usurpers of traditional Zen

Just recently I have been reading Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world.  It is a captivating book for the reason that it hints at what could possibly be the problem with our inability to understand where the Zen koan and much of Zen is coming from.  I include kenshō which is certainly a mystical realization closer to the notion of intuition.  As for the author’s thesis, who is a psychiatrist, he writes:

“My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognisably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain.  It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture” (p. 3).

For many years (too many to remember!) I have suspected that both Buddhism and, in particular, Zen have been hijacked by people who lack the spiritual intelligence necessary to understand Buddhism and  Zen. 

By reading McGilchrist’s book my suspicions had at last found some scientific basis.  While it is true that we are bihemispheric it is not true that both the left and right hemisphere are in constant harmony.  If anything, Western culture favors the left hemisphere of the brain rather than the right.  This lateralizing to the left hemisphere is not without its problems for both Buddhism and Zen.  In fact, I would argue that having a strong bias for the left hemisphere makes it next to impossible to understand where Buddhism and Zen are coming from.  This bias towards the left also invites countless heated arguments (and much hatred, hatred being an emotion of the left hemisphere). 

The title of the book really boils down to a special kind of coup.  The master who represents the right hemisphere is going to be eventually betrayed by the emissary who represents the left hemisphere.  McGilchrist observes:

“He saw his master’s temperance and forbearance as weakness, not wisdom, and on his missions on his master’s behalf, adopted his mantle as his own — the emissary became contemptuous of his master. And so it came about that the master was usurped, the people were duped, the domain became a tyranny; and eventually it collapsed in ruins” (p. 14).

This book proves to be a treasure trove for me as I examine the left and the right hemispheres.  The left has little or no regard for the right hemisphere which is certainly mystical and intuitive; who also has the vision and leads the way.  The left hemisphere sees,

“the workings of the right hemisphere as purely incompatible, antagonistic, as a threat to its dominion — the emissary perceiving the Master to be a tyrant. This is an inevitable consequence of the fact that the left hemisphere can support only a mechanistic view of the world. . .” (p. 206).

The left hemisphere is tied to and limited by language.  It can’t see the big picture.  While it has focused attention, it prefers to examine bits and pieces so that it has a problem with context.  The right hemisphere, on the other hand, sees the forest for the trees including context whereas the left deconstructs.  The left hemisphere breaks the context down into parts then it reconstructs the parts into something different from the original.

“It is the right hemisphere which processes the non-literal aspects of language, of which more later. This is why the left hemisphere is not good at understanding the higher level meaning of utterances such as ‘it’s a bit hot in here today’ (while the right hemisphere understands ‘please open the window’,  the left hemisphere assumes that is just helpful supply of meteorological data)” (p. 49).

In both Buddhism and Zen those who lean to the left hemisphere have little or no idea of the real context, much less how to realize their Buddha-nature.  They are constantly trying to dislodge the teaching from its original context and re-present it in a way they want it to be; that fits with the modern left hemisphere education.