The Zennist

What hides pure Mind?

Most who take up Zen read more into it than is really there or the same, they read into Zen what is not there.  To that extent Zen is their fantasy.  But when I read books on Zen back in 1965, to be honest I couldn’t understand any of it. Yet for some odd reason it aroused my curiosity.  I sensed that  it was alluding to something profound.  The Zen masters that I read, it was obvious to me, were alluding to something—a secret of sorts—that I was not privy to but could be if I was willing to make the effort.

First it is necessary to understand that Zen is hiding something profound, yes, a secret.  And as we delve more into Zen’s literature, we learn that what hides Zen’s secret or its essence is thought which is the activity or process of thinking.  And on the path of Zen it is not easy to stop thought in fact we learn that it is next to impossible to reach what Zen calls “no-thought” or wuxin.

Put another way, Zen hides a spiritual secret that is outside the grasp of our human intellect which tries to think its way to some kind of adequate interpretation of what Zen means.  But in so doing the intellect misses Zen altogether.  Zen’s path doesn’t use the intellect so much as it relies on intuition of no-thought.  This is a personal event whereby the adept sees the stuff from which thoughts, so to speak, are composed.  We might label this as pure Mind 浄心.

This is not easy to do, but beginners believe that it is.  This is the foolishness and also the arrogance of beginners who really haven't a clue as what no-thought involves as well as the attainment of pure Mind.  It is hard for them to see that thought is a defilement when it comes to pure Mind.  Often they well ask, "What kind of thought?"  The answer of course is easy.  It's all thought.

Doing meditation in a cave or an adit

I recently read that even to this day visitors still go to Songshan (Mt. Song) to visit the mythical cave of Bodhidharma where he sat in meditation, it is said, for nine years.  This reminded me of the adit where I sat in meditation. 

Bodhidharma’s cave went back some twenty-three feet.  The adit where I did seated meditation went back forty-three feet.  The adit was cool in the summer and stayed comfortable in the winter.  At the end of the adit I put up a small, crude Buddhist shrine.  I spent many years using the adit as my zendō especially during the summer when it was hot.

Meditating in a cave like Bodhidharma’s or like the adit I meditated in, has obvious advantages over sitting in a zendō with a group of people in which the stillness is more or less forced being mixed with a silent tension.  In the Buddha’s time meditation was a solitary practice which also included walking.

The general idea of meditation is to still one’s thoughts or mental activity because it is our thoughts which hide pure Mind or the same, our Buddha-nature.  Sitting in a cave or an adit helps to do this because of the deep silence which has a powerful effect.  This kind of silence almost acts like a noise vacuum cleaner sucking all the chatter and tension out of your headspace.  The silence of the adit, over time, begins to have a huge effect on your inner being.  You really know what it is like to be still.

Meditation like this will not cause the sudden stopping of thought or wuxin 無心 that happens when you are completely emptied out of your presuppositions about pure Mind this being Zen master Dahui’s “great doubt.”  But it does help.  As a matter of direct experience it shows you that, internally, you are a buzzing mental beehive although you may believe otherwise.  It also teaches you how to still yourself because you have had the personal experience of what it means to be still, which is far different than sitting in a zendō with a group of people.

The luminous Mind

In Buddhism, when the Mind in the absolute sense is free of defilements it is said to be luminous (prabhāsa) in the sense of being ‘radiant like’ whereas before there was only thought (the process or activity of thinking) which is a defilement since it acts to hide Mind, making it seem absent.

With kenshō there is always a luminous state that comes with it which is verification of having awakened, if not also a kind of anointing (abhiṣeka).  It is not discussed that much in the literature, if at all, because Zen masters who have had kenshō understand that some students will imagine that they have experienced it.

But the worst part of bringing up the subject of the luminous or prabhāsa is that in reading Buddhism the reader will treat it as a literary artifact.  It is not.  This is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak, the aryan from the an-aryan. 

As strange as it sounds when two awakened people who have been anointed by the luminous meet, each senses the other’s prabhāsa.  This is how a realZen master or Lama knows who is still a garden variety snake and who is a real dragon.  The idea that there is some kind of external, secondary verification process is almost ludicrous because what is to be verified is the luminous Mind which is primary and self-verifying.  This is what the Mind to Mind transmission means.  With kenshō also comes the anointing or abhiṣeka.  And I dare say that this is only the beginning. 

What comes later is mahāyana-prabhāsa, that is the light of the Mahayana.  This is when the Tathagatas appear before the student imparting into him their sustaining power.  This is a very accurate description (you can read about it in the Lankavatara Sutra). During the empowerment the adept’s own prabhāsa and the Tathagata’s prabhāsa meet.  A huge amount of prabhāsa enters the student which is the Tathagata’s.  From this empowerment the student’s future is set.  The Tathagatas then leave in a week or two and the student returns to normal who now has to learn the ways of a Tathagata.  Sound crazy?  Trust me it’s not.  Buddhism is quite amazing.

Allowing ideology to creep into Zen

I have been around westernized Zen since ’65.  There have been changes in this Zen.  One example, there are a lot more translations of Zen texts and many more academic papers on various aspects of Zen such as koans.  That is good.  But then there are not so good changes in which the core principles of Zen are dying out.  Zen centers and those who staff them have, over the years, allowed ideology to creep into Zen in the form of postmodernism.  This  certainly acts to overshadow the religious character of Zen which teaches Zen students how to find their true nature by means of intuition which, incidentally, takes a great deal of effort and commitment.

As a consequence, these Zen centers over the years have also turned into something like an outpatient clinic for those suffering from the negative symptoms of postmodernism, postmodernism amounting to an updated version of skepticism, and all this implies, which sets out to destabilize anything it can get its hands on without setting up a positive theory of its own.  This also includes the destabilization of even one's self-identity in which people become aimless and unhappy most of the time finding little or no meaning in their lives.  If postmodernism were a flag it would consist of three colors representing materialism, nihilism and ideology.

Because of postmodernism, authentic Zen is nowhere to be found in a Zen center these days.  In the meantime, westerners are of the opinion that Zen is non-religious, doesn’t require much commitment or effort except to sit in meditation once in a while expecting, over time, to become happier as a result.  

Even for those who decide to become Zen priests, they don’t often speak of kenshō or satori, if at all, because it’s something they haven’t attained.  Still they like to spread the mystique of Zen which then becomes something closer to the absurd insofar as what is taught by them is more confusing than insightful.

Resolving the puzzlement of Zen

Zen is not an interaction between a teacher and a student that is supposed to resolve the puzzlement of the student when it comes to things like koans or the strange gestures of enlightened beings as when the cook Weishan shook the door panel three times to demonstrate his Buddha wisdom. 

It’s simply a fact in Zen that the strange puzzlement about what Zen is really pointing to has to be personally resolved within the student.  As the Zen literature shows us, the student suddenly awakens to a reality completely different from the one he or she is used to being a part of. 

In this Zen environ, the teacher is only guiding the student to the student’s own inner world where words and concepts have their termination.  One cannot, in a conventional sense, go any further. Nevertheless, there is still more.  This is entry into Zen’s world. The teacher is helping the student to see the challenge they really face as regards Zen.

What goes on between the student’s ears is a world of thoughts which they have taken for granted.  The thoughts are always there but they are also always changing—never the same.  The student has to be taught by the teacher that the awareness of their own mental activity is the unawakened condition.  In other words, the student has never been aware of a sudden break with thought—a sudden and absolute halt if you like—in which even awareness itself disappears so that what is left is what in some circles of Buddhism is called the One Mind or the luminous Mind.

In this Mind there is no subject and object, no observer and observed, no awareness of other, and so on.  The two have returned, suddenly, to the original one which is indescribable and transcendent in every respect.  You can’t even get behind it.

The second and different reality

The awakening of Siddhartha whereby he became a Buddha, meaning one who is awakened, carries with it the suggestion of not only awaking from the dream of samsara but also awakening to a new reality that was not there before or seemed not to be there.  Just what this new reality was that Siddhartha came to realize, only a Buddha knows.  The rest of us can only speculate, trying to pull his awakening down into something we already know.  The more honest among us can only say that Siddhartha awakened to ultimate reality which is beyond the knowledge of mortals.  Schopenhauer offered perhaps one the best views for such an awakening.

“When we wake up from a dream that vividly affects us, it is not so much its disappearance (which convinces us of its emptiness) as the discovery of a second reality which lays concealed under that (of the dream) so deeply stirring us, and which now emerges.  We really all have a lasting divination or presentiment that also under this reality in which we live and are there lies hidden a second and different reality.  It is the thing-in-itself, the ΰπαρ (reality proper) to this όυαρ (the present life’s dream).”

For us, our present reality is treated as if it were the supreme standard by which to judge all other possible realities.  Few act towards it as if it were a dream  We catch a glimpse of what it means to question our supreme standard of reality when we look at NDEs (Near Death Experiences).  These experiences are still treated with some degree of skepticism by big science which is always trying to defend materialism, especially, that consciousness and what we are as humans is brain produced.  NDEs are a major problem for a materialist culture since they indicate the probability of postmortem survival.

Schopenhauer’s “second reality” is what, not only, the Buddha is teaching ,which is implicit in this doctrine to anyone with an open mind, but it is also what Zen’s kenshō is about.  The discovery of this reality is quite astonishing to say the least.  In fact words totally fail.  They are like throwing eggs at a steel door to force it open!

Zen is not about sitting it's about intuition

It is true that there has always been a close association between Chan/Zen 禪 and meditation (whatever that term means in Zen's context).  But is the original term dhyāna, which the words Chan/Zen are meant to represent, just an exercise in crosslegged sitting that appears in most Buddhist traditions translated as meditation?  Why should the physical posture matter?  Truth be told, it shouldn’t matter. 

In looking through Soothill and Hodous’ Dictionary of Chinese and Buddhist terms they have decided that Zen 禪 is an “intuitive School” which means that they also see dhyāna as intuition, not as crosslegged sitting.

The term “intuition” is used many times in the Dictionary of Chinese and Buddhist Terms.  Here are some examples of what I mean (I have left out the Chinese characters except where I think they might be helpful).

Separately handed down; oral tradition; to pass on the teaching from mind to mind without writing, as in the Chan (Zen) or Intuitional school.

禪宗 dhyāna, meditative or intuitional sect, attributed to Bodhidharma about A. D. 527, but it existed before he came to China.

宗門 Originally the general name for sects. Later appropriated to itself by the 禪 Chan (Zen) or Intuitional school, which refers to the other schools as 教門 teaching sects, i. e. those who rely on the written word rather than on the 'inner light'.

拈花微笑 'Buddha held up a flower and Kāśyapa smiled'. This incident does not appear till about A. D. 800, but is regarded as the beginning of the tradition on which the Chan (Zen) or Intuitional sect based its existence.

南宗 The Southern sect, or Bodhidharma School, divided into northern and southern, the northern under 神秀 Shen-hsiu, the southern under 慧能 Hui-nang, circa A.D. 700, hence 南能北秀; the southern came to be considered the orthodox Intuitional school. The phrase 南頓北漸 or 'Southern immediate, northern gradual' refers to the method of enlightenment which separated the two schools.

律禪 The two schools of Discipline and Intuition.

馬祖 Ma Tsu, founder of the Southern Peak school of the Ch'an or Intuitional sect in Kiangsi, known as 江西道一.

教道 To teach a way, or religion; a taught way contrasted with an intuitional way; the way of teaching.

菩提達磨 Bodhidharma, commonly known as Damo, v. 達; reputed as the founder of the Chan (Zen) or Intuitional or Mystic School. His original name is given as 菩提多羅 Bodhitara.

傳心 To pass from mind to mind, to pass by narration or tradition, to transmit the mind of Buddha as in the Intuitional school, mental transmission.

意學 Mental learning, learning by meditation rather than from books, the special cult of the Chan or Intuitional school, which is also called the School of the Buddha-mind.

達磨宗 The Damo, or Dharma sect, i.e. the 禪宗 Meditation, or Intuitional School.

實大乘教 The real Mahāyāna, freed from temporal, relative, or expedient ideas; the Tiantai, Huayan, Intuitional, and Shingon schools claim to be such.

禪人 A member of the Chan (Jap. Zen), i.e. the Intuitional or Meditative sect.

禪宗 The Chan, meditative or intuitional, sect usually said to have been established in China by Bodhidharma, v. 達, the twenty-eighth patriarch, who brought the tradition of the Buddha-mind from

India. Cf. 楞 13 Laṅkāvatāra sūtra. This sect, believing in direct enlightenment, disregarded ritual and sūtras and depended upon the inner light and personal influence for the propagation of its tenets, founding itself on the esoteric tradition supposed to have been imparted to Kāśyapa by the Buddha, who indicated his meaning by plucking a flower without further explanation. Kāśyapa smiled in apprehension and is supposed to have passed on this mystic method to the patriarchs. The successor of Bodhidharma was 慧可 Huike, and he was succeeded by 僧璨 Sengcan; 道信 Daoxin; 弘忍 Hongren; 慧能 Huineng, and 神秀 Shenxiu, the sect dividing under the two latter into the southern and northern schools: the southern school became prominent, producing 南嶽 Nanyue and 靑原 Qingyuan, the former succeeded by 馬祖 Mazu, the latter by 石頭 Shitou. From Mazu's school arose the five later schools, v. 禪門.

禪法 Methods of mysticism as found in (1) the dhyānas recorded in the sūtras, called 如來禪 tathāgata- dhyānas; (2) traditional dhyāna, or the intuitional method brought to China by Bodhidharma, called 祖師 禪, which also includes dhyāna ideas represented by some external act having an occult indication.

禪法 Methods of mysticism as found in (1) the dhyānas recorded in the sūtras, called 如來禪 tathāgata- dhyānas; (2) traditional dhyāna, or the intuitional method brought to China by Bodhidharma, called 祖師 禪, which also includes dhyāna ideas represented by some external act having an occult indication.

The typical modern Zen center that engages in the exercise of crosslegged sitting seems to me far away from what traditional Zen was striving for which is direct intuition of Buddha-nature or the same one’s true nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Symbols like the Buddhist robe

Whether you make your Buddhist robes on a sewing machine with the help of the abbot as I did many years ago or buy your robes from eBay, including your rakusu which is a miniature version of robes, you are only wearing a symbol that suggests something else.  In, itself, a robe is just so much cloth which could be used or new. 

Over time the Buddhist robe came to symbolize something like renunciation of the material world or even the overcoming of samsara in which the robe could symbolize something like a spiritual placenta that transforms the one who wears it eventually into a Buddha. 

But symbols like the robe are not the ultimate reality that Siddhartha realized who became a Buddha as a result.  The robe is merely a visible sign for something completely invisible and transcendent.  There is no bridge from the robe to something hidden within us, owing to our ignorance, which is transcendent.

The one who wears a Buddhist robe is not made perfect by wearing the robe.  Wearing the robe cannot banish greed, malice or stupidity.  In fact, the robe will tell you little or next to nothing about the person who is wearing it and whether or not he or she is awakened to their true nature.  The Buddha even said that “a person is not easily known by outward form nor should you trust a quick appraisal.”  The robe could well hide one who is uncontrolled and deluded.

Today, most people who are curious about Zen Buddhism or Theravada Buddhism are impressed with Buddhist robes although they won’t admit it and would deny it to your face.  So what good are robes if all they do is hide a possible psychopath or narcissist?

In a way, the robes the monks and nuns wear, including all the Buddhist glitz and rituals, act as a means of pushing the robe-wearer to take their pursuit of enlightenment, seriously.  Wearing robes brings a certain seriousness that is needed when one decides to get serious about making an effort to study Buddhism in a deep and profound way.  It can act as a vivid reminder of one's commitment to the Dharma.

Sudden enlightenment in a nutshell

If we did the right kind of zazen we would discover something quite odd: we are not aware of the original source of our mental activity including the voice in our head.  We seem to be aware of only an unbroken continuation of our mental activity—not the original source of it.  Anyone who sits in meditation can verify this, personally. 

Next, if we assume that we are aware of our mental activity, but not the source, then what is this awareness of ours except a condition of dependence on our mental activity from thoughts, ideas and concepts, to emotions and internal dialogue.

This condition of constantly being aware of mental activity means also that we are always facing this activity so that we are constantly involved with it and entangled in it.  But what if for a very brief moment of time our mental activity unexpectedly stopped, what would we see?  It would logically be the original source.  And our awareness and the source would be single or one (eka).

Next, the problem is how do we get our mental activity to come to a halt? In Zen this is variously referred to as no-thought 無心 or no-mentation 無念, this being 頓悟 sudden enlightenment or kenshō (intuiting one's true nature).  This is a tough nut to crack.  I don't have an answer.  But needless to say it has been done many times.  We can read about it in the Kāyagatāsati Sutta (M. iii. 94) going back to the time of the Buddha.

Again, a monk who attains the Fourth Jhāna [dhyāna] has no suffering or happiness because happiness and suffering are eliminated and his former sorrow is eliminated. There is only equanimity which purifies mindfulness. The pure Mind suffuses every part of his whole body, like a man whose head is covered by a white cloth. There is no part of his body untouched by the white cloth.

I can assure the reader that this is a very accurate picture.  Mind is luminous and it suffuses even the adept’s thoughts no matter what is being thought of at the time.  This state lasts for about a day or two.  What is important to understand is that the adept is now one with the original source and over time will break the habit of identifying with mental activity, thus gaining power over this activity.  This is a conversion from a seeming dependence upon mental activity (samsara) to becoming independent of it (nirvana).

 

 

Deshan lifts his hand Jian becomes enlightened

Where does philosophy end in Zen Buddhism?  From the literature, it would appear to end where knowledge that is acquired through words and concepts, i.e., speculative knowledge, cannot go any further.  But this is precisely where authentic Zen begins or should at least begin. 

The failure of philosophy to go any further, nevertheless, hoping to make some kind of profound intellectual breakthrough runs into Mumon’s barrier/checkpoint 關.  What does that mean for the Zennist?  About the barrier/checkpoing Mumon comments:

For the practice of Zen, you must pass the barrier set up by the ancient masters of Zen. To attain to marvelous enlightenment, you must completely extinguish all thoughts of the ordinary mind. If you have not passed the barrier and have not extinguished all thoughts, you are a phantom haunting the weeds and trees.

What Mumon is telling the Zennist is that their thoughts, which are the activity of thinking, are the barrier.  Looking at the problem from a deeper perspective, our thoughts, if they were to suddenly cease would instantly disclose pure Mind.  We would be right then and there, Buddhas.  On the other hand, to generate thought through philosophical speculation about Zen only acts to hide pure Mind. 

In trying to make sense of this odd enlightenment event at 645, it appears that as a matter of philosophical speculation we can go no further.  We are up against the barrier/checkpoint.

645.  When master Gaoding Jian first went to Deshan, he saw Deshan on the other side of a river, sitting on the riverbank.  He asked after him from across the river; Deshan beckoned him with his hand, whereupon Jian became enlightened.  Then he ran past to the side and didn’t cross the river; he returned to Gaoding and became an abbot (Treasurey of the Eye of Truth Teaching: Volume II).

Evidently, when Deshan beckoned Jian with his hand, something happened to Jian that was mysterious and profound.  To be sure, he broke through Mumon’s barrier/checkpoint passing easily through the no-gate or dharma-gate.  So what happened?

Some of you know what it was.  I sure know what transpired when Deshan beckoned Jian with his hand or what the Buddha’s holding up a flower and blinking was about.  There are many such moments when a monk suddenly sees the absolute.  In a tenth of a second Deshan caught Jian off-guard, all thought had ceased for him.  There it was.