There is within us something much more fundamental and profound

Of the six senses described in Buddhism mental activity or manas, which includes thinking, the imagination, and intellect, is the sense organ that Zen is mainly concerned with. 

The object of this sense are the five outers senses which help to situate us in this world.  With the manas we construct mental images, concepts and ideas.  The senses including the manas have nothing to do with our Buddha-nature or the same, the self (ātman).  (In the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra the Buddha said: When the Bodhisattva-mahasattva sees the Buddha-Nature, he gains the Eternal, Bliss, Self, and the Pure.)

From our modern perspective we can also say that we recognize spacetime by the manas, which also includes every possible thing that can arise from it even our most sublime thoughts to the most ridiculous.  But what even the six senses cannot behold so as to get a handle on, is the essence of reality this being the Buddha-nature.  It is beyond the reach and range of the six senses.

There is within us something much more fundamental and profound than what can be apprehended by our senses.  The Buddhas are the mediators who, personally realizing this essence, out of compassion, teach others how to awaken to this essence or nature.

And now we come to Zen which is all about awakening to this essence or nature — a bare bones approach to Buddhism which tries to confront and transcend the six sense or manas.

In light of this, we have to see, personally, what Siddhartha awakened to does not reside in a single thing or dharma so that it is foolish to speculate or argue about it not having realized it.  Zen will show us the futility of the intellect’s approach to this essence through the study of koans; that it can only be intuitively seen in a sudden and direct way.  And in this moment one is totally immersed in the clear-light.

Comments

[n. yeti]

*The compassion to teach others, yes, but not necessarily to convince or to go around evangelizing one's own persuasion like some sort of cheap religious bazaar. I hold nobody convinces anyone else. People convince only themselves, most especially of matters spiritual. Did not the Buddha warn his followers against accepting his teachings on the basis of his personality, much less "clever" arguments which amount to nothing? Conviction or belief is a transformation of faith, even found among materialists who have faith in their own weak understandings. Yet these and all forms of persuasion are dependent upon conditions, and all of the teachings of the Buddha eventually point back directly to the nature of mind where one finds out for themselves, tests for themselves, takes refuge in what is never absent to begin with. Otherwise the Buddhadharma would become hollow idolatry and intellectual ferment without spiritual penetration. And sadly, that appears to be where this world system is headed.