The Zennist

The Unborn Plenum of the Deathless

Looking at the world from the standpoint of the conditioned there is no real unconditioned or so one might imagine (an absolute unconditioned medium from which conditioned things arise).  This is further to imply, there is no evidence of the unconditioned in terms of the conditioned which might prove to those who are skeptical there, indeed, is the unconditioned.

From Zen’s perspective, the unconditioned can only be arrived at by the complete cessation of the conditioned this being thoughts which make up the conditioned microcosm (mano/manas), i.e., mentation.  The world of Zen is an antidote for overcoming the conditioned from a microcosmic perspective; having a sudden and profound glimpse of the unconditioned which is the essence of thought.

From this, the fundamental problem Zen faces which confronts each student is to wean them off off of using thought, almost exclusively, to gain access to Zen’s crown jewel.  Instead, they must leap beyond the conditioned to gain access to the unconditioned.  How this is accomplished for each individual depends on how much they identify with the conditioned, in this case their mental world.  They must accept the fact that Zen demands of us a special cognition free from appearance and beyond mentation.

But even this insistence can be easily misunderstood.  It is difficult to grasp that thoughts as concepts represent something standing in place of the actual.  Our thoughts about enlightenment actually hide it.  Even the time we spend trying to see what Siddhartha realized by many hours of seated meditation only serves to obfuscate and confuse our quest.

The Magic Trick of Consciousness

Is the essence or primary substance of the universe eternal, that is, without beginning or end?  In Buddhism the answer would be in the affirmative.  But this doesn’t mean all things are eternal which are illusory constructs.  Are our thoughts eternal?  Not in the slightest.  Moment by moment they arise and disappear.  Our temporal body must also perish in time.

Are our thoughts a microcosm of the larger external world we perceive?  Very much so inasmuch as both are a dependent origination of the same ultimate source.  This means that this contrast implies an innate, original one; that subject and object are an illusory splitting of the original source, or that internal and external are really the same from a transcendental vantage point.

The relationship between subject and object, observer and observed, is inherently illusory.  The main purpose of consciousness (vijñāna) is to perpetuate this illusory framework that constitutes our human life.  The main purpose of enlightenment is to overcome this duality by seeing the original one or ultimate source which is truly real.  The Buddha says in the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra, “With the cessation of vijñāna which is caused by discrimination, there is my nirvana.”

The instant cessation of vijñāna puts us suddenly into the most primordial or call it absolute Spirit.  Kenshō is Zen’s basis, which is also the esoteric Spirit to Spirit transmission (以心傳心).  One cannot read Zen literature and not see this esoteric transmission as being central to its core message.  If one fails to see its importance one is far away from Zen, that is, Buddhism’s other shore.

From the Buddha's Perspective

As a thought exercise think of water translucently clear that has the potential to recognize itself but so far cannot see anything distinctive of itself.  There is nothing there or so it would seem.  However, in a state of agitation it sees something.  But these wave forms it sees are different from itself.  In fact they act to hide the water’s translucently clear presence.  This is implying that wherein there is no distinction there can be no kind of knowledge.

But this further implies that there has to be a separation between the knower and the known; that if there is no such division there can be no knowledge.  But in Buddhism absolute knowledge is different.  Such knowledge consists in getting rid of the illusion of separation.  But how does one do this?

Sub specie aeternitatis, there is not the slightest difference between the conditioned and the unconditioned.  But if we cling to the conditioned which is illusory, failing to realize the unconditioned nature, we are lost.  Making matters worse, our intellect bound up with the imagination will always lead us astray such that we can only imagine the unconditioned believing we have realized it.  But the truth is we have failed to liberate our self even with metaphysics not to mention all of its captivating thought forms.

The core of Buddhism is about awakening to the fundamental essence of thought, thought being the smallest building block of the conditioned.  No amount of thinking or speculation will liberate us.  The Buddha’s awakening went beyond this.  We are not there yet.  Yes, we have the potential to become enlightened but we must still actualize that potential.

A Finger Pointing to the Moon

Teachers of traditional Zen redeploy words and concepts to point beyond themselves to true reality that ultimately transcends composition (samskrita), that is, composed everyday reality.  When the word or concept is suddenly canceled out by direct intuition what remains is true reality before it is formed or composed into thought.

With today’s Zen, its various meanings are expected to precede the uncomposed reality its words are supposed to represent.  This is the mess contemporary Zen faces.  It is under a fictional “narrative” which is supposed to be Zen’s truth or ultimate fact.  No longer does one have to search within for this reality beyond words and concepts.  It even goes as far as to suggest ‘just sitting’ is enlightenment.

This is a huge barrier to understanding Zen.  It is a distorted Zen because it either sticks with sitting and/or sinks into an imitation of Zen: to copy it by words and actions.  Neither way calls upon us to abandon, thoroughly, reliance on the world of thoughts; to intuit what they are actually composed of.
This is why Zen teaches no-thought (無念).  To come to the abode of no-thought is like seeing the unformed clay before it becomes a brick.  Suddenly, the invisible light or formless spirit is intuited.  With this the sixth sense is transcended including all that which comprises it.

Teachers of traditional Zen use the Buddhist Sutras and Zen words to bring us to a specific intuition.  Those who have to rely on words to transcend words cannot hope to attain the fruit of Zen.  In their ignorance they make Zen into a celebration of ignorance.  One modern Zen master said,  “Wisdom is to see that there is nothing to search for.”

The Spirit is Inconceivable but Knowable

The ideologists who dominate present day culture, whose knowledge is mainly derived from their sensations and feelings, are not at all concerned with what really exists much less the path of spirit.  They only seek to change what already exists such that it conforms with their feelings.  This means they suppress everything which might shake their ideology.  How far will their wishful fantasies take them?  We do not yet know.  Maybe this is new territory for humankind.

Although ideology shouldn’t be in Buddhism, it is not immune to it.  We see it in the aesthetically portrayed world of Zen which is sensuous knowledge whose goal is the beautiful experience which could be characterized as reaching a pure aesthetic moment without traces of agitation, trouble, tension, or instability.  But Zen is not entirely aesthetical so much as it is a path of inner purification and solitude where spirit is one day met with which transcends all concepts.

The outer practice of seated meditation which serves to buttress Zen aesthetically is only intended to reduce the body’s influence over the mind so that mind or thought can be stilled and stress reduced.  But Zen doesn’t end here.  This is not its goal.  One still has to reach the core or foundation of thought which is transcendent and unthinkable (無念) this being absolute spirit from which thought is composed (saṃskṛta).

The real world of Zen is not within the grasp of today’s culture with the exception that it has been altered for ideological consumption, that is, realized as the aesthetic moment of pure feeling, this being the emptying out of anxiety which is quiet sitting (宴坐).

Wikipedia and True Dharma

Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger recently said that the site is “badly biased,” “no longer has an effective neutrality policy”.  This is somewhat less so when it comes to Wikipedia Buddhism although it is still there in some subjects in the example of anattā, which according to Wikipedia is “the doctrine of ‘non-self’, that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in phenomena.”  The good news, as far as I know, Wikipedia isn't allowed as a source in academia.

As we might guess and be right, the Buddha said there is no self or essence in phenomenon such as the five aggregates which among other things he called “the bait of Māra” (the demon of the aggregates).  It is also true that the eternalist Brahmins claimed there is a self or atthattā while the annihilationist Brahmins claimed there is no self or natthattā. The terms refer to an existent (atthi) self and a non-existent (natthi) self; not a transcendental self which attains nirvana (MN I.255-256).

The modern belief of the Buddha rejecting a self (attā/ātman), making him preach a veiled natthattā doctrine, is more the result of a modern problem with our transcending the sensory and intellectual world we have created and are passionately attached to.  A mystical intuition is required in Buddhism which is a sudden leap into the transcendent world (lokuttara).  There is no other way to understand Buddhism without continuing to delude oneself.

So far modern Buddhists have only managed to recognize contingency and pain. This is the beginning of the acceptance of nihilism (a veiled natthattā doctrine). In our personal depth this is a problem with our self: a willingness to believe I am nothing. Both an absolute and the self are non-existent.