The Zennist

The narrative must be let go of, replaced by 'great doubt' (大疑)

Today, the narrative often precedes the reality it is supposed to represent.  The narrative, in other words, has superimposed itself over reality.  It is like the longitudinal and latitudinal lines on a map or on a world globe.  They are useful but not real.  Many things help to illustrate and solidify the narrative even ceremonies and rituals, or even a documentary about the big bang.  We seem to always fall for the deception.  

So where does true reality begin?  With a CNN news flash?  With unverified claims (opinions); with an event like 9-11?  But truth or true reality is almost always silent.  No narrative can pretend to speak for it.  No Zen teacher can hand it to us unmodified, the way it really is.  Even Zen master Dōgen used deception (the shisho document supposedly given to Dōgen by Rujing and now designated a national treasure by the Japanese government most certainly is a medieval forgery).

Still, we remain too easily persuaded by the narrative.  This can be more of a hindrance than a help.  We seem to have time for the narrative but not for the truth which is more difficult to attain.  It seems like you have to dig for the truth, which can be difficult, whereas the narrative is just handed to you.  You can learn all about Zen by reading books by Alan Watts — or can you?  But even Watts is skeptical of the "trickster guru" and may very well be such a person.  

In the matter of Zen, its own narrative prevents actual transcendence (kenshō) from manifesting itself and thus represents a dangerous form of idolatry.  In the study of Zen it conceals the most holy by claiming to practice it.  But how do you practice that which transcends all humanly efforts to reach it?  In other words, how do you practice hitting a target that neither you can see nor anyone else?  The narrative must be let go of, replaced by 'great doubt' (大疑).  This is a process of emptying-out not retaining.  Only then will clear light come which is the very substance of our ordinary thoughts.

 

The Quest for Wisdom and the Will to Power

Culture is a human creation.  It comes from our deeper, innate self.  This means that it must constantly be strengthened, inspired and developed through our inner character.  To assume that it can automatically sustain and repair itself is eventually to find one’s self in the throes of barbarism.  This is where we are at today. 

I am afraid Buddhism will not survive in the world of barbarism.  It has already fallen prey to what has been termed “cancel culture” with its real or perceived disdain for American-Western culture including religious knowledge, in general, and what endures after the death of the body, in particular. 

But no argument can eliminate either religion (especially religious thought) or the question of postmortem survival (liberation from death).  So it is canceled, that is, removed from the need for consideration (a kind of censorship). 

We would be correct to assume something else is brought up to replace religion.  Ideology, for example, which is knowledge drawn from sensation or the same, transformed feelings.  We would be correct to surmise that ideology arises from a struggle for power and control so that it becomes militant and activist.

The social reality around the ideologist motivates them to political action, i.e., a felt need for power.  It further tells them how to perceive what is and how to decide what ought to be.  It even provides a moral framework (either vicious or naive); a way of looking at values.  Yet, ideology is bereft of any personal content (seeing one’s true nature) which religion, Buddhism for example, would take up as a path of personal development and transformation.

Thus, it becomes in the ideological regime that inner development is converted into an outer struggle for power and control, that is, an implicit demand that others change rather than the ideologue (who imagines to have already changed).  Buddhism cannot survive here neither can Zen which is seeing one's true nature.

Confronting the Inconceivable

Configured spirit (saṃskṛta) is nothing but ignorance (avidya)—our outer and inner world.  A good example of this are our thoughts which cannot reveal, in the slightest degree, spirit (tathātā).  These thoughts which are empty are also insubstantial.  Yet, pure spirit is revealed in the highest wisdom as it shines throughout the world.  It alone is true knowledge (vidya). It is eternal, blissful, its own self-and purest simplicity; it is invigorating, immutable, and free. 

It is rather a strange kind of behavior that we Zennists should pursue spirit as something for the senses and thinkable, that is, capable of being thought about.  Yet in Zen, we do this in our practice whether it is sitting in meditation (achieving quietude) or taking up koans.  But Zen doesn’t answer to any of this.  Its real aim is the unthinkable (無念).  Zen hopes to catch us off guard with nothing thinkable in our noggin.  But as humans, our reality is composed (saṃskṛta) only of thinkables.  We reject the unthinkable, even its possibility.  Along with this rejection is also the rejection of the path.

As humans we cannot handle the path that leads to the pure unthinkable—a moment of kenshō.  For us, we cannot think of or imagine an unthinkable reality.

We can certainly understand the predicament of Stephen Batchelor when as a Korean Zen monk with Zen master Kusan Sunim he had to face the unthinkable in the koan “What is this?”

“Once again, I found myself confronted by the specter of a disembodied spirit.  The logic of Kusan Sunim’s argument failed to convince me.  It rested on the assumption that there was “something” (i.e., Mind) that rules the body, which was beyond the reach of concepts and language.  At the same time, this “something” was also my true original nature, my face before I was born, which somehow animated me.  This sounded suspiciously like the Atman (Self/God) of Indian tradition that the Buddha had rejected” (Confession of a Buddhist Atheist p. 68).

Zen is not for the Western mind that clings, tenaciously, to the conditioned world with its thinkables.  A Buddha has gone beyond the mind of ordinary beings (prithagjana).  He has awakened to uncomposed spirit which is unthinkable.

Generating Bodhicitta

Our transformation from an ordinary human to a Bodhisattva involves two steps.  The first is the aspiration for enlightenment which seeks to generate (utpāda) bodhicitta (the enlightened mind) which is the pure, radiant spirit.  The first is bodhicitta only in its relative aspect. 

The second step is the generation of actual bodhicitta which is absolute bodhicitta.  The life of a Bodhisattva only commences with absolute bodhicitta.  This bodhicitta is like an embryo of the Buddha (buddhagarbha) growing towards full Buddhahood.

Interestingly, we find that when one first arouses (utpāda) bodhicitta, one already obtains complete and utter enlightenment.  This is according to the Avatamsaka Sutra.  Without the second step one is not a realized Bodhisattva. 

In today’s Dharma centers many Buddhists imagine they are a Bodhisattva; a kind and gentle, beneficent person who goes around doing good deeds for everyone; trying to save them.  Still, this is not what a Bodhisattva is.  First of all, a Bodhisattva has no human features.  According to the Śūraṅgamasamādhi Sūtra his body is hard, diamond-like, real, infallible and indestructible.  It does not contain either a belly, or stomach, or excrement, or urine, or bad odors or impurity.”

Few if any make it to the second step.  They are still very much attached to their carnal bodies, trying to reform them instead of transcend them.  They cannot understand that the body is unclean; that it is transient and unsubstantial; that it is the source of sinful passions.  According to the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra, “this body is a combination of aggregates, elements, and sense-media, which are comparable to murderers, poisonous snakes, and an empty town, respectively.”

Meditation and the practice of Zen

With our materialistic mindset it is easy to imagine that our thoughts come from the body; that somehow, mysteriously, the body has managed to make thoughts.  We could even say our thoughts are electro-chemical reactions that emerge from neural processes which depend upon the body.  At this point, our understanding of how thought is formed before it emerges is not known.  We only have hypotheses. 

Also, what Zen’s no-thought really means finds no answer.  It certainly does not come from daily blocking our thoughts; trying to smother them.  Only when there is just pure spirit, that is, Mind-only, is one released from the powerful seduction of thoughts.  Here lies the Buddha’s liberation.

Most everyone who is interested in Zen equate it with seated meditation.  I imagine that if you suffer from a light case of “akathisia” which is characterized by a feeling of inner restlessness and the inability to sit still, seated meditation might be helpful.  Seated meditation tends to produce a general feeling of quietude. 

But what does it mean to have the noble insight of revulsion…having arrived at the door to the deathless?  This is not some relaxed state of being.  With the deathless as its final goal Buddhism understands the deathless to be also unconditioned.  But our thoughts are not other than conditioned.  Now we can begin to see what Zen is aiming at by “no-thought”.  No-thought goes beyond the mortality of our body which is conditioned.

But we moderns will have none of this mumbo-jumbo (postmortem survival).  When our body dies along with our thoughts which are electro-chemical we believe there is nothing beyond—certainly no such state as no-thought.  But Bodhidharma once said: “No-thought is nothing other than practice; there is no other practice. Thus you'll realize that no-thought is everything, and that extinction of the conditioned (nirvana) is nothing other than no-thought.”

We imagine that our thoughts come from the body

With our materialistic mindset it is easy to imagine that our thoughts come from the body; that somehow, mysteriously, the body has managed to make all these thoughts.  We could even say our thoughts are electro-chemical reactions that emerge from neural processes which depend upon the body.  At this point, our understanding of how thought is formed before it emerges is not known.  We only have hypotheses. 

Also, what Zen’s no-thought (無念) really means finds no answer.  It certainly does not come from daily blocking our thoughts; trying to smother them.  Only when there is just pure spirit, that is, Mind-only, is one released from the powerful seduction of thoughts.  Here lies the Buddha’s liberation.

Most everyone who is interested in Zen equate it with seated meditation.  I imagine that if you suffer from a light case of “akathisia” which is characterized by a feeling of inner restlessness and the inability to sit still, seated meditation might be helpful.  Seated meditation tends to produce a general feeling of quietude. 

But what does it mean to have the noble insight of revulsion…having arrived at the door to the deathless?  This is not some relaxed state of being.  With the deathless as its final goal Buddhism understands the deathless to be also unconditioned.  But our thoughts are not other than conditioned.  Now we can begin to see what Zen is aiming at by “no-thought”.  No-thought goes beyond the mortality of our body which is conditioned.

But we moderns will have none of this mumbo-jumbo (postmortem survival).  When our body dies along with our thoughts which we believe are electro-chemical we believe there is nothing beyond—certainly no such state as no-thought.  But Bodhidharma once said: “No-thought is nothing other than practice; there is no other practice. Thus you'll realize that no-thought is everything, and that extinction of the conditioned (nirvana) is nothing other than no-thought.”

The Blossoming of the Mind Flower

The intention of meditation (dhyāna) in Buddhism is to gain access to the absolute which is unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) and devoid of suffering.  This absolute tallies with Christianity's 'Spirit' (πνεῦμα) which is synonymous with God (Jhn 4:24) — some from antiquity would argue it goes even beyond deity (Apocryphon of John).

Sound odd?  Well think again.  First of all, it is hard to imagine that Buddhist meditation was only intended to relax us; to make us more fit for the daily grind, also known as the rat race.  This tends to be a secular reading of Buddhism that finds no basis in the Buddha’s own words.

Meditation could not have been easy; certainly not as easy as silently sitting on a zafu.  Even the fourth meditation is a construct produced by volition and is subject to cessation according to the Buddha (AN V.344).  The prize of awakening to the absolute is a long way off even for the best of sitters.

The absolute which is unconditioned is nothing for our conditioned thoughts and the various notions which are the product of thinking.  Our human world depends very much on thought while the Buddha’s world sees higher.  As a result, we want to humanize the Buddha’s teaching, i.e., bring it down to our level.  It can’t be done.  But this is what we are always doing.  As a result, we lose the context of Buddhism, especially, what meditation is really about.

Zen master Mazu (700–788) once said: other religious disciplines are all fine such as sitting quietly. But enlightenment depends on inner nature; it is the opening of one’s inner Mind flower.  To open this flower is a spiritual endeavor.  This means that the nature of spirit incorporeal; it requires a spiritual eye not an eye for corporeal things.

Against the Stream

Desire pertains to the conditioned world of samsara not the unconditioned absolute Siddhartha realized.  From the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb desire has taken hold of us, that is, a powerful passion for what is external to our true nature.  We are confused, immersed and enclosed by this antithesis which is prison-like.  In the end, even death will not save us. 

The synthesis between the innate ignorance of our true nature and the world of appearance neither this life nor the next life (after death) can overcome through the force of desire.  The direction itself is all wrong.  Nothing truly will be gained by taking it.  What is gained is an accumulation of delusions which leads to a false authority that can never amount to truth. 

On the other hand, going in the opposite direction of desire is the most difficult way of all.  It goes against our natural inclination to seek and grasp at the conditioned—an important and key part of Darwinian fitness.  The Buddha was right to say:  “The way which goes against the stream is a profound one, very difficult to see.  Those who are afflicted with passion will not see it; they are enveloped by a heavy darkness” (Catuṣpariṣat Sūtra).

We were born into heavy darkness by our desire for the conditioned. We cannot see it as dreamlike or māyā like a Buddha does.  The pain which comes with living in a human form seems very real making the illusion that much more intense and serious.  The way the Buddha has given us is very difficult.  For Buddhism is all about transcending the conditioned world which includes birth and death.