The Zennist

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The transcendent unseparatedness between subject and object or, the same, observer and observed is neither addressed nor realized in the forum of public thought.  It is only theorized at best by academics.  Few intuit this transcendent unseparatedness, directly, except to imagine it.

Is there another name for this transcendent unseparatedness between subject and object?  In Buddhism it is called the light, or the clear light, or the radiant light, or luminosity and many other names.  Zen master Danxia丹霞 said: “This abundant light, wherever you are, in every situation, is itself the great way.”  In the older canon we run across it in the Itivuttaka and elsewhere.

Light-bringers, dhamma-speakers, open the door off the deathless, set free the many folk from bondage.

It should go without saying that this light is absent in our world.  Yes, we can imagine it but this is not the same as the light the Buddhas talks about whereby the dualizing nature of sensory consciousness (vijñāna) is overcome.  

The hard reality of our dualistic world is maintained by the seeming difference between subject and object.  This difference can either be great or small but still a difference exists or seems too.  From this division or gap grows fear and mistrust, even alienation and a host of other negative things. 

Social Justice and Zen

Today, the typical materialist denies that there are any innate ideas, self-knowledge or intuitional knowledge.  All these terms are pointing beyond the spatiotemporal world which is the only world the materialist believes in.  

On the other hand, Zen wants to take us beyond the spatiotemporal world to ultimate reality or absolute spirit where the discordant asymmetry of the mind (vijñāna: knowing in two parts) is overcome.  

This is a return to the original one before mind split into two parts, subject and object (vijñāna).  All differences are transcended.  In the embrace of this clear light all resentment or claim of requital also disappears.  There is neither the need for justice nor injustice.  In a single flash of this clear light conditioning and spiritual blindness have been suddenly erased.

This return however does not depend upon the written word or concepts created through words which arise in our imagination.  The second slogan of Zen says, “[Zen does] not depend on written words.”  Making matters worse, we live in an ideological age where the triumph of the words over reality has taken place.  In this age, special terms are saturated with feelings or emotion, for example, the word racism.  

Now the word enlightenment signifies how we feel.  Aren't we all Buddhas deep down?  Nirvana has long ceased being an attainable but transcendent reality.  The word has triumphed backed by how intensely each of us feels about the word.  We are lost. 

Awakening to the Unborn

It is much easier to alter history than it is to alter the works of Plato or the Buddha although, in the example of Buddhism, the interpretation of what the Buddha meant or was trying to teach can be altered.  

What we know as the history of World War II can radically change based on newly discovered documents.  This is unlikely to happen with Buddhism.  Also, it would be wrong on our part to believe that Buddhist scholars know what the Buddha taught.  Some I am sure have it more right than others.  

In our search for authentic Buddhism we are always looking for an easy path to the summit of Buddhism:  a path, more or less, based on our own preconceptions and values which can be quite shallow.  In fact, we never reach the summit or get to the dangerous ice that guards the summit.  We are still in base camp getting ready to climb.

 

Every generation has their problems which make reaching the summit of Buddhism next to impossible.  But still it can be done despite all the difficulties each generation faces.  We have to understand that the path is for the purpose of intuiting the absolute.  It is not a way like haṭha yoga, trying to make the body supple by force.  

To rightly grasp what intuition is about is to understand what Zen is about.  It doesn’t mean we are awakened just that we know where our spiritual efforts are to be directed

We are supposed to transcend this spatiotemporal body since it is not a true refuge.  If we succeed we, suddenly, intuit the primary essence of everything even our thoughts.  That is the refuge.  It is our guide too.  It is the real Buddha. 

 

 

 

 

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The Key to Infinite Consciousness

There is a tension between the subjective standpoint and the objective standpoint.  A kind of unceasing asymmetry yet still an unseparatedness between subject and object.  Buddhists know this as empirical consciousness or in Sanskrit vijñāna meaning, literally, in two parts knowing.  It is also spacetime where space represents the objective standpoint and time the subjective standpoint.  

Here also does our consciousness go from one birth and death to another birth and death, endlessly.  Without our empirical consciousness there is no rebirth.  But how do we put an end to this empirical consciousness?

It appears in Buddhism that consciousness can also reach a state of symmetry where subject and object perfectly converge (ekatva); where there is neither subject nor object but, instead, Mind or spirit is revealed which I hasten to add is non-spatiotemporal.  This appears to be “consciousness (viññāṇaṃ) [that] is non-manifesting, infinite and luminous.”  And “With the transcendence (nirodhena) of [empirical] consciousness that’s where this ends” (DN 11).

This transcendence is a sudden overcoming of asymmetry inherent in our every day consciousness.  Now consciousness is non-manifesting, infinite, and luminous.  Subject and object are indistinguishable.  Our many attempts at seated meditation (zazen) has only been an attempt to reach symmetry by use of our our will but it ultimately fails.  Intuition opens the door. 

Buddha-Dharma and Rock n Roll

If pop music from the 1960s deserves high marks for its sophistication then today's pop music gets a flunk.  It lacks tempo variation.  Too many repetitive sounds.  Cords from the same key.  Very little dynamic variation.  The list goes on.  What does this say about the minds that enjoy today's pop music?  There is very little depth to them; certainly not enough to enter the mystical world of Zen Buddhism, and for that matter Buddhism in general.

It is only when we couple such shallowness with the religious endeavor to see ultimate reality that we have a problem.  This opens up a path to the anti-epiphany, a kind of reverse transcendence; of mistaking illusion for enlightenment but more, it is the acceptance of the false self as the real self or the belief there is no self at all.

This thought goes even further when it falsely believes the mundane world is the Buddha-nature.  In fact Dōgen Zenji held that "impermanence is in itself Buddha-nature”.  

“Therefore, the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha nature. The very impermanency of men and things, body and mind, is the Buddha nature. Nature and lands, mountains and rivers, are impermanent because they are the Buddha nature. Supreme and complete enlightenment, because it is impermanent, is the Buddha nature.”

This is like seeing a mirage in the desert with a pool of water.  Although there is no water there it still looks like there is water.  But let's call it what it is, it's fake water.  Likewise, the mundane world is a fake reality and just as much this Buddha-nature also is fake.  It is not the authentic Buddha-nature.

Can our enjoyment of today's pop music be likened to being taken in by a musical mirage of sorts?  In that regard it is fake music although we believe otherwise that it is very good music.  And so it goes with today's Zen in which people believe that the mundane world is the true world.  These same people will say, but I like it, and keep on following mirages.