Truth is never realized when it is always a product of our imagination including our linguistic imagination (the intellect). Direct intuition of the truth (kenshō) is more important than an intellectual grasp which comes through the imagination. We could even say that direct intuition bypasses our intellectual imagination and its attempt to reify what is only imaginal.
Zen (dhyāna) is only a path to direct intuition. While it includes all the literature found in Buddhism it fundamentally understands that Siddhartha's revelation can only be achieved by intuition, a sudden direct seeing of the absolute, which certainly surpasses the imagination and all that comes from it.
Scarcely is the subject of intuition taken up in today's Zen Center and very seldom written about in the academic literature if at all. This fact suggests that intuition is being ignored as the royal road to enlightenment having been replaced by just sitting which becomes more of a therapy for relaxing the body, somewhat like a massage. Does such a practice reveal our true nature or the same our Buddha nature?
The mystical tradition is also ancient in origin. The oral teachings recorded in the Upanishads, Buddhist sutras, and similar records go back thousands of years and provide evidence that mystical teachers of widely different cultures say remarkably similar things. Also concerned with human suffering, they propose that human beings are ignorant of their true nature and that ignorance leads to the lives of pain and futility. The sages describe a Way that leads to a higher level of existence, one infinitely more desirable than the level on which most people conduct their lives. The mystical tradition does not offer therapy in the usual sense of the word, but achieving the goal of mysticism — experiencing the Real Self — is said to cure human suffering because its very basis is thereby removed (Dr. Arthur Deikman, The Observing Self, p. 3 ).
Intuition is the mystical tradition and the mystical tradition is intuition. The problem we face is how to keep ourselves open to intuition and not close it off by overuse of intellect. There is no reason to believe that Siddhartha found a way other than by direct intuition. Such intuition is independent of just sitting or any physical effort for that matter.
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