There was a time when we believed people could be possessed by the devil. Modern man thinks he knows better. There is no devil. But what he does not know, this modern techno-man of ours, is that he can be possessed by ideas (also the emotionalization of ideas). This is at the core of all ideology, especially, Marxism and its derivatives.
In the same way that we are possessed by the belief that the psychophysical body is who we are, the ideologist believes that their ideas are greater than the reality of the everyday world. What has been added to their ideas is the same emotional attachment they have to the belief (diṭṭhi) that the psychophysical body (sakkāya = own body) is who they are (or the five aggregates/khandhas).
Transcending this emotional armature proves next to impossible. To make matters even worse there is an additional shifting of emotions which make up the psychophysical body, to the ideas themselves. They are reified to such an extent that they have a life of their own. One is, so to speak, possessed by the devil/idea.
This was Zen’s important discovery that thought was the basis of all ideas/concepts; that we could liberate our self from thought (spirit as formed or congealed) thus being sanctified by spirit or pure Mind. The student has suddenly entered the world of unbounded spirit where lies also the world of the Buddhas.
I realize that what I am writing goes way over the heads of the ordinary person who might even be curious about Zen. The modern disposition has not yet questioned, much less has acknowledged that all thought is the same insofar as it is only congealed spirit. Needless to say, this lack is not my concern, so much as it is a problem everyone will face if they truly want to enter into the world of Zen.
All lessons in Zen have to be learned the hard way in the depths of our being not outside of it as if to escape from it. As we progress on the path of Zen it becomes more and more difficult not easier. This is because we are sacrificing our once treasured beliefs going from the least to the most treasured this being thought.
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