The Zennist

Times of uncertainty

We live in a time of uncertainty.  But haven’t all times been uncertain times?  We proceed with our everyday life being dependent on sensory perceptions that are incomplete and reveal, at best, only a fragment of reality.  To be sure, we have an incomplete picture of the reality we live in since the input of data leaves huge areas out of the picture, so to speak.  This makes us uncertain.

This uncertainty, if we don't think about it is, eventually, covered up by our imagination.  It gives us a kind of virtual/fictional reality which can be pleasurable and comforting at times.  Yes, too much uncertainty can be a problem as with too much certainty that, unbeknownst to us, is the result of the imagination filling-in the incompleteness. 

Probably the worst way of dealing with uncertainty is by having too much reliance on the imagination which can lead to delusional disorders in which people cannot tell what is real from what is imagined.  The dangerous side of this inevitably leads to political delusions that can be socially engineered by means of illogicality, that is, by spreading disorganized thought and communication.

Most of us are already caught in the net of political delusions from global warming to a borderless world.  The power that religion once had has been taken away and handed over to the ideologues whose half baked ideas are infused with raw emotion so that they are unable to resonate with the truth.

During the late 60s the Zen that I eventually came to reject could be thought of as a halfway house for those who are in a kind of twilight zone, who would either see darkness or light.  Zen when I left it had chosen to go down a path to attain darkness in the sense of resting enlightenment on the subjective and absence (non-findingness).

Even doubt thought

Perhaps it is easier to understand what belief is by saying that it is for those who fear to know.  When one begins to grow tired of belief and say to themselves, “I must know,” there is a decisive shift and more of a difference when we finally know Nirvana (akatanññū).  The need for belief or faith has been surpassed (asaddho).  (This is clearly evident in verse 97 of the Dhammapada.)

Modern Buddhists I'm sure detest the term belief or faith.  It reminds them of religion.  They are of the mind to assert that Buddhism is not religious — it is a philosophy.  Yet, to be a Buddhist one still has to believe that Siddhartha awakened to something real and true having surpassed mere belief by direct intuition of the absolute, which I hasten to add, had nothing to do with sitting under a tree. 

If there is one practice in popular Zen that requires a lot of credulity, it is believing that by sitting in meditation you are a Buddha.  It is to be found in Sōtō Zen.  What is missing is intuition which has nothing to do with the physical ability to sit with legs crossed.  Intuition is concerned with overcoming the intellect which is unable to go beyond thought and of course thinking (the act of producing thoughts). 

For those like Zen master Dahui 大慧 he warned his students that they must ‘doubt’ words but I also believe that he said they must doubt thought, itself, which humans are deeply tied to; which is only a configuration of spirit (pure Mind, One Mind).

Each culture has different sins that prevent the understanding of Buddhism

From the time of our birth our true nature has been clothed in the five aggregates (skandhas) which only act to conceal this true nature.  These aggregates are empty, hollow and insubstantial.  Still, we cling to them like a drowning man clings to straw. 

We do not want to relinquish our hold upon them.  However, there are those who are able to relinquish their hold upon the aggregates and see their true nature or self (ātman) which is luminous (prabhāsa).  At the least they have the faith that this nature is real and is worthy of contemplating. 

Even though Buddhism is truly a spiritual religion that asks mankind to see and behold spirit, directly, each culture has different sins, so to speak, that clothe this pristine spirit or nature. This false garmet has to be removed entirely and suddenly—a naked seeing. In Zen we call this sudden enlightenment. 

Because each culture is different, Buddhism seems to be different but it is not.  The adept still has to relinquish the false garmet to behold the unconditioned like Siddhartha did long ago.  The strength and demands of any culture can act as a barrier that is difficult to penetrate through. 

Modern culture is a techno-materialist culture that makes it difficult to relinquish.  It only accepts what the senses perceive together with what the intellectual mind can conceive of using the imagination.  It knows of no higher knowledge that has to be gained by direct intuition (dhyāna). 

Virtually all cultures are more or less trapped by the dualizing consciousness which in Buddhism is vijñāna.  Subject and object, observer and observed never meet to become one which is the original source of this duality which in turn gives rise to our illusory cosmos.  Every culture more or less guards this dualizing consciousness (all illusion depends upon this kind of consciousness).

Only those who are naturally oriented towards the spiritual path can transcend this consciousness through intuition thereby realizing the One Mind or spirit that brings the disparate sides of consciousness together (ekatva). 

Escaping secular possession

Becoming a Buddhist monastic does not mean that a person is enlightened or might reach enlightenment sooner than a Buddhist hermit living in the mountains in a shack or in a cave.  It only serves to reveal one’s dedication to the Dharma which, naturally, could change over time depending upon the subversive influences of secular life.

And here we come to the main obstacle for anyone, either a Buddhist monastic or a lay person.  It is about facing the challenge of overcoming secular possession which tends to be insidious and not easily detected by the average person. 

Keep in mind, Dharma centers including Zen centers are mainly in large metropolitan areas which serve a very active secular population which presents a problem for the perpetuation of Buddhism since Buddhism has little to do with the secular life.  In short, Buddhism is being de-religionized.

The secular life is concerned mainly with Darwinian fitness:  Making a world suitable for human colonization.  In this regard, the modern world represents a kind of spiritual blasphemy.  Everything it touches it transforms into a secular reality—something for the senses and the intellectual imagination (manas). 

But neither the senses themselves nor the objects which the senses manifest and partake in is the problem.  It is the passion and desire which clings to the senses and their objects that is the problem which inevitably leads to suffering.  In other words, at the heart of secularism is passion and desire for the human senses and their objects.  Here we are possessed by an almost unbreakable attachment to a false self as compared with the actual self which transcends the senses and their objects.

Zen is an attack on thought itself

I think it is a truism to say that the player cannot be understood by analyzing the many card games invented, including the cards dealt to the player in a card game.  In that sense even our language cannot tell us about the user of language although I suspect there will be a lot of people who might disagree with me. 

It is convenient and practical for us to use language as if it were the truth; as if it could speak on behalf of the user of language.  In the case of Zen it is already aware that language is totally in adequate to penetrate the mystery of our true nature or the same, the Buddha-nature.  Words, in other words, can't speak for the speaker of words nor even the thinker of thoughts.

When I use the term thinking, in the sense of producing thoughts, I have no idea or any way of seeing just how thoughts are formed by thinking.  If I were to see the thinker before a thought is produced or, the same, at the precise moment a thought disappears, I might succeed in my endeavor.   

Not only is Zen a direct attack on the usefulness of language for getting to ultimate reality, but also it is an attack on thought itself which is the basis of our ideas and concepts.  In this sense, thought is like the quantum, the smallest amount of thingness that you can’t break into smaller parts or sub-thoughts. 

Thought is never ultimate reality.  If anything thought is congealed spirit, spirit being ultimate reality which is also absolutely universal, i.e., nowhere determinate.  In the practice of Zen thought is useful insofar as it is finite and subject to total cessation (nirodha).  The enlightening surprise for the Zen adept is when Mu/the barrier completely disappears (nirodha).  Only then is the Buddha-nature realized which is thoroughly universal and spiritual.

Ending the conflict in human consciousness

Communism, although it doesn't realize it, seeks to end the conflict in human consciousness between the asymmetry of the brain hemispheres which can develop into an antagonism (insanity).  Instead of bringing harmony, Communism only manages to load the dice in favor of the left hemisphere (manipulation rather than understanding).  In other words, there is no peace between the two hemispheres. 

Buddhism, although not its main goal, seeks to bring peace between the two hemispheres which more or less coexist in a kind of ongoing anxiety.  Buddhism's practice which focuses on dhyāna is intended to develop our intuitive ability which transcends the ordinary human mind (manas) with all of its anxieties.  But along the way, Buddhism often becomes lost in an intellectual (manas) labyrinth.

Zen, as a more direct form of Buddhism, knows well the problem with the intellect.  The intellect is manipulative not intuitive.  The intellect depends on the words and the thoughts or feelings they evoke.  But intuition in Buddhism works differently than the intellect.  Put one way, intuition is about coming to direct knowledge without reasoning or inferring.  It is direct and sudden.  It is also first-person knowledge of ultimate reality which has not yet been congealed/formulated into thought for the intellect to use. 

By another name it is pure spirit or the same, pure Mind which the Zen student comes to realize (kenshō).  This awakening is beyond the world of our thoughts and for that reason trying to put it into thought proves in adequate.  Hence, the great frustration with Zen.  We cannot manipulate it without making ourself look stupid in the long run.  We have to meet this pure mind or spirit on its own turf.

The central feature of Zen training

The resistance towards or a disregard for introspection that leads to intuition of spirit requires not a weak will but a strong, inflexible will.  Those who are fixated on the habit of forming thoughts, like the intellectual, will resist the authentic practice of Zen. 

If a Zen master is awakened, having directly intuited pure spirit or pure Mind, they can’t help but being identified (samādhi) with this spirit before it is congealed into a thought (this spirit you could even call the Buddha-nature).  In that regard, their mind operates differently than the mind of a non-awakened individual.  This we see in the Zen literature of koans.

A small dog, for example, is only an ensemble or composition of Buddha-nature—but not the nature or spirit itself which is uncomposed.  The Japanese word Mu (無) is only a formation of spirit not the spirit itself.  When we read the koan about the small dog of Jōshū (趙州狗子) and his reply Mu, our mind automatically looks for a Mu-thought.  We not only fail to intuit this unformed spirit or Buddha-nature, we remain stuck on the dog/狗 and Mu/無.

Getting the Zen student to give up their unconscious habit of forming spirit into various thoughts thereby missing direct intuition of spirit, is the central feature of Zen training.  Short of this, Zen is taken over by rituals and seated meditation which only act as a diversion.  Zen has essentially had intuition removed and re-interpreted.

At the core of all ideology

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.

Totalitarianism's most insidious form

All through the 20th century totalitarianism has reared its ugly head in many forms.  Its most insidious form is to attach to what we are not this being our physical body we acquired at conception. This is akin to the reflection Narcissus saw of himself in the pool which he believed was his true self.

We know this attachment (it’s kind of psychosis) in Buddhism as clinging to the five aggregates which are not who we really are.  We also know this as the the conceit ‘I am’ (asmimāna) based on these five aggregates.  In light of this, today’s Buddhists are so much under the spell of totalitarianism that they believe there is no fundamental self like the annihilationists (ucchedavādā) did during the time of the Buddha.  There is this body which is me and when I die that's it!

Like Narcissus we are deeply attached to what we see in the mirror (or even a selfie).  Transfixed by the image of what we believe to be our true self, we are close to becoming somatic narcissists (a preoccupation/obsession with our body and sex).  In this condition, we run the risk of becoming sidetracked by our preoccupation which might take up a large part of the day. 

All of our love or preference for our physical body begins to wane, seriously, when we grow old.  With death, our lifeless body returns to Māra’s bone orchard or bone-mountain which the Buddha describes in the Aṭṭhipuñja [bone-heap] Sutta.  After the death of the body, we are ready to descend into another fertilized ovum, following the zygote as it develops. 

 

Creating the demons which guard the open mind

The Zen student's mind before it intuitively awakens to what is actually the Buddha-nature, is engaged in trying to predict what Zen is saying as regards direct intuition of this Buddha-nature.  I will say that there is very little if any success in such an undertaking.  It is like trying to know before we actually know. 

Nevertheless, the process of predicting goes on in the study of Zen.  In fact, it goes on to such a degree that it actually reinforces this predictive process.  As a result of this process it becomes even more difficult to overcome and have an open mind. 

Have an open mind is easy to say, but actually having one's mind open is next to impossible.  We are always hampered by the habit of trying to predict, that is, to know before we know or to estimate what the future will be.  Such a course of action always ends by going down the wrong road ending up at a dead end.

How does the student of Zen obtain an open mind?  First of all, it is perhaps easier to look and see what an open mind is not. This would be a closed mind.  This also would be a mind engaged in the process of prediction.  This might even include anticipation or guessing what Zen means by an open mind!  But how can you know before you know?

The scary thing about an open mind is you lose all sense of direction and purpose.  You give up seeking Zen’s holy grail without knowing that you are giving up.  It sounds like this person might be hopelessly depressed.  But this is not always true.  How do you get into a state where you lose all sense of direction and purpose?  Pretending that you are in this state like a movie actor is out of the question.

The experience of having an open mind is much different than pretending to have an open mind.  We could say that an open mind is guarded by demons which are powerful.  The Zen student must fight their way through these demons.  This involves outguessing yourself which has created all these demons to guard the open mind!  Eventually, you don't create any more demons.  One moment you just forget to create them.  That is when you enter through the mysterious Dharma gate.