The Zennist

We are participants in consciousness

From Zen Buddhism's perspective we are participants in consciousness (vijñāna = dual/vi knowing/jñāna).  Mankind is a conscious being of extraordinary intelligence.  But what consciousness is derived from is unknown to this conscious-ness being. 

We cannot use consciousness to find the origin of consciousness.  What consciousness depends upon shall always be unknown to us if we use consciousness as our means to find ultimate reality. 

We are so immersed in consciousness that we have no idea where it begins and where it ends.  And being in this predicament we are unable to transcend it, much less understand what we are facing which is consciousness which will not allow us to transcend it on its terms.

Still, consciousness is giving us hints of the difficulty we are in which is the difference between the unenlightened and enlightened; between the ones who are immersed in consciousness and the ones who have transcended it like the Buddhas.

Also, this consciousness is in the form of what the unenlightened sometimes refer to as relativism, that is, observer/knower and object/known duality.  They are mutually dependent upon each other.  This is Buddhism’s dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). 

But ultimate reality, that is, nirvana is not to be found here.  The Buddha's is dependent origination only speaks to the conditioned not the unconditioned where consciousness is transcended.

Why does Buddhism suffer from nihilism?

Back in 1965 when I took refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha, there wasn't a no-self (anātman) taking refuge or merely nothing whatsoever taking refuge (nihilism).  What was taking refuge was a confused self.

This self for far too long had been attached to things that brought only suffering.  And then I tried to look into my future.  What would it be like to be an old man, being sick or injured, having to face my death, descending again into a kind of dark womb?  I had no answer.  I was hoping Zen would give me that answer.

Let me say that Zen eventually showed me the right path.  It wasn't nihilistic.  Suddenly and unexpectedly, one night I saw the Buddha, dharma and the sangha.  My mistake was that for countless lifetimes I had attached to a conditioned world; not once did I see the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta).  And I truly was unconditioned.

Clearly the problem was this: if you are intrinsically unconditioned and attach to the conditioned you will suffer.  That is Buddhism in a nutshell.

In this light, Buddhism is not really a kind of Asian nihilism.  It only seems like nihilism when our true nature becomes a problem for itself.  We must always keep in mind that Zen is about kenshō, seeing our true or self-nature 自性.  This nature is equivalent to original mind 本 心, original nature 本性, real nature 實性, the mind of suchness 如如之心, original face 本來面目, and Buddha-nature 佛性.

A lot of western Buddhists only see Buddhism nihilistically. In that regard they are following a false teaching and a false path that will get them nowhere. They have closed off their minds from the light of truth. In this regard they actually seem afraid of the truth.

The reifiers

A person who reifies is called a reifier.  What does it mean to reify?  Quite simply, it means thing-making (saṃskāra).  In other words, just as we make a brick by using raw clay then forming it, so we've formed thoughts by thinking.  But we do much more. 

The existence/appearance that we have before us is a reification, the source of which is unborn (ajāta).  (We might think of the unborn as absolute or pure spirit.)  If we search for the source of appearance we will never be able to find it because we always reify it.  Yes, we are reifiers.  We never see the source in its raw state.

To rise to the level of a person like Siddhartha when he began his quest, it's not about finding something better or doing something better than we did before.  It is by unexpectedly finding that which is beyond all expectations and appearances.  Even the path is not made by human hands for human feet.  Rather, it transcends every human endeavor.

It even goes beyond thinker and thought.  This, by the way, is what all koans are built upon called huatou 話頭.  It is prior to the thinker and thought it cannot be envisioned.  The more the adept thinks about the koan the more concealed it becomes and the greater the doubt becomes.  Koans are meant to send the intellectual mind into the abyss, i.e., into a state of great doubt.  At some point the reifier can no longer reify.  This is the path Siddhartha took.

Buddhists are shocked to hear the truth of Buddha's teaching

The real teaching of the Buddha is missing in the modern Buddhist interpretation.  By a careful reading of the words of the Buddha one is able to put together the true teaching which is quite different from the one that most people believe he taught which lies mainly in their own imagination.

In light of this, even the first noble truth is not fully understood.  To the consternation and surprise of most Buddhists they are shocked to hear that the truth of the Buddhist teaching is that the first noble truth of suffering is about what is not the atman this being the five aggregates. These aggregates are suffering (SN 56:13) and with them what is not the self (an-atman). 

The second noble truth is about the cause of suffering which is clinging to these suffering aggregates or the same clinging to what is not the atman.  Putting a stop to clinging to these aggregates is the third noble truth.

Finally the fourth noble truth is yoking with the atman thus fully abandoning desire for what is not the self (SN 22:68).  Here one is free from clinging.  Yes, illusions still remain but there is no clinging to them because one has gone well beyond clinging where suffering is not possible.

Our very temporal thoughts are the sentient beings that we must save by being fully enlightened like Siddhartha when he became a Buddha.

Unlike with Christianity, there will be no savior who will save us from ourselves.  We must do that on our own because the truth is always present but we refuse to give up clinging to what causes us our suffering.

Coming to the end of conscious thought

Buddhism basically teaches that we cannot realize the absolute by using conscious thought or in Sanskrit vijñāna.  The Sanskrit term is very interesting.  It is really saying that knowing can only be in two parts (vi).  For example, the perceiver and the perceived; the observer and the observed; or the thinker and the thought.

This implies that Buddhism is also saying that consciousness must be transcended in order to realize the absolute.  We could even add a Pythagorean twist to this:  that we cannot reach the monad by way of the dyad.

The various schools of Zen reveal that they were built, more or less, upon the tradition of how to make a transition from conscious thought to direct intuition.  Even a superficial appraisal of Zen reveals that it is not mediated by reason but instead by intuition. 

I can personally attest to this and looking back over the years know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we live in an age in which intuition is being ignored.

Intuition only begins when conscious thought, like a driver, is forced to get out of their car because there is no more road.  Now the driver has to walk in a mysterious land that is perpendicular to the previous roads.  But in this example the perpendicular is not just roadlessness.  There is the mysterious vertical to it which will lead to greater and greater heights.  Only the unexpected and the new come out of this.  The only way to test this out is drive until you can go no more.  You’ve reached your wits’ end.  And that is only the beginning for Zen.

Traditionally, a good student of Zen is always on the verge of going to their wits' end.  They are about to run out of road (which is why they have come to Zen).  They are ripe for intuition.  But just because the sign on the temple suggests that Zen is to be found here, it is not.  It defies all expectations.

The Tathagata broadcast

Like a radio signal, what is eternally broadcast by the Tathagata is the inconceivable dharma. But few people resonate with this mysterious signal especially in materialistic times.

Such people have no faith that there is something beyond the five aggregates and the six senses ( the six senses comprise the “all”, namely, eye forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile objects, the mind and mental phenomena).

Without such faith we cannot proceed on the right path, in fact, the path we are on will only take us to more rebirths. This of course is a false path and there are many such false paths in religions but also in the political world as well.

Most of these political paths do not lead to either prosperity or happiness.  If there is prosperity and happiness it is short-lived.  As the leaders become more corrupt the people likewise become more corrupt.  Society then becomes chaotic.

In my personal voyage of discovery I found that solitude helps tremendously to set a person on the right path (it forces you to look at yourself, deeply).  It is easier to pick up the Tathagata’s signal.  Words that are spoken or read only go so far; they don’t impart a Buddha’s wisdom to a person.

The state of awakening

Buddhatā, a Sanskrit word, is the state of awakening to our true nature/self.  It is a matter of transcending all that is conditioned and finite to reach the unconditioned and infinite.  But just setting aside the conditioned is not enough.  Negation alone will not culminate in direct intuition of this state.

The intuitional process does not rely on the intellectual or discursive process.  It's more like trying to remember where we last put our car keys and we are already late for work.  Those who favor intuition over analysis are the best students of Zen and may likely arrive at buddhatā.  They are better at remembering their true nature which, before they came to Zen, had completely forgotten.

Zen is truly an intuitional tradition which is precisely what dhyāna is (Siddhartha Gautama’s means of attaining enlightenment).  The most difficult part of Zen is transcending dualistic thinking (vijñāna) which obstructs intuition.  In buddhatā subject and object, observer and observed have suddenly disappeared.  Yes, this sounds strange to modern ears who are used to thinking dualistically. 

Such thinking is relative thinking in the sense of comparison to something else which is not absolute.  In fact, both sides of dualistic thinking, that is vijñāna, are not absolute but always relative to the other.  As the reader can see, we are in a situation that we cannot easily transcend.  It seems apparent that we have to let go of subject and object.  This situation is what makes the Zen koan (公案) so tantalizing yet inscrutable.