How much we are deceived by her own ignorance and therefore have to rely on others based upon their authority is astonishing to say the least. Add to this problem that we have come to believe that a hypothesis, like the sun and the stars revolve around the Earth. But as Einstein pointed out it only takes one person to overthrow a hypothesis believed by many.
Suddenly we come to the problem of science by consensus. We all agree this hypothesis must be true. And then we come to Buddhism and the belief that the Buddha rejected any kind of absolute or ātman. He was an agnostic and certainly not a mystic who transcended the thinking creature called man.
But humans, especially, Buddhists have been deceived by their very ignorance. The Buddha was a mystic who had transcended the thinking creature called man.
To come to the limit of man who is merely an instrument is to be absorbed, for an instant, in the absolute. There is no man here or what man sought for. It's all been transcended. The barrier or stumbling block all along was man, this thinking creature, whose thinking is always dichotomous or dual.
It is impossible for a human being to return to the first principle by thinking dichotomously (vijñāna). And this is what Zen is really about. We have to let go of this two sided mind where there is a perceiver and perceiving which make up the fundamental part of the human being.
Meditation (dhyāna) is for those who practice transcendence. This can mean: what is most intrinsic in us seeks to go beyond what it faces in the way of being immersed in a temporal body with its imaginary thoughts (manas).
The practice of Zen or Buddhism, just going through rituals and the seated meditation, is not practice. Nor is transcendence going on. To get to dhyāna which is real transcendence, first involves exhausting dichotomous thinking (vijñāna); going to our wits’ end.
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