The Zennist

The great magic trick

The typical human being interfaces with an illusory world through an illusory body.  In other words, the primary has become more or less attached to the secondary (i.e., illusion) so that it never seems fulfilled.  Yet, the mere fact of illusion signals it's very transcendence which in our ignorance we are unaware of.

This unawareness leads to suffering.  The pursuit of life then begins to be a kind of unconscious wish to be free from illusion yet being, at the same time, mesmerized by illusions like children in a toy store.  This is because appearance, i.e., illusions seem real.

This is where the mystic or a muni (मुनि) like Siddhartha steps onto the stage.  Siddhartha awakened to the truth of the transcendent rather than analyzing illusions (what has been transcended) for clues as to ultimate reality.  But there is no truth in the illusory which is completely void, hollow, and insubstantial.

To reach the awakened state (buddhatā) the adept must, however, be freed from that which receives (the perceiver) as much as from that which can be perceived, that is to say, from the subject as well as from the object of perception (both are illusory). 

The most troubling illusion for mankind is consciousness which in Sanskrit is vijñāna meaning, literally, in two parts knowing.  This is evident in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.

“My Nirvana has nothing to do with Substance (bhāva), nor with Action (kṛiyā), nor with Appearance (lakṣaṇa). With the cessation of the Vijñāna which is caused by discrimination, there is my cessation [i.e., Nirvana].”

Once consciousness has been transcended in which the absolute suddenly reveals itself to the amazement of the adept (yes, it was always there) it becomes apparent to the adept how the magic trick is performed whereas the worlding is continually baffled by the trick due to vijñāna.

To this transcendent place

Buddhism teaches a place where the power of our human imagination (G., Einbildungskraft) can’t go:  a clear light that reveals itself and what it transcends.  This imagination, I hasten to add, includes our intellect with all of its speculations. 

Whatever we say about Buddhism it can only point in the direction of this ‘place’ it cannot reveal it or show it to us.  We must uncover it our self.  At the same time it is always revealing itself to itself which is what the ātman or Buddha nature is about; perhaps more importantly, it also reveals what it transcends.  This is the very world in which we have been immersed since birth.

When we awaken to this transcendent place we will know for the first time that the clear light, in fact, reveals itself to itself and illuminates perfectly what it transcends.

I hasten to add why awareness is so important in the practice of Buddhism.  Without realizing it we are being aware of the already transcended.  Our fullest awareness is the acknowledgment of the transcended.  What we have surpassed.

From this awareness the adept moves towards direct convergence (samādhi) with the transcendent itself by which transcendence of the human being becomes attainable.

This is exemplified in the meditation described in the Ānāpānasati Sutta where awareness is entirely before the in & out breath. The adept is transcending the breath by direct awareness (sati) of it.

A battle between emotion and reason

In recent times the world has been taken over by a search for cosmic justice and the Higgs Boson particle, the so-called God particle.  Both groups have found neither cosmic justice nor the Higgs Boson particle but seem to have managed to gain the world's attention at the possibility of finding both.

At this time, the depth of Buddhism is too much for the bulk of humanity.  They prefer a Quixotic quest for some artifact of their imagination; at least to reify it enough so they can publish academic papers about it.

While it is true that mankind has not set foot in reality for a long time or wishes to cross the waters of samsara to reach the Isle of Nirvana, he has managed to eke out a living making mechanical and electrical devices but still suffers from the inability to control his emotions which eventually leads to a life of great suffering.

Making this matter worse is when we put emotional dynamite into ideas so that people will feel compelled to get very physical if not violent to get their ideas across.  The emotions themselves become the justification for doing all kinds of evil things in the name of the search for cosmic justice.  And despite all the evidence against modern science that the physical universe is not physical but electrical they continue to push their insane projects spending vast sums of taxpayers money on making high-energy particle colliders.

It could be that emotions have triumphed over reason to a point where we are in a place where emotionality and reason are facing off for a fight to the death.  Agree or disagree, nevertheless, our daily life consists of watching this battle between emotion and reason play out in our everyday life.

Living in an unfiltered world

We carry around many brain filters. They are capable of letting in certain ideas more freely than others.  In the digital world filters can block access to certain online materials. Seeing the world without filters is almost impossible.

This might be the reason why LSD-25 was so popular during the 1960s.  We hoped to see the world without filters maybe to see it with child-like eyes.  But there were still filters left in our brain.  And we could even add more filters later on in life.

In Buddhism and especially Zen, the filter problem is a big deal because when we enter the temple, so to speak, our entire brain is somewhat over-filtered.  Much of it works against the context of Buddhism but includes, nevertheless, our expectations of what Buddhism is about in our filtered world. 

This condition in the long run only helps with our gradual absorption into the world of appearances which, naturally, runs counter to Buddhism.

This all comes down to the question of how do we see true reality minus the filters?  Even using our imagination we are presented with the problem of filtering and it's a deep problem.  It seems to me that in the beginning we have to bring up filters but then see through them. This is not as easy as it looks.