The Zennist

The side of the brain that makes politics and Zen difficult

As noted in an earlier Zennist blog, there is a natural antagonism in the human brain between the left and right hemispheres.  Eventually, this natural antagonism externalizes itself in the public discourse as a sharp political divide between the political Left and the Right. 

The left hemisphere of the brain creates a sort of self-reflexive virtual world (utopia) which only serves to bar reality and continue with its ideological fantasies which typifies the political Left, especially Marxism.  It is the right hemisphere of the brain that enables us to wake up and leave this fantasy world of the left hemisphere and deal with reality: the way things really are.

This view I suspect is a bitter pill to swallow but it is supported by scientific research.  Also, I hasten to add, there is a bias in the brain that favors the left hemisphere over the right hemisphere.  This bias involves two proteins, namely, Fgf8 and Nodal.  Their action ensures that when the antagonism develops, it usually favors the left hemisphere of the brain.  

In Zen’s intuitive path this means the harder we try to awaken to our true nature, the more we employ the left-hemisphere, and the more difficulty we encounter.  Paradoxically, once we stop forcing our self to awaken, satori comes to us spontaneously and unexpectedly, which Zen’s history reports.  Nevertheless, getting to that point is no easy matter or an easy cakewalk.  Satori is never easy.  We are usually deluded by the left hemisphere with its penchant for fantasy.  It is more at home with an unrealistic imagination which conjures up fake enlightenments. 

The left hemisphere can only deal with what it already presupposes: the world that it has already made for itself. This is not helpful when we elect to explore what we do not know which we seek to know.

Zen naturally favors the right hemisphere of the brain, with its greater integrative and unifying power that is constantly allowing itself to enter the world of the unknown to find and to know ultimate meaning on its own terms.  

The Power of Intuition

Truth is never realized when it is always a product of our imagination including our linguistic imagination (the intellect).  Direct intuition of the truth (kenshō) is more important than an intellectual grasp which comes through the imagination.  We could even say that direct intuition bypasses our intellectual imagination and its attempt to reify what is only imaginal.  

Zen (dhyāna) is only a path to direct intuition.  While it includes all the literature found in Buddhism it fundamentally understands that Siddhartha's revelation can only be achieved by intuition, a sudden direct seeing of the absolute, which certainly surpasses the imagination and all that comes from it.

Scarcely is the subject of intuition taken up in today's Zen Center and very seldom written about in the academic literature if at all.  This fact suggests that intuition is being ignored as the royal road to enlightenment having been replaced by just sitting which becomes more of a therapy for relaxing the body, somewhat like a massage.  Does such a practice reveal our true nature or the same our Buddha nature?       

The mystical tradition is also ancient in origin.  The oral teachings recorded in the Upanishads, Buddhist sutras, and similar records go back thousands of years and provide evidence that mystical teachers of widely different cultures say remarkably similar things.  Also concerned with human suffering, they propose that human beings are ignorant of their true nature and that ignorance leads to the lives of pain and futility.  The sages describe a Way that leads to a higher level of existence, one infinitely more desirable than the level on which most people conduct their lives.  The mystical tradition does not offer therapy in the usual sense of the word, but achieving the goal of mysticism — experiencing the Real Self — is said to cure human suffering because its very basis is thereby removed (Dr. Arthur Deikman, The Observing Self, p. 3 ).

 Intuition is the mystical tradition and the mystical tradition is intuition. The problem we face is how to keep ourselves open to intuition and not close it off by overuse of intellect.  There is no reason to believe that Siddhartha found a way other than by direct intuition.  Such intuition is independent of just sitting or any physical effort for that matter. 

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The transcendent unseparatedness between subject and object or, the same, observer and observed is neither addressed nor realized in the forum of public thought.  It is only theorized at best by academics.  Few intuit this transcendent unseparatedness, directly, except to imagine it.

Is there another name for this transcendent unseparatedness between subject and object?  In Buddhism it is called the light, or the clear light, or the radiant light, or luminosity and many other names.  Zen master Danxia丹霞 said: “This abundant light, wherever you are, in every situation, is itself the great way.”  In the older canon we run across it in the Itivuttaka and elsewhere.

Light-bringers, dhamma-speakers, open the door off the deathless, set free the many folk from bondage.

It should go without saying that this light is absent in our world.  Yes, we can imagine it but this is not the same as the light the Buddhas talks about whereby the dualizing nature of sensory consciousness (vijñāna) is overcome.  

The hard reality of our dualistic world is maintained by the seeming difference between subject and object.  This difference can either be great or small but still a difference exists or seems too.  From this division or gap grows fear and mistrust, even alienation and a host of other negative things. 

Social Justice and Zen

Today, the typical materialist denies that there are any innate ideas, self-knowledge or intuitional knowledge.  All these terms are pointing beyond the spatiotemporal world which is the only world the materialist believes in.  

On the other hand, Zen wants to take us beyond the spatiotemporal world to ultimate reality or absolute spirit where the discordant asymmetry of the mind (vijñāna: knowing in two parts) is overcome.  

This is a return to the original one before mind split into two parts, subject and object (vijñāna).  All differences are transcended.  In the embrace of this clear light all resentment or claim of requital also disappears.  There is neither the need for justice nor injustice.  In a single flash of this clear light conditioning and spiritual blindness have been suddenly erased.

This return however does not depend upon the written word or concepts created through words which arise in our imagination.  The second slogan of Zen says, “[Zen does] not depend on written words.”  Making matters worse, we live in an ideological age where the triumph of the words over reality has taken place.  In this age, special terms are saturated with feelings or emotion, for example, the word racism.  

Now the word enlightenment signifies how we feel.  Aren't we all Buddhas deep down?  Nirvana has long ceased being an attainable but transcendent reality.  The word has triumphed backed by how intensely each of us feels about the word.  We are lost. 

Awakening to the Unborn

It is much easier to alter history than it is to alter the works of Plato or the Buddha although, in the example of Buddhism, the interpretation of what the Buddha meant or was trying to teach can be altered.  

What we know as the history of World War II can radically change based on newly discovered documents.  This is unlikely to happen with Buddhism.  Also, it would be wrong on our part to believe that Buddhist scholars know what the Buddha taught.  Some I am sure have it more right than others.  

In our search for authentic Buddhism we are always looking for an easy path to the summit of Buddhism:  a path, more or less, based on our own preconceptions and values which can be quite shallow.  In fact, we never reach the summit or get to the dangerous ice that guards the summit.  We are still in base camp getting ready to climb.

 

Every generation has their problems which make reaching the summit of Buddhism next to impossible.  But still it can be done despite all the difficulties each generation faces.  We have to understand that the path is for the purpose of intuiting the absolute.  It is not a way like haṭha yoga, trying to make the body supple by force.  

To rightly grasp what intuition is about is to understand what Zen is about.  It doesn’t mean we are awakened just that we know where our spiritual efforts are to be directed

We are supposed to transcend this spatiotemporal body since it is not a true refuge.  If we succeed we, suddenly, intuit the primary essence of everything even our thoughts.  That is the refuge.  It is our guide too.  It is the real Buddha. 

 

 

 

 

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The Right Attitude for Awakening

Siddhartha discovered within himself, intuitively, the mysterious origin or source from which to raise himself above his own finite self (asmimāna) together with its corresponding temporal world.  

Siddhartha’s transcendent perspective sees that order does inhere in the seeming randomness and chaos of the temporal world and its psychophysical man.  But to reach this vision certainly requires faith in transcendence.  One must go beyond or outside of what is perceived or presented in one’s sensory experience.

Accepting the world as it is does not carry with it the need to have faith in its eventual transcendence.  This is Dōgen’s Sōtō school of Zen which believes that just sitting in meditation accomplishes the natural unfolding of one's a Buddha nature.  Intuition (dhyāna)) does not play any significant role.  

Yet so much of Zen bears witness to a sudden awakening (頓悟) by means of intuition.  Without realizing the primordial essence of one's thoughts, memorizing countless passages of Zen passages is useless.  Study never gets beyond thinking about Zen, that is, the generation of thoughts about Zen.  

Ordinary beings only experience thoughts which are impure; which make up the deluded mind as their normal state.  On the other hand, the luminous essence of one's thoughts is a state in which the adept’s true nature transcends conditions or samskrita and the suffering associated with conditions. This is the enlightened state of a Buddha. 

The Transformation of the worldly Caterpillar into a Spiritual Chrysalis will birth the Butterfly Buddha

We like to explore new things, especially, new ideas.  In doing so we are really extending ourselves to other things and ideas not putting our personal biases aside.  We, unconsciously, interpret Buddhism and Zen in our own way.  As a result, both seem familiar to us.  There is nothing in either that is alien to our personal ideas or understanding.

On the same score, we are drawn to teachers who seem to share our ideas; who seem to represent the true Dharma.  But what most of us see and understand is really a reflection of what we expect Buddhism and Zen to be.  We are looking at both from our own side.  We have yet to peel away our own tainted and peculiar understanding.  We have yet to meet the Dharma on its own terms.  To do so requires a spiritual transformation.

It is interesting to note, that a caterpillar must digest itself before it can become a butterfly.  This digestion process digests everything except the imaginal cells:  the cells that help create the transformation that occurs when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly.

These special cells hold the potential for the butterfly body.  The immune system of the caterpillar, however, identifies the imaginal cells as threats and attacks them but to no avail.  Eventually, the imaginal cells stop acting as individual cells.  They become a multiple-celled butterfly that uses the digested caterpillar (a kind of soup in the chrysalis).

This transformation could be an exemplar for spiritual birth:  the digestion or transformation of the conditioned into the structureless unconditioned.  When there is no more of the conditioned to be negated (digested) the unconditioned is reveled free of distortion:  one intuits it directly.

Enlightenment is about the transformation of a human into a Buddha (one who is awakened to the unconditioned).  One has, essentially, digested the false self to reach the true self, that is, Buddha-nature. Those human beings who do not wish to go through this spiritual transformation can be likened to caterpillars!  They remain ugly with one purpose in mind:  to feed their appetite. 

Being content with reification is not Zen's way

The tendency to reify our concepts runs deep in our modern culture.  We do it automatically without realizing it.  The noun “reification” comes from the the Latin res, thing.  When we reify our concepts we are trying to imbue them with realness — thingify them, in other words. 

If someone asks what Zen is they learn that it is seeing one’s true nature.  But this really says nothing about our true nature.  It might be thought provoking but this nature is still a mystery.  We have yet to intuit it directly.  That could take a lifetime. 

Those who are content with a reification of Zen will walk away believing that they fully understand it.  They might add that this true nature is simple sensory awareness or “just sitting”.  But they are just beating the cart and not the ox.  The cart doesn’t move.

Polishing a brick to make a mirror is a waste of effort.
So how can practicing Zen meditation to become a Buddha ever succeed?
Beat the ox or beat the cart—which should one do?
Using the false or using the true—which one will bring the dragon?
The mind-ground holds the seeds, but they need irrigation.
Our nature is like an untainted sky—clear for ten thousand miles.
The precious flower of samadhi is apart from all marks:
The wonder of its response, creation, and transformation is unfathomable.

Those who are content with a reification of Zen will walk away believing that they fully understand it.  This is using the conditioned to find the unconditioned.  Relying on concepts words evoke as if the concept is the intended reality is a grievous error.  Just as bad, is sitting in the body of birth and death imagining this to be the Buddha’s body.

Unlocking the Koan with the Skeleton Key

Koans can be thought of as the adept facing the conditioned to realize the unconditioned.  The conditioned is also a barrier (関) that must be swept aside so the adept can intuit the unconditioned (that upon which the conditioned is based).  Koans in that regard are not answered in the sense of an interpretation because there is zero chance of getting the right answer.

The koan acts as a barrier to any and all conditioned approaches to its solution.  In a manner of speaking, there is no gate or a barrier for those who can see.  But coming to the direct intuition of the unconditioned is extremely difficult and subtle.  Few accomplish the journey.  This difficulty insures Zen’s eventual fall because the unconditioned goes deeper than any proof which only compels acceptance by what is inferior to truth itself. 

Koans exhaust the adept’s attempt to find a solution by conditioned means.  Yet koans are an allusion of the unconditioned.  They hint at it without revealing it.  The unconditioned hides in the conditioned.  The adept is forced to remove the veneer of the conditioned to arrive at the unconditioned.

“Knowing the end (khayaṁ) of the conditioned (saṅkhārānaṁ) you know the uncreated (akataññū) O Brahmin” (Dhammapada 383).

The willingness to transcend the conditioned is also to know that one is constantly being deceived by the conditioned.  Koans exploit our attachment and reliance on the conditioned in every way possible.  The adept is forced to meet the unconditioned on its own terms as it really is.

The narrative must be let go of, replaced by 'great doubt' (大疑)

Today, the narrative often precedes the reality it is supposed to represent.  The narrative, in other words, has superimposed itself over reality.  It is like the longitudinal and latitudinal lines on a map or on a world globe.  They are useful but not real.  Many things help to illustrate and solidify the narrative even ceremonies and rituals, or even a documentary about the big bang.  We seem to always fall for the deception.  

So where does true reality begin?  With a CNN news flash?  With unverified claims (opinions); with an event like 9-11?  But truth or true reality is almost always silent.  No narrative can pretend to speak for it.  No Zen teacher can hand it to us unmodified, the way it really is.  Even Zen master Dōgen used deception (the shisho document supposedly given to Dōgen by Rujing and now designated a national treasure by the Japanese government most certainly is a medieval forgery).

Still, we remain too easily persuaded by the narrative.  This can be more of a hindrance than a help.  We seem to have time for the narrative but not for the truth which is more difficult to attain.  It seems like you have to dig for the truth, which can be difficult, whereas the narrative is just handed to you.  You can learn all about Zen by reading books by Alan Watts — or can you?  But even Watts is skeptical of the "trickster guru" and may very well be such a person.  

In the matter of Zen, its own narrative prevents actual transcendence (kenshō) from manifesting itself and thus represents a dangerous form of idolatry.  In the study of Zen it conceals the most holy by claiming to practice it.  But how do you practice that which transcends all humanly efforts to reach it?  In other words, how do you practice hitting a target that neither you can see nor anyone else?  The narrative must be let go of, replaced by 'great doubt' (大疑).  This is a process of emptying-out not retaining.  Only then will clear light come which is the very substance of our ordinary thoughts.