The Zennist

Removing a brick from the wall

From a Buddhist perspective the human being is over-preoccupied with their imagination which Buddhists regard as the 6th sense or manas.  This also includes the intellect which creates a world of ideas and concepts which fundamentally depend upon the thinking/generation of thought. 

All this acts as something like a prison in which the human being is located within.  Psychedelic drugs might help us face this wall which is more illusory than we imagine.  But ultimately we face the thought-made-wall with our thought.  We cannot pass through.  We are forever born and re-born inside this prison.  For Buddhists this is called samsara.

But most of us have heard of the word nirvana.  But what is nirvana?  Is it a kind of passive nihilism?  Could nirvana be like a hole in the thought-made-wall:  the disappearance of a single brick?  But what happens when a brick is no longer there?  What the wall hides is now revealed.  What comes pouring in through that hole, where a brick once was, is the pure light of spirit.

Many today are seeking while confined in ignorance (lost in error).  After all, this wall of thought is a kind of limiting ignorance.  All may even wish to understand.  Still, they only have the eyes of fish who can see everything in their watery world with the exception of the water they are in.  For the one who truly sees (a Buddha), those who are unawakened have eyes not fully open yet they appear open. 

We should not underestimate the power of the imagination or the manas.   The absolute or pure unformed spirit is contained (thoroughly hidden and must be uncovered) in the imagination while, at the same time, from the perspective of the sage, imagination is included within the absolute.

Going beyond thought

Intelligence plus intuition does not account for the intellect but it works for the Zen mind/wisdom.  The intellect lacks intuition.  It can only deal in ideas and concepts (it tends to be analytical in that regards).  While an intellectual may be brilliant he or she still has not managed to get beyond Mumon's barrier, that is, Mu.  Mu represents thought where thought is the great barrier that all Zen practitioners must face. 

Foremost, thought is a barrier to spirit.  It is what the Zen adepts must confront on the path.  During this confrontation, for intuition to be successful, thought must spontaneously dissolve on its own returning back to unconditioned absolute spirit or the same, pure Mind.  In Zen this is our original face (本來面目) where thought has not yet been formed.

Throughout the literature of Zen Buddhism there is a constant reference to this spirit in which there is no thought.  Interestingly, spirit can become congealed into thought but thought is never spirit.  Thought is never other than an illusion created from spirit. 

In the study of Zen we must break the habit of looking for this spirit by means of thought.  But most all Zen students haven't even come to this milestone.  They are still trying to put Zen's mystery into a particular thought.  But such an endeavor is always doomed to failure.

Zen has a history of being clever when it comes to bringing the student to spirit where thought is spontaneously dissolved; where only spirit remains.  But this assumes certain things the most fundamental being that the Zen teacher must be awakened.  Lacking an awakened teacher one must go into solitude cutting off their ties with the outer interpersonal world, transcending the overarching dyad of subject and object through intuition.

Imagination is in control and wants to stay in power

Our five senses and our power of judgment are more or less controlled by our imagination (manas) which happens to be the sixth sense in Buddhism.  The imagination sort of fills in the gaps where there is no reliable sensory data.  An example of this is when imagination is tied to architecture.  Mankind can build great cities and create a virtual but, nevertheless, practical world where humans can live and feel safe. 

To be sure, we can erect fictional worlds for the sake of survival when it is necessary to do so.  In other words, for practical purposes we have to accept certain kinds of fictions as if they are non-fictional reality.  But overtime the difference between fiction and reality loses its distinction.  We can no longer tell fiction from fact.  The full impact of our imagination now engulfs and controls us. 

Imagination’s various trends and fashions, including popular thought, or popular ideology, are not the exceptions but the rule.  The imagination is in control and wants to stay in power even if it means it will lead to chaos and the downfall of all.  To break the control of the imagination takes great skill.  It is not easy to do.  Guarding the imagination are the emotions which are fierce and bewitching.

Mind as spirit (citta) is certainly hidden and entangled with the imagination.  It is like a prisoner trying to escape.  Surprisingly, with the death of this illusory body and spirit’s rebirth (paṭisandhi-citta), also known as gandharva (P., gandhabba), it has no choice, or so it seems, but to follow the course of its downward fate. 

As we can see the purification of citta or spirit is essential since it is defiled having been mixed up with the imagination.  The minimum defilement of spirit is a thought.  Here we come to Zen's no-thought in Zen.  This is when the adept experiences freedom from the imagination and all that comes with it.

A continuity abides in all sentient beings

Figuratively speaking, there is an absolute continuity which abides in all sentient beings despite their differences from each other, including death (yes, this continuity surpasses death).  There are many names for it such as soul, One Mind, pure Mind, Buddha-nature, ātman, Spirit, or God (theos). 

That we cannot conceive of this continuity with thought or by conceptualizing it, is to be expected according to the great mystics like Siddhartha.  Still, we try to do it which turns into religion, philosophy and metaphysics.  Here, we are using thought as an equivalent of the unthinkable and inconceivable. 

Thought is useful for our imagination which can be used to make a virtual world (ancient Rome, Paris, London or St. Petersburg are good examples) which we fall prey to in the sense of attaching to this architecture when there is nothing fundamentally real to attach to.

Ultimate reality is always found in this continuity.  Everything else is an appearance which is transitory, which is the snare of suffering, and is not real.  But we are already entangled in this snare during rebirth.  Joy is short-lived while suffering is long-term.

Religions like Buddhism and Christianity offer mankind an escape from the world of appearance.  But this escape usually becomes only hope which is just another kind of appearance (even secular progress rests upon hope). 

If there is any kind of escape it has to be direct intuition or gnosis of ultimate reality hidden in this continuity which entails a process of negation of all appearance including thought, upon which our human world is based.  And since there is nothing higher than ultimate reality there is no way to see it except to merge with it, completely.  This mergence, the noun, is absolute knowing but nontransferable (mergence cannot be transferred by teacher to student).

Deciding which way to go

There is so much mystery in Zen Buddhism that those who read and study it do so rely on a contemporary standpoint.  But it is almost impossible that Zen should speak for itself through modern ideas and various contemporary meanings we give to Zen’s words.  We have only ourselves to look into to begin to find the portal or the same the path of Zen.  Ultimately, Zen wants us to look within. 

The more we look within, there is a more subtle world to be examined but this examination is not about looking at something other than the onlooker.  The fundamental difference between the onlooker and the examined is precisely zero.  It is somewhat like saying the difference between thought and extension is precisely zero.  Still, we do not understand how there can be this zero difference.

Zen will suggest to us that this zero difference is spirit or absolute Mind before it becomes manifest as thought and extension.  Thus, in essence, there is zero difference.  At this point, what the adept is missing is the direct experience of spirit, itself, which is unthinkable and infinite.

Faced with a lack of experience, the Zen adept must either fish or cut bait.  The adept must either take up the more difficult mind, the religious mind, which works by direct intuition or gnosis, or take up the ecclesiastical mind which is observant and intellectual.  Most who come to this crossroad either consciously or unconsciously choose to go with the ecclesiastical mind.  It is here that the practitioner comes to see Zen as   consisting of robes, ceremonies and rituals, and seated meditation or zazen—and an institutional enlightenment.

The dualizing work of consciousness

If it is true as Dr. Donald Hoffman suggests in his book titled, The Case Against Reality, that matter and spacetime arise from consciousness, then what are we to make of this consciousness from a Buddhist perspective? 

The English word consciousness is often used in Buddhism to translate vijñāna.  Does consciousness work?  No, I don't think it does.  It leaves out something very important in vijñāna which is the dualizing work of consciousness itself:  there always has to be separation between subject and object as implied with the prefix “vi”.

It hardly ever dawns on the human mind, or maybe I should say human consciousness, that it is always looking at the world in two parts, that his, subject and object, or if you prefer, observer and observed.  During satori or enlightenment this duality is transcended.  The adept goes back to original, non-duality, or advaya.

Any trace of an ‘other’ or object is gone; there is no subject either.  In about 1/10 of a second duality has gone back into the original state.  In Zen we might call it One Mind or pure spirit or pure Mind.  In light of this, thought, which brings with it duality (thinker and thought) only serves to falsify and distort the original state which is absolute, inexpressible, and  indeterminate.  It transcends every kind of thought, thought being only a construction of spirit or the same, the One Mind.

 

The conditioned is empty

Śūnyatā should represent emptiness of essence/intrinsic nature (svabhāva) in what is conditioned.  On the other hand, the unconditioned is svabhāva.  Related, one should understand that ‘no-thought’ (acitta) is the domain of the supreme essential nature (paramārthikaḥ svabhāvaḥ) which is never other than unconditioned.  If this sounds confusing then perhaps the reader is reading these words with a nihilistic bias.

Unfortunately, the modern understanding of Buddhism is for the most part nihilistic and quite extreme.  The Buddha preached against nihilism.  He did not deny the transcendent or absolute spirit which was unconditioned and non-dual (advaya).  In fact, I should add that enlightenment or gnosis proves this.  One, in fact, attains this transcendent state which is totally unthinkable. 

Trying to explain this with words which give rise to thoughts is a fool’s errand that a good teacher, nevertheless, has to partake in.   Our human form is like the 305-meter-wide dish at Arecibo Observatory into which data enters but the absolute is not one of those things.  No matter how subtle our thoughts are, our thought/reasoning stops us from entering the so-called kingdom of heaven.

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).

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.