The Zennist

Western meditation vs Buddhist meditation

If by meditation we mean close or continued thought in the sense of sustained reflection, then Buddhist meditation (jhāna/dhyāna) does not match the western idea of meditation. 

Buddhist meditation is more about the stilling of thoughts before a sudden shift into direct intuition of the absolute, i.e., transcendental knowledge (prajñā) occurs.  In Buddhism, such knowledge can never be the result of analytical reasoning but can only reveal itself, spontaneously, by a special kind of meditation.

The process of stilling is not, as we might think, done by willing.  It is about awareness or mindfulness that gets behind our inner world of thoughts.  But it doesn’t will.  Our thoughts become still as we decondition our normal habit or impulse to engage with various kinds of thoughts and emotionally tinged thoughts.  Even though one believes they are mindful of their thoughts as they arise and change, nevertheless, they are engaged with various thoughts, still under their spell.  The practitioner cannot do Buddhist meditation while they are still under the domination of the five hindrances, namely, sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, doubt.

Years ago, when I meditated in an adit that went back into a hill some 43 feet, it was much easier to meditate.  It was so quiet you could almost hear ashes drop from the burning incense.  The atmosphere of the adit helped me to be mindful of my thoughts to a great extent.  But I had also overcome the five hindrances by living in solitude which made this meditation doable for me. 

I should mention that in Buddhism overcoming the five hindrances  is a prerequisite for proper meditation.  This is where modern Zen and its practitioners delude themselves.  They are not doing real meditation because they are still under the influence of the five hindrances.  This, by the way, is one of the reasons one elects to become a monk or a nun and live away from the madding crowd.

 

A divide between Zen and Buddhism?

In Alan Watts’ book, The Spirit of Zen, a 1960 Evergreen Edition, the author writes the following:

“Zen is so markedly different from any other form of Buddhism, one might even say from any other form of religion, that it has roused the curiosity of many who would not ordinarily look to the ‘unpractical’ East for practical wisdom” (p. 17).

Is this true that Zen is different from any other form of Buddhism?  One could certainly make a good case that it is true but never a good enough case to say that Zen is not Buddhist.  It would be wrong to say that Zen is not Buddhist because it burned a commentary to a Buddhist discourse, burned a wooden statue of the Buddha to keep warm, and killed a cat to stop an argument between monks.

For those who have neglected to read some of the important works found in the Pali canon or have not studied the Mahayana literature, sufficiently, which can be mind boggling, it strikes me as arrogant to assume that Zen might have created itself.

Where Zen’s originality lies is not in its difference from Buddhism, for example, found in the Pali Nikayas and in Mahayana scripture but rather the means it uses to realize Gautama’s enlightenment for which the Zen tradition is aptly named.  The means or method relies on intuition which is the process of coming to direct knowledge of the absolute.

The goal of Zen has always been for the Zen adept to see what Siddhartha realized who then became a Buddha.  It has never been other than this.  But these are modern times where historical facts are ignored where even modern Zennists can say that they don’t believe in rebirth or accept karma; who also don’t accept nirvana as being all that important.  They just want to learn to sit in zazen—that's all.  For these people, zazen is just another tool they can use when their hedonistic desires and expectations are not being met, and they have to face reality, i.e., the first noble truth of suffering.

The primary basis, itself, which always remains unarisen

There is an implicit distinction to be made between what arises from the unconditioned, primary basis, and the unconditioned, primary basis, itself, which always remains unarisen (an ungraspable background so to speak).

During meditation, the advanced student often discovers this distinction.  Ordinary thoughts, i.e., the arisen, just don’t arise from themselves.  That’s absurd.  In fact, what we call our ‘mind’ (manas) is all our mental powers such as intellect, understanding, perception, sense, conscience, will, etc., which are constantly arising and changing.  Nothing here is the unarisen which is the unconditioned, primary basis. 

We can name the unarisen basis, the true self, and what arises to be what makes up the false self or anātman.

So the question is, would it be tenable to claim that forms or sights (rūpā) that have arisen are the true self?  No it would not according to the Buddha in the Chachakka Sutta.  We could further say that what has arisen is the false self.  This is true with the other senses as well, including the body (kāya) and the mind or manas.

In order to break our identity with the sensory world such as sight, sounds, smells, taste, the body and the mind or manas, the noble disciple has to become disenchanted (nibbindati) with all this, even craving.  This is like Zen master Dahui’s ‘great doubt’ 大疑.  It is only in a state of utter disenchantment that one eventually goes beyond, hence, merging with the unconditioned

Many who take up Zen are a pretty stubborn lot

It goes almost without saying that those who take up Zen meditation do so, not to become enlightened, attaining kenshō, but as a way to deal with the stress they face in their daily life. 

An in-depth study of Zen’s early development, like with Buddhism, finds that it aims at liberation from rebirth by means of transcending discursive thinking so that one is able to see the world the way it really is—not through the obstructing veil of one's all to human thoughts. 

The practice of meditation in this respect means to arrive at no-mentation 無念 in which discursive thinking suddenly and briefly stops.  This stopping reveals none other than true Mind which is one of many metaphors used in Zen for the absolute.  The purpose of Zen training is to arrive here, at true Mind, not just sit on a cushion trying to still the monkey mind.  Only then can rebirth and suffering be fully overcome.

But those today who take up Zen are a pretty stubborn lot.  They do as they please and if Zen doesn’t accord with their views, both political and psychological, Zen must adapt and therefore must change.  On the other hand, they like wearing robes and doing rituals and pretty much all agree that Zen is teaching us that our ordinary human mind of birth and death is the mind of a Buddha—even to realized that there is nothing to search for.  Sadly, these people have not learned Zen and stray far from the Buddha’s path.

They cling, almost unconsciously, to a false self always identifying it with their body and its needs.  As they see it, they do meditation to help ease the pain and anxiety of this false self.  This leads to a kind of materialist philosophy, namely, that meditation helps me to deal with my day to day problems and, eventually, when I die, that’s it.  No rebirth or anything more.  End of suffering!  Their strong belief that death is final—there is no real rebirth—is their escape hatch; their backup plan when all things fall apart.

Reading 'about' Zen is the problem

Reading about Zen is not revealing the truth or secret of Zen which is the attainment it requires.  While Zen’s written word is ‘about’ Zen, the about-ness is problematic insofar as we are moving around the outside of Zen. 

We can envision the problem from a page out of a 13th century Zen text, The Gateless Barrier 無門關 consisting of forty-eight koans.  We can also render 無門關, Mumon’s Barriers, the barriers being the forty-eight koans.  We can further imagine these barriers to be doors in a circular castle the center of which contains the secret of Zen.  If we can manage to unlock any door, we discover Zen’s secret.

Reading about Zen will only keep us on the outside of the circular castle of Zen that surrounds its mystical core.  We can never enter its sacred interior this way.  Even if a good teacher reminds his students, citing from the four slogans of Zen that Zen, does not depend on written words (不立文字) it won’t stop the madness of some who insist upon reading about Zen too much.  Even Zen master Huangbo understood the problem with Zen being put into a textual form in which the essence of Zen is believed to be.  He said:

"If it [Zen] can be understood in this manner, then it isn’t the true teaching. If it can be seen in paper and ink, then it is not the essence of our order.”

Zen does not even rely on sitting in a prescribed manner on a zafu, ramrod straight, called, zazen (坐禪).  The problem it presents is, essentially, no different from reading a dozen or so books about Zen.  Neither can gain access to the hidden truth of Zen.  When Zen masters such as the Sixth patriarch Huineng attacked zazen it was an attack directed at just physical sitting which had turned into a lifeless ritual.

In addition, that Zen is meant to make us feel good either by reading about Zen or doing zazen only serves to mask what is really required of us: that we should be presuppositionless and open to allowing the absolute to enter us which culminates in the intuition of the absolute.  This is just saying in different words, that the realization of Zen’s secret rests upon the sudden stopping of all mentation which acts as a barrier.

Returning to the One

We pursue sights, sounds, smells, flavors, tactile sensations and ideas.  All of these are in what you might call a dual pattern. These are the 12 ayatanas or senses and modes.  For example, sights are made up of the eye and visible objects.  Sounds rely on the ear and sound.  Smells are made up of the nose and odor.  Flavors rely on tongue and taste.  Tactile sensations depend on the body and touch.  Ideas depend on mentation and their respective objects.  As humans this is our limit.  This is also something like a huge cage that we can’t get out of since it is our limit and who we imagine we are.

If we were to free ourself from the subtle duality of the senses that encloses us in the world of samsara and thus gain liberation, we would be back, suddenly, at the origin or source before the appearance of a single thing or thought. This is what Zen master Huangbo is referring to when he said:

"A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen."

Whatever we may believe or not believe, all takes place from within this samsaric cage of the six senses which Zen teaches us how to escape from.  But if we remain unenlightened, we have not realized what transcends it, each of us will live our entire life inside this invisible cage only to be reborn in it again and again.  Few can intuit what is beyond it because the world of samsara is so powerful and captivating.

The most powerful sense of this cage for us is mentation, the manas, which consists of thought and ideas.  Even more, manas is all of our mental powers such as the intellect, intelligence, understanding, perception, conscience, will, etc.  It is what sets us apart from other creatures.  But it is still part of the cage.  Since mentation is so powerful it is also very deceptive.  It keeps us in the framework of duality: subject and object knowing (vijñāna).  By it we cannot return to the One.

 

Can there be any light for us?

Zen master Yuanwu (1063–1135) once said, “To transmit mind by means of mind, to seal true nature with true nature—this is like water being poured into water.”  This sounds simple and beautiful but only if we are pouring something into something.    

But what if we only go through a ritualized act of pouring?  Let us imagine that our Zen transmission vessel is even made of gold but it is empty including the vessels that are to receive the contents of this pouring?  As we can see, nothing is really being poured or transmitted.  It’s all fake.

One thing that is sadly lacking in Zen is the light.  If you were to meet a real Buddha or an awakened person, they emit a radiant field around them.  Those with not so good karma don’t sense it.  Those with good karma can hardly stand up since the presence of this strange light causes them to become very blissful.

This light plays a major role in Zen Buddhism but it is hardly mentioned.  Still, when a student happens to awaken on some summer night, about a minute later he or she begins to become bathed in this light.  It comes streaming in.  It can’t be stopped.  Can we call it a spiritual baptism?  Well, yes you could.

Was Zen master Linji lying when he said:

"The spiritual light manifesting through the six senses, has never been interrupted.  He who is able to perceive it can be an unconcerned man for the rest of his life."

Today we only imagine this wondrous light.  We don’t actually perceive it.  We are incapable of this feat.  We live in a world of fantasies and dreams.  We are asleep.  If we were to perceive this light, we might become frightened.  But why can't we perceive it?  It is because it is covered over with the darkness of materialism and our desire for conditioned things and pleasures.  Everyday we add more layers of darkness.  Until we break through this thick mantle of darkness how can there be any light for us?

 

We are trapped in the world of consciousness

If the meditation we engage in on a daily basis has taught us one thing is that the subject is always facing a world of objects from the most subtle and sublime thought-constructs, including sublime emotional feelings, to what our senses behold out there in the big city where we work and play. 

We, the hidden subject, are always facing an object-world.  Here is the important part: we know nothing about the subject except to explain it by constructing various thoughts about it which fall within the object-world.  Just a reminder, our thoughts and concepts are still objects, albeit, very fine and subtle objects.  They are not the subject.

The ironclad rule is this, the object (even thought) cannot see, grasp, or realize the subject.

The subject is primary for us.  It is who we really are.  It has always been before all objective conditions, all of which are secondary to it.  But the subject is also in a state of avidya meaning that it is ignorant of itself—unawakened.  It is also formational (saṃskāra) so that it becomes indirectly conscious of itself, as subject, but only through facing a world of objects which are its configurations (but never actually itself).  We experience this in meditation when our thoughts and feelings arise in front of us, the subject.

We believe we can find our self by making our way into the object-world assuming that the subject is a special kind of object!  This is our delusions taking charge.  Now we are trapped in the world of consciousness (vijñāna: subject-object knowing) in which all objects are related to the subject while, at the same time, the subject hopes to see itself as an object (a vicious circle).  This is the real source of suffering according to the Buddha who said, “Whatever suffering arises in the world, all is caused by consciousness” (Sutta Nipata 734).

To repeat myself from older blogs, it is only by the instantaneous removal of the objects (the conditioned) that the subject (which is unconditioned) is revealed.  Another way to look at it is the pure subject meets the pure object.  Difference disappears, the original one or the most primary is revealed.  This is our Buddha-nature.

A means to the unthinkable which is absolute

When we decide to get serious about Zen which is mainly about sitting in zazen which is seated meditation and reading books about Zen some of which are about koans or cases, it is difficult to leave our old habits behind.  But to get any place in Zen we have to break these old habits—that does not come easy.

Here is the problem.

In Zen to make any progress we, automatically, use our thoughts.  We assume that Zen is foremost an intellectual endeavor, or the same, involves discursive thinking.  We believe that Zen's mystery, especially in the example of the koans or cases, is solvable by means of thought, that is, there is a thinkable solution.  But therein lies the rub.  The answer to all koans has nothing to do with thought (as the answer).  The answer to koans transcends thought.

Thought in Zen is secondary—never primary.  Zen is not something like metaphysics.  Thoughts are never other than conditioned while our fundamental nature or Buddha-nature, which we have not realized yet, is unconditioned.

While we are, fundamentally, primary (unconditioned) we only know our self by way of the secondary (always conditioned thoughts).  But to achieve liberation we must know our self or nature as unconditioned. 

Zen's first aid for this is 無念 (no-thought).  Don’t rely on thought—Zen is the sudden cessation of thought.  With the sudden disappearance of thought, only then do we discover who we really are.  What is left over is our Buddha-nature. 

The long tenure of Zen involves giving up thought as a means to the unthinkable which is absolute.

Getting through Zen's barrier

A person in meditation looks at their thoughts as they arise trying not to indulge in them too much.  Such thoughts can be thoughts of depression, hurt or anger.  Other thoughts might be thoughts of foreboding and hope, thoughts of desire and pleasure, and many more such thoughts.  Even the thought of trying not to have thoughts! 

As far as Zen koans go, which is really all about thoughts, if we are to answer the very first case in the Mumonkan which is Jōshū’s “Mu" 無 not a single thought can pass through Mu, which is the barrier/checkpoint 關.  It stands between the adept and the 大道無門 (the gateless great Dao).  Nevertheless, the barrier/checkpoint has to be overcome. 

Key to overcoming the barrier/checkpoint is the adept’s own self that is raising all of these thoughts, trying to figure out this koan.

What this self is, we only know by thoughts and thinking about it.  Who or what then is looking at all these thoughts and generating more thoughts? How does this person look at their self, directly, without thoughts? Is it by generating more such thoughts? Zen has the answer.  It is by way of no-thought 無念.  There is a wonderful and profound logic to this.

The self of the adept that works on this case really transcends thought.  But the adept has never met their self or ātman face to face.  They only know who they are through thoughts—never directly. 

When, suddenly, all thoughts are instantly gone what is left except the self.  We are now in the 大道無門 (the gateless great Dao)!  According to the Buddha in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra the self is the Buddha-nature.  He said:  All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the ātman is.

The whole purpose of this case is to get the adept to see their Buddha-nature, directly, which is who they really are and that includes all beings.  It is only this nature which enters freely.  We create many barriers only when we are fixed on thought unable to see beyond it.  This conditioned world is only thought—we are much more.