The Zennist

Zen is more than words and gestures

Words and gestures are not the secret of Zen anymore than the forefinger is the moon above or smoke is fire.  For Zen master Dahui, Zennists who take up koans suffer from a disease of the intellect (the Chinese literati 士大夫 suffered from this in spades).  For such people as these, they believed that the koan is self-contained, that is, the answer lies within the words (their ingenuity will solve the koan they believed!).  Also, maybe there are different interpretations and not just one (not on your life).

The source, or maybe I should say the secret of Zen, is not dependent on the koan.  In fact, it could not care less about koans.  It’s better to first penetrate beyond birth and death realizing Zen’s secret so as to attain liberation, than waste your time trying to solve koans.  In the fifty-fourth case of the Blue Cliff Record titled, Extending Both Hands, 

Unmon asked a monk, "Where have you come from?" The monk said, "From Saizen." Unmon said, "What words does Saizen say lately?" The monk stretched out his arms. Unmon slapped him. The monk said, "I have something to say about it." Unmon then stretched out his own arms. The monk remained silent. Then Unmon hit him. 

This seems to be all words and gestures as you can easily recognize.  Are you awakened—do you know Zen’s deep secret now?  I doubt it.  What do these words and gestures allude to?  Is the answer more words, more gestures?  That’s right, you nailed it, they all allude to the secret of Zen that no Zen master or even the old Buddha himself ever revealed and never will.

But now let’s imagine that I waved my staff over your heads and you all had the eyes of the Buddha.  Looking at the koans you would grin like the Cheshire Cat.  There it is!  The secret of Zen.  How skillful the old master played.  Why that old fart knew exactly what he was doing.  But these poor monks and nuns will never intuit the secret in a lifetime I bet.

Old Unmon sat there on his chair. The radiant Mind extended around him in all directions.  Did anyone pick this up when they first saw him?  I mean you could cut it with a knife it was so thick and blissful.  And still the monks and nuns didn’t notice it.  They only visited to play with words and gestures.  No wonder Zen eventually declined in China!

Our island of reality is not real.

When we become interested in Zen it is through the prism of our culture.  This includes our language and ideas that we use to try and get a working impression of Zen.  Each culture offers, let’s say, different colors from that prism’s spectrum.  But not one goes back to the original clear light before it enters the prism.  This includes the very universe itself.

Before I forget, I used the word ‘prism’ in a metaphorical sense to refer to the conversion of the original one into many.

To repeat myself somewhat, the source of our cultural reality in which I include the universe is something closed off to us.  We don't have the Buddha eyes to see the clear light before it goes through the prism.  Only a precious few manage to see what the Buddha saw.  The problem that we face in Zen is how to switch back to the original one (it is also called the One Mind) before it is conditioned by the prism.

The Buddha and the Zen masters try to teach us that our human reality is not real (it is only relatively real).  In fact, a strong case in some scientific circles is developing against reality (Dr. Donald Hoffman).  It only seems as if everything around us is real.  As mere humans this means that we are imperfect representations of the original one just like all the rest of the creatures on this planet who are also imperfect representations.  Still, we do not behold the one reality directly. We have no direct intuition of it yet.  But this is what Zen wants to teach us as impossible as this sounds. 

Unfortunately, the Zen practiced today seems almost incapable of accomplishing this task.  Looking through the prism of our culture we have swung too far to the left hemisphere of the brain (I mentioned this in a previous blog).  Our intuitional abilities that are necessary for Zen are rapidly declining—we can't see the forest for the trees anymore (understand koans).  And what we deem and defend to be real is not really real at all.  We imagine to have found an island of reality in this world.  But we are deceived.  We have found no such thing.  Again, the Buddha and the Zen masters are trying to teach us that our human reality is not real; at least not the way we imagine it to be.  Again, the only reality is the original one.

Zen in one tenth of a second

In the study and practice of Zen, one tenth of a second is plenty of time to see something extraordinarily profound—something that you’ve never seen before and maybe even thought it was impossible to realize.  In Zen this is seeing our own true nature or in Japanese kenshō 見性. It is the only way that you can become awakened or a Buddha according to the legendary wall-contemplating 壁觀 Bodhidharma.

Researchers have found that it takes about 1/10 of a second or about 100 milliseconds to judge the human face as to its attractiveness and likability, for example, or even its aggressiveness.  This is very important because, in my own example, that is about how long it took to recognize pure Mind after years of trying to see it and failing. 

If a serious student of Zen has been searching for their true nature, which is the same as pure Mind, we might expect that they have also gone through the preliminary trouble learning what pure Mind is not.  Over time, all their presuppositions get dumped by the wayside.  

Hopefully, in their endeavor, the negative begins to turn towards the positive as if really trying to see it but knowing, at the same time, they still fall short.  Overtime, the student still hopes to discover this pristine state, personally, which is somehow mysteriously embedded within them. 

This search could last for five or maybe even twenty years which, mainly, consists of looking for clues as to what this spiritual mind might be like, which involves a lot of reading and thought including a lot of disappointments.

For the serious Zen student, at times, it almost seems like they are on a wild goose chase.  Maybe it is all a big joke.  Surprisingly, for many students of Zen this thought has come across their minds several times.  For those Zennists who have concluded that Zen is some kind of spiritual joke to teach people to accept this world they live in and one day will die in as the true world means that they have failed Zen, miserably.

Such people are little more than what the Buddha called them a long time ago, namely, a pṛthagjana which can mean a fool or in general, worldlings.  This is only to suggest that when one takes up the study of Zen they must have great faith and great courage to support their faith.  For without such, no kenshō will come in a tenth of a second, a point at which one sees the true nature of reality in contrast with the illusory world of birth and death that seems so real.

Zen chat rooms and seated meditation, a waste of time?

Discussing Zen on chat room forums, generally speaking, is a waste of time.  Joining a Zen center is a little better but if the main part of the teaching is centered on seated meditation it has to be kept in mind that sitting will not improve intuition which is what Zen is all about, especially, when it comes to koans.

What both chat room discussions and the practice of seated meditation seem to have in common is that both ignore the role of intuition.  Furthermore, not all people who are interested in Buddhism or Zen have the capacity for intuition.

The English word “intuition” comes from Latin word, intueri which means to look at, gaze, pay attention to, consider, contemplate.  According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, intuition is described as “the act or process of coming to direct knowledge or certainty without reasoning or inferring; immediate cognizance or conviction without rational thought.”  This is nothing less than direct knowledge.  Intuition, you could say, leaps over reasoning and inferring.  Almost instantly the adept sees what the Buddha saw. 

Historically, the Buddha’s practice of dhyāna came from the ancient Indian tradition of contemplation.  This tradition can be thought of as a process of introspection whereby one abandons mental scattering and turbulence leading to direct intuition of the absolute.

Dhyāna for Buddhism and Zen, if it is successful, is the sudden removal of what has always hindered the adept’s ability to see, face-to-face, pure Mind or Buddha-nature before mentation is aroused.  This is intuition at its best.

This kind of intuition comes after many years of getting one’s spiritual ducks in a row which means that the adept has been studying for many years, with an open mind, hoping to have direct intuition of the absolute.  When it finally comes after much struggle, it is totally unexpected and brief.  It is almost like it found the adept when the adept was in the right frame of mind for it to enter, as weird as that explanation sounds.  It is the Buddha’s kill shot that brings the adept back to life!

Personally realizing the secret of Zen

I have been working on trying to put a book together.  It is not easy to do because the sense of the book is for someone who decides to get serious about realizing the secret of Zen this being also the title.  I am writing it in the second person, using the pronoun “you,” which gives it a more personal sense.  Here is an example.

Today’s Zen institutions have either consciously or unconsciously decided to adapt to the ways of the world so that Zen is supposed to teach you how to get along with people that you either don’t like very much such as a co-worker, or people you dislike for no apparent reason.  They just irritate you.  Zen is also supposed to help you handle your everyday tensions and problems including anger and depression.  Also, Zen is supposed to help you stop your addictions such as smoking or substance abuse. 

Do you see what is happening?  To be frank with you, none of this is what Zen is supposed to do!  You’re supposed to have all your ducks in a row before you undertake the upward climb of Zen's path.  Zen requires a person who is hardy, yet humble and open to radical change—not some crybaby who can’t let go of their toys.  Yes, it’s typical to want some help if you have mental problems.  But in Zen, it’s different.  You are pretty much on your own.  It is assumed that you are a mature person.  Think about it, it’s your responsibility—not your teacher’s—to raise yourself up by your own bootstraps.  Without a love for this arduous, mysterious path of Zen you will eventually falter.  Wanting to learn the secret of Zen should be foremost on your mind.  Everything else is secondary.

This is unedited but it gives you an idea of what I am trying to get across.  I want to be frank with the reader.  The journey will not be easy.  The adept, as I write, will be put eventually between a rock and a hard place.  They will eventually come to their wits’ end in what Zen master Dahui called “great doubt.”  This is a serious spiritual crisis since everything the adept used in the past to realize the secret of Zen has utterly failed.

The good news is I have personally done all this and much more.  Let me tell you this, it is one fucking adventure like no other. The reader just needs faith and the courage to stay on the path. 

The usurpers of traditional Zen

Just recently I have been reading Iain McGilchrist’s book, The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world.  It is a captivating book for the reason that it hints at what could possibly be the problem with our inability to understand where the Zen koan and much of Zen is coming from.  I include kenshō which is certainly a mystical realization closer to the notion of intuition.  As for the author’s thesis, who is a psychiatrist, he writes:

“My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognisably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain.  It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture” (p. 3).

For many years (too many to remember!) I have suspected that both Buddhism and, in particular, Zen have been hijacked by people who lack the spiritual intelligence necessary to understand Buddhism and  Zen. 

By reading McGilchrist’s book my suspicions had at last found some scientific basis.  While it is true that we are bihemispheric it is not true that both the left and right hemisphere are in constant harmony.  If anything, Western culture favors the left hemisphere of the brain rather than the right.  This lateralizing to the left hemisphere is not without its problems for both Buddhism and Zen.  In fact, I would argue that having a strong bias for the left hemisphere makes it next to impossible to understand where Buddhism and Zen are coming from.  This bias towards the left also invites countless heated arguments (and much hatred, hatred being an emotion of the left hemisphere). 

The title of the book really boils down to a special kind of coup.  The master who represents the right hemisphere is going to be eventually betrayed by the emissary who represents the left hemisphere.  McGilchrist observes:

“He saw his master’s temperance and forbearance as weakness, not wisdom, and on his missions on his master’s behalf, adopted his mantle as his own — the emissary became contemptuous of his master. And so it came about that the master was usurped, the people were duped, the domain became a tyranny; and eventually it collapsed in ruins” (p. 14).

This book proves to be a treasure trove for me as I examine the left and the right hemispheres.  The left has little or no regard for the right hemisphere which is certainly mystical and intuitive; who also has the vision and leads the way.  The left hemisphere sees,

“the workings of the right hemisphere as purely incompatible, antagonistic, as a threat to its dominion — the emissary perceiving the Master to be a tyrant. This is an inevitable consequence of the fact that the left hemisphere can support only a mechanistic view of the world. . .” (p. 206).

The left hemisphere is tied to and limited by language.  It can’t see the big picture.  While it has focused attention, it prefers to examine bits and pieces so that it has a problem with context.  The right hemisphere, on the other hand, sees the forest for the trees including context whereas the left deconstructs.  The left hemisphere breaks the context down into parts then it reconstructs the parts into something different from the original.

“It is the right hemisphere which processes the non-literal aspects of language, of which more later. This is why the left hemisphere is not good at understanding the higher level meaning of utterances such as ‘it’s a bit hot in here today’ (while the right hemisphere understands ‘please open the window’,  the left hemisphere assumes that is just helpful supply of meteorological data)” (p. 49).

In both Buddhism and Zen those who lean to the left hemisphere have little or no idea of the real context, much less how to realize their Buddha-nature.  They are constantly trying to dislodge the teaching from its original context and re-present it in a way they want it to be; that fits with the modern left hemisphere education.

A kind of all-too-real seductive matrix

We can think of consciousness, which is the fifth skandha of the five skandhas or aggregates, that the Buddha likened to a magician’s illusion, as the mechanism of illusion.  Consciousness is also what gets reborn as we go from one existence to next (consciousness is the third nidāna/cause, starting from avidyā in the list of the 12-nidānas or the tenth cause starting from jarāmāraṇa/old age and death). 

In later Buddhism, consciousness appeared to grow in importance becoming the ālayavijñāna, that is, the “abode or store-house of consciousness” (it could be plural, too) which is said, according to D.T. Suzuki, “to store all the memory of one's past deeds and psychic activities,” in the form of vāsanā or “habit energy.”  It seems to me that vāsanā plays an important role in keeping us in the confines of the ālayavijñāna in which we ever remain victims of the magician’s trick which is always hidden from us.  For us, the world we live in and hold dear and will one day die in seems very real. 

There is yet, for us, no parāvṛtti in the ālayavijñāna, which would be a major change from being caught in the magician's enchanting sphere of consciousness to being, actually, liberated from it (not just imagining).  According to Suzuki,

To gain this inner perception, a man retires into a solitary spot all by himself, and, by applying himself assiduously to abstract meditations and deep reflections, his inner sense (prajñā) or self-knowledge (svabuddhi) begins to shine out from underneath the residual accumulation (vāsanā) of the past thoughts, affections, and deeds since time immemorial.

Unfortunately, most of us are not like the wise adept who lives a solitary life struggling to have the required change/revulsion or parāvṛtti so that he or she might escape from the insidious power of the ālayavijñāna.  The wise adept also knows that there is no end to rebirth without the victory of parāvṛtti.  According to the Lankavatara Sutra, 

“When a revulsion (vyāvṛtti, generally parāvritti) takes place, the citta [Mind] is disengaged from turbidity; as it understands all existence, I state that the citta is the Buddha."

Short of parāvṛtti, the sincere student, who is not yet disengaged from their impure mind; who has not gone to a solitary spot, should begin to see that this world is not a real refuge—far from it.  It is a place of suffering.  Of our revulsion towards it, it must begin with accepting the fact that we are living in a kind of all-too-real seductive matrix (remember the 1999 sci-fi movie?).

 

Buddhism's Relation to Christianity

An interesting read is D.M. Murdock's book review of Michael Lockwood's book, Buddhism's Relation to Christianity.  I would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.  They should read her review before they purchase Lockwood's book which doesn't include an index. 

Christianity is a difficult subject in its own right.  I have always looked at it with a mind to simplify it; to see what the text is really saying and how we should read it.  That said, I have tentatively concluded that Christianity stems from Buddhism.  

A number of years ago when I entered into the mystical side of Buddhism in 1976 (which I have touched on in this blog) I was given a simple picture of Christianity which also allowed me to connect it with Buddhism.  If you put your feet together and outstretch your arms you have a cross.  In other words, our carnal body is the cross and our soul is nailed to it which is yet to become spiritualized.  Flesh, which is evil and not spirit, is not unlike the five skandhas which belong to Mara the Evil one, which are not the ātman or spirit. 

We Buddhists wrongly through our spiritual ignorance latch on to the skandhas as being who we are—our pleasure toy of the flesh.  But our spirit or ātman  is not any of the skandhas according to the Buddha.  We still have to separate our self or ātman  from the skandhas spiritually which is what dhyāna is all about! 

In a way, like the Christian we bear the cross, also, crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).  And for those Buddhists who have spiritually separated from the skandhas by dhyāna we read that they are: "reborn in companionship with the devas of the pure abodes. This is a rebirth not shared with worldlings" (A. ii. 128).

But let me stop here.  We learn from Murdock's review that Indians have long been in the Mediterranean, for example. 

Indian envoys sent to Rome and other parts of the Roman empire;

Stories of Indian saints immolating themselves in the West;

Presence of thousands of Indian slaves at Rome and elsewhere in the Mediterranean;

Numerous substance traded between the two worlds. . .;

Caches of thousands of Roman coins found in...in India;

Testimony in Josephus that the Jews were descendants of Indian philosophers.

Anyway there is much more. Please check out Murdock's book review.  

 

 

 

The overcoming of metaphysics

We might speculate how to bring non-being and being into unity which seem to be contrary to each other.  The same goes with non-existence and existence.  By taking up this problem we have taken the bait, that is, we have fallen into the trap of metaphysics (i.e., beyond the physical).  However, to be honest, we are not really beyond the physical.  Only in a theoretical or speculative unproven sense, both terms being fictions, as if real. 

Here is what is really going on.  Our consciousness (S., vijñāna: lit. in two parts knowing), this being our familiar human mind which only perceives illusion, has ensnared itself in metaphysics which is an attempt to get beyond illusion, but always fails. 

Furthermore,  consciousness is the illusory subject in relation to the illusory object.  This relationship explains why the goal of Buddhist meditation is the total overcoming of consciousness in which the two parts return to the original one or ultimate ground from which they first emerged appearing to become opposed (but never actually opposed since the mysterious relation between the two sides held them together). 

There is nothing in metaphysics that is capable of overcoming consciousness.  It is a fictional enterprise.  Returning the two parts back to the original one can only be accomplished through meditation or dhyana.

It is important to always keep in mind that the role of consciousness, which is saṃsāric consciousness, often gets overlooked in Buddhism and, especially, Zen.  The Buddha says:

“When consciousness is established and has come to growth, there is the production of future renewed existence. When there is the production of future renewed existence, future birth, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering” (S. ii. 65).

We can read this passage all that we desire.  That is a good thing to do.  Still, it will not grant us a state of oneness or return.  Right meditation which ends in gnosis of the one is the only route we have (a route that is intuitive).  All else is fiction.  By the way, this is Zen’s sudden enlightenment.

Is Buddhism a part of Hinduism?

The definitive answer is yes, Buddhism grew up in what can be described as a Hindu world, or maybe better said, the Buddha and his teaching came from a culture based on Brahmanism.  Then why should it be odd to find the Buddha not opposed to “Brahmanism” as some believe that he was?  It shouldn't.  As proof he said:

“Monks, I am a Brahmin, one to ask a favour of, ever clean-handed, wearing my last body, incomparable physician and surgeon.  Ye are my own true sons, born of my mouth, born of dhamma, created by dhamma, my spiritual heirs, not carnal heirs” (Itivuttaka 101).

There can be no dispute about this claim made by the Buddha that he, is in fact, a Brahmin.  According to the Japanese Buddhist scholar, Hajime Nakamura, the Buddha’s family name is "Gotama" which is a Brahmin name.  In the Vedas, Gotama is the name of a Rishi who belongs to the āṇgirasa tribe.

If anything, the Buddha understood Brahmanism perhaps better than anyone during his time. 

Based upon his awakening, the Buddha’s teaching is set against all kinds of external forms of worship of the absolute, which only acts to personify the absolute thus hiding its true reality behind all-too-human images and concepts.  In other words, the Buddha was against turning the unconditioned absolute into something conditioned and personified that, subsequently, could be accessed by prayers which is little more than a kind of selfish bargaining.

Those who argue against Buddhism as being an improved kind Brahminism bring out the differences between Buddhism and Brahminism/ Hinduism when it comes to the ātman.  They contend that the Buddha categorically denied the ātman.  But where in the old texts of Buddhism is this categorical denial to be found?  It only appears in the context of the conditioned five constituents or skandhas which make up our life, namely, corporeality, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness, not one of which is the ātman.  This is far from being a categorical denial. What is more, we also learn that these conditioned constituents are to be seen as Mārā, the Buddhist devil.  And from the Paṭisambhidāmagga which Buddhaghosa cites in his Visuddhimagga:

[He sees] the five aggregates as impermanent, as painful, as a disease, a boil, a dart, a calamity, an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as a plague, a disaster, a terror, a menace, as fickle, perishable, unenduring, as not protection, no shelter, no refuge, as empty, vain, void, not self, as a danger, as subject to change, as having no core, as the root of calamity, as murderous, as due to be annihilated, as subject to cankers, as formed, as Mara's bait, as connected with the idea of birth, connected with the idea of aging, connected with the idea of illness, connected with the idea of death, connected with the idea of sorrow, connected with the idea of lamentation, connected with the idea of despair, connected with the idea of defilement (Paṭisambhidāmagga II 238).

Two terms that stand out for me, that can’t be sidestepped, are “no-self” (anātman) and “Mara’s bait.”  This would explain why the Buddha told his monks not to regard the five constituents as their self.  They were to regard each constituent this way: 

“Wherefore, monks, whatever is material shape, past, future or present, internal . . . thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom.  Whatever is feeling . . . whatever is perception . . . whatever are the habitual tendencies ... whatever is consciousness, past, future or present, internal . . . thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom” (M. iii. 20).

The context of the Buddha’s words fit perfectly within today’s Hinduism and shows, instead, the Buddha to be an upholder of ātman, but in a new and unique way, that is, what you believe to be your self is not your self, namely, the five constituents which are never other than impermanent, suffering and not the ātman.  The ātman is thus transcendent and infinite.  This is Hinduism at its highest.