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.

Wokeism vs Siddhartha's awakening

Does the political term being woke carry any trace of Siddhartha's awakening under the Bodhi tree whereby he realized absolute spirit which is unconditioned?  The answer is, of course not!  Wokeism comes from a political ideology.  It does not require the religious mind which seeks the attainment of ultimate reality.

Still, wokeism is somewhat like a religion insofar as it contains a redemption narrative which seems to speak to people who feel resentment:  that they have been taken unfair advantage of (it's the opposite of gratitude).  With this, wokeism offers to restore to people what secular society has been unable to provide because it has been dominated by a white male patriarchy.  But unlike with religion in wokeism there is no forgiveness for the wrongs done to other people which still must be avenged (resentment never ends). 

The religious mind has its narrative arc, too.  But overcoming the misfortunes in one’s life is not through pointing the finger at society, but through first recognizing that the human heart contains both good and evil which is cloaked in ignorance.  Until the cloak of ignorance is removed, good and evil remain a problem that begins in every individual.

Complicating this matter if we lack enough empathy then it follows that everything we do is selfish.  We might unconsciously treat others with contempt or even injure them to get our way.  Having our away is of paramount importance.  This cloak of ignorance that all beings have makes possible both good and evil but seldom realized by the doer.

In fact, there is an ongoing struggle going on beneath this cloak.  In the midst of this struggle we are not sure whether we are becoming good or becoming gradually more evil.  It is only when the cloak of ignorance is removed so that the light comes in that we can truly see what is good and what is evil thus avoiding the latter.

But in the world of wokeism where the cloak of ignorance has not been removed good and evil are relative to each other so that they become confused.  Doing good which ends up as evil or doing evil because the cause is good are both possible and likely.

The Christic-nature and Buddha-nature

If we accept, tentatively, that the crucifixion in the New Testament represents the transcendence of the flesh and entry into fleshless spirit, then we have the same in Buddhism which is about the cessation of the conditioned and direct entry into the unconditioned, this being nirvana.

Whether we speak of a transcendent Christic-nature or a Buddha-nature both mean the same insofar as the real essence of the earthly creature is absolute spirit which has been conjoined to the flesh (an illusory projection) which is never other than conditioned (appearance) and suffering (the flesh suffers, not the spirit). 

The unfortunate destiny of the earthly creature is to always find itself embodied in the flesh in which death seems to be the only escape and not a preferable one.  But that is just the very life of flesh.  To project oneself into the other (appearance) is to lose the self in the other.

Profound religions are never about saving mankind from its own errors and misdeeds.  It is about showing mankind the way to the immortal self which always transcends the flesh.  All purification, including the Christian crucifixion, are for removing that which obstructs absolute spirit causing us to suffer as a result

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).

Beware of political solutions

Cultural Marxism, by its very name, suggests destroying a culture by gradually undermining its sanity.  To accomplish this end the Marxist must first aim at the degradation of long established cultural norms. 

Eventually, a passive or quiet kind of mental unsettledness becomes the new norm.  Moreover, there is no way to distinguish between sane and insane, even moral and immoral behavior.  The intellect, itself, changes where it begins to inject emotions into what is meant and valued.  Context is eventually lost inasmuch as the text, itself, becomes a jumble of implied contexts that require emotional filling.

But the degradation of an old culture cannot last long without its replacement by a new kind of culture.  In this regard, cultural Marxism is only about the destruction of an old culture.  The replacement culture for cultural Marxism may never emerge.  In fact, it might be unable to emerge.  One has to think along these lines:  Is mental unsettledness self-healing/self-correcting?

It may even be possible to destroy a culture by making it insane in the guise of normal.  But this insanity almost guarantees that it can neither heal nor correct itself.  Instead, the survivors of the former culture must gather its remains together and self-awaken.  It may take several generations to do so.

Buddhism cannot do this because those who have come to Buddhism are, sadly, too far gone to awaken.  They much prefer meditational quietude.  In this predicament, they are unable to get out of their arm chair or pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  Their youth is lost to them which is supposed to be a period of enculturation.  Youth is certainly not a time for making a person weaker, or making a person insane which could be what is happening today.

Buddhism, and of course Zen, has its own particular form of enculturation.  One is expected to imitate the awakened life.  This does not mean that we are awakened.  We are only expected to imitate this awakened life to the best of our abilities.  Then, as in my example, you have to go off into the wild to live alone even meditating, as I did, in an old abandoned mine.  The path, by the way, has always been intrapersonal. 

The unimaginable essence of the universe

Looking inwardly, the maturity of our soul is what is important as if to know our true nature which transcends all thought formations (P., citta-sankhara).  Framing the soul this way makes it the same as essence or in Buddhism the unconditioned which we are but as mere humans have no knowledge of.  

For others, the eradication of this soul is what is important leaving only the corporeal body with its organs.  According to this theory, the soul is only an epi-phenomenon of the brain.  When the organ of the brain perishes so does the soul.

But for the Buddha the soul is not a product of the brain but actually transcends the brain.  Our entire human body is nothing more than a composition of this ultimate reality which we call in the West the soul.  In effect, we are looking through an all encompassing illusion hoping to find the non-illusory, that is, our real nature. This is a fool’s journey.  But the greatest of all fools are those who have dismissed ultimate reality or the soul.

Our biggest adversary is the sixth sense which in Buddhism is the imagination.  According to the Paṭhamasamugghātasappāya Sutta the Buddha’s proper path is the eradication of all imagination (maññita) so that what remains is the unconditioned, unimaginable essence of the universe—there is none higher than this.  Since the soul is un-imaginal it does us no good to rely on our imagination to affirm it or deny it.  It must be intuited, directly.  What stands in our way is what is not the soul (anatman) which we cling to, tenaciously.  This explains why the Buddha tells Kotthita, "you should abandon  desire for whatever is not the soul." 

 

Eventually lost in a psychological wilderness

Modern religion has not given up its reliance on the emotions, on feelings, on the belief that the conditioned life is the only life possible.  Modern religion must also satisfy secular consciousness.  It must help me in achieving my worldly goals but also help me to cope with my unhappiness and misfortunes.  If religion cannot do this then what good is it? 

It seems that modern religion is unknowingly undermining itself by its over willingness to please those who have not renounced, sufficiently, the secular or worldly life. 

What hope religion at one time offered has shifted over to the miracles of technology.  Unless religion can out miracle technology it doesn't have much of a chance of winning the hearts and minds of the people.

But wait a minute, during the period of the golden age of Egypt, India, China, Greece and Rome religion was very important.  What we have today is an extremely watered down version of what the religious mind actually was. 

What has been substituted for the religious mind over time has been the ecclesiastical mind which has been allowed to merge gradually with the secular mind and its demands in which the interpersonal life overshadows the intrapersonal life in which the contemplative life has its existence. 

Everyday life eventually falls into a kind of conformism as a result of degradation of the intrapersonal.  As a result, the socio-cultural landscape becomes all too mechanistic.  Human existence becomes confined to what is biological and physical and therefore measurable. 

This limitation eventually finds an escape.  It expands itself into a kind of psychological wilderness in which people anchor themselves in the imaginal and the ideological, that is, filling fiction with a density of feeling tones and emotionalizing the formation of ideas.  Incidentally, perhaps this gave rise to the popularity of the novel, a work of narrative fiction which we fill with our own personal feelings which originated from our life experiences. 

Those who are destined to walk in this psychological wilderness (most of us) cannot escape from this wilderness because even the escape, itself, is imagined.  The truly real is absent from it.  And so we turn to Buddhism and with it, especially, Zen.  It is a search for true reality or the same, ultimate reality, which necessitates the religious mind.

Our overindulgence in the corporeal body

How we relate to the corporeal body is critical in Buddhism.  Sex, for example, is not the problem so much as the love of sex is the problem: the frequent need to engage in it.  It is the same with eating.  It is our love of food that is the problem which leads to gluttony.  In other words, the big problem with our corporeal body is our overindulgence in it.

With our overindulgence in the corporeal body our spiritual life is put on hold.  Our love or preference is not for the spiritual but love for a bowl of Ben & Jerry's ice cream or a slice of pizza.  These many moments of indulgence add up to a growing love for the corporeal and much less love for the spiritual which we are trying to realize.

Those who are serious about Buddhism first understand that they must give up their love for the corporeal while turning their mind to the spiritual hoping to realize spirit, directly.  This sounds simple enough but is it?  It almost goes without saying but serving the needs of the corporeal and being on the path to spiritual intuition do not often agree.  In fact, there is a great deal of conflict between them.

No matter how ideal our words are they can't erase the fact that we live in a world primarily based on Darwinian fitness.  Nor should we draw from this as biological creatures that we see reality the way it really is. 

The data that we receive through our senses only relates to the creature and its survival and whether it will be successful at reproducing its kind.  But for those on the spiritual path this is not their goal. Their goal is to Intuit absolute spirit, the very substance of the universe.  This leads to seeing the universe the way it really is which is an illusory composition as far as appearance is concerned.