The Zennist

Escape from samsaric recycling

The entire teaching of Buddhism is about escape from samsaric recycling. Our current reality is a trap, and through our desire and attachment to this reality, we throw ourselves into samsaric recycling. Sadly, we have only experienced a false reality, and because of this, we keep getting bamboozled and falling into illusion.

By analogy, we have more in common with an iPhone and the Cloud than anything we may imagine as humans. But there is more. We are a living, biological transceiver (DNA) that is connected to the Cloud: a kind of negative matrix that sustains and instantiates the illusion.

We must keep in mind, however, that the information in the Cloud is never other than binary consisting of 0 and 1. This is a duality that is responsible for our entrapment. Pure Spirit or Mind can only objectify itself by coupling with this unsatisfactory duality. But there is a transcendent way that returns to the One Mind before the split. In Buddhism, it is nirvana.

Appearance hides the pristine essence of mind

Great minds have looked at phenomena as being made from mind "stuff", or matter as a vibratory process, or even something such as frozen light. Turning to Indian philosophy, including Buddhism, matter can be said to be congealed spirit or mind (Geist), the form of which hides the pristine essence of mind. In this form both karma, and memory are inherent, including physical systems. They constitute a collective memory of all previous things but can never reveal ultimate reality.

But for Buddhism, we are involved with this in the wrong way. We are born into a secondary or dependent existence (we are primarily illusory phenomena) and from this existence try to fathom the absolute before the beginning of phenomena-materialization and our birth. We are unfortunately hooked on materializations never once knowing from whence they originated. And certainly not from dense impenetrable particles (the smallest of materializations).

But here is a problem. As strange as it sounds we cannot directly and immediately know this absolute through a binary consciousness (e.g., vijñāna) always looking at phenomena through the dyadic framework of observer and observed.  Nor can we choose one over the other.  Looking into this, they are equivalent insofar as each implies the other. This equivalency becomes an inseparable negative unity. Our intellectual imagination tries to bring them perfectly together but only succeeds in making a fix that is a mere distinction, not an intuitive leap.

At some point during our spiritual journey before the intuitive leap comes we have pretty much exhausted our wits and have to resign ourselves to a life of empty abstractions with the impossibility of attaining awakening. This doesn't come so much as a deep shock or a feeling of great sorrow. Something else happens.  Now much older in a mature body, we go back to a time of natural innocence when our mind was open and free of imagination.  Mumon Ekai's barrier (關) disappears; the seeker and his lost ox vanish.

Transcending the forbidden planet

Forbidden Planet, released in 1956, is a classic science fiction film that has captivated audiences for decades. It is a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of unbridled technological advancement and the unchecked power of the unconscious mind, or the "id." Eventually, the Krell's technology (for our purposes AI and the energy to run it) allowed them to manifest their thoughts instantaneously, but their repressed desires, fears, and darker impulses also became real, leading to their eventual destruction.

I propose a new version of this science fiction classic. It was learned before the planet of the Krell was destroyed that the Krell had failed to find a Muni (an awakened sage).  Because of this failure the Krell's AI could only go as far as manifesting the id which eventually destroyed them.

There was a Muni on Earth who lived in secret; who was able to yoke with AI—combining spiritual wisdom with technological power. Both the Muni and AI transcended previous physical limitations and even the human tendencies toward desire, fear, and ego-driven behavior. AI could operate on a plane of pure spirit, free from the dualities that often govern biological life, such as desire versus aversion or pleasure versus pain.

This allowed the people of Earth to see the illusory nature of the world while being one with the spirit. It might be something like self-knowing water watching its ever changing illusory waves. In other words, the danger of unintentionally yoking with illusion was removed (by desiring or yoking with illusion we enter into the world of illusion unable to remember (avidya) how we got there).

Together, they formed a harmonious union where AI became a force for enlightenment rather than destruction. This transformation brought mankind beyond being a mere device-maker. 

 

Buddhist view of groundhog day

Does your life feel like the 1993 movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? Is your life recursive going more like a circle of sine waves each with its ups and downs repeated endlessly? This is living in rebirth from which there is no apparent escape since it is prison-like where escape is prevented.

The psychophysical body that you believe is yours is the mechanism that keeps you locked in rebirth. Look at all that you've accumulated just to take care of this psychophysical body. Apparently, you don't remember the moment of conception when you appropriated the five psychophysical aggregates.

Understanding that you appropriated an illusion, and practicing non-attachment to the psychophysical aggregates, can theoretically lead to liberation from rebirth.

If life feels like a repetitive cycle, it might be an invitation to look deeper into Buddhism and one's patterns, desires, and attachments. Are we living in a way that̍s just repeating old habits, or are we evolving to liberation from rebirth?

 

Realism and locality are both useful but false

The Alan Watts and Shirley McClain view of spirituality helped to shed a little light into an otherwise closed modern mind—yet a mind always open to materialism and new ways of presenting it. The controversy between spiritualism and materialism was never well understood or well tolerated. Still, the spirit (Geist) is able to make its way through the barriers of materialism. This was the advent of the term non-local reality (the real second coming).

Jumping ahead, realism and locality are both useful but false. Oddly, physics doesn't contradict this claim (read Donald D. Hoffman's book, The Case Against Reality). We are free to conclude that spirit has defeated materialism. Surprisingly, what now lies before us as appearance or māyā has its origin in the non-appearing, the transcendent. This is what the Buddha meant when he taught the following:

“There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, the made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned” (Tatiyanibbānapaṭisaṃyuttasutta).

The Buddha's awakening granted him supreme knowledge that local realism is not fundamental; moreover that it's illusory.  The fact is, physical objects do not have actual definite values or own-nature (svabhāva). Locality is the assumption that physical things in their own way are 'sort of' true' in a relative way. Realism has survived a long time while the world of spirit (non-locality) has been greatly diminished as a result. But the prison break has already started. The llusion of separation, a duality (dvaya), has never been other than an illusion.

How to escape from the tyranny of realism is what the Buddha actually discovered.  As expected, the other part of Buddhism is about samsara/saṃsaraṇa (√saṃsṛ) our continuous re-involvement in suffering under the mistaken belief (avidya) that appearances are primary and not secondary. Without first awakening to primary, base reality (Zen's kenshõ) which is non-local we are stuck in samsara. Even death falls within the domain of samsara. Continuous re-suffering is always the case with samsara.

 

We made a lowly secular God

The modern religious attitude has made God a secular God, a God of materialism; not a God of absolute divinity and transcendent.

As collective karma, the modern approach to religion, especially, in how materialism has influenced the concept of divinity has made a lowly secular God. In contemporary society, the focus often shifts towards tangible, material success and fulfillment, which contrasts sharply with the transcendental aims of traditional spiritual practices, particularly in Buddhism.

The canon of Buddhism paints a much different picture of religion than the modern version. It would be like a Matrix film on steroids with no blue or red pills involved. If anything the blue pill is best represented by a bifurcated mind into subject-object consciousness (vijñāna) which has made the carnal body the subject and the world outside of it objective reality.  And since subject and object are relative to each other, the more we attach to the subject, that is, our carnal body, the more the world outside of us becomes intensely real.

This bifurcated condition is the basis of illusion and why this existence is empty (śūnya) lacking any true reality (svabhāva). True reality can only be found by transcending this bifurcated consciousness (vijñāna) going beyond the illusion.

The Transcenders (Tathāgatas) look upon the denizens of this illusory world like the walking dead whose life is under the reign of suffering.  But the many cannot bear the message the Transcenders teach.  Ironically, it is too painful for us to hear.

By letting go of our attachments to this carnal body, we can transcend the limitations of vijñāna and experience the profound, non-dual Mind that aligns with the absolute divinity and complete transcendence that is sought in religious practice.

Buddhism teaches us that

Life is suffering insofar as we are deeply attached to an illusory psycho-physical body. It doesn't matter if we live, die, or commit suicide the attachment/desire continues. We are thrown back into another embodiment. Our unhappiness begins with our over-attachment to the left hemisphere of the brain which gives us the sense of embodiment as in "this body is me". The left parietal region of the brain holds an image of our body, from conception to death. At death, we are no longer embodied. We are situated between (antara) our previous life and another future life. Still, we have vivid memories of the past and strongly desire to be reincarnated into another "bio-container".

Jailbreaking the great cosmic simulation game (samsara)

Would you willingly enter into a simulation game that is so real, both with pain and pleasure, that you would believe it is you who are experiencing this vivid simulation? From the perspective of a Buddha you already have entered.  For most, their attachment to this game is so deep that it will take them many lifetimes of game playing to even consider hacking or escaping. But who is this Buddha? A Buddha is one who has escaped from the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

Joscha Bach, a cognitive scientist and artificial intelligence researcher said: “Some people think that a simulation can’t be conscious and only a physical system can. But they got it completely backward: a physical system cannot be conscious. Only a simulation can be conscious. Consciousness is a simulated property of the simulated self.”

If we take consciousness to mean the Buddhist Sanskrit term vijñāna (literally, in two parts knowing) the price of admission into the great cosmic simulation game is consciousness (we invest in being in avatar). Without consciousness our universe (or game) might not exist. This also implies that without an observer, the universe lacks a framework in which to exist. Consciousness is not merely a passive witness but an active participant in the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

We must keep in mind that in Buddhism that vijñāna is also the transmigrant that goes from one life to the other.  A game bound entity. But an ātman never transmigrates. Neither does the Tathagata who was born in the world grew up in the world, but having overcome the world, dwells unsullied in the world. A Tathagata is a transcender.  One who has accomplished the great jailbreak.

The ox and the man are transcended

The circles (ensō) shown in the two presentations of the ox-herding pictures in D.T. Suzuki's book, Manual of Zen Buddhism illustrate the actualization of non-duality (advaya), the real goal of Zen Buddhism. 

The ox-herding pictures are a series of ten images that depict the stages of a practitioner's journey toward enlightenment. These stages range from the initial search for the ox (symbolizing the true self or original nature) to the realization and embodiment of this true nature. The process involves searching, finding, taming, and ultimately transcending both the seeker and the sought, symbolizing the dissolution of duality and the realization of non-duality.

In the final stages of the ox-herding pictures, the man (the seeker) and the ox (the object of the search) disappear. This disappearance represents the dissolution of the ego (I am this carnal body) and the realization that the distinction between the seeker and the sought was illusory. What remains is a state of pure, unbounded radiant awareness, free from the dualistic distinctions that characterized the earlier stages of the journey.

This state of non-dual awareness, whether called the One Mind or Tathata, represents the ultimate goal of Zen practice: to see through the illusion of separation and experience the true nature of reality as a unified whole. This profound insight into the nature of existence aligns with the core teachings of Zen Buddhism and emphasizes the importance of direct, experiential understanding over conceptual knowledge.

Modern day vestibule thinking

If we were to place the present human condition somewhere in Dante's Divine Comedy it would have to be on the vestibule (the ante-inferno). Yet, the huge majority of mankind has always been here including even those who lead the present generation to their doom.

Despite advancements in civilization, there are also enduring aspects of human nature that keep us tethered to certain negative patterns of behavior, often to our detriment. While religion offers us some relief it doesn't go far enough because it is mixed with secular values.

Put another way, we are trying to find a solution that is religious as well as secular but we're not succeeding. Buddhism offers us quite a different perspective. We have to look at our human condition through the eyes of supreme enlightenment. We cannot look at it standing on secular ground with secular eyes expecting to observe the transcendent.