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Buddhist meditation, but above all that of Zen, seeks not to explain, nor to formulate, but to pay attention, to become aware, to be mindful, in other words to develop a certain kind of consciousness that is above and beyond deception by verbal formulas - or by emotional excitement.
Allan Watts
While the western Judeo-Christian teaching is that of words, concepts, theology and philosophy, containing the "word of the Lord" and a "message" to convey, the Zen teaching communicates neither "the word," nor a "message," but awareness. It is in this sense that Zen teaches nothing, it merely enables us to wake up and become aware.
What Zen communicates is an awareness that is potentially already there but is not conscious of itself. Zen is then not Kerygma but realization, not revelation but consciousness, not news from the Father who sends His Son into the world, but awareness of the ontological ground of our own being here and now, right in the midst of the world. (1)
Zen is neither an explanation with verbal formulas, nor a structure of definitions, but rather an experience, and in enlightenment, an experience of love. Yet, if an experience is something which one can "have" and "grasp" and "possess," if it can be an object of desire, a content of consciousness, then it is neither true Zen, nor enlightenment. In a sense Nirvana is beyond experience. Yet it is also the "highest experience" if we see it as a liberation from merely psychological limitations. This experience must not be understood in terms of emotional fulfillment, of desire and possession, but a full realization, total awakening - a complete realization of love not merely as the emotion of a feeling subject but as the wide openness of Being itself, the realization that Pure Being is Infinite Giving, or that Absolute Emptiness is Absolute Compassion. This realization is not intellectual, not abstract, but concrete. (1a)
There is certainly a kind of living and nonverbal dialectic in Zen between the ordinary everyday experience of the senses (which is by no means arbitrarily repudiated) and the experience of enlightenment. Zen is not an idealistic rejection of sense and matter in order to ascend to a supposedly invisible reality which alone is real. The Zen experience is a direct grasp of the unity of the invisible and the visible, the noumenal and phenomenal, or, if you prefer, an experiential realization that any such division is bound to be pure imagination. (1b)
The Zen insight, as Bodhidharma indicates, consists in a direct grasp of "mind" or one's "original face." And this direct grasp implies rejection of all conceptual media or methods, so that one arrives at mind by "having no mind" (wu h'sin): in fact, by "being" mind instead of "having" it. Zen enlightenment is an insight into being in all its existential reality and actualization. It is a fully alert and superconscious act of being which transcends time and space. Such is the attainment of the "Buddha mind," or "Buddhahood." (Compare the Christian expressions "having the mind of Christ" 1 Cor. 2:16, being "of one spirit with Christ," "He who is united to the Lord is one spirit" 1 Cor. 6:17, though the Buddhist idea takes no account of any "supernatural order" in the Thomist sense.) The Zen insight is the awareness of full spiritual reality, and therefore the realization of the emptiness of all limited or particularized realities. Hence it is not individual spiritual nature or (as Zachner would say) of our "pre-biological unity."
One might ask if our habitual failure to distinguish between "empirical ego" and the "person" has not led us to oversimplify and falsify our whole interpretation of Buddhism. There are in Zen certain suggestions of a higher and more spiritual personalism than one might at first sight expect. Zen insight is at once a liberation form the limitations of the individual ego, and discovery of one's "original nature" and "true face" in "mind" which is no longer restricted to the empirical self but is in all and above all. Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us. This is not a pantheistic submersion or a loss of self in "nature" or "the One." It is not a withdrawal into one's spiritual essence and a denial of matter and of the world. On the contrary, it is a recognition that the whole world is aware of itself in me, and that "I" am no longer any individual and limited self, still less a disembodied soul, but that my "identity is not the denial of my own personal reality but its highest affirmation. it is a discovery of genuine identity in and with the One, and this is expressed in the paradox of Zen, form which the explicit concept of person in the highest sense is unfortunately absent, since here too the person tends to be equated with the individual. (1c)
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Lex Hixon write, the direct experience of all phenomena as Original Mind is the beginning of
spiritual discipline rather than the sudden release from responsibility that the egocentric seeker may imagine
Enlightenment to be. The discipline implied in Catching the Ox does not involve the strict practices and doctrinal
concepts used by a seeker or beginning practitioner. It is a refining and expanding process carried on out ambition
or striving. (1f)If you would be a man of true worth and not a phantom, you must be able to walk
upright by yourself dependent on nothing. When you harbor philosophical concepts or religious beliefs or ideas
or theories of one kind or another, you too are a phantom, for inevitably you become bound to them. Only when your
mind is empty of such abstractions are you truly free and independent.p.78
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Terms for Enlightenment, Buddha-Nature & etc.
There are no real explanations for kensho, satori and Mu, as true enlightenment and the perceiving of such is only of experience. Therefore all explanations, all books written and all the sutras act merely as pointers to truth. For truth, kensho and Buddha-nature is perceived only within personal experience. The practice of Zen is not philosophy or religious teachings, but is in Zazen (sitting) and the emptying of mind. It is here that one can find his or her own true nature. But sitting is not the emptying of mind, nor is Zazen limited to sitting. D.T. Suzuki relates:
"There are some people with the confused notion that the greatest achievement is to sit quietly with an emptied mind, where not a thought is allowed to be conceived. . . When you cherish the notion of purity and cling to it, you turn purity into falsehood. Purity has neither form nor shape, and when you claim an achievement by establishing a form to be known as purity, you obstruct your own self nature and are purity bound. (2)
Neither is Zen found in some mystical secret self beyond ego, for Zen and the practice of zazen is found outside of self illusionary mirror light as a separate entity which can be objectively "sought" and "attained" by meditation, as this is to imagine something that is not there. "From the first, not a thing is." There is "nothing there" and this "nothing" that is there is "sunyata, emptiness, no-mind, the non-objective presence of no-seeing," and it seems much more like a the todo y nada of St. John of the Cross than the illuminated inner self of the Neo-Platonists. (3)
This is why the Zen masters of Hui Neng's school were so insistent on the fact that "Zen is in your everyday mind." If you cannot find the emptiness of prajna in the very middle of concepts and contradictions, you cannot find it anywhere at all, because in fact it is nowhere in the first place. For that reason it is foolish to assert that "it is not in everyday things but in primal mirror activity." Since it is nowhere, we do not need to leave the point where we are and seek it somewhere else, but to forget all points as equally irrelevant because to seek the unlimited in a definite place is to limit it and hence not to find it. (3)
With this in mind, zazen can be standing, walking, sleeping, eating and working, but of course, the quieting of mind in sitting without the aim of objectivity, that is without the idea of entering a inner self but rather the awareness and mindfulness of all is the practice of sitting. The ceasing of thinking, not to find purity of mind, but to leave, to forget the mind, is the purpose of sitting, of zazen.
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There are also different stages of kensho, each degree more complete, as described in the Oxherding pictures. Each stage of as compared to that of seeking, finding, catching, taming, riding and forgetting the Ox, all being personal experiences beyond any explanations. Yet, no philosophy, sutras or words of men explain what personal kensho is, and yet many have and continually experience such with the practice of zazen.
Thomas Merton relates:
"For Zen, from the moment fact is transferred to a statement it is falsified. One ceases to grasp the naked reality of experience and one grasps a form of words instead. The verification of Zen seeks is not to be found in a dialectical transaction involving the reduction of fact to logical statement and the reflective verification of statement by fact. It may be said that long before Bertrand Russell spoke of "atomic facts," Zen had split the atom and made its own kind of statement in the explosion of logic in Satori (enlightenment). The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without the mediation of logical verbalizing." Zen and the Birds of Appetite, p. 37 (5)
Unlike the Christian and western contemplative, Zen is not a matter of clearing the mind of all objects and thoughts in a state of meditation, as the polishing of a tile can be made into a mirror, for there is no mind to polish. It is not to realize the mind but to forget it. For Zen is the realization of the whole, the universe as one essential nature. Not by self-realization, for there is no self to realize, but by becoming aware of all that is, pure and simple. In emptiness there is simply void. In that void is nothing. In nothing exists everything. Emptiness equals fullness, zero equals infinity.
Zazen (at least in the southern school of thought of Hui Neng) is not a means of attaining enlightenment but the awareness of all. Zazen is not merely sitting but a general realization, a mindfulness, in all activities, walking, sleeping, eating and working. Zazen is not a meditation of quietism, nor of activism, but rather a dynamic realization of all - our true nature - our true selves (no-selves) in all and all in ourselves. Pure void is pure being.
There is neither up nor down, right nor left, good nor evil, object nor subject, self nor no-self, I or thou, past nor future, as all exists as one in one eternal present movement, a blanket existence of nowness that all is. All is as is, simply because it is. Realization is that of seeing all as one, at once.
In the very present moment, although moving forward, we are moving forward with it, as all at once does this. And in this very present moment, at this precise millimeter of presence, exists the true nature of all, that exists as one, in one, in nowness.
D.T. Suzuki explains:
"When the light of Prajna penetrates the ground nature of consciousness (In this translation, D.T. Suzuki is comparing that of the 14th century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart), it illuminates inside and outside; everything grows transparent and one recognizes one's inmost mind. To recognize the inmost mind is emancipation . . . this means that realization of the Unconscious (we nien). What is the Unconscious? It is to see things as they are and not to become attached to anything . . . To be unconscious means to be innocent of the working of a relative (empirical) mind. . . When there is no abiding of thought anywhere on anything - this is being unbound. This not abiding anywhere is the root of our life." (2)
Thomas Merton comments:
"Prajna, therefore, is not attained when one reaches a deeper interior center in one's self (Suzuki's translation, "one's innermost mind," might be misleading here). It does not consist in "abiding" in a secret mystical point in one's own being, but in abiding nowhere in particular, neither in self nor out of self. It does not consist in self-realization whatever. In a word, prajna is not self-realization, but realization pure and simple, beyond subject and object. In such realization, evidently "emptiness" is no longer opposed to "fullness," but emptiness and fullness are One. Zero equals infinity." (3)
Huston Smith comments:
"Zen is not interested in theories about enlightenment, it wants the real thing. So it shouts, and buffets, and reprimands, without ill-will entering in the slightest. All it wants to do is force the student to crash the word-barrier. Minds must be sprung from their verbal bonds into a new mode of apprehending.
Every point can be overstated, so we should not infer from what has been said that Zen forgoes reason and words entirely.
To be sure, it is no more impressed with the mind's attempts to mirror ultimate reality than was Keirkegaard with Hegel's metaphysics; no amount of polishing can enable a brick to reflect the sun. But it does not follow that reason is worthless. Obviously, it helps unmake our way in the everyday world, a fact that leads Zennists in the main to be staunch advocates of education. But more . Working in special ways, reason can actually help awareness toward its goal. If the way that it is employed to do this seems at times like using a thorn to remove a thorn, we should add that reason can also play an interpretive role, serving as a bridge to join a newly discovered world to the wrold of common sense. For there is not a Zen problem whose answer, once discovered, does not make good sense within its own frame of reference; there is no experience that the masters are unwilling to try to describe or explain, given the proper circumstance. The point regarding Zen's relation to reason is simply a double one. First, Zen logic and description make sense only from an experiential perspective radically different from the ordinary. Second, Zen masters are determined that their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to take its place." (3a)
kensho -
The essence of your True-nature is no different from that of this stick in front of me or this table or this clock - ion fact every single object in the universe. When you directly experience the truth of this, it will be so convincing that you will claim, "How true!" because not only your brain but all your being will participate in this knowledge. page 149
(lit., "seeing into one's own nature"): Semantically, kensho and satori have virtually the same meaning, and they are often used interchangeably. In describing the enlightenment of the Buddha and the Patriarchs, however, it is customary to use the word satori rather than kensho, the term satori implying a deeper experience. (the exact Japanese expression for full enlightenment is diago tetei.) When the word godo (lit., "the way of enlightenment") is combined with the term "kensho," the latter word becomes more subjective and empathic.
The enlightened, knowing the joy of inward peace and creative freedom because, having overcome their ignorance and delusion with Knowledge, they are freed from enslavement to karmic propensities arising from past delusive actions and no longer sow seeds which will beat fruit in the form of new karma bondage. Enlightenment, however, does not suspend the law of cause and effect. When the enlightened man cuts his finger it bleeds, when he eats bad food his stomach aches. He too cannot escape the consequences of his actions. The difference is that because he accepts - i.e., sees into - his karma he is no longer bound by it, but moves freely within it.
Kensho is the direct awareness that you are more than this puny body or limited mind. Stated negatively, it is the realization that the universe is not external to you. Positively, it its experiencing the universe as yourself. So long as you consciously or unconsciously think in terms of a distinction between yourself and others, you are caught in the dualism of I and not-I. This I is not indigenous to our True-nature, being merely an illusion produced by the six senses. but because this illusory ego-I has been treated as a real entity throughout this existence and previous ones, it has come to occupy the deepest level of the subconscious mind. Your single-hearted concentration on Mu will gradually dispel this I-concept from your consciousness. With its complete banishment you suddenly experience Oneness. This is kensho. P.137
Mind is more than your body and more than what is ordinarily called mind. the inner realization of Mind is the realization that you and the universe are not two. This awareness must come to you with such overwhelming certainty that you involuntarily slap your thigh and exclaim: "Oh, of course!" p.143
A blind man, even while blind, is fundamentally whole and perfect. the same is true of a deaf-mute. If a deaf-mute suddenly regained his hearing, his perfection would no longer be that of a deaf-mute. Were this saucer on the table to be broken, each segment would be wholeness itself. What is visible to the eye is merely the form, which is ever-changing, not the substance. Actually the word "perfect" is superfluous. Things are neither perfect nor imperfect, they are what they are. Everything has absolute worth, hence nothing can be compared with anything else. A tall man is tall, a short man is short, that is all you can say. There is a koan where in reply to the question "what is the Buddha?" the master answers: "the tall bamboo is tall, the short bamboo is short." Kensho is nothing more than directly perceiving all this in a flash. p. 144
There is nothing to accept. All you need do is just see when you look, just hear when you listen. But he average man can't do that. He is constantly weaving ideas and embroidering notions about what he experiences. Yet when you touch a read-hot stove and cry "Ouch!" the simple and obvious fact is "Ouch!" Is there any meaning beyond that? p.116
satori: the Japanese term
for the experience of enlightenment, i.e., Self-realization, opening the Mind's eye, awakening to one's True-nature
and hence of the nature of all existence.
nirvana (j., nehan): realization of the selfless "I"; satori; the experience of Changelessness, of inner Peace and Freedom. Nirvana (with a small "n") stands against samsara, i.e., birth-and-death. Nirvana (or more exactly, pari-nirvana) is also used in the sense of a return to the original purity of the Buddha-nature after the dissolution of the physical body, i.e., to the Perfect Freedom of the unconditional state.
"One does not attain to Nirvana by subtle and patient meditation, by experimenting with Zen Koans, by interminable sitting, by wheedling a secret answer out of some spiritual expert, by taming the body in various tantric ways. Nirvana is the extinction of desire and the full awakening that results from the extinction. It is not simply the dissolution of all ego-limits, a quasi-infinite expansion of the ego into an ocean of self-satisfaction and annihilation. This is the last and worst illusion of the ascetic who, having "crossed" to the other shore," says to himself with satisfaction: " have crossed to the other shore." He has, of course, crossed nothing. He is still where he was, as broken as ever. He is in the darkness of Avidya (the justification of false views.) He has only managed to find a pill that produces a spurious light and deadens a little of the pain.
Enlightenment is not a matter of trifling with the facticity of ordinary life and spiriting it all away. As the Buddhists say, Nirvana is found in the midst of the world around us, and truth is not somewhere else. To be here and now where we are ion our "suchness" (emptiness) is to be in Nirvana, but unfortunately as long as we have "thirst" or Tanha (desire - including the desire to attain Nirvana), we falsify our own situation and cannot realize it as Nirvana. As long as we are inauthentic, as long as we block and obscure the presence of what truly is, we are in delusion and we are in pain. Were we capable of a moment of perfect authenticity of complete openness, we would see at once that Nirvana and Samsara are the same. ZATBOA, TM, p. 87
samsara: birth-and-death (J., shoji; Skt., samsara): the world of relativity; the transformation which all phenomena, including our thoughts and feelings, are ceaselessly undergoing in accordance with the law of causation. Birth-and-death, which Dogen called "the life of a Buddha," can be compared to the waves on the ocean. The rise and fall of one wave is on "birth" and on "death." The size of each is conditioned by the force of the previous one, itself being the progenitor of the succeeding one. This process infinitely repeated is birth-and-death.
karma (j., go): One of the fundamental doctrines of both Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is action and reaction, the continuing process of cause and effect. Thus our present life and circumstances are the product of our past thoughts and actions, and in the same way our deeds in this life will fashion our future mode of existence. The word "karma" is also used in the sense of evil bent of mind resulting from past wrongful actions.
joriki the increased powers of concentration and character development of inner strength and wits with mental powers to both influence others and objects.
You should develop joriki because you cannot carry on spiritual practice when your thoughts and emotions are under natural restraint. One we acquire this natural control through joriki, you are no longer compulsively driven. You are free to experience attractive sights or sounds let us say, or to ignore them, with no aftermath of remorse. Nevertheless, until enlightenment your view of the world and your relationship to it will be blurred - in other words, still dominated by the idea of "self" and "other" - and you will be mislead by your imperfect vision.
Self realization can come with only a little zazen and correspondingly a little joriki, but without joriki it is difficult to redirect one's habitual actions so that they accord with the truth one has experienced. It is only after enlightenment, when one no longer sees the world and himself as two, that one's potentialities unfold to their fullest, provided always one continues with zazen and the development of joriki. p.112
Dharma The dharma of the dharma-nature (Buddha-nature) means phenomena. What we ordinarily term phenomena - that is, what is evident to the senses - in Buddhism is called Dharma. The word "phenomena," since it relates only to the observable features without implying what causes them to appear, has a limited connotation. These phenomena are termed Dharma (or Law) simply because they appear neither by accident nor through the will of some special agency superintending the universe. All phenomena are the result of the law of cause and effect. They arise when causes and conditions governing them mature. When one of these causes or conditions becomes altered, these phenomena change correspondingly. When the combination of causes and conditions completely disintegrate, the form itself disappears. All existence being the expression of the law of cause and effect, all phenomena are equally this Law, this Dharma. Now, as there are multiple modes of existence, so are there multiple dharmas corresponding the these existences. The substance of these manifold dharmas we call Dharma-nature. Whether we say Dharma-nature or us the more personal term Buddha-nature, these expressions refer to one reality. Stated differently, all phenomena are transformations of Buddha - Dharma-nature. Everything by its very nature is subject to the process of infinite transformation - this is the Buddha - or Dharma-nature. p. 74
Were you to ask the average person what he is, he would say, "My mind" or "My body" or "My mind and body," but non of this is so .We are more than our mind or our body or both. Our true-nature is beyond all categories. Whatever you can conceive to imagine is but a fragment of yourself, hence the real You cannot be found through logical deduction or intellectual analysis or endless imagining.
If I were to cut off my hand or my leg, the real I would not be decreased on whit. Strictly speaking, this body and mind are also you but only a fraction. The essence of your True-nature is no different from that of this stick in front of me or this table or this clock - in fact every single object in the universe. When you directly experience the truth of this, it will be so convincing that you will exclaim, "How true!" because not only your brain but all your being will participate in this knowledge. pp. 148-149
ku (shunyata) this is the substance of the Buddha or Dharma-nature. Ku is not mere emptiness, It is that which is living, dynamic, devoid of mass, unfixed, beyond individuality or personality - the matrix of all phenomena. Here we have the fundamental principle or doctrine or philosophy of Buddhism.
For the Buddha Shakyamuni this was not mere theory but truth which he directly realized. With the experience of enlightenment, which is the source of all Buddhist doctrine, you grasp the world of ku. This world - unfixed, devoid of mass, beyond individuality or personality - is outside the realm of imagination. Accordingly, the true substance of things, that is, their Buddha - of Dharma-nature, is inconceivable and inscrutable. Since everything imaginable partakes of form or color, whatever one imagines to be Buddha-nature must of necessity be unreal. Indeed, that which can be conceived is but a picture of Buddha-nature, not Buddha-nature itself. But while Buddha-nature is beyond all conception and imagination because we ourselves are intrinsically Buddha-nature, it is possible for us to awaken to it. Only through the experience of enlightenment, however, can we affirm it in the Heart. Enlightenment therefore is all. p.74
Buddha-nature cannot be grasped by the intellect. To experience it directly you must search your mind with the utmost devotion until you are absolutely convinced of its existence, for, after all, you yourself see this Buddha-nature. When I told you earlier that Buddha-nature was ku - impersonal, devoid of mass, unfixed, and capable of endless transformation - I merely offered you a portrait of it. it is possible to think of Buddha-nature in these terms, but you must understand that whatever you can think or imagine must necessarily be unreal. Hence there is no other way than to experience the truth in your own mind. p. 76
Mu (or one can ask the koan, "who/what am I") this is the barrier of the supreme teaching, the barrier, yet ultimately it s a barrier that is no barrier. It is the barrier-gate set up the Patriarchs. Not a system of morality but that which lies at the root of all such teachings, namely Zen. Only that which is of unalloyed purity, free from the superstitious or the supernatural, can be called the root of all teachings and hence supreme. You cannot construe Mu as nothingness and cannot conceive it in terms of existence or non-existence. You must reach the point where you feel as though you had swallowed a red-hot iron ball that you cannot disgorge despite your every effort. When you have dissolved all delusion and ripened into purity, after many years, so that inside and outside are as one, you will thoroughly relish your sublime state of mind, yet like a mute who has had a dream will be unable to talk about it. p. 72. In Buddhism Zen is the only teaching which is not to one degree or another tainted with elements of the supernatural - thus Zen alone can truly be called the supreme teaching and Mu the one barrier of this supreme teaching. You can understand "one barrier" to mean the sole barrier or one out of many. Ultimately there is no barrier.
When I clap my hands it is just Mu. There is nothing to "figure out" or speculate about. If you try to make even the smallest deduction or the barest analysis, you will never come the realization of Mu. You must cut out speculation about it! Stop using your head! Just become completely one with Mu and you will positively come to Self-realization.
Actually there is no "myself" to push against. Mu is everything, Mu is Nothing. So long as you consciously or unconsciously believe that you are you and everything else is different from you, you will never penetrate Mu. You are close to kensho. Only one more step! Be alert! Don't separate yourself from Mu by so much as the thickness of a thin sheet of paper! p. 117
All you need do is empty your mind of the delusive notion of "self" and "other." Many have come to the realization simply by listening to the tinkling of a bell or some other sound (the hands clapping). Usually when you hear a bell ringing you think, consciously or unconsciously, "I am hearing a bell." Three things are involved: I, a bell, and hearing. But when the mind is ripe, that is, as free of discursive thoughts as a sheet of pure white paper is unmarred by a blemish, there is just the sound of the bell ringing. This is kensho. p.153
"Who is the master that moves his hands?" There is no real answer to Who? What? or Why? Why is sugar sweet? Sugar is sugar. Sugar! Why must one struggle with the question of "Who am I?" Because this understanding is external to us, as we don't really know what we mean by "I am I." We must come up against this question with the force of a bomb, and all of our intellectual notions and ideas must be annihilated. The only way to resolve this question is to come to the explosive inner realization that everything is ultimately reducible to nothing. If our understanding is merely theoretical, we will forever ask Who? What? and Why? p. 147
Mu is nothing you can feel or taste or touch or smell. And if it has shape or form, it is not Mu. What you have in your mind is merely a picture of Mu. You must discard it.
Mu is beyond meaning and non-meaning. It cannot be known either by the senses or by the discursive mind. Get rid of your false notions, and Awareness will abruptly come to you. But you must apply yourself more fervently. You must cling to Mu more tenaciously, like a hungry dog with its bone. Concentrate Mu! Mu! Mu! with all your heart. p. 118
In ancient days there was no koan system, still many people came to Self-realization. but it was hard and took a long time. The use of koans started about a thousand years ago and has continued down to the present. One of the best koans, because the simplest, is Mu. This is its background: A monk came to Joshua, a renowned Zen master in China hundreds of years ago, and asked: "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?" Joshu retorted, "Mu!" Literally, the expression means "no" or "not," but he significance of the living, functioning, dynamic Buddha-nature. What you must do is discover the spirit or essence of this Mu, not through intellectual analysis but by search into your innermost being. Then you must demonstrate before me, concretely and vividly, that you understand Mu as living truth, without recourse to conceptions, theories, or abstract explanations. Remember, you can't understand Mu through ordinary cognition; you must grasp it directly with your whole being. p. 135
Sunyata - the emptiness of all thing, the "void," the infinite abyss and ground of all being. Sunyata is not a vacuum or a state of nothingness, yet sees beyond our subjective perceptions. To understand sunyata is to appreciate the insubstantial and changing quality of everything, and understand that projections and perceptions can cause no harm or trouble. We, on the other hand, tend to regard our projections as something substantial, and we believe that they support and sustain us. We think they are real; indeed, for us this is total reality. We fixate on our perceived reality and become attached to it. That is how we become trapped in our own projections.
One must always take ourselves with a tantalizing grain of Zen salt. "I am," but who is this "I?" The fundamental reality is neither external nor internal, objective nor subjective. it is prior to all differentiations and contradictions. Zen calls it emptiness, Sunyata, or "suchness." The mature grasp of the primordial emptiness in which all things are one is Prajna, wisdom. (3)
prajna - to comprehend all, to realize everything, as an all-accomplished one - Not in "abiding" in a secret mystical point in one's own being, but in abiding nowhere in particular, neither in self nor out of self. It does not consist in self-realization whatever. In a word, prajna is not self-realization, but realization pure and simple, beyond subject and object. In such realization, evidently "emptiness" is no longer opposed to "fullness," but emptiness and fullness are One. Zero equals infinity." The mature grasp of the primordial emptiness in which all things are one is Prajna, wisdom.
samadhi - a state of intense yet effortless concentration, of complete absorption of the mind in itself, or heightened and expanded awareness. Samadhi and Bodhi are identical form the view of the enlightened Bodhi-mind. Seen fro the developing stages leading to satori awakening, however samadhi and enlightenment are different.
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The 5 Varieties of Zen
bompu Zen or "ordinary" Zen - Free from any philosophic or religious content for anybody and everybody. Practiced purely in the belief that it can improve both physical and mental health.
gedo Zen - "an outside way." Related to philosophy and religion, but not necessarily Buddhist. Commonly the quiet sitting of the Hindu yoga - to be reborn in various heavens, in, Confucianism, and contemplation practices of Christianity. This type of Zen builds the powers of concentration - joriki, which can act as powers of the mind to control both others and things, as well as a dynamic personal power.
shojo Zen - this is the desire to enter a total and complete state of blankness called mushinjo to avoid the journey of rebirth to suspend the faculty of the conscious. to die with escape of rebirth.
daijo Zen - this is truly Buddhist Zen, as its central purpose is kensho-godo, which is the seeing into your essential nature and realizing the Way in your daily life. This is the desire to break through the one's own illusionary view of the universe and experience the absolute, undifferentiated Reality that Buddha taught in Zen, the experience of enlightenment, kensho or satori, the true self-nature. The object here is satori awakening. Zazen, the practice of sitting, is not the means, nor technique to this awakening but rather the actualization itself, as the more you experience satori, the more need for zazen.
saijojo Zen - the last and the highest of types, the culmination and crown of Buddha himself, the expression of absolute life in its purest form. It is the zazen which Dogen-zenji chiefly advocated and it involves no struggle for satori or any other object, but acts on both faith in satori and the type of zazen sitting called shikan-taza, which employs strong concentration to blot out all objects in the mind, including the counting and observance of breathing to the extent of being in warfare where nothing can distract you from you concentration.
The Rinzai sect places daijo Zen uppermost and saijojo Zen beneath, where as the Soto sect in reverse. In saijojo Zen you wait in faith knowing your true nature of Buddha will be revealed and you will experience enlightenment. While the Soto sect holds that since we are all innately Buddhas, satori is not necessary. Such an egregious error reduces shikan-taza, which properly is the highest form of sitting, to nothing more than bompu Zen, the first of the five types.
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The 3 Aims of Zen
joriki - the development of the power of concentration. The dynamic inner power of strength and wits in all circumstances, and the supernormal powers that influence others and even objects.
the increased powers of concentration and character development of inner strength and wits with mental powers to both influence others and objects.
You should develop joriki because you cannot carry on spiritual practice when your thoughts and emotions are under natural restraint. One we acquire this natural control through joriki, you are no longer compulsively driven. You are free to experience attractive sights or sounds let us say, or to ignore them, with no aftermath of remorse. Nevertheless, until enlightenment your view of the world and your relationship to it will be blurred - in other words, still dominated by the idea of "self" and "other" - and you will be mislead by your imperfect vision.
Self realization can come with only a little zazen and correspondingly a little joriki, but without joriki it is difficult to redirect one's habitual actions so that they accord with the truth one has experienced. It is only after enlightenment, when one no longer sees the world and himself as two, that one's potentialities unfold to their fullest, provided always one continues with zazen and the development of joriki. p.112
satori-awakening (kensho-godo) - enlightenment. Seeing into the ultimate nature of the universe and the self, the no-self, into the perfect Buddha-nature of self that has existed from the very beginning.
mujodo no taigen - the actualization of the Supreme Way in our daily lives
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The 2 Main Schools of Zen
Rinzai : the Rinzai sect tends to make satori-awakening the final aim of sitting and skims over joriki and mujodo no taigen - (the actualization of the Supreme Way throughout our entire being and daily activities.) Thus the need for continued practice after enlightenment is minimized, and koan study, since it is unsupported by zazen and scarcely related to daily life, becomes essentially an intellectual game instead of a manes by which to amplify and strengthen enlightenment.
The Rinzai sect places daijo Zen uppermost and saijojo Zen beneath, where as the Soto sect in reverse. In saijojo Zen you wait in faith knowing your true nature of Buddha will be revealed and you will experience enlightenment. While the Soto sect holds that since we are all innately Buddhas, kensho - satori is not necessary. Such an egregious error reduces shikan-taza, which properly is the highest form of sitting, to nothing more than bompu Zen, the first of the five types.
Soto : the Soto sect stresses mujodo no taigen, in effect is amounts to little more than the accumulation of joriki, which "leaks" or recedes from memory and ultimately disappears unless zazen is carried on regularly. The contemplation of the Soto sect nowadays that kensho is unnecessary and that one do no more than carry on his daily activities with the Mind of the Buddha is specious, for without kensho you can never really know what this Buddha-mind is.
The imbalances in both sects in recent times have, unfortunately, impaired the quality of Zen teaching. p. 49
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Stages of Kensho
There are different stages of kensho, each degree more complete, as described in the Oxherding pictures. Each stage of as compared to that of seeking, finding, catching, taming, riding and forgetting the Ox, all being personal experiences beyond any explanations. No philosophy, sutras or words of men explain what personal kensho is, yet many have and continually experience such with the practice of zazen (sitting).
1. SEEKING THE OX - The Ox has never really gone astray, so why search for it? Having turning his back on his True-nature, the man cannot see it. Because of his defilements he has lost sight of the Ox. Suddenly he finds himself confronted by a maze of crisscrossing roads. Greed for worldly gain and dread of loss spring up like searing flames, ideas of right and wrong dart out like daggers.
Desolate through forests and fearful in jungles,
he is seeking an Ox which he does not find.
Up and down dark, nameless, wide-flowing rivers,
in deep mountain thickets he treads many bypaths.
Bone-tired, heart-weary, he carries on his search
for this something which he yet cannot find.
At evening he hears cicadas chirping in the trees.
2. FINDING THE TRACKS - Through the sutras and teachings he discerns the tracks of the Ox. He has been informed that just as different-shaped golden vessels are all basically of the same gold, so each and every thing is a manifestation of the Self. But he is unable to distinguish good from evil, truth form falsity. He has not actually entered the gate, but he sees in a sensitive way the tracks of the OX.
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| Innumerable footprints has he seen |
| in the forest and along the water's edge. |
| Over yonder does he see the tramples grass? |
| Even the deepest gorges of the topmost mountains |
| can't hide the Ox's which reaches right to heaven. |
3. FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE OX - If he will but listen intently to everyday sounds, he will come to realization and at that instant are the very Source. The six senses are no different from this true Source. In very activity the Source is manifestly present. it is analogous to the salt in water or the binder in paint. When the inner vision is properly focused, one comes to realize that that which is seen is identical with the true Source.
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| A nightingale warbles on a twig, |
| the sun shines on undulating willows. |
| There stands the Ox, where could he hide? |
| That splendid head, those stately horns, |
| what artist could portray them? |
4. CATCHING THE OX - Today he encountered the Ox, which had long been cavorting in the wild fields, and actually grasped it. For so long a time has it reveled in these surroundings that breaking it of its old habits is not easy. It continues to yearn for sweet-scented grasses, it is still stubborn and unbridled. If he would tame it completely the man must use his whip.
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| He must rightly grasp the rope and not let it go, |
| for the Ox still has unhealthy tendencies. |
| Now he charges up to the highlands, |
| now he loiters to a misty ravine. |
5. TAMING THE OX- With the rising of one thought another and another are born. Enlightenment brings the realization that such thoughts are not unreal since even they arise from our True-nature. it is only because delusion still remains that they are imagined to be unreal. the state of delusion does not originate in the objective world but in our own minds.
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| He must hold the nose-rope tight and not allow the Ox to roam, |
| lest off to muddy haunts it should stray. |
| Properly tended, it becomes clean and gentle. |
| Untethered, it willingly follows its master. |
6. RIDING THE OX HOME - The struggle is over, "gain" and "loss" no long affect him. he hums the rustic tune of the woodsman and plays the simple songs of the village children. Astride the Ox's back, he gazes serenely at the clouds above. His head does not turn in the direction of temptations. Try though one may to upset him, he remains undisturbed.
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| Riding free as air he buoyantly comes, home |
| through evening mists in wide straw-hat and cape. |
| Wherever he may go he creates a fresh breeze, |
| while in his heart profound tranquility prevails. |
| This Ox requires not a blade of grass. |
7. OX FORGOTTEN, SELF ALONE - In the Dharma there is no two-ness. The Ox is the Primal-nature: this he has now recognized. A trap is no longer needed when a rabbit has been caught, a net becomes useless when a fish has been snared. like gold which has been separated from dross, like the moon which has broken through the clouds, one ray of luminous Light shines eternally..
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| Only on the Ox was he able to come Home, |
| But lo, the Ox is now vanished, and alone and serene sits the man. |
| The red sun rides high in the sky |
| as he dreams on placidly. |
| Yonder beneath the thatched roof |
| his idle whip and idle rope are lying. |
8. BOTH OX AND SELF ARE FORGOTTEN - All delusive feelings have perished and ideas of holiness too have vanished. he lingers not in the state of "I am a Buddha," and he passes quickly on through the stage of "And now I have purged myself of the proud feeling 'I am not Buddha.' " Even the thousand eyes of five hundred Buddhas and Patriarchs can discern in him no specific quality. If hundreds of birds were not to strew flowers about his room, he could not but feel ashamed of himself.
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| Whip, rope, Ox and man alike belong to Emptiness. |
| So vast and infinite the azure sky |
| that no concept of any sort can reach it. |
| Over a blazing fire a snowflake cannot survive. |
| When this state of mind is realized |
| comes at last comprehension |
| of the spirit of the ancient Patriarchs. |
9. RETURNING TO THE SOURCE - From the very beginning there has not been so much as a speck of dust to mar the intrinsic Purity. he observes the waxing and waning of life in the world while abiding unassertively in a state of unshakable serenity. This waxing and waning is no phantom or illusion but a manifestation of the Source. Why then is there need to strive for anything? The waters are blue, the mountains are green. Alone with himself, he observes things endlessly changing.
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| He has returned to the Origin, come back to the Source, |
| but his steps have been taken in vain. |
| It is as though he were now blind and deaf. |
| Seated in his hut, he hankers not for things outside. |
| Streams meander on of themselves, |
| red flowers naturally bloom red. |
10. ENTERING THE MARKET PLACE WITH HELPING HANDS - The gate of his cottage is closed and even the wises cannot find him. His mental panorama has finally disappeared. he goes his own way, making no attempt to follow the steps of earlier sages. Carrying a gourd, he strolls into the market; leaning on his staff, he returns home. He leads innkeepers and fishmongers in the Way of the Buddha.
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| Barechested, barefooted, he comes into the market place. |
| Muddied and dust-covered, how broadly he grins! |
| Without recourse to mystic powers, |
| withered trees he swiftly brings to bloom. |