The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preference
Only when freed from hate and love
It reveals itself fully and without disguise
A tenth of an inch's difference
And heaven and earth are set apart
If you want to see it manifest
Take no thoughts either for or against it
To set up what you like against what you dislike
That is the disease of the mind
When the deep meaning [of the way] is not understood
Peace of mind is disturbed and nothing is gained
[The Way] is perfect like unto vast space
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous
It is indeed, do to making choices
That its suchness is lost sight of
When the mind rests supreme in the oneness of things
Dualism vanishes by itself
-beginning of the Hsin-hsin-ming
by Seng-ts'an
as
translated by D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen
Buddhism, First Series
The movement we know of as Zen Buddhism is properly
understood as a contemplative sect of Mahayana Buddhism, the Red Hat School of
Buddhism, the Great Vehicle of the Pure Land.
Adherents of Zen Buddhism claim to be able to trace the origins
of the tradition to the beginning of Buddhism and the person of Gotama Siddhartha
himself, through his disciple Ananda, to Sakyamuni.,,and so forth.
Zen practitioners also claim that there exists an unbroken
line of succession from Sakyamuni through Bodhidharma to Hui-neng, the sixth
and last patriarch of the Chinese Chan school of Buddhism, which became Zen
Buddhism when it crossed into Japan.
Let me clarify.
What is meant by an unbroken line of succession is that the
"Buddha mind," which in its essence is ineffable and indescribable,
is passed from one Buddha to the next by means of a sacred ceremony similar in
most respects to the rites of apostolic succession in Christianity, as well as
various schools of Sufi mysticism in Islam.
This transfer of enlightenment is referred to in the
tradition as the "transmission of the lamp;" it is the passing on of
the "true dharma eye," which adherents of Buddhism claim Gotama
Siddhartha possessed.
I mentioned, the transmission of the "true dharma
eye," is analogous to the tradition of the “laying on of hands,” through
which special access to the Holy Spirit is transmitted from one bishop to the
next in the Christian tradition. It is the transfer of a special charism and a
position of authority from one teacher and one generation to the next as in the
way that Sufis follow sheiks belonging to specific mystical traditions,
believing that a special authority resides in that line in many cases going
back to the prophet Muhammad himself.
These human institutions are analogous to one in another
insofar as they are aimed at bolstering the authority of their respective
traditions and of individuals with those traditions…while this feature of these
religions is unnecessary we are stuck with it because we are human.
The origins of Zen Buddhism, like the origins of the
Christian Church, are shrouded in the mists of history, and like Christianity they
are complicated by cultural traditions and politics. Among scholars there is
some question regarding whether what we know of as Zen Buddhism today, a
predominantly Japanese form of Buddhism, was derived from the Buddhism brought
from India into China by the missionary monk Bodhidharma (c. 520 CE), or
whether it is derived from the practice of quietism that was developed by a
near contemporary of the original Buddha, Lao Tzu (c.500 BCE), whose teachings
became the foundation for the Chinese religion of Taoism. It is also possible
that it Zen Buddhism is an amalgamation from both of these sources,
contributing to it in roughly equal measures…that it is a hybridization or
syncretization of the two distinct traditions.
Whatever the origins of Zen Buddhism may have been, what
constitutes Zen today is the physical, mental and spiritual discipline, which
its practitioners claim is a genuine and inspired route to enlightenment.
The great teacher, D. T. Suzuki says in his elegant treatise
on The Training of a Zen Buddhist Monk, says:
As Zen is a discipline and not a philosophy, it deals
directly with life; and this is where Zen has developed its most characteristic
features. It may be described as a form of mysticism, but the way it handles
its experience is altogether unique. Hence the special designation of Zen
Buddhism.[i]
The practitioner of Zen may appear to an outside observer as
someone engaged in a mystical exercise, but from the practitioner’s perspective
they are engaged in the art of living.
You may not hear this from the lips of a Zen Master, but a
practitioner of Zen is merely someone (anyone), attempting to reach
enlightenment.
The Zen Master would say that enlightenment is something
which cannot be grasped, which would seem to make the practice of Zen an
exercise in futility; after-all, why reach for something that you can never take
hold of? Why set a goal that can never be realized? Why aim for a target that
can only be missed?
Note well: Zen doesn't claim that a person cannot possess
enlightenment. Zen merely suggests that while reaching for it, it cannot be
grasped.
Enlightenment in Zen, is something which defies the ability
of reason (the mind) to comprehend, which is to say that the state of being
referred to as enlightened cannot be expressed.
According to the Zen tradition, being in a state of
enlightenment is to possess the "true dharma eye," it is to exist, at
one, with the experience of the ineffable, it is to have an intrinsic and
utterly congruous link with what is true.
Note well: through the practice of Zen Buddhism a person may
experience a state of sudden enlightenment, and though this is always temporary
it is nevertheless characterized by a radical transfiguration in the consciousness
of the individual. The method, za-zen (the
sitting and breathing meditation), is thought to be particularly useful for the
development of human consciousness in a manner that will make it more
susceptible to the sudden experience of the “true dharma eye.”
“Zen tells us to grasp the truth of Sunyata, ‘Absolute
Emptiness,’ and this without the mediacy of intellect or logic, it is to be
done by intuition or immediate perception.”[ii]
Though the sitting and breathing meditation is the most basic
and widespread practice that the discipline of Zen, there is also meditation
upon the sutras, and the use of the Koan (a thought provoking riddle that is
meant to open the awareness of the individual to a sense a mystery and uncertainty).
Allow me to state again: Both historically and ideologically
Zen is a development of Mahayana Buddhism, the Greater Vehicle of the Pure Land.
What differentiates the Zen tradition from other traditions within
Mahayana Buddhism is the figure of Bodidharma; who "for nine years
remained seated in meditation before the wall of a monastery until his legs
withered away."[iii] Through this
practice of extreme-aestheticism Bodidharma attained enlightenment and he
passed the tradition of za-zen onto his followers along with the “true
dharma eye.”.
All mysticism aside, we practice the sitting and breathing
meditation in order to balance our physical center; the goal is to set the body
at perfect ease so that the mind may escape from it…it is quite simple and very
fantastical.
Bodidharma, having attained enlightenment through the
sitting meditation became the first Patriarch of Zen, and before his death he transmitted
the "Buddha mind" to his disciple Hui-ko, who became the second
Patriarch of Zen.
Note well: the discipline of za-zen has the following formal structure.
The main point for the sitter is to have his ears and his
shoulders, nose and naval stand to each other in one vertical plane, while his
tongue rests against his upper palate and his lips and teeth are firmly closed.
Let his eyes be slightly opened in order to avoid falling asleep.[iv]
As stated the Zen tradition claims that this posture is
particularly useful for acquiring the meditative state of mind. However, even though
this "special posture is recommended...Zen has nothing to do with the form
the body may take."[v]
The sitting and breathing meditation is the heart of Zen, but the Zen mind is
not bound by it. Za-zen is supposed
to lever the mind into Buddha consciousness, so that while in the meditative
state the practitioner may plumb the meaning of the sutras and koans.
A Zen Master should say that:
The experience of enlightenment is not dependent on
meditation; there is no causal connection between the two. Meditational
practice is not the cause nor the condition for coming to a realization. Once
awakened to wisdom, the mind sees nature, its own nature, which is identical to
Buddha nature.[vi]
Meditation upon the sutras is the time-honored tradition of
Buddhism and as such Zen Buddhism has a high regard for these writings. The
sutras are held to be the words and thoughts of those who spoke with true
Buddha consciousness. There reading "the sutras continue(s) to be held in
high regard [but] it was more in meditation than in study that efforts were
made to appropriate the(m)."[vii]
In Zen there is both a deep reverence for, and a complete
willingness to depart from, all norms and traditional forms. The Zen Master
holds this view of the sutras and even their most revered practices, because of
the prevailing belief that any strict or formalized adherence to specific
practices, rituals or methods can serve to obstruct the individual from the
attainment of enlightenment.
In the practice of Zen, the truth is not contained within
the form; the true-form is whatever facilitates the transcendence of
consciousness toward the experience of the ineffable…this is all that matters.
Christian
contemplatives developed a mode of expressing their understanding of the divine
being known as the via negative, the
negative way, based on the supposition that because we can never adequately
state, or positively affirm what is true about the infinite nature of God; we can
only state what God is not.
We cannot even say
that God is love, that God is good or that God is just, because our
understanding of love, goodness and justice is necessarily circumscribed and
limited by our position in as finite beings, conditioned in all things by boundaries
of time and space.
We can only say
that God is not hate, that God is not evil and that God is not corrupt.
The very same sentiment
is similarly represented in the Hebrew tradition, by their use of the tetragrammaton
YHWH for the name of the deity who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In the Hebrew
tradition the name of the deity cannot even be expressed, let alone can the
deity be represented as a graven image. In the Hebrew tradition the
tetragrammaton stands in the place of God’s name, representing the deity who is
the fundamental reality that is the source of all being. This mode of
iconoclasm is ardently upheld in the Islamic tradition as well.
In Zen Buddhism it is believed that the sutras, at best,
point the reader in the direction of the truth, but because the truth is
ultimately inexpressible, any attempt to contain it within a sentence, an essay
or a poem, must ultimately meet with failure.
The primary sutras in the Zen cannon are the Prajnaparamita Sutra (the sutra
on emptiness), and the Platform Sutras of the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng.
The Sutra on Emptiness stresses the goal of za-zen: to release the mind from its
attachment to things. "The Platform sutra warns against false practice,
especially against clinging to purity or emptiness."[viii]
The emphasis that Hui-neng places on the “non-attachment” of the mind to the
concept of “emptiness” is indicative of how it is that the mind will try to
objectify any concept...even the concept of nothing because a concrete thing in
the mind.
It is the process of objectifying reality that causes our
view of it to become and remain circumscribed. The circumscribed mind is
focused of finitudes and thus is unable to experience the infinite. In turn,
this keeps the experience of enlightenment out of the hand of the practitioner
who is reaching for it.
This problem was well understood, therefore as a means of
preventing the practitioner of Zen from a meaningless objectification of his or
her studies, the koan method was developed…the koan is a verbal puzzle, like a
riddle, which usually boils down to an a-rational concept or paradox.
Meditating on a koan is meant to afford the practitioner the
opportunity to shock his or her mind out of the mundane and into the
super-reality of the Buddha mind.
"The koan exercises which are the prevailing method at
present of mastering Zen involves many years of close application."[ix]
D. T. Suzuki tells us.
All things are reducible to the One, and where is this One
reducible? Keep this koan in your mind and never allow yourself to think that
quietude or a state of unconsciousness is the sine qua non in your koan exercise. When you feel confused in your
mind so that your power of attention refuses to work its own way, do not try to
gather it up with a thought, but mustering your spirits keep up your koan by
all means before you. Courage and determination are most in need of at this
juncture.[x]
By meditating on koan, and on the sutras, but ultimately
through the practice of the sitting-breathing meditation, za-zen, the Zen practitioner prepares for the experience of
enlightenment, and as a result of the wisdom gained through Zen, the
practitioner hopes to contribute more significantly toward the well-being of
the world.
Therefore we have to see the real truth, the real situation.
Our daily lives, the way we drink, what we eat, has to do with the world's
political situation. Meditation can see deeply into things, to see how we can
change, how we can transform our situation. To transform our situation is to
transform our minds. To transform our minds is also to transform our situation,
because the situation is mind, and mind is situation. Awakening is important.
The nature of the bombs, the nature of injustice, the nature of the weapons,
and the nature of our own beings are the same. This is the real meaning of
engaged Buddhism.[xi]
In all forms of Buddhism, the precept is held, that being
able to contribute to the well-being of the world requires that we accept the simple-truth
concerning the interconnectedness of all things. It is necessary that we come
to grips with the fact that there is no essential separation between any one
person and every other person, between animals and plants, plants and minerals,
down to the most elemental unit of being.
According to the principles of Zen, any world-view suggesting
that there is a dispositional or di-polar relationship between any two
definable objects (things or beings) is flawed. Every…thing or being, animate
or inanimate, living or dead is a concrescent society, a multi-valanced
reality, of whom-of which it is truthfully asserted that their relationships to
(or with) all other things or beings are ontological properties of their own essential
nature.
On the ultimate level, all-things-are-one.
Just as a piece of paper is the fruit, the combination of
many elements that can be called non-paper elements, the individual is made of
non-individual elements. If you are a poet you will see very clearly that there
is cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no
water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees you cannot make
paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the
existence of a cloud.[xii]
The assumption that we are intrinsically connected is not
merely a postulation of Buddhism. In Hinduism, Brahma is said to be the God
within whose dreaming the entire drama of the universe unfolds, in whom every action
takes place.
In Christianity, God is said to be the Alpha and the Omega,
the First and the Last, who at the end of time will be All in All, fomenting
the grand unification of all beings. God, creates the universe, the universe
comes into being through God, exists in God, is maintained and supported by
God, at every level and not one thing is excluded from the work of divinity in
creation.
In science, in the school of quantum physics we see these
same themes shaping our understanding of the most fundamental level of reality.
As we observe and measure the inner dynamics of complex systems, in biology,
the weather or even "artificial" systems like economics, or “large
language models” we are able to discern that even the most minor interaction
between elements have broad and far-ranging consequences throughout the entire
system. Our observations of these connections affirms the understanding that
there is no actual separation between any one thing and every other thing.
On the quantum level, the entire universe is entangled.
The goal of Zen is
for the practitioner to arrive at the fundamental understanding of the complete
interconnectedness of all things...to untangle it, so to speak with the mind; to
live with this experience is to be enlightened.
Though many people practice Zen throughout the world, the
institutions of Zen Buddhism hold that the most serious practitioners are those
people who have devoted their entire life to the discipline. When a person
decides to become a Zen monk they have decided to devote their life to
"humility, labor, service, prayer, gratitude and meditation."[xiii]
A Zen monk lives in a highly disciplined community, under the guidance of a
master who helps them develop in meditation, through the study of sutras and
primarily through the use of koan.
In the monastery, monks are able to work and provide service
for their community while developing the virtues of humility, prayer and
gratitude. A Zen monk sees this work as not only of benefit to themselves but
as benefitting the entire world. They see the fruits of their labors as the
fruit of peace, whose ripened bounty they hope will overflow from the walls of
the monasteries and cloisters within which they live to permeate the entire world.
In our discussion of Zen, we should be mindful that
traditional institutions of Zen Buddhism would remind people not to fall into
the mistaken belief that Zen is only a meditational practice, or a system of
discipline. In this way Zen can easily be misunderstood as a contemplative
movement apart from Buddhism. This is especially true in America where so many
of our common and casual associations with the term Zen have to do with best
selling books such as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or Zen
and the Art of Tennis.
The tension between a “western” view of Zen, and a
traditional view of Zen Buddhism is clearly articulated by the religious
scholar Ray Grigg, in his, The Tao of Zen,
"The focus of Zen has always been toward engendering sensitivity and
insight into the world itself, not the teachings of the Buddha per se, and
certainly not the religious dogma of Mahayana."[xiv]
Grigg’s point of view is valid, but it should also be understood for what it
is, a privileged, academic view that represents a departure from the norms of
Zen practice and culture.
Zen is Buddhism.
Zen views itself as the inheritor of the "true dharma
eye," the awakened consciousness of the original Buddha.
Zen believes in the Four Simple Precepts: that everyone
suffers, that desire is the cause of all suffering, that suffering can end and
that mindfulness is the way out of our suffering.
Zen holds to the belief that it is an efficacious method to
release the self from the suffering that is caused by desire.
Zen adheres to the Five Fold Path: right seeing, right intention,
right action, right relationships, and the practice of mindfulness in all
things, believing that there is a right view of the world, that right resolve
is the way to approach it, that right speech is the way to speak of it, that right
conduct leads us through it, that right livelihood sustains us in it, that right
effort produces right results, that right mindfulness guides us along the
way and that the path itself is held together by right "samadhi,"
meditation on the unity of all things.
Zen contends that its method is useful in the deliverance of
people from the vicissitudes of life, and for translating the individual to
Nirvana.
Zen believes that the Buddha mind can be attained by an
individual while in this life, and refers to this state of mind as satori.
Satori is the Zen counterpart of the mystical experience
which, wherever it appears, in Zen or any other religion, brings joy, a feeling
of oneness with all things and a heightened sense of reality which cannot be adequately
translated into the language of the everyday world. But whereas most religions
regard such experiences as the acme of at least the earthly phase of man's
religious quest, for Zen it is only the point of departure. In a very real
sense, Zen training begins in earnest after the satori has been achieved. For one thing there must be further satoris as the trainee learns to move
with greater range and freedom within this noumenal realm. But the important
point is that Zen, drawing half its inspiration from the practical, common
sense, this-worldly orientation of the Far East to balance the mystical
other-worldly half it derived from India, refuses to let man's spirit
withdraw-shall we say retreat?-into the mystical state completely. Once we
achieve satori, we must get out of
the sticky morass in which we have been floundering and return to the unfettered
freedom of the open fields.[xv]
This is to say that a Zen master would have nothing to do,
sitting alone on a mountain top with the experience of the ineffable. In order
to give meaning to that experience it is necessary for the enlightened mind to
share in the fruits of its discovery.
According to Zen the enjoyment of these fruits is first peace,
and a release from suffering, not just for the individual practicing Zen, but
potentially, and ultimately, for everybody.
The Zen "awakening" is not supposed to bring
withdrawal from the world. It should rather, Zen claims, encourage
participation, though never involvement in the egocentric variety that tends to
produce the conflicts and breakdowns so common in modern life.[xvi]
The goal of Zen is to produce a sense of peace and oneness,
not only for its active practitioners but for the rest of humanity, and indeed
the entire living-breathing planet we dwell on. Whether Zen is being practiced
in a monastery, on a mountain top or in the everyday life of everyday people,
Zen affords those who engage its discipline with freedom from the confusion of life’s
paradoxes, the pain of conflicting desires and the disorientation of feeling
isolated and alone in a seemingly disparate, disconnected and circumscribed
universe.
Zen sees all things as a unity in which any-thing may
manifest the reality of the whole, it views the whole as not being greater than
the sum of its parts, indeed it views the whole as not even being greater than
even its most minuscule part; seeing the perfect image of the whole contained
within the part.
There is wisdom in Zen…when its contemplative methods are
dissociated from the particular institution of Buddhism the application becomes
universal in scope and reveals the essence of the “true dharma eye” that the
original Buddha possessed.
All religions can benefit from the wisdom of Zen, to free
them from the conflicts that arise out of cultic ritual and doctrinal
investments, from the comfortable particularisms tribalism, and the wrenching
demands of dogma.
The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preference
Only when freed from hate and love
It reveals itself fully and without disguise
A tenth of an inch's difference
And heaven and earth are set apart
If you want to see it manifest
Take no thoughts either for or against it
To set up what you like against what you dislike
That is the disease of the mind
When the deep meaning [of the way] is not understood
Peace of mind is disturbed and nothing is gained
[The Way] is perfect like unto vast space
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous
It is indeed, do to making choices
That its suchness is lost sight of
When the mind rests supreme in the oneness of things
Dualism vanishes by itself
-beginning of the Hsin-hsin-ming
by Seng-ts'an
as
translated by D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen
Buddhism, First Series
On Zen Buddhism
.jpg)
[i] The Training of A Zen
Buddhist Monk, by D. T. Suzuki, page IX
[ii]
Ibid., page X
[iii] Zen Buddhism: A
History, by Heinrich Dumoulin, page 86
[iv] The Training of A Zen
Buddhist Monk, by D. T. Suzuki, page 104
[v]
Ibid., page 104
[vi] Zen Buddhism: A
History, by Heinrich Dumoulin, page 140
[vii] Ibid., by Heinrich
Dumoulin, page 101
[viii]
Ibid., page 141
[ix]
The Training of A Zen Buddhist Monk, by D. T. Suzuki, page 114
[x]
Ibid., page 109
[xi] Being Peace, by Thich
Naht Hanh, page 74
[xii]
Ibid, page 46
[xiii]
The Training of A Zen Buddhist Monk, by D. T. Suzuki, from the Chapter Titles
[xiv] The Tao of Zen, by
Ray Grigg, page 134
[xv] The Religions of Man,
by Huston Smith, page 149
[xvi] Three Ways of Asian
Wisdom, by Nancy Wilson Ross, 148