Surrendering from contrived actions.

Unmoving movement.

The wisdom of the Four Nobel Truths is present in understanding the causal relationship between attachment and suffering. All suffering arises from clinging and resistance. 

Bodhidharma spoke of this relationship in his Discourse on the Twofold Entrance to the Tao. He understood the Tao to be the animating essence of life and death. The Tao was Bodhidharma’s code for the primordial mind that lacks discrimination and opposition. Here is what he said:

“Everyone who has a body is an heir to suffering and a stranger to peace. Having comprehended this point, the wise are detached from all things of the phenomenal world, with their minds free of desires and craving. As the Scripture has it, ‘All sufferings spring from attachment; true joy arises from detachment.’ To know clearly the bliss of detachment is to walk on the path of the Tao. This is ‘the rule of non-attachment.’”

To be non-attached is to experience release—yielding heaviness and receiving lightness, like removing an obstruction from flowing water. Once removed, the water flows naturally and nourishes all things.

A key principle in realizing our oneness with the Tao is wu-wei, or “non-doing.” Wu-wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of integration with our source, others, and our environment. Wu-wei is not motivated by a sense of separateness, or egotistical motives. It is the action that is spontaneous, effortless, and naturally reflects our connectedness. It is the experience of going with the grain or swimming with the current. 

The contemporary expression, going with the flow, is an excellent expression of this fundamental principle, which in its most basic form refers to behavior occurring in response to the flow of integrated life. Thus to engage wu-wei means to surrender or give oneself over to the ubiquitous, flow of a mind at peace: the birthplace of The Buddha. 

But importantly, it refers to an experience of getting out of the way and surrendering to the movement of something beyond our comprehension. Our body moves but it seems to function without us moving it. In the Platform Sutra, Dajian Huineng (the sixth and last patriarch of Chan) reported on a conversation between two monks regarding the movement of a flag. One said the wind moved the flag. The other said no, it was the flag moving independently of the wind. Huineng said you’re both wrong. It was the mind/Tao that moved. When the primordial mind moves We remain silent and unmoving.

Lao Tzu expressed this yielding as giving up and getting. He expressed wu-wei this way in stanza nineteen of the Tao Te Ching:

“Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,
And it will be a hundred times better for everyone.
Give up kindness, renounce morality,
And men will rediscover filial piety and love.
Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear.
These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves.
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one’s true nature,
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire.”

What's Zen?

We live in a time awash in technology and assume that it is based on electronics. But the principle of technology is much broader. Fundamentally technology means an application of knowledge, especially in a particular area that provides a means of accomplishing a task. Anything from a simple hammer to charting the cosmos properly belongs to the realm of technology.

The common coin understanding of Zen is wrong. Ordinarily, Zen is considered a branch on the tree of Buddhism but few people realize that Zen came first, a long time before there was such a thing as Buddhism's religion. The Buddha used the mental technology of Zen to experience his enlightenment. While Zen isn’t electronic, it is similar since our brain works by exchanging electrical transmissions, and Zen is the most thoroughgoing technology for fathoming the human mind ever conceived.

The human brain is the most sophisticated computer ever and can calculate at speeds a billion times faster than any computer yet built. Furthermore, it is “dual-core,” computing in parallel mode with completely different methods. One side works like a serial processor (our left hemisphere), and the other works as a parallel processor (or right hemisphere). The left creates code, and the right reads the code. The left is very good at analyzing, dissecting, and abstracting (but doesn’t understand) while the right interprets (but doesn’t read) and says what it all means.

Lao Tzu expressed this division of function like this: He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Zen is the mental technology of using this equipment to understand itself. The true mind watches the movement and arising of the code to grasp how the “machine” works. Everything perceived and processed is watched. There is a conditional and object-oriented aspect, and there is an unconditional objectless aspect. Both sides of our brain have no exclusive and independent status. Only when they function together are they of much use. 

Our subjective nature is unseen and without form. Our objective nature has form and is seen. Our brain could be considered hardware and our mind software. Software instructs the hardware on how to operate. Together these two are mirror opposites and rely upon the other side. In Buddhist terminology, this relationship is called “dependent origination,” which means they only exist together. The same is true for anything. Up and down are mirror opposites, and neither can exist separately. Nothing can. Everything can only exist in that way.

The two sides of our brain are mirror partners. Our whole brain is the mirror partner of our mind. Our mind is the mirror partner of no-mind. Every nuance becomes progressively more concentrated and potent. The entire universe in infinite configuration and form is essentially empty. If you delve into quantum physics, you arrive at nothing. If you go to the farthest reaches of space, you arrive at nothing. Before the Big-Bang, there was nothing. Now there is everything. Everything is the same thing as nothing. And this amazing awareness comes about by simply watching the coming and going of the manifestations of our mind. That’s Zen.