Transformation

Buddhism has been around so long that it is hard to recall the locus—the seed from which it grows. But by recalling the condensed teaching of the Buddha, the essence is the very first point: Life (e.g., mortal) is suffering. Everything else about Buddhism is centered around that locus. So whenever we become overwhelmed with the multiplicity of the branches springing from this ancient practice, all we have to do is remember the root: Life is Suffering. This is why Buddhism has such an enduring appeal—Everyone suffers, and nobody wants to. And no more thorough practice has ever been conceived to understand suffering and provide a means for overcoming it than Buddhism. Suffering springs from our mind and begins with how we perceive and understand ourselves and the world we live in. And this is why Buddhism is a full exposition of our minds.

Master Hsuan Hua writes about this matter in the opening section of The Shurangama Sutra. He points out two aspects of our mind: Superficial, but unreal, the other hidden, but real. He says that the hidden part is like an internal gold mine that must be excavated to be valuable. This gold mine is everywhere but not seen. The superficial part is also everywhere but seen, and it is this superficial part that lies at the root of suffering. He says,

“ The Buddha-nature is found within our afflictions. Everyone has afflictions, and everyone has a Buddha-nature. In an ordinary person, it is the afflictions, rather than the Buddha-nature, that are apparent...Genuine wisdom arises out of genuine stupidity. When ice [afflictions] turns to water, there is wisdom; when water (wisdom) freezes into ice, there is stupidity. Afflictions are nothing but stupidity.”

The word stupidity may sound harsh and uncaring, but sometimes stark truth is more effective than placation. The critical point of his statement (and a message of the Sutra) is that there is a crucial relationship between suffering and wisdom. Both of these rest on a fundamental principle of faith—That at the core of our being, there is the supreme good, which is ubiquitous. Unlike other religions where faith is in an external God, in Buddhism, faith concerns a serene commitment in the practice of the Buddha’s teaching and trust in enlightened or highly developed beings, such as Buddhas or bodhisattvas (those aiming to become a Buddha).

Many people get confused with words, especially the word “Buddha-nature.” When the uninformed hear that word, they start thinking about a ghost that they imagine looks like some ancient Indian person. What we believe makes a difference. But instead of the label Buddha-nature, we could call it “Mind-nature” because Buddha means awakened. When we awaken to our right primordial minds, our world is transformed. Buddha-nature is the unseen gold mine that inhabits all of life. Without accepting that core, we are incapable of accessing wisdom, and without understanding, we are all trapped in suffering. The flip side of suffering is bliss, just as the flip side of up is down, but when we are immersed in the down, it is most difficult to “pull ourselves up from the bootstraps” and rise above misery. During those downtimes, it seems that everything is down.

We have all had conversations about the essential nature of people. Some say that we are rotten to the core—that there is no vital good there. Such people have given up on their own human family. This voice is split between those who believe in God and those who don’t. On the one hand, if there is to be any essence of good, it is purely the result of that good coming from an external God. The “non-believers” hold no hope at all—Just rotten to the core. Neither of these voices acknowledges intrinsic worth. To one, the worth is infused; to the other, there is none.

The eternal presence of Buddha-nature (e.g., the pure/not polluted mind of consciousness) is a contrary voice of faith: The recognition of intrinsic, essential worth, present in life. This gold mine, which, when accepted in faith, manifests in wisdom amid affliction and turns ice into water.

Our upside down world.

If you can, grasp that everything we perceive and process—whether internal or external-results from elusive images projected in our brain. You can then begin to appreciate the incredible miracle represented by the Buddha’s enlightenment. His understanding occurred 2,500 years before tools were developed, which allow us to validate his teachings from a neurological perspective. While the language used that long ago may seem arcane to us today, by transcending these barriers of time and culture, we can understand the true nature of ourselves and the world in which we have always existed.

Buddhism, by any measure, from the normal western perspective, seems strange only because we have been conditioned to see life in a particular way, which, as it turns out, is upside down. What we regard as “real” is not, and what we regard as not even perceptibly present turns out to be real. And because of this error, our understanding causes us to identify with illusions, which are simple mental projections. Not realizing this, we end up clinging to vapor and then suffering as it slides away. What is the solution?

First, as the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says, we must become aware of what is happening. Without this first step, there is no hope of ever being set free from a never ending dream—a nightmare of suffering that keeps repeating endlessly. When the illusions of our lives begin to break down (which they inevitably do), we are faced with tragedy. We suffer, so we search for relief, which unfortunately may come in further addictions that bring temporary relief but never last. It is like suffering from thirst and drinking salt water, which just makes us thirstier.

If we are fortunate, we discover the Dharma (the truth as revealed by the Buddha) and begin to fathom the source of our dilemma. It may start by taking a class or reading a book. Slowly our eyes become open to what is genuinely real, and our hunger grows. What begins as an intellectual snack holds the potential of becoming a full-blown meal. What fills the belly of one who has savored true awakening won’t do someone else any good. Ideas don’t fill the emptiness in our guts. Only awakening to our true nature can satisfy that craving for substance.

This sutra hits the nail on the head. Of course, the prime motivator is anyone’s own state of mind. As Master Sheng-yen pointed out, “Generally, unless a sleeping person is having a nightmare, he or she will not want to wake up. The dreamer prefers to remain in the dream. In the same way, if your daily life is relatively pleasant, you probably won’t care to practice to realize that your life is illusory. No one likes to be awakened from nice dreams.”

This is a bit like the story of a salesman who came across a man sitting on his front porch smoking a pipe. The salesman noticed a large hole in his house's roof and asked the man why he didn’t fix it. The man responded, “If it ain’t raining, there’s no need, and when it is raining, it’s too late.” The time to awaken is before the rains of suffering arrive.

Charting Life.

In school, we all learned how to conduct research and chart the results. Nobody answers questions exactly the same, so some answers chart high, some chart low, and when we plot all of the answers, we can see a picture emerge that tells a story. We can even apply certain formulas to get a more accurate picture by “smoothing” the data and making projections based on what we learn. A good piece of research combined with properly done analysis helps us evaluate conditions and understand our world.

But look at how a chart is arranged. On one axis lies the range of variables being measured, and on the other axis lies a fixed frame of references, such as time or space. If our chart is really sophisticated, it might be a three-dimensional chart to get a more sophisticated picture. But whether two-dimensional or more, there is always a baseline that doesn’t move, so there is a constant by which we can map our work. If the baseline moved, as the data moved, there would be nothing learned.

When you think about it, this is a metaphor for how our mind works, and it must be this way. Otherwise, what we would see would just be a mish-mash of confused data: No picture. So how does this metaphor apply? Our true mind is the unmoving baseline, and moving data is our perceptible world. The variables data move. Our mind remains constant. If either of these were different (e.g., moving mind or constant data), the result would be inconceivable.

Now overlay the Buddha’s teaching on this map, and see what you get. Our unconditional, unmoving mind is joined irrevocably to our conditional and moving world. It is simple yet profound. It’s right there staring us in the face, but what can’t be seen is what doesn’t move. Rabbits learned that lesson eons ago, but we are still trying to figure that out.

Coming and going.

To a person of Zen, words are a mixed blessing. They can lead you astray or open your mind to the music of the muses. One of the greatest mystical poets of all time is Rabindranath Tagore.  Sadly, while he lived, he was little known outside of the Calcutta area and unknown outside of India. 

He and Lao Tzu awaken in me purity of heart unmatched by others. One of Tagor’s resonate themes is opening doors. Here is one facet from his poetic jewel, “Journey Home.”

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

All of us are travelers searching far and wide for what is closer than our own breath, seeking what has never left us. In our mind’s eye, we imagine ourselves’ indwelling presence, which we separate from what that presence witnesses. To Lin-Chi (the father of Rinzai Zen) such people are spiritual dilettantes. He said, 

“Zen students today are totally unaware of truth. They are like foraging goats that pick up whatever they bump into. They do not distinguish between the servant and the master, or between guest and host. People like this enter Zen with distorted minds and are unable to enter effectively into dynamic situations. They may be called true initiates, but actually they are really mundane people. Those who really leave attachments must master real, true perception to distinguish the enlightened from the obsessed, the genuine from the artificial, the unregenerate from the sage. If you can make these discernments, you can be said to have really left dependency. Professionally Buddhist clergy who cannot tell obsession from enlightenment have just left one social group and entered another social group. They cannot really be said to be independent. Now there is an obsession with Buddhism that is mixed in with the real thing. Those with clear eyes cut through both obsession and Buddhism. If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.”

If we listen with open minds, we can hear the connection between Tagore and Lin Chi. There is one who travels and one who is found. The traveler knocks on a billion alien doors and, in the end, returns to find the one who has never moved.  Guests come and go yet the host never leaves. The Buddha lived in India 2,500 years ago. Lao Tzu lived in China at roughly the same time. Lin Chi died in 866 CE, and in 1913 Tagore received the Nobel Prize for literature. 

The lives of these men span an eternity, yet their voices resonate with a familiar echo. After all this time, we are still chasing and becoming attached to the moving rabbit, unable to notice who is doing the chasing. Buddhism has begun to capture the attention of the Western mind, but sadly it still dwells on the bobbing at the expense of the one noticing the bobbing, and as Lin-Chi says, 

“Now, there is an obsession with Buddhism that is mixed in with the real thing. Those with clear eyes cut through both obsession and Buddhism. If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.” 

In our world today, we enshrine the sacred and spit on the ordinary. No wonder in our time we are reaping the poisonous fruit of divisiveness. 

Nirvāna

What does life look like when you awaken? It looks exactly the same, but in another way, everything has changed, only it hasn’t. I suppose that sounds abstruse, but actually, it isn’t. Our natural mind is pure and unconditional. It is always with us yet beyond detection. It is the source of everything but has no nature at all. It is like a mirror that reflects whatever passes before it but in itself contains nothing.

Today during our meditation group, a helicopter flew overhead. As it approached, the sound gradually came in contact with our ears; the sound grew stronger and then faded as it moved on. Without thinking about where the helicopter came from and where it went, the sound was just sound and left no tracks. The conditions changed, but our mind didn’t—it remained silent, aware, pure as a mirror, and reflecting the sound.

Upon awakening, we become aware of awareness itself: The mirror. Until that point, we are consumed with making something out of the sounds and other forms of perception and thus never wake up to our unconditional mind. Nirvāna is the state of being free from suffering and is understood as “blowing out”—referring in the Buddhist context, to the blowing away the smoke of greed, hatred, and delusion. It is a state of soteriological release.

“Soteriological release” means (in essence) salvation, but not in the ordinary way of understanding. In The Diamond Sutra (verse 25), The Buddha said:

“There are in fact no sentient beings for the Tathagata to liberate. If there were sentient beings liberated by the Tathagata, it would mean that the Tathagata holds the notions of a self, a person, a sentient being, or a life span. Subhuti, when the Tathagata says ‘I’, there is actually no ‘I’. Yet ordinary beings think there is a real ‘I’. Subhuti, the Tathagata says that ordinary beings are in fact not ordinary beings. Therefore they are called ordinary beings.”

When first read, I didn’t understand, but upon further reflection, I did see the wisdom. The Buddha (e.g., Tathagata) was telling us that we ordinary humans hold onto the idea there is such a thing as a “self.”—separate, distinct and unique from all others, and to retain this notion is what leads us away from Nirvāna and into the land of never-ending suffering. This idea of personality is what we must lose to be free—be saved (liberated), not being saved by God for inherent sin.

Our conditional mind and unconditional mind are often portrayed as the difference between smoke and fire. We can see the smoke of thoughts, which emanate from the fire of mind. When thoughts are blown out, the smoke goes away and we lose that mind that deceives us, thus producing the idea of a conditional, distinct personality and find our true mind where we are One with all. 

That no-mind state is what is known as Nirvāna: our natural mind, which has always been present. The mirror never comes or goes. Without it perception would be impossible. The mind moves and it doesn’t and everything is just a reflection of the way things are.

On the journey within.

 

Inside, outside; neither can exist apart from the other. The outside is what most people are concerned with, giving little concern, if any, to the inside. 

Do we grow by manifesting external things? Or is it the inside that gives growth to the outside? Nothing comes without a seed; an embryo that gives rise to what becomes a visible manifestation. Drink a cup of coffee. Is it not contained from the inside? When finished, would we then wash the outside of the cup and not the inside?

Observe a tree. Do we not see the magnificence of the outside, but know it could not be so without growing from a seed beneath the soil? 

Everything observable is seen by the outside with the inside remaining unseen. The seen and the unseen must exist as a single entity. Common sense explains this, and yet we dwell on the seen without the other.

This matter is not limited to one discipline or another. All disciplines (e.g., spiritual and phenomenal—physical and metaphysical alike) can understand this simple truth yet we dwell on “looking good” without acknowledging the seen and unseen come together. We reap what we sow and how we use our time. We may invest years earning accolades and badges of honor to tell the world of our importance. Yet the embryo from where these externals emerge is naked and unformed—A true man without rank or privilege.

One of the greatest of Zen Masters (Master Bassui Tokusho—1327-1387) was lucid in explaining this from the inside essence, and concluded it was the enlightened mind, always present but never seen, that gives rise to all phenomenal things. In one of his sermons he said:

“If you say it is nonexistent, it is clear that it is free to act; if you say it exists, still its form cannot be seen. As it is simply inconceivable, with no way at all to understand, when your ideas are ended and you are helpless, this is good work; at this point, if you don’t give up and your will goes deeper and deeper, and your profound doubt penetrates the very depths and breaks through, there is no doubt that mind itself is enlightened. There is no birth and death to detest, no truth to seek; space is only one’s mind.”

The journey to our depths finds nothing, where there is no birth and no death—There is nothing to find within the emptiness of one’s mind, yet all things come from there.

You can’t prove a negative.

If you check the colloquial definition of you can’t prove a negative, you will find the following distinction:

Two sides. One Coin.

evidence of absence, or absence of evidence. That, of course, is an understanding based on the ability to discover or measure something, scientifically. The implication is there is something to be discovered, directly. There is, however, another way established by The Buddha in Chapter 22: On Pure Actions in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. This alternative way is called “fathoming.”

Here is the distinction expressed in that chapter: “If Dharma is eternal, one cannot gain it. It is like space. Who can gain it? In worldly life, what originally was not, but is now, is called the non-Eternal. The same with the Way. If the Way can be gained, this is nothing but the non-Eternal. If Dharma is the Eternal, there can be no gaining of anything, no arising, as in the case of the Buddha-Nature, which knows no gaining and no arising.”… “There are two kinds of Way. One is eternal, and the other the non-eternal. Enlightenment, too, is of two kinds. One is eternal, and the other non-eternal.”

Later in the same chapter comes “fathoming.” “There are two kinds of seeing. One is seeing by outer signs, and the other by fathoming…It is like seeing fire from afar, when one sees smoke. Actually, one does not see the fire. Though one does not see it, nothing is false here…Seeing the actions of the body and mouth, we say that we see the mind. The mind is not seen, but this is not false. This is seeing by outer signs…What is seeing by fathoming? We see the flower and the leaf, and we say we see the root. Though we do not see the root, this is not false.”

The actions of mind and body, by necessity, presumes (e.g., requires) the existence of the unseen Mind. Can we prove the existence of “up?” Up cannot be proven directly, but it can indirectly with the existence of “down.” These two are opposite sides of the same coin. Remove one side, and the other side will disappear.

In the same way, proving a negative, by necessity requires a positive. Remove one, and the other disappears. When a positive comes into being, a negative must likewise be present. So can a negative be proven? We may not be able to prove a negative directly, but without a negative, a positive could not exist.

The fundamental “why” of suffering.

Everyone suffers, nobody wants to, and the vast majority of

The truth about suffering and change.

humanity wonders “why.” The short, answer is desire (or craving): We suffer because we crave something (or someone) and so long as we possess or achieve the object(s) of our desire, all is well, but nothing lasts forever, and when that object is no longer ours, we suffer. We attach our identities to many forms, and when those forms of dependency change for the worst, the experience of loss is nearly identical for us. In a very powerful way, we are yo-yo’s on the string of our dependencies, none of which we can control. And the principle reason we build dependent identities in the first place is that (1) we think there is such a thing as a lasting identity, and (2) we surely do not know who and what we are. If we did, then we would have no need to go searching for what we have already. Desire per se is not the problem. Attachment is.

But that’s only a surface answer. We desire many positive things, such as a desire to be free of suffering. We desire to love and to be loved. We desire joy, compassion, kindness, freedom, humility, and other desirable human qualities. Are we not supposed to desires such things? What would life be like without those positive qualities?

So the short answer is not enough since mortal life, albeit fleeting, would be grim without those qualities. To adequately explain the problem of suffering, it is necessary to not only understand the locus of suffering but to experience the opposite, which is joy. The easy part is the explanation. The hard part is the experience. Yet once we experience the two extremes, we must not attempt to trap and retain the experience. To do so would just be attaching ourselves all over again, with the same outcome. Trying to make permanent (and retain it) would then be like wiping excrements from our “arses” and then holding onto the soiled tissue.

One of the most preeminent Buddhist patriarchs (Nāgārjuna) summed up this challenge with what has now become known as The Two Truth Doctrine.

In Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the two truths doctrine explains an overarching transcendent truth (Dharma) of the two aspects that join all things together. The two aspects are dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and emptiness (śūnyatā). And here is the exposition by Nāgārjuna.

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention (e.g., relative/conditional truth—my addition) and an ultimate (absolute/unconditional—my addition) truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha’s profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.”

Delving into the essence of this doctrine can be daunting. However, when the dust is blown away, the answer appears in radiant splendor. Relative truth is based on the perception of what we can see, touch, feel, smell, hear, and think. That perception tells us we are all different, distinct and judgmentally, relatively worthy, or not. That seeming truth is the basis of our ordinary sense of self (e.g., ego). And so long as anyone understands themselves, and others, that way, there will be conflicts of dogmatic “rights” vs. tightly entrenched “wrongs.” War (of one form or another) will perpetuate, and suffering will be the outcome.

Critical to this perspective is the two-fold premises of śūnyatā/emptiness and (pratītyasamutpāda)/dependent origination—the combined principle saying that everything can exist only with an opposite dimension, and this truth transcends all changes. This way of understanding human nature, and conduct, is a given and applies to all changes. Consequently, conditional truth exists only because of unconditional truth. The core of this view is consciousness without conditions. While the shell—the container surrounding that core level, is capable of being perceived. The shell is conditionally objective in nature, and everything objective is always changing. Ultimately anything with an objective nature will die. All conditional, material things go through a life-cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death.

To arrive at the core we must break through the outer material shell. Yet it is this central core that destroys that shell of egotism, and thus enables us to experience transcendental existence. Anything that is unconditional is without differentiation, and therefore identical to things that seem different perceptibly. And neither the relative shell nor the unconditional core can exist apart from the other—they are a single, united, composite entity, just as a shell contains a nut-meat.

Consequently, the challenge appears to be illogical. It would seem that the awareness of the unconditional must emerge before we have the equipment required to perform the task. The central problem is, thus, how? The answer is that ultimate truth (that seems locked away and out of touch) must initiate the process of destroying the false object-based ego-fabrication from the inside/out as a baby turtle must peck away the outer encasement to be set free and live.

What appears above is an explanation but not the experience (which alone will set you free from suffering). Zen Master Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki said: 

“If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.”

The experience alone will set you free from suffering, and arising simultaneously will be the realization that all of us are absolutely the same at the core. The core of unconditionally, transcendent truth and wisdom are eternally present all of the time, and we go throughout life unaware of our own capacity. As a result, we shape our lives—by unknowing design—to be yo-yo’s with waves of suffering and joy: a package deal that can’t be broken any more than magnets can be torn apart.

The core of pure, unadulterated consciousness just reflects like a mirror. It never dies; it doesn’t make judgments of good and bad; it eradicates the fear of dying since it is eternal, and at that deep level of being, we will know with certainty that there is serenity amid relative disaster. We—our eternal essence—can not die! It is only the outer shell that will die, and then we will be set free from a prison we didn’t know existed—the prison of the mind: The ultimate prison, within which all other forms of bondage exist. The greatest, the supreme task of life is to be set free from that prison. Then we will be transformed and our mind renewed.

But for sure, some may say, yes that may be so but what about the relative suffering of the world? Are we to simply “take the money and run” into seclusion with our new-found wisdom and security? And the answer to that question is the mission of a Bodhisattva—one who has experienced unconditional unity—the experience just depicted and chose to return into the fray to heighten awareness that suffering has a solution.

And what must never be ignored is the value of suffering itself: The motivation that compels us all to seek a solution. Bodhidharma pointed out that we must accept suffering with gratitude since when we experience it, only then are we compelled to reach beyond misery to find the way to bliss and eternal joy. He said, 

“Every suffering is a buddha-seed because suffering impels us to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is buddhahood.”

It is our natural, mortal tendency to resist what each of us considers the bad and savor only what we understand as the good. Still, the nature of relative life is constant change—here today, gone tomorrow and therein is the dilemma and the solution: We must recognize that nobody wants to awaken from a good dream. We all aspire to steer clear of bad ones.

In conclusion, I’ll share a poem of profound wisdom written by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (or simply Rūmī), the 13th-century poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. It is called The Guest House.

“Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

It is challenging to notice that a door closing, by definition, has another side that is known as a door opening. Closing and opening are the two haves of the same matter of growth. Life and death are to be seen like this. That is transcendent dharma.

Dreams and delusions.

Chuang Tzu's Dream of reality.

The expression, “You are living in a dream world” is understood to mean you are out of touch with reality. I know, as a result of conversations with my friends, that during this pandemic, dreams are becoming more frequent and seemingly real. I, too, have experienced the same thing. This could be the result of being forced into isolation and the resulting anxiety we are all experiencing. What dwells in our subconscious is coming out of the closet, perhaps as the result of limited input.

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, “Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?”

Many people don’t know what the term “Buddha” means. It means “awake,” and within the context of  The Buddha, it meant “awakened one, or enlightened one,” which is not limited to The Buddha, Buddhists, or any other restrictively defined persons. The path The Buddha traveled toward awakening was intimately linked to the practice of Zen—the pathway that encompasses long periods of draining the swamp of the delusions living in our subconscious. Hardly anyone is aware of such delusions for a simple reason: They reside in consciousness at the unconscious level which naturally comes out at night, sometimes in very strange ways that seem very real, like being a butterfly. Only when we come out of a sleep state are we able to realize what we experienced were dreams. And sometimes even then we are not quite sure if they were real or not.

Modern-day psychologist and psychiatrists, for the most part, agree that whatever is rooted in our subconsciousness can, and often does, disrupt our waking lives since we have been programmed by prior experiences and learning (some of which produce biases, preconceived beliefs, and dogma) which then become dominating forces that filter our sense of “what’s real.” All of us are affected by what we can perceive and nobody (ordinarily) can perceive the source of perception that bypasses these powerful, embedded delusions that shape our lives.

Zen provides that avenue, the means, to plunge into the depths of consciousness, through and down to that source. And when you arrive at the source you “wake up” to suchness—things as they are without the delusions that control our lives, most importantly who we are and who we are not (an ego). Only then do we experience, and realize, that pure consciousness is identical in every sentient being. That is the place of ultimate union with everything—a place of unconditional connectivity, liberated from the controlling force of delusions. It doesn’t mean you have necessarily completely drained the swamp. Some obstacles are too deeply rooted and can come out to “play” in destructive ways.

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said: “The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like a tree. All of its fruit and flowers, its branches and leaves, depend on its root. If you nourish its root, a tree multiplies. If you cut its root, it dies. Those who understand the mind reach enlightenment with minimal effort. Those who don’t understand the mind practice in vain. Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.”

Understanding that prescription is one thing, experiencing it is another. The prior is an intellectual fabrication—a road map, while the latter is real, no speculation required. The experience of waking up is the ultimate form of clarity, serenity, and hope. Without that, we are all in a prison of the mind and have no clue.

Zen philosophy?

Philosophy is oftentimes regarded as an artificial covering, at best-reflecting approximations. One Webster definition is “...a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means.” Another is “...a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought.” 

To many—especially Westerners—Zen is seen as an esoteric philosophy, with little relevance to everyday life. This view hasn’t changed much since The Buddha walked the earth 2,500 years ago and perhaps for a good reason. Theories about life rarely match reality. They may be useful in limited mapping situations, but it is impossible to develop a theory or philosophy which fits life perfectly.

Theories and philosophies should always be measured against the standard of reality. Knowing something as a bone-embedded fact always wins the day against speculation. The proof of such comparison thus comes down upon how reality is understood. Are our senses to be trusted? Do we see clearly (without bias or distortion)? Do we know what is real? Seeing from within a cloud of obscurity is not the same as a vision on a clear day, and for this reason, the practice of Zen is concerned with clearing away the ego-mind to reveal our untarnished original mind. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmat spoke about these matters and said...

“To philosophers, the conception of the Tathāgata-womb seems devoid of purity and soiled by these external manifestations. Still, it is not so understood by the Tathāgatas—to them, it is not a proposition of philosophy but an intuitive experience as real as though it was an amalaka fruit held in the palm of their hand.”

The Tathāgata-womb is self-evident. The Sanskrit word used is Tathāgatagarbha, which is rendered as the Buddha womb. The term Tathāgata means—one who has thus gone (Tathā-gata) or one who has thus come (Tathā-agata), the import is one who has transcended the ordinary view of reality. Is this birth-place in some distant place? Zen teaches that it is ubiquitous; there is no coming nor going since it is impossible to be where it is not.

This is, of course, a difficult thing to embrace. When we think of the exemplary and pure nature of a Buddha, and compare this incomparable state to our own, it seems impossible to accept that we too contain this nature (e.g., Buddha-Nature) but that is what Zen teaches. But it is one thing to think such a purity resides in us, as a philosophical consideration and quite another to experience it intuitively. When the latter occurs, all doubt goes away, and you are transformed forever. Then only do you truly know yourself as one who looks into their own heart and finds eternity.

In this sense, Zen is not a philosophy. It is opposed to speculation and philosophy of all kinds. The preeminent focus of Zen is to intuitively experience the purity and clear vision that comes from our very own being. And when that happens, reality is seen in a radically new way.

The critical nature of genuine self awakening.

When contemplating the myriad problems of today’s world you might come up with a list such as the following:

• The COVID-19 pandemic

• The Middle East debacle

• Unchecked global climate change (warming)

• A growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else

• Spreading violence

• Hatred and intolerance

• Political gridlock

• Toxic pollution of the environment

• Loss of genuine liberties

• (add your own)

While all of these are problems of enormous concern, there is a core root that underlies and drives them all: a misidentification of who we are individually and collectively. So long as our answer to identity boils down to a vacillating self-image (ego) the natural result is fear, greed, possessiveness, selfishness, isolation, irresponsibility, despair, and a victim mentality that leaves us all heading for a cave of seeming security.

Recently Avram Noam Chomsky observed that “As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism, or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.” While a grim statement that shocks us into states of denial and disbelief, his observations are true.

The question is, what must we all do in order to escape from this inevitable outcome? The answer is not the ostrich method of avoidance, denial, and ignorance. On the contrary what we must all do is transform our self-understanding, from an isolated individual to a connected member of the human race, which was (and remains) the solution to suffering offered by The Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. The solution does not change because the nature of being human does not change. 

At the central core of all of us is an indefinable state of unconditional consciousness that is the same for everyone. The problem is that while this state is the source of all aspects of awareness, itself is not detectable and we are all prone to consider real only things with conditions that can be detected. This is a case of the eye not being aware of the eye. However, in this case, it is the inner eye (URNA) instead of the detectable eye, and as the father of Zen wrote, it is in this state of mind that all discrimination ceases to exist. Out of this indiscriminate state arises sentient discrimination that leads us to the mistaken notion that each of is a dependent ego at odds with every other human, vacillating and contingent on an uncertain world and that “ego idea” then produces the undesirable qualities listed above.

In the recent past, a form of meditation (MBSR) has become prominent in helping many to cease attachment to waves of thinking, many of which are destructive to self and others. While very helpful, it only one of two dimensions outlined by The Buddha in his Eight Fold Path. MBSR rests upon one of these two: right mindfulness (Sanskrit: samyak-smṛti/sammā-sati) and is the essential path to a genuine awakening of our true, indiscriminate nature (who we truly are). The other dimension of mind (right concentration (Sanskrit: samyak-samādhi/sammā-samādhi) is not widely known, but by any other name is Zen/Dhyāna, with a history going back into an unrecorded time, long before The Buddha. 

The two disciplines were intended to be practiced as a combined pair but in today’s world, they have been split apart. MBSR has become quite useful in stilling the mind and helping practitioners to stay present instead of lost in speculation. However, the issue of identity remains an esoteric matter leaving those who practice MBSR only, still holding fast to a perceptible and insecure self-understanding. Importantly it is Zen that produces the desired result of a sense of SELF that is unconditional, whole, perfect, and unshaken. This quality alone delivers the awareness that we are all unified, none better; none diminished in any way. 

As awful as the laundry list of contemporary problems may be, those and unknown others will flourish unless we can experience this state of indiscriminate, undiscovered unity, inherent in us all. 

The Producer

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”—William Shakespeare.

Once there lived a person of enormous wealth in the land of everywhere: a producer with great ideas for making movies. But he knew that making movies was an involved process, and he would need talented people with different functions to turn his ideas into a film. Since he was very wise, he knew he would need to hire the best talent for each function, give them all clear and adequate direction, equip them with the right tools, empower them with responsibility, and then not micro-manage the filmmaking process. He understood that to micro-manage the production would be futile and could clearly see that he’d need to pay big bucks to hire the best talent. He also knew that making movies was quite an involved process and didn’t want to manage just producing movies since he had many other demanding projects for which to care. He thought about this challenge and decided he first needed to hire a top-flight general manager.

Having given some thought to finding such a person, he realized that what he wanted most in that position was someone cast in his own image. If he could locate the right person, then his life would be much more comfortable because such a manager would be able to anticipate his needs without looking over his shoulder every few minutes. After some trial and error, interviewing various candidates, he found the person he was convinced was just right. Of course, the person didn’t come cheap, but in the long run, he reasoned it would be better to pay the price than to hire the wrong person, fire him when he didn’t work out, lose time and money and then need to start again from scratch.

After extensive contract negotiations, he hired the ideal General Manager. Now the two sat down and talked about the producer’s ideas and the need to find the rest of the crew. He told his new GM that money was no object; hire the best talent and get moving. The GM was excited, and off he went to scout and hire the crew. Let’s see, there was a need for someone to write the screenplay, and that person must have a vivid imagination and wordsmithing skills. An art director to work with the writer would also be needed, a camera crew, an editor, someone to write a musical score, arrange and orchestrate the music, a customer, someone to scout locations, another person to find and cast the actors, a director, and of course someone to put together the work of all those people. Oh, and one more pressing matter—a theater would be needed where the film would be projected onto a screen. Better yet, he wanted a theater enabled by a virtual reality where the viewers could watch, smell, and feel the production.

After what seemed a long time, everyone needed was found, hired, equipped, and given direction by the GM, and finally, the shooting began. From time to time, the wealthy producer would check in and review where the project stood. He watched the dailies and talked with the GM about appropriate adjustments, but this was a delicate matter. People with the skill and expertise of the GM were not terribly comfortable with heavy-handed direction, and they were generally somewhat of a prima donna. So he needed finely crafted people skills to get what he envisioned without alienating the GM.

All went well for a while, but slowly and surely, the GM started to resent the wealthy producer. Of course, he thought the producer was not aware of this developing attitude because the GM was a crafty fellow. The GM had decided to plan a coup d'état, intended to steal the entire production and take all of the glory for himself. He reasoned: Why should I have a boss? I am the one doing the work, so I should make all of the money. Being a wily person, he pulled off the coup. But he didn’t know that the producer knew this all along and intended for the GM to carry off the coup. Why would he allow such a thing? Because he knew that an arrogant GM was like a wild stallion and needed to be broken to be of much long-term usefulness. 

Talent seemed to come along with a big ego, and he knew the project would flop under the exclusive reign of the arrogant GM. And when it did, it would be abundantly clear to everyone (most importantly to the GM) that it flopped because the wealthy producer was no longer running matters behind the scenes. The producer didn’t care if the project failed since his wealth was vast, and he had a whole lineup of better film ideas awaiting production if a trustworthy and proven GM could take charge. 

So the producer allowed the coup to unfold with no resistance. And what was predicted happened: The show flopped, and with anger in his heart and hat in hand, the GM had no choice but to see that he needed the producer after all. Before it wasn’t clear, the GM had a big head and imagined his independent greatness; he had to learn the hard way, by failure. Now the real show could begin. Now the pompous, self-righteous GM had been broken like a wild stallion, and Now the two could make some really great films together. 

Are you wondering why I’ve spun this allegorical tale? The reason is that this story is what happens in our minds. All of us need to know that we are people of great wealth already, tell stories, and make movies. Real wealth is what we think we would buy one day once we have earned enough. So we spend our entire lives working to obtain that distant goal. We chase the rabbit for more, only to discover that there is never enough, and the harder we run, the faster the goal moves away. Then one day, if we’re extraordinarily fortunate, we stop to catch our breath long enough to realize an invaluable truth: the prize is already closer to us than our own breath.

Real wealth is not on the horizon for several reasons. First, there will never be a distant goal. That’s an illusion that shimmers like heat dancing on the pavement as we race across the desert toward the mirage of an imaginary oasis. It only looks real. There is no tomorrow and, thus, no distant goal. There will never be anything other than now. That’s the first reason. The second reason is that we need to think more clearly about the nature of what we seek. What we all desire is to love and be loved, health, emotional and spiritual abundance, a sense of joy and amazement, happiness that arises like effervescent bubbles from our depth, quality relationships, having our basic needs provided, a lack of stress and fear, and a bone-deep knowledge that we are beautiful just as we are. These qualities constitute genuine wealth; they can’t be purchased at any price and will always be here and now because they exist within us all. They are the worth beneath our mistaken notions that more of the stuff that passes away moment-by-moment will ever be enough.

We are all geese who lay golden eggs. Only we don’t know because we get into such a rush chasing that rabbit that we never pause long enough to find our roots. When we stop, we can see this never-eroding treasure buried beneath the race to oblivion by our arrogant egos. We were, and always have been, home, living in a castle of enormous wealth: our mind. That is our true nature, our only true life. Everything else is an illusion, a dance of insanity. Nothing is lacking, and the race to obtain what is already ours is sheer madness.

But then there are those who will read this and say, He just doesn’t get it. If he only knew what I have gone through, he wouldn’t be such a Pollyanna. Indeed, I don’t see what you have gone through, but I do know what I’ve gone through. We all bear the rigors. We all suffer. Everyone experiences terrible tragedies. None of us can escape the consequences of karmic adversity or simple living. 

I’ve had my own tragedies and suffered much to the point of utter despair. I stood at the edge of death several times. First, in war, and later when I saw no reason for hope, I was ready to take my own life, but I was spared. I stepped away, found that producer, and discovered my own treasure within, buried deep down beneath my own corruption. So don’t delude yourself with this idea; this victim excuse that mine is terrible, and others aren’t. Suffering goes with the territory of mortal living. Nobody escapes, and everyone is already wealthy beyond the boundaries of our rational imaginations. That is why the true Self is known as being transcendent. Conceptual vision is not our friend. It is a prison of our rational mind. And the not-to-be-found mind moves us away from fantasy and back to reality. 

The wealthy producer in the story is behind the scenes running the show, but nobody knows he’s there except the GM. The GM is our ego, a self-image—self-righteous, talented, with a big head and of very little worth without being broken. And how does an ego get crushed? By trial and error. Give it enough rope, and it’ll hang itself. Try to force its hand, and it’ll resist. It’s a crafty creature and up to no good until it learns how inadequate it is by itself. We are the real power behind our own throne—the wizard of the Oz we create, and our ego has to learn the hard way that the producer and our ego are an inseparable team. Until that lesson is learned, there is only chaos.

The rest of the crew are our various functions that collaborate to produce what appears to be a seamless rendition of reality. When the film is in the can, and the audience is assembled, the film is projected, but the screen is not out there―it is being projected in the theater of the mind. It is such a stunning movie that it is almost like being in the film. We don’t realize that we are actually in the film we produce. We will never be outside of the movie since the movie is us, only we don’t call it a movie. We call it our relative and the conditional world, which, we imagine, is not us. We are the movie, the crew who produced it, the audience who watches, the GM, and the producer. It is all produced within a virtual realm, which we imagine is the real world. Everything produced is a virtual reality—all conditional and based on causes and effects. Even the unconditional producer is a virtual being. The entire assemblage is an illusion—a story we tell ourselves. This is our mind at work, which can’t be found. 

As the movie (movement) unfolds, our mind comes into being. When the video stops, our mind likewise ceases to exist. Our minds and movies are one and the same thing. The only function of the mind is movement. When the mind moves, the world appears. When the mind stops, the world disappears. Zen masters and sages, even before The Buddha, said this is an accurate rendition, and now the science of neurology confirms it.

Is this just a fantastic allegory? Perhaps an interesting story, but no more? Granted, creative liberties have been taken, but fundamentally the story is an accurate portrayal of the way it is. This is the Dharma of real life. This is what The Buddha saw when he woke up. It may seem strange, incredible, and fantastic, but it is accurate.

So how must we understand this? Awakening can be confirmed only through personal experience.  We—our only substantial and pure nature—are the unchanging and already complete producer who lacks nothing but can’t be seen. Nothing can be added to, nor subtracted from, a perfect mind since the mind is everything (yet nothing). To try to do either (add to or subtract from) is an exercise in utter futility. Nothing is lacking. Everything is already present. Clinging to anything adds nothing to who we truly are. Our true identity is no identity, yet it is secure, and the rush to add to something that is already complete is a fool’s journey. The vector of wholeness does not come through addition. It comes through subtraction, and that is what we must do when we meditate: allow the virtual to vanish into the void, and when it dissolves, we find we’re home, right where we’ve always been. We are Buddhas, waiting to wake up from a virtual dream.

“The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like a tree. All of its fruit and flowers, its branches and leaves, depend on its root. If you nourish its root, a tree multiplies. If you cut its root, it dies. Those who understand the mind reach enlightenment with minimal effort. Those who don’t understand the mind practice in vain. Everything, good and bad, comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.”—Bodhidharma; The Breakthrough Sermon