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.

Karma and Predestination

Fate vs. Karma

I’m somewhat of a hybrid anomaly. I never consciously intended to become spiritual, yet it happened anyway. Nor did I ever plan to study religions, yet that too occurred. It all began with a seeming mistake that led me into Yoga (Hatha at first), and have discovered how well it worked physically, I decided to explore further and found that Hatha was one of many forms of Yoga, one of which is Dhyāna Yoga (The Seventh Limb of Yoga). It was/is also known as the means of emerging Samādhi (mystical absorption), the aim of all Yogic practices, and the eighth step of the Buddha’s Nobel Eight Fold path toward enlightenment. I later learned that Dhyāna was the ancient Sanskrit name for what we now know as Zen.

And that became the path I followed (the Rinzai form) that changed my life. I never saw it coming. It’s similar to being blindsided by COVID, but with a different outcome. And once I had experienced and reaped the fruit of the path of awakening, I chose to return to school and obtain a degree in divinity as an ordained Christian Minister. This all happened after I had lived a lot of life, much of it challenging and full of suffering.

Fast forward forty-plus years later, and during recent times, I have wondered if all of this was just a fluke of destiny or perhaps a reflection of something unseen, more profound, yet nevertheless real—may be an extension of karma, or maybe even predestination, both of which I had learned through my own experience and in-depth study.

There is something I don’t like about either the idea of my destiny being predetermined or paying the price for my errors. Nevertheless, when I examine my life in hindsight, it is hard to ignore how it could have happened by serendipity or happenstance. So the question I have recently pondered whether there could be any validity to either idea (karma or predestination). Both rankle me, yet both might be true despite my distaste.

Karma makes much sense as cause and effect on a conditional plane. Feedback loops surround us everywhere—from an interpersonal level all the way to nature. It happens in the water cycle, and it happens when we attack someone. And it does not appear to be limited to individuals who seem separate and apart from other people. Still, as chaos theory tells us, the flap of a butterfly’s wings in South America eventually becomes a hurricane moving across the Atlantic from the coast of Africa. We must call that “collective karma”—The impact of everything linked together. What goes around comes around, and it’s hard to ignore the obvious. 

What could be more obvious is how karma continues from mortal life into the next. Once we die (mortally), logically, it is less evident that we carry forward what was incomplete in a previous mortal life. However, much of what I have experienced in this incarnation doesn’t seem possible to have occurred through happenstance. So there is some substance to continuing karma.

Predestination is somewhat akin to karma in that our mortal vector appears as a continuation—a righteous one that stems from the residue of previous mortal incarnations. If you buy into reincarnation, then why would it not make sense that we begin with a residue of unfinished business (e.g., karmic seeds carried forward within the eighth consciousness—Sanskrit, alayavijnana, thus the “pre” of destiny. Buddhist thought affirms that notion, and I can see the wisdom: A sort of do-over-opportunity to advance in our quest toward completion and enlightenment.

I do, however, question the validity of the sort of predestination proposed by John Calvin: Double predestination—the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins. That notion directly contradicts the doctrine of unconditional love in the New Testament unless you see eternal damnation as “tough love.”

The final analysis comes down to belief and dogma, which The Buddha was adamantly opposed to, as expressed in the Kalama Sutra. The people of Kalama asked the Buddha whom to believe out of all the ascetics, sages, venerables, and holy ones who passed through their town like himself. They complained that they were confused by the many contradictions they discovered in what they heard. The Kalama Sutra is the Buddha’s reply.

• “Do not believe anything on mere hearsay.

• Do not believe in traditions merely because they are old and have been handed down for many generations and in many places.

• Do not believe anything on account of rumors or because people talk a great deal about it.

• Do not believe anything because you are shown the written testimony of some sage.

• Do not believe in what you have fancied, thinking because it is extraordinary, it must have been inspired by a god or other wonderful being.

• Do not believe anything merely because the presumption is in favor or because the custom of many years inclines you to take it as true.

• Do not believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers or priests.

• But, whatever, after thorough investigation and reflection, you find to agree with reason and experience as conducive to the good and benefit of one and all and of the world at large, accept only that as true and shape your life in accordance with it.

The same text, said the Buddha, must be applied to his own teachings.

Do not accept any doctrine from reverence, but first, try it as gold tried by fire.”

What we don’t know can hurt us.

The realm of reality.

Many, if not most, of the problems we encounter as humans are due to what we either don’t know or refuse to know. Such a lack has a way of catching us off guard at the worst possible moments, usually late in the game when there is little we can do to stop, or at least slow the progression toward disaster. 

The coronavirus pandemic is a case in point. So long as we can be aware of the sign-posts, we can prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. Hope, however, must be realistic and in line with those sign-posts, or it remains pie in the sky. What we don’t know can, and many times does, hurt us.

Without knowing, we live in two realms at once: The realm of rational conditions (the mortal one) and a realm beyond conditions, where immortality lives. Think of the realm of immortality as the ground from which our mortal lives grow. It is very much like growing a garden. If the immortal soil is full of nutrients, then the odds are better, the mortal produce will be nutritious.

The realm of mortal conditions is our ordinary realm, where one thing stands in opposition to another. Mortally, we have a beginning and an ending. In this realm, differentiation is the criteria and is based on the senses that tell us how we are all different. Our sense of sight says to us, light is different from darkness. Our auditory sense tells us that sound is different from silence, and so on—each of our senses discriminates one thing from another different sensory thing.

The immortal realm is the realm of unity, where everything is the same. And unlike what grows, the immortal ground has no beginning nor end. That’s the good soil and is the unconditional realm of the spirit: The ground of all being—the well-spring of all. And these two realms are irrevocably joined together in perfect harmony. Should one realm disappear, the other would disappear. When one appears, the other appears. They define one another, and without an opposite, neither can be understood, just as without light, darkness would have no meaning. One is an abstraction—an illusion that appears to our senses as real, whereas the other, while invisible to the senses, is reality itself.

To our collective misfortune, the ordinary realm (e.g., the conditional) is what governs our world and is the root of all woe. It is because we imagine our life will end that we fear death, never realizing that genuine life never ends. Mortality segues into immortality, and life goes on. However, when we think we get only one shot, we see ourselves as distinct, separate, and different only. Then the mortal realm becomes a place where tribal wars of opposition rule the day, where nobody genuinely “reaches across the aisle,” and compromise becomes impossible, except as disingenuous lip-service.

It is within the silence of the mind where we discover our true, immortal worth. When all thinking ceases, it is there we find our true nature. Yet, as The Buddha taught, in emptiness, there is no mind and no self, so we call them both by abstract names to become aware. Without abstraction, only silence prevails, but it is within silence where we become enlightened to that which is the source of all awareness.

To most of the western world, Zen is a strange and confusing matter, most often utterly misunderstood. The founder of Zen (Bodhidharma) defined Zen as “not thinking.” And the great master Huang Po taught: “Whatever the senses apprehend resembles an illusion, including everything ranging from mental concepts to living beings. Our Founder—The Buddha, preached to his disciple's naught (e.g., nothing) but total abstraction leading to the elimination of sense-perception. In this total abstraction does the Way of the Buddhas flourish; while from discrimination between this and that a host of demons blazes forth!” — The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, (The teacher of Zen Master Rinzai).

If westerners had lived in the eastern world, Zen would not seem strange. Instead, the odds are favorable that Zen would be understood as the means The Buddha employed to experience enlightenment. Many in the western world have become aware of the practice of mindfulness meditation in helping to quiet the mind, leading to less stress and improved health. However, what has not yet become well established is the next stage beyond mindfulness. 

Quieting the mortal mind is a sign-post on the way to what follows. First, the chatter must be regulated and brought under control. Then, and only then, is it possible to move on to the deeper stage of Samādhi attained by the practice of dhyāna (e.g., the ancient name given to the practice of Zen—the last step in the Eight Fold Path, otherwise known as Right Concentration). The preceding step (the seventh) was known as Right mindfulness, the level that is now so popular. There is nothing wrong with mindfulness. But there is more beyond that sign-post on the way, but following that, the going gets tougher.

The great Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa said, “My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path. It is too difficult, too long, and is too demanding. I suggest you ask for your money back and go home. This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you. So, it is best not to begin. However, if you do begin, it is best to finish.” The beginning would be more aligned with Right mindfulness, whereas Right Concentration is more aligned with finishing up the journey.

Rules, guidelines and the real teacher.

Image via Wikipedia

When we are lost—such as now during the global COVID-19 pandemic—it’s reasonable to think about finding our way. In such a frame of mind, the first order of business seems to be formulas, techniques, and guidelines that will help us. Once we do find our way, interest in such things falls away. Our natural tendency is to focus on the immediate crisis and ignore those looming in the background. Thus knowing whether or not we’re lost determines how useful these measures are.

Conventional wisdom suggests that we are all lost and can’t manage without the provision of rigid beliefs, firm rules, oppressive laws, and harsh punishment. We have become crippled by the notion of inadequacy and thus require the crutch of constraints and dependencies. Rather than develop internal resolve and strength, we creep along shackled by abstractions. 

As a human family, we are quite fearful that civilization will collapse into a state of immorality and anarchy without these guiding forces. The evidence of living, however, contradicts this view. The fact is that we are overflowing with legal constraints, rules, and guidelines, yet society becomes more debased every day. Prisons abound, and wars have become common.

How very different this conventional view is from genuine insight. In the 18th stanza of the Tao Te Ching, it says this...

“When the great Tao is forgotten,
Kindness and morality arise.
When wisdom and intelligence are born,
The great pretense begins.
When there is no peace within the family,
Filial piety and devotion arise.
When the country is confused and in chaos
Loyal ministers appear.
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...”

On the surface, this seems bizarre, but the disparity between these two views alone deserves further consideration. What Lao Tzu is pointing out here is the difference between presumption, expectations, and reality. When we aspire to rules for changing conditions, the assumption is that we lack such wisdom. The aspiration toward transcendent wisdom and intelligence produces the opposite. By relinquishing the notion of lack, we discover fullness. Anything at all—Sainthood, wisdom, peace...even the Tao—when held at arm’s length denies us of the very thing we seek.

The danger here, however, is thinking that insight is automatic. It isn’t. What is missing is the fruit that grows from the experience of awakening to our abundant, already adequate, true nature. Henepola Gunaratana clarifies the matter this way:

“There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation—morality, concentration, and wisdom. Those three factors grow together as your practice deepens. Each one influences the other, so you cultivate the three of them together, not one at a time. When you have the wisdom to truly understand a situation, compassion towards all parties involved is automatic, and compassion means that you restrain yourself from any thought, word, or deed that might harm yourself or others. Thus our behavior is automatically moral. It is only when we don’t understand things deeply that we create problems. If we fail to see the consequences of your own action, we will blunder. The fellow who waits to become totally moral before he begins to meditate is waiting for a ‘but’ that will never come. The ancient sages say that he is like a man waiting for the ocean to become calm so that he can take a bath.”

So are we really lost? Maybe we’ve just swallowed too much bathwater and the message that we are inadequate and in need of formulas when what we need is to awaken to the reality of our unified nature and inherent abilities. Lao Tzu shares with us a rare jewel—an insight that transcends conventional wisdom. In our desire to secure a better world, we place too much hope in perfect conditions without an appreciation that out of chaos comes order; out of family discord comes piety and devotion, and by renouncing the abstraction of kindness and morality, we rediscover what we think has been lost. When we seek a teacher, we stop looking for the real teacher—ourselves and our response to life.

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. 

Things are not what they seem.

Baobab Tree 

One of the most challenging spiritual matters to comprehend is the relationship between matter—which is clearly discriminately conditional, governed by the law of discernment, and karma, with a beginning and an ending—and spirit which is unified, whole without a beginning or an end, and not subject to karma. 

How we wonder, are these two dimensions not dual? Obviously, one is conditional, and the other is unconditional. Two very different natures that are somehow joined into an inseparable, single reality of unity.

 
The Gita helps us to understand by grasping the philosophy and language of the time when it was written. From that frame of reference, two words/concepts are essential: Purusha (spirit) and Prakriti (everything else). Prakriti is the field of what can be known objectively, the field of phenomena (perceived through the senses), the world of whatever has “name and form:” that is, not only of matter and energy but also of the mind.

Purusha, on the other hand, permeates and infuses Prakriti. It is everywhere present but unseen. From that perspective, the notion of duality disappears since Prakriti emanates (grows from) Purusha. Think of the relationship between the two as the perception and functioning of the strange giant Baobab Tree from Madagascar. If ever there was an odd part of Prakriti that illustrated the relationship, this tree would be the perfect example. The trunk is clearly not divided yet the branches are, and they grow inseparable from a unified trunk. Obviously, neither could exist alone, both grow out of an unseen subterranean root system, hidden beneath the ground, and the spirit of the tree (sap) flows freely throughout.

The illustrated example is close except for one thing: both are phenomenal versions of Prakriti. To complete the picture (still only approximate), we need to add a dimension of reflection. In the same way that the Lotus reaches upward, originating from beneath the mud of the unconscious, and emerges into the light from the shimmering waters as discriminate form, so too, we can add the streams of graduating clarity. 

While we can’t see into the mud of the unconscious, we know it is still a version of consciousness, and by penetrating into the depths, we can release the spirit until it enters the world of Prakriti. And how exactly would that penetration be accomplished? 

Here again, the Gita guides the way: Samadhi. Two schools of thought exist, sudden and gradual enlightenment. Ordinarily, samadhi can be entered only following a long period of meditation, and after many years of ardent endeavor. But in one verse of The Gita (5:28), a significant word sada, “always” is portrayed. Once this state of deep concentration becomes established, the person lives in spiritual freedom, or moksha, permanently. 

The enlightenment experience is a singularly intense experience which tells one his or her place in the scheme of things. This is more often than not a once and for all experience, which will cause the experiencer never again to doubt his or her relationship with or to the Self, others, the world, and whatever one may believe is beyond the world. This experience is enormously validating or empowering and is unlike any other experience one can have. 

Since non-dual reality cannot be divided into incremental parts, it cannot be grasped little by little as the gradual enlightenment approach implies. The non-dual must be realized all at once (suddenly) as a whole or not at all. As sada is always present, once Purusha is experienced, it can never again come and go, as Prakriti surely does. The right vs. wrong of Prakriti becomes right and wrong of Purusha.

“Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise.”

Pearls of Wisdom

Arjuna and Krisha

The Bhagavad Gita is considered, unquestionably, one of Eastern spiritual literature’s most profound masterpieces. According to Mahatma Gandhi, The Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual poem with deep philosophy and divinity. There is a wide range of views on the exact time of writing, authorship (traditionally ascribed to the Sage Vyasa), and historical occurrence. Upon reading, these differences in opinion fade from understanding the human mind and relationship to the divine. 

For those preoccupied with such details, they may explore here and beyond. I leave these matters to the scholars and other “experts.” My interest is how the wisdom expressed in The Gita impacts all humankind's lives, any time, anywhere.

From time to time, I will post excerpts from The Gita, as translated by Eknath Easwaran. In his words, “The Gita’s subject is ‘the war within,’ the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious, and that ‘The language of battle is often found in the scriptures, for it conveys the strenuous, long, drawn-out campaign we must wage to free ourselves from the tyranny of the ego, the cause of all our suffering and sorrow.’”

The setting of The Gita in a battlefield has been interpreted as an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of human life.

“In profound meditation, they (e.g., the ancients) found, when consciousness is so acutely focused that it is utterly withdrawn from the body and mind, it enters a kind of singularity (Throughout Eastern spirituality this is known as Samadhi) in which the sense of a separate ego disappears. In this state, the supreme climax of meditation, the seers discovered a core of consciousness beyond time and change. They called it simply Atman, the Self.”

The essence of essence.

The essential essence

There is a curious correspondence between essential oil and us. We, too, contain an essence that has been extracted from our source, and, like essential oil, this essence contains the aroma of the source. Neither an essential oil nor our ineffable spirit can be further distilled, and neither is subject to changing conditions. Once we arrive at the essence the aroma can be infused in various media and the aroma persists. The difference between essential oil and us is that our source is needed, never goes away, and remains an unchanging aspect, forever.

What is the essence of the essence? Of all essences? Bodhidharma called the essential nature “our mind”—The Buddha, not the “quotidian” mind. This mind is our spiritual essence. Nothing, he said, is more essential than that. It is the void void: The critical spirit. Out of this apparent nothingness comes everything. Nothingness is the realm of the unconditional absolute, beyond the conditions of this or that.

That may or may not sound esoteric, lacking usefulness. Still, I’ll offer you two frames of reference that illustrate extreme value, albeit unseen: One from Lao Tzu and the other from physicist Lawrence Krauss. Lao Tzu said this about usefulness:

“We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.” 

And this from Lawrence Krauss. Our perceptual capacities are mesmerized by what moves, captured as a moth to a flame, but we never consider what moves them. And nothing is more useful than understanding that essence. 

Waking Up.

Have you thought deeply about what it means to be conscious? We have invented a vast number of concepts to represent dimensions of life in every configuration. Still, most of the time, we use these concepts like intellectual barter coins without examining the coins. 

This lack of examination is that we go on automatic most of the time and then wonder how we got into situations. Today, I want to talk about what it means to be conscious, in any form ranging from the unconscious and beyond.

To be conscious really means to be aware of something. If we are not aware, the presumption is that there is nothing going on. Lights “on” and we see objects—we become conscious of them. Lights “off” and we see darkness. When we are asleep and dreaming we are said to be unconscious but this is of course not an accurate representation if we are aware of our dreams. Even when we are asleep we can be aware of the images which waft across our dream mind. 

It is always about the images—the holograms which we see in our “mind’s eye” that establishes the sort of consciousness to which we are making reference. In fact, we could say that being aware of images is the best way to define consciousness, in any form. So long as we see images we are conscious. How we slice the matter up after that is less important.

So what about states of mind when there are no images? We do in fact experience such non-image states, and in Zen, this is the state of mind we aim for—a pre-conscious state of mind with no images. Why is that state so desirable? Because so long as there are images, we are drawn to and absorbed by the images and lose touch with our subjectivity. We are drawn to objective images as a moth is drawn to a flame with similar results: We get burned by our thoughts, which of course are produced by our imaginations.

In Buddhism, we learn that our sense of reality is upside down. What we experience of normal life is really a dream state. All dimensions of consciousness, so long as we’re seeing images that float along like clouds crossing the sky of mind, are dream states. Only when the dream stops (no images) do we wake up. 

Then we find our true self: A non-imagination self. When there are no images to see we become free from the bondage of attachment and only then can we truly relax into a no-mind state. The definition of our true nature is no-nature. “Identity” ordinarily means objective dressing (image stuff we produce and can see). That is why we create a self-image that we think of as our identity. But the truth is that this image, like all images, is just another dimension of dreams. At the core, there are no images and no self. This has been a fundamental teaching of Buddhism since the beginning. But what is not usually taught, except in more advanced sutras, is that there is a deeper self hidden beneath the imaginary one.

Zen's challenge is to embrace this true self (our only real identity which has no defining characteristics). This self is our pre-conscious true nature: the well-spring from which all forms of consciousness arise. The question is “how?” How do we reach that state of mind where there is no mind—no images. And the answer is actually not so difficult. Just don’t think. That, of course, is easier said than done. 

How do we “not think?” Do we think a thought called “non-thought?” That, of course, would just be replacing one thought with another thought. No, that wouldn’t work. The answer is to concentrate on something other than thought, like our breathing or to direct our awareness onto our bodies as a whole.
There are many different forms of concentration which are non-thought. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra The Buddha asked his advanced students (enlightened Bodhisattvas) to instruct Ananda (The Buddha’s cousin) on methods. Twenty-five of them offered their prescriptions of how it is done. Each of their answers, while different, had one thing in common—turning awareness around to become aware of awareness itself. 

The pathways employed were selected from the six forms of consciousness (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and mind). The particular choice was not as important as what they did after making the choice—They turned awareness around and rather than focusing on an object of consciousness they used the selected pathway to flip awareness around and see (in the case of sight) the unseen seer. They thus learned to release themselves from the bondage of attachment to objects. Just one pathway choice (of the six possibilities) worked to solve all forms of attachment. One worked for all because at the core of awareness—where our true self exists, all senses are joined together (unified).

Unless we become aware of how our mind works (which in fact is nothing more than an aggregate of images and feelings) we are all lost in our dream state, convinced that we are awake. It is very difficult to accept that our sense of reality is really an illusion—that being awake is actually being asleep. But once you do in fact awaken to your true nature you realize that being awake means meeting your true self. Until then we are all dreaming and thinking that we are awake.

Renunciation

Letting go may be seen as either a negative or a positive. On the one hand, it could be a sign of weakness; of just giving up when tenacity or perseverance is required. Failure to achieve is often seen in this way. On the other hand, letting go may be exactly what is needed. It is impossible to grasp one thing when we are full of another. The difference between these can be understood against the background of time—a function of memory.

Our experience of time results from memory. It is established that people with damaged left-brain capacities have no memory and lose a sense of time. The reason for this loss is that memory occurs in our left hemisphere and without an ability to compare the present moment to the past, time goes away. If there is no past, projection into the future likewise goes away. It is impossible to learn from experience when there is no time.

In Zen, we are taught to live in the moment by detaching from the baggage of the past and to let go of the illusion of the future. When our memories are healthy (not damaged) this is a valuable way of living. When we are full of either the illusion of the future or the baggage of a dead past it is very difficult to be present. This concentration on the present is a primary focal point of zazen. But the principle has a much broader application beyond sitting.

To a significant degree, we have learned to undermine our own capacities and potential with limiting stories and ideas we tell our self. “I’m not good enough”; “She is better than me”; “I am flawed and thus unworthy”...All these and more are examples of self-imposed limitations which undermine functioning. Where did these stories come from? In a substantial way, they come from our memories. 

We learn through experience which we then recall when similar occasions arise and then we compare our memories to unfolding conditions and take the next step and project. What this process does not consider is changing circumstances. The conditions which may have existed no longer exist.

Pema Chödrön said that “...renunciation is the same thing as opening to the teachings of the present moment.” Every moment is unique. Every moment is a manifestation of circumstances that have never existed before. By letting go, we are more able to meet present teachings with openness and clarity—Impossible when we remain lodged in the past and future.

Enhancing Wisdom Access

Since Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration (steps 7 and 8) are so closely aligned, we’ll consider them together. These are steps of mental discipline that occur within meditation to refine capacity and depth and thus enhance wisdom access. And they serve as the capstones of the Nobel Eightfold Path to emphasize the importance of the emancipating process.

When we meditate, two things are taking place: mindfulness and concentration (unfortunately, so are drifting, sleeping, boredom, impatience, etc.) Mindfulness means being aware, and concentration means to focus. Both awareness and focus are what our minds do (or not, depending on discipline). When we are meditating, we are engaging the mind and manifesting interdependency as follows. Let’s first consider “thinking,” which is a big part of meditation. We are aware of thoughts, and we focus our awareness single-pointedly.

For thoughts to exist, there must be a thinker (by definition). Thoughts are not independent of a thinker, and a thinker is meaningless without thoughts. This is the classic case of dependent origination. So thoughts are going on while we are meditating, and thus there is an active thinker. This process comes and goes. We think we notice our thoughts (through mindfulness), and we choose to release (not become attached) these thoughts and return to a focus (on our breath —our “mind anchor”). It is a bit like training a dog on a leash. The dog attempts to bolt away, we give the dog a gentle tug on the leash, and the dog learns to heel.

Now consider the following. Since thinking and thinkers arise and fall together, it is clear that both thinkers and what they produce (thoughts) are unreal. Recall that the Buddhist definition of reality means “intrinsic substantiality—independence.” A thought is not independent of a thinker, nor is a thinker independent from thoughts; thus, neither is “real.” Both thinkers and thoughts are therefore passing phantoms—mirages, clouds which obscure wisdom. This process takes place whether or not when we are meditating. The benefit of meditation is that we devote time and energy to watching this taking place, learn to train our minds, and thus become aware of the elusive nature of what occurs. As long as we stay attached to thoughts and empower them with the belief that they are real, we continue to respond inappropriately and therefore create bad karma.

A curious thing is that by thinking, or not thinking, we are still there. We don’t come and go, but our thoughts do. So the question becomes, “Who or what is it that remains?” And what do we call the state when our minds become still, and we are not thinking? All Buddhist sutras refer to the state of non-thinking as Samādhi —when the clouds of delusions cease, we see with the light of wisdom. Likewise, the sutras say that the “who” is our true nature—Buddha-Nature, our true nature.
Consider the words of Ch’an Master Sheng-yen in his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment. 

“We practice until the self is gone. When the self disappears, all obstructions will be gone too. There cannot be a self that is free from all obstructions. If there is a sense of self, then there are also obstructions. There cannot be obstructions without a self to create and experience them because the self is an obstruction.”  

This is just another way of speaking about dependent origination. Thinkers/thoughts; self/obstructions. It’s the same thing. When we reach this samadhi state, there is no self/thinker, no subject/object. Both disappear and fuse into a single, non-perceptible state. The two become one. So what about this non-thinking/non-obstructive state? Let’s share a passage spoken by The Buddha from the Vajrasamadhi-sutra.

“The Buddha replied, ‘Bodhisattva, ordinary meditation is, in fact, mental activity. Being neither distracted nor concentrated is the true non-thought-creating meditation. Since the nature of this meditation is non-thought-creating, therefore, abandon any meditation that fabricates sense-objects. The nature of non-thought-creating meditation is non-abiding [meaning, it doesn’t last]. Therefore, one should abandon any sign of abidance in meditation. If one knows that the true nature of meditation is free from both distraction and calmness, one immediately accesses the wisdom of non-creation of a phenomenon. This wisdom of non-creation does not depend on abidance. Consequently, the mind will not be distracted. With this wisdom, this is how one attains the Nirvana—prajnaparamita.’”

“Think non-thinking,” wrote Master Dōgen Zenji. “How do we think without thinking? Think from the depths of non-thinking.” The ‘depth of non-thinking’ refers to mind-essence—the realm of ‘pure mind’ where no thought defilements exist. This state of consciousness is hard to describe in words. Still, it comes from practicing the correct mind’s correct attitudes within a deep state of concentration while maintaining the zazen posture and rhythmic breathing. The goal of zazen is to reach Hishiryo consciousness. ‘Hishiryo is the harmonizing of objective and subjective views, ultimate consciousness beyond time and space, the highest consciousness beyond thinking and non-thinking. To experience Hishiryo consciousness—That is Zen.’”

“Without Thinking”

• No subject-object distinction: The subject has disappeared—this being the Zen interpretation of Buddhist anatta or no-mind. The ego/subject disappears since the subject is not real anyway. 

• Immediacy: Without a subject standing back (Or obscuring reality; No illusionary filters), the experience is one of immediacy within the dynamic field of consciousness.

• Fullness: Because the object is not filtered through an intentional act, it presents itself in its fullness. Things become what they are. They are thusness/Tathatā.

Such immediacy and fullness are Genjōkōan, “the pure presence of things as they are.” A Zen monk asked Master Deshimaru, “In Zen when you have satori, you can say, ‘I am God!’ Can that be interpreted as being like Saint Paul when he said, ‘It is not I who lives but Christ who lives in me?’”

Master Deshimaru answered: “Zazen is the same thing as God or Buddha. Dogen, the master of transmission, said, ‘Zazen itself is God.’ By that, he meant that during zazen, you are in harmony with the cosmos. In hishiryo consciousness, there is no more anything. It is satori consciousness. The self has dropped away and dissolved. It is the consciousness of God. It is God. People have a personal God. We are not separate. There is no duality between God, Buddha, and ourselves. If I say, ‘I am God or Buddha,’ I am a little bit crazy. Mushotoku is important. If you think consciously about God or Buddha, it’s not good. If I say you are God or Buddha while you are practicing zazen, it’s not the same thing as if you say it about yourself. In Zen, you must have no goal. In hishiryo consciousness, the personal self, however illuminated it may be, is still here. Meister Eckhart said, ‘If you empty yourself, God enters into you.’ In Zen, the ego enters into God. God enters into the ego. Both.”

It is a serious mistake in the understanding of Zen to refer merely to the “denial” or “cessation” of conceptual thinking. It is quite clear that in Ch’an Buddhism, no-mind, rather than referring to an absence of thought, refers to the condition of not being trapped in or attached to thoughts, not adhering to a certain conceptual habit or position.

The error of interpretation made by many scholars (and by Zen practitioners as well) lies precisely in taking the term “no-thought” to refer to some kind of permanent or ongoing absence of thought. While this assumption is routinely made, it is impossible to corroborate it in the Ch’an canon. If we study the seminal texts carefully, we do find a description of the experience of an instantaneous severing of thought that occurs in the course of a thoroughgoing pursuit of a Buddhist meditative exercise. But nowhere in the Platform Sutra, Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, Diamond Sutra, or any other major Ch’an text is the term “no-mind” explained to be permanent incapacitation thinking faculty or the permanent cessation of all conceptual activity.

In my next post, I’ll summarize the steps we’ve taken along the Noble Eightfold Path and then return to the matter which launched this discussion—The five ways of seeing and how the Path relates to these “eyes.”