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.

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.

Dancing through life

Watching two accomplished ballroom dancers is a delight. They move in graceful, fluid motions almost as a single entity. One leads; the other follows. If there is no cooperation, then harmony is broken with both trying to lead, and the motion is jerky and chaotic. 

If neither leads, there is no motion. If you look at what’s happening in Washington right now, you can see the non-dance of chaos. Whether we move or don’t, dance can only occur if there is a floor to dance on. 

Dancers don’t move through thin air. In a certain sense, we are like those dancers. We move in a relationship with others across the immovable floor of life. Our movements are either fluid, graceful, or chaotic, depending on how we cooperate. It’s a matter of giving and taking. Two gives or two takes end in stalemate. We have invented a saying to express this dance. It is called “What goes around comes around.” We reap what we sow. 

In Buddhism, this is called karma and works the same way. The floor beneath the dance is, of course, the immovable foundation of our life—our mind. If it moved, the dancers would be shaken. But since it is stable, the dance can proceed: One half leading, the other half following. And the dance can only happen with these three things—The immovable floor and the two partners. When all three functions in harmony, the dance of life is a beautiful thing.

Physics and Metaphysics

Measuring what can't be measured.

Since the beginning of time, we have wrestled with the same issues. Like an adopted child, we long to find our parents. The problem is every bit as poignant today as it was centuries ago. 

We desire to know who we are, where we came from, and grow weary of fairy tales. We want the truth, not embellished variations. Of course, the problem is so many conflicting messages about truth all coming from many vested points of view. It’s like trying to find the correct diet without realizing that a single diet won’t work for everyone since we are all unique. There are many paths but only one destination.

Before physics, there was metaphysics. Science is all about objective, measurable phenomena and has taken us a long way down the road in answering some basic questions about our beginnings. Still, it will never go all the way since it must work within measurable dimensions by its very construction. Noumenon is beyond measurable matter and can’t be found. No one can measure the mind, much less find it, yet we use the mind continuously. No one can put calipers around essence, yet matter could not exist without it. We are all connected at heart, yet the tie that binds cannot be seen.

For the moment, I would like to demonstrate an irreconcilable conundrum between physics and metaphysics using the tools of science to resolve a metaphysical matter. We all firmly believe in the past, present, and future as time constructs, which we accept as real. Furthermore, we are convinced that we exist in an endless present. The past has gone. The future is not yet, so we are left with the present, by definition.

When we look up into the heavens at night, we see the twinkling of stars. They appear to be real, but when we consider the speed of light, we know that what we are seeing is light, which began the journey to our eyes from each of those stars many thousands of years ago. Some are said to be billions of light-years from us, which means that what we see is something that may no longer exist. Said another way, the stars we see may, in fact, be dead, but we wouldn’t know until billions of years from now. We don’t know what exists in the cosmos now. We see what used to live, proving that you can’t always trust what you see.

That’s fine for distant stars, but how about closer objects: maybe the moon, which is not so remote as a star but still far away. The situation hasn’t changed at all. It just takes the light a shorter time to reach us. And the location is no different when an object is right in front of our faces. We never see what actually exists, only what used to exist even if the time-lapse is very brief (microseconds). The simple truth is that none of us can change what has already occurred. It is finished—already gone like a speeding bullet—by the time we perceive and process with our brains. And that is on a good day.

What about a bad day? A bad day is when we are asleep at the switch; when we are experiencing emotional or mental difficulties (e.g., blinded by filters of bias bigotry, racism, xenophobia, or other forms) that cloud clarity to things as they are—meaning lost in illusion. We don’t even notice what we perceive up there in our buzzing brains. Because we can only recognize something by paying attention to actual reality, which we can’t do when we are day-dreaming, attached to our thinking processes and fixed beliefs. 

We can hope for the absolute best to be awake, accept the fundamental flaws of perception, and move the dial toward an awakened mind—into the metaphysical realm of the nameless. Have a beautiful day. Or is it yesterday?

Will the real Buddha please stand up?

Sixty-four years ago a television game show began running here in the U.S. The show was called To Tell The Truth and involved three challengers, an announcer and a panel of celebrities. The game began with the announcer asking each of the challengers to state their name and their role.

All three claimed to be the same person but only one was telling the truth. For example, each of the challengers might say, “I’m Willie Sutton and I rob banks.” Then the announcer read aloud a detailed description of the claimed identity. The game proceeded by the panelists asking each of the challengers questions and the challengers answered. The goal of the game was for the panelists to determine both the pretenders and the real person.

After asking a number of questions the announcer said, “Will the real Willie Sutton please stand up?” If the panelists were successful they would have guessed the real person. Often the pretenders proved to be accomplished liars and succeeded in throwing the panelists off track.

I remind you of this because we all play that game ourselves. Only we are both the challengers and the panelist but the goal is the same: To determine our real identity. And just like the game show our ego lies to us, pretending to be who we are truly, and this fellow is a very good liar; so good that we aren’t even aware there is another. And there is another difference: Our true identity (not really an identity) is invisible and doesn’t speak.

Consequently, we’re not even able to ask questions and get answers. In our imaginations, we picture The Buddha as an Indian person in flowing robes with floppy ear lobes who lived 2,500 years ago. And indeed such a person did live. His name was Śākyamuni (“Sage of the Śākyas”) and also known as Siddhārtha Gautama. That person succeeded in the identity game and discovered his true, not to be found non-identity and then came to be known as the Tathāgata which means, paradoxically, both one who has thus gone (tathā-gata) and one who has thus come (tathā-āgata).

In other words, he found out who he was and returned to tell us the truth. So what did he discover? Who was he really? And why does that matter to us? He discovered his own not to be found mind and in so doing he discovered who he was not. And it matters to us because the nature of his true identity is the same for you and me. We have the same mind, which is known as bodhi (the mind of enlightenment). In fact, this same mind is The Buddha, not that ancient person with floppy ear lobes. His true identity, and ours, is the not-to-be found mind. There is no other real Buddha except that non-identity.

We choose names for everything but all names are abstractions rather than the real thing. In the case of a non-identity, what names should be chosen? We could call it any name and each would be as non-good as the next. The Buddha chose the name “mind” but in The Diamond Sutra, he said there is no mind therefore we call it mind. The Apostle Paul called it “The mind of Christ.” We could call it “dog” and in each and every case the name would be an abstraction to represent something that can’t be found, but nevertheless is the source of everything.

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said this: “The Buddha is the mind. There is no Buddha except the mind; no mind but the Buddha.” The term Buddha actually means to awaken, and what a Buddha awakens to is their complete, true non-self. When that occurs, desire (the culprit that sets the engine of suffering in motion) goes away, and the reason is actually quite simple. Desire is the flip side of fulfillment.

Only someone who experiences himself or herself being un-fulfilled, desires. The experience of completion destroys desire. The ego can never experience completion because it is never fulfilled. However, the real person we are is always fulfilled and it is the real person who wakes up and discovers completion. So, as peculiar as that may seem, the real question is, “Why does that matter?”

It matters because the shocking truth means that we are all essentially Buddhas awaiting discovery. We spend our entire lives trying to find ourselves going down one blind alley after another and every time we find nothing substantial. We are all Don Quixote chasing windmills. The only real and lasting part of us is our not-to-be found mind. Only that is substantial. Everything else is just a feather in the wind.

To Have or To Be?

Is having the same as being?

It has now been sixty-three years since I sat in my high school algebra class. I remember very little of that room, except for one thing that has stayed with me and been a guiding light throughout my life. That one thing was a banner; my teacher hung above the blackboard that read, “He who perseveres attains the expansion.” 

I imagine she meant it as an encouragement to stay the course and learn algebra. I understood it in a much broader sense: as a way of living—to stay the course through adversity and never give up, particularly during times of extreme suffering. At the time, I knew nothing about psychology, religion, or spirituality but those words of encouragement took me into the realm of all three.

My childhood was a mixed bag of both suffering and fun. The fun part was an escape from the suffering, but I never really escaped until decades later, when, due to a crisis of major proportions, I entered the realm of self-understanding. And that led me to psychology, religion, and spirituality. I suffered, and I got to the point of readiness when I was desperate to fathom why.

I first became aware of Zen because rumor had it that the practice was all about understanding suffering and finding release. It did both. But I was unclear how and why, and that took me to psychology—Erich Fromm and Carl Jung, and ultimately The Buddha. 

Fromm’s ideas were very similar to those of The Buddha, and I came to realize something essential: people have a tendency to regard spirituality and psychology as two different matters, and I found that was not true. Both spirituality and psychology are concerned with a single matter: the human mind. 

Both Fromm and The Buddha recognized a dichotomy between “having” and “being,” but it was The Buddha who found the link that joined the two together, explained how and why they were linked, and found a solution that put being as the dominating force. I found myself agreeing with both that having (to excess) became a poisoning of the spirit, and there was a watershed moment in my life when what I thought was my spirit became broken, thus my quest to solve the dilemma.

To The Buddha, both “having” and “being” coexisted, but it was the illusion of a misunderstood sense of being (the ego) that overrode and blocked genuine “beingness.” Before dealing with the ego, there seemed to be no genuine “beingness” since this latter remained hidden beneath a perceptible ego, with its multiple dimensions of insatiable greed, simply because our awareness told us that “having” was “being,”—the more we had, the more real our sense of beingness. For me, the problem was, the more I had, the more corrupted I became, and the connection eventually imploded, leaving me with nothing but being, which was impossible to articulate since beingness was naked and without identification.

My life has been regulated by that basic principle of perseverance. I never understood the compelling force until I began my study of the mystics and enlightened psychologists. It is that force of self-determination that struggles to be free of bondage to things so dominating today. It is perseverance through thick and thin, good times and bad, never wavering from the desire to be free (as it did for me) that compels us all who don’t settle for things but demands for themselves self-actualization.

There’s a Youtube video of an interview with Erich Fromm. I encourage you to take the time and watch it, and as you do appreciate, this interview happened more than sixty years ago, yet the social and cultural conditions he described then are as real now than in 1958 (even more so).

Many people are off-put with mystical matters, thinking, “oh, that’s too unorthodox and not for me,” but everyone wants to understand themselves. Note that Fromm’s comments concerning people’s ideas concerning means becoming ends—A haunting premonition of today’s attitudes today. We have created a vacuous society that relies more and more on things and less and less on what matters—genuine beingness.

“As always, Erich Fromm speaks with wisdom, compassion, learning, and insight into the problems of individuals trapped in a social world that is needlessly cruel and hostile.”—Noam Chomsky.

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.

Nature of mind and the desire for liberation.

What traps us? The Buddha taught us that we trap ourselves because of deluded thinking. We misunderstand our true nature and thus imagine that we’re fundamentally broken. And in this cloud of ignorance, we experience frustration, anxiety and remain firmly persuaded that we’re flat tires and desire a new one.

   
On the one hand, we are corrupted and do need a new one. Evidence of such corruption surrounds us. But when seen from a fundamental level there is nothing to save. This sounds like double-talk but only because we don’t understand our true nature.  If we did there would be no confusion.

In the commentary on the Diamond Sutra, Huang-Po said, “Buddhas and beings share the same identical mind. It’s like space: it doesn’t contain anything and isn’t affected by anything. When the great wheel of the sun rises, and light fills the whole world, space doesn’t become brighter. When the sun sets, and darkness fills the whole world, space doesn’t become darker. The states of light and darkness alternate and succeed one another, while the nature of space is vast and changeless. The mind of buddhas and beings is like this. Here, The Buddha says to save all beings in order to get rid of the delusion of liberation so that we can see our true nature.” 

Because we rely solely on bodily manifestations, a conclusion of corruption is inescapable and from that common logical premise, desire arises. From that perspective this is correct. But we are not fundamentally a body. As Huang-Po points out, fundamentally we share the same mind space as a Buddha. The mind is the production factory and our body is what’s produced. This is an important distinction. To not recognize this error is like imagining that our car manufactured itself and just suddenly appeared in our garage one day. Obviously, our car was produced somewhere and just as obviously so was our body. But then some will say, “This is nonsense. Our body was produced through the biological union between our father and mother.” Okay, so where did their bodies come from? This sequence must go all the way back to the beginninglessness of time, and we’re still left with the same dilemma.

On the other hand, consider the possibility that there is a difference between an objective body and an ineffable spirit that inhabits and is integrated with the body. An object is inanimate and has no consciousness or power to do anything, much less produce itself. Ah but a spiritual mind is an entirely different matter. Our spiritual mind produces everything, either for the good or for the worse depending on what we think. So long as we dwell only on bodily manifestations of pain and suffering without understanding the source, our mind will convert what is unreal into something that seems real, in a fashion similar to being in a dream without being aware that our dream is just an illusion.  Our spirit is the engine. Our body is the vehicle of motion and unless we see this distinction we’re left with the swing between the rising sun of goodness and the darkness of despair, plus the conclusion of being a flat tire.

Irrational exuberance and the tradition of silence.

“Dogma” is the thorn in our collective side. It is always heated,

exuberant, and close-minded. The message of dogma is one of self-righteousness and is based on obdurate and unyielding ideologies. My way or the highway is becoming a really big problem, around the world today. The “unmasked” champions are convinced that the COVID-19 virus will somehow know they are the good guys and steer clear to attack just their opposers—the bad guys. 

Opposing sides are so dug in it seems impossible to win hearts and minds, even among those who cling to hair-brain ideologies (e.g., think QAnon, for example). Rationality matters little to dogmatic holders. All dogma is based on conceptual thinking—impacted points of view arising from a perceived beautiful, rational perspective (at least in the eye of the ideologist). A contrary ideologist sees this perceived beauty as sheer ugliness. So long as dogma reigns, no reconciliation is possible and both opposing forces become irrationally exuberant.

In sharing the dharma, some have said, “You’re closed-minded to my perspectives but are asking me to join you in your close-mindedness.” There is a difference between Zen and other perspectives. The tradition of Zen is a silent tradition and is fundamentally rooted in a transcendent position, which reaches “across time and space,” not favoring one position or the other. From that platform, you might say that Zen is being closed-minded to being close-minded.

The most revered figure following the Buddha was Nagarjuna who is best known for his doctrine of two truths. The essence of his teaching is that we have no choice except to employ conventional means, which are admittedly delusional, to ultimately destroy delusion. By using words (conventional abstractions: conditioned phenomena) the goal is to go beyond words to find ultimate truth. 

The famous Diamond Sutra, held in high regard by Zen advocates, teaches this point, saying:

“All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated.”

The identity we value (self-image, the imagined “I”) lives within the illusion of what we ordinarily regard as mind―the manifestations, which emerge from our true mind. According to Chán Master Sheng Yen, (Complete Enlightenment—Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment)

“… there cannot be a self (e.g., ego) 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.”

Rationality came out of the European Age of Enlightenment as a solution to religious dogma, but it has become a different form of dogma. I am not suggesting that we return to religious dogma. Dogma of any kind is what happens when we close our minds to suchness—to things as they are. Rather than swing from one dogma to another, or one set of illusions to another, what we need to do is dump all dogma and illusions and rid ourselves of bias, and delusion. That is the thrust of Zen. It is about seeing clearly; seeing things as they are rather than how we imagine they ought to be. Zen is about balance, integration, and harmony, and is opposed to imbalance, disintegration, and chaos. 

Zen Master Huang Po spoke eloquently about the difference between conceptual ideologies and ultimate truth. He said, “If he (an ordinary man) should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestations, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditional being. This then is the fundamental principle.” (The Zen Teachings of Huang Po—On The transmission of Mind). 

Yes, Zen is dogmatic, but the target of dogma is dogma.

Thinking Outside The Box.

From time to time, it’s worth recycling some posts. This one, in particular, is such a post since it addresses the underpinnings of how life works, so desperately needed at the current time. All that we do is based on thinking. It happens so naturally we rarely connect the dots. The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” So today here is a follow-up post about thinking.

From the time of birth all the way to the end, we never stop thinking. We do it while we are awake, and while we’re sleeping, in the form of dreams. Only for brief moments is there a lull in this cerebral activity, and that is both a blessing and a curse. Because we think, we can imagine, and that allows us to create and invent things almost unimaginable. As we invent, others can experience and learn about our inventions and innovate improvements to create entirely new inventions. One creation serves as a building block for the next, and the creative process expands geometrically. There would appear to be no end to our creative capacities. The only obstacle to this process is what blocks clarity that impedes progress.

Thinking is a two-edged sword. Not only does it equip us with problem-solving skills, but it also provides us with the capacity to create problems. Because we think we can’t help thinking about ourselves, and we do this based on the nature of thoughts. A thought is, in simple terms, a mental image, a virtual projection manipulated in our brains. The image is not a real thing. It is an abstraction of something real. We open our eyes, and we see external images. We close our eyes, and we see internal images. What we fail to realize is that all images are actually being registered in our brains. What appears as “out there” is, in truth, nothing more than a virtual projection being registered in our primary visual cortex where it is “seen,” and based on this projection, our brain tells us “out there.”

But this is not the end of the matter. These images are then subjected to cognitive processing and recording in memory.  Some experiences are pleasurable, and others are not. When we experience pleasure, we want to grasp and retain comfort. When it is undesirable, we remember that as well and do our best to avoid such events occurring again. This is a learning process in which we engage to do what we can to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, but we soon learn that such a thing is beyond our control. What brings us pleasure in a moment brings us pain in the next. Phenomenal life is constantly changing.

This fundamental desire to avoid pain and retain pleasure is a trap that ends up creating the opposite of what we seek because we attach our sense of self-worth to moving targets. As the objects of desire come to an end, suffering follows. What we set out to avoid, soon comes our way. And out of this ebb and flow, we develop a sense of ourselves. We wonder about the one doing the thinking and make flawed conclusions. When adversity occurs, we imagine that we brought it upon ourselves—which is right in many cases. When pleasure comes our way, we imagine that we singularly created the conditions that made it possible. Gradually we form an image of ourselves, which we’ve learned to label an ego—a self-image that is no more real than every other abstraction produced by our brains.

All images are projections—the ones we see externally, which we presume is our real world of objects, the ones we see in our mind’s eye, and the images we develop about ourselves. None of it is anything other than abstract images recorded in our brains, not much different than the images projected onto a movie screen. All of it looks real, so we respond as if it were, and that results in significant problems for ourselves and people with whom we share our world. 

Out of this flaw of perception and processing comes certain conclusions. We conclude that we can trust some people and not others. We conclude that to survive and prosper, we must hoard and save for a rainy day. We conclude that greed is good, and we get angry when people draw attention to this flawed conclusion that jeopardizes our egotistical plans. Life then becomes a competition with winners and losers, and things turn out the same way as before. We wanted to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. The result is the opposite because our aggressive lust leads us into isolation, alienation, and jeopardy with the very same people we need to ensure our desires.

Thinking, thinking, thinking: It never stops from birth till death. It is both a blessing and a curse, and we thus create both wondrous inventions and means of destruction. As a result, life balances on a razor’s edge between greatness and evil. That’s life, so what’s Zen?

Long before there was science, of any kind, people were natural scientists and engaged in the scientific method. They wondered. They created hypotheses. They tested these ideas in various ways. They found out through trial and error what worked and what didn’t, and they learned just like scientists do today. Now we have formal sciences, and one of these is neurology: the study of the brain. Zen is the study of the mind and is conducted almost precisely as any science is done —through observation but not with tools. In Zen, the mind uses itself to examine what it produces: the coming and going of thoughts and emotions. When thoughts arise, they are observed as unreal images. When they subside, we are left with silence of what seems to be a definable observer, but in truth is simply consciousness.

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

The common-coin understanding of Zen is wrong. Ordinarily, Zen is considered to be a branch on the tree of Buddhism, but what many people don’t realize is that Zen came first, a long time before there was such a thing as the religion of Buddhism. The original name for Zen was dhyana and is recorded in history as far back as 7,000 years. The Buddha lived around 2,500 years ago and used the mental technology of Zen to experience his enlightenment. Properly speaking, it isn’t Zen Buddhism but rather Buddhist Zen—the mystical form of Buddhism. All orthodox religions have mystical arms, and all of them have meditation as a core principle. 

More than 300 years ago, Voltaire, a famous French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, defined mediation in a way quite similar to Bodhidharma (“Zen is not thinking”). He put it this way: “Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.” While Zen isn’t electronic, it is similar since our brain works by exchanging electrical transmissions, and Zen is the most thoroughgoing technology ever conceived for fathoming the human mind.

Because of scientific advances that have occurred in our time, we know the human brain is the most sophisticated computer ever and is capable of calculation speeds a billion times faster than any machine yet built. Furthermore, it is “dual-core,” computing in parallel mode with entirely different methods. One side works like a serial processor (our left hemisphere), and the other works as a parallel processor (or right hemisphere). On the left side of our brain is the image factory, creating thought images, and on the right side of our brain is the one watching the images. The left creates code, and the right reads the code. The left is very good at analyzing, dissecting, and abstracting while the right interprets and says what it all means. The right side “thinks” in pictures (interpreting the images). The left side talks but doesn’t understand, and the right side understands but doesn’t talk. Together the two sides make a great team, but individually they make bad company.

Zen is the mental technology of using the mind to understand itself. The true mind watches the movement and arising of the code to grasp how the “machine” works. Everything perceived and processed is applied consciousness and is watched. There is a conditional and object-oriented aspect, and there is an unconditional objectless aspect. Both sides of our brain have no exclusive and independent status. Only when they function together are they of much use. It is much like a wheel: the outside moves while the inside is empty and is the axle around which the external wheel moves. Our conscious subjective center is unseen and without form. Our objective nature has form and is seen.

In a metaphorical way, our brain could be considered hardware and our mind software. Software instructs the hardware on how to operate. Together these two are mirror opposites and rely upon the other side. In Buddhist terminology, this relationship is called dependent arising, (alternatively dependent origination) which means they can only exist together. The two sides of our brain are mirror partners. An inside requires an outside. They come and go together. Neither side can exist separately. Everything can only exist in that way.

The entire universe, in infinite configuration and form, is mostly empty. If you delve into quantum physics, you arrive at nothing. If you go to the farthest reaches of space, you arrive at nothing. Before the Big-Bang, there was nothing. Now there is everything. Everything is the same thing as nothing. And this fantastic awareness comes about by merely watching the coming and going of the manifestations of our mind. Through Zen, we learn about both the subjective/empty and the objective/full nature of ourselves. And what we discover through this process of watching and learning is quite amazing. The primary lesson learned is that there is both an image that is not real and a conscious reality that watches the images.

We think in image forms. Thoughts are not real. They are abstractions, coded messages that represent something but are not what’s being described. In our minds-eye, we see a constant flow of images and ordinarily imagine these images are real and, in such a state of mind, go unaware that there is a conscious faculty that watching this flow. That’s what being aware of our thoughts means. There is “one” who is watching, and there is what’s being watched. In truth, this “one” is not a person, but rather a capacity and function.  Neither of these (the watcher or the watched) can exist by itself. It takes both for thinking to occur.

The problem with our world today is that we are predominantly left-brain analyzers and have not been trained to make sense of what’s being analyzed. The imagined self (ego) is self-righteous, self-centered, greedy, possessive, hostile, and angry. The problem with identity is that we assume that there are an objective and independent watcher doing the watching, and we label that watcher as “me”—a self-image (otherwise called an ego). But here is where this must lead. So long as we see an image of ourselves, that image (ego) can’t possibly be the watcher because the watcher can’t see itself. So long as we see any images (self-image included), there is a difference between what is being watched and the watcher.

Education (in a usual sense) trains our language and analytics capacities but ignores the functions that enhance compassion, creativity, and insight. Consequently, we are out of balance aggressors, dominated by our egos and unaware that we are creating an abstract and unreal world that is progressively more and more violent and hostile.

The true “person” has no image dimension because all images are objective, whereas the true person is subjective consciousness. Subject/Object—two halves joined together into a single real person. One part can be seen (an image), and the other part can’t be seen (consciousness watching the image). An image isn’t real. It just looks that way. The consciousness part that is real—unconditionally the same in all sentient beings—is the part that can’t be seen. The entire time of remaining in this image-based realm, restricted by conceptual thought, is, in fact, a reflection of reality: a dream. When we move beyond thinking to the reality of pure consciousness, we wake up into an imageless realm (the root from which all things emanate), that is too incredible to describe.

How high is the sky, how deep is the ocean of consciousness?

The depths of consciousness

The Buddhist concept of 9 levels of consciousness provides a great template for a life of transformative change. And it matters not at all what religion you choose. The teaching of the close interconnectedness of all living things is universal. It shows how changes we make for the better in our lives lead to positive changes in others. We are all connected like myriad cogwheels, which is true regardless of any religious affiliation.

It is doubtful that anyone questions the depth of the first five levels of consciousness since we use these 24/7 to interface with the outside world in which we live: Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch are as deep as the vast majority go. And their world is understood based on these perceptible, objective measurements. The next level is the commingling (gestalt) of these five, and we know it as the “quotidian” (e.g., common/everyday) mind of thoughts and emotions. For most, these first 6 levels of consciousness are where we spend most of our time performing daily activities. 

Then comes a deeper level of consciousness of inward-looking rather than an outward orientation. This 7th level is what we would call the discriminating mind, concerned with the sense of self (ego) and our ability to distinguish between good and evil. Everything is separated, mutually exclusive, alienated between opposites, based on the first six levels of perception and processing, like an upside-down tree with roots in the air.

Deeper yet is the 8th level, where the seeds of karma from previous lives reside. This level is known as the Alaya-vijnana: The Storehouse Consciousness: the place where all the actions and experiences in this life and previous lives generated by the seven consciousnesses are stored as karma. It is the only level of consciousness that comes along with every mortal birth. This compendium level influences the workings of the other seven consciousnesses by coloring (biasing) the layers of consciousness above (e.g.,. metaphorically, rose-colored glasses). 

Because of the karmic seeds (Vāsanā) contained in the storehouse, one may die a premature death, be stricken with unexpected disease or inexplicable misfortune, be overcome by strong desires, aversions, and obsessions, can think and do things that one should never even imagine by the judgment of the level of morality of the ego. So strong is the influence of these seeds, a person may not wish to harm anyone and yet end up killing a hundred or a thousand people. He or she is, in fact, acting out to the influence of past karma contained in the karmic storehouse.

The base consciousness—the foundation of them all, is like the ocean floor. It is known as the ground of all being and is free from the impurities and filters of karma. Therefore, it is called the fundamental pure consciousness, without blemish of any kind (e.g., Vāsanā, based preconceived notions). This is the ground level basis of all life, and being free of impurities, it is known as emptiness (Śūnyatā in Sanskrit—the realm of Enlightenment). Upon this base lies the deep and the waves of change. Yet, unexpectedly, at this level, one finds within themselves a structure of wisdom and compassion, without limits). No ocean exists without both a base and the waters above. This level was illustrated in a parable told by Jesus in Luke 6:46-48 when the base is washed clean of what lay above.

The “how-to” exercise of genuine awakening to all levels is a matter of going within, plunging downward, deep through the depths of darkness, into and through the “mud” of the sub-conscious, facing and resolving the obstacles that block our true nature and thus releasing the seeds of loving-kindness. It is like the shaft of a lotus plant, reaching upward through the depths toward the sun. Becoming aware of the entire fullness of mind entails first dissolving the artificial sense of individual existence, as a single drop merges with the ocean. 

When you are set free from knowing who you are not, then immediately, faster than a bolt of lightning, you become Self-aware, not as an image, but rather that which you are truly: Identical to, and merged with, every other drop that constitutes the entire ocean of consciousness. This profound process concludes with the realization of inherent perfection, the ancient Greeks called teleos—completion or arrival.

Understanding our mind is essential to the discernment of our true nature, and without that understanding, we will remain vulnerable to the influence of the ignorant and despots. The father of Zen said this: “The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like the root of a tree. All a tree’s fruit and flowers, 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.”—Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

Question: Does suffering have a positive side?

Someone close to me asked this question, and to give a proper answer, I found it necessary to first define some terms. 

Suffering is a mental/emotional response to not getting what we want. Next, I had to define who is experiencing this suffering and how this entity perceives a positive outcome. And by positive, I mean the perception of satisfaction.  Our ordinary way of answering this entity question is with the answer of me. Yet who is this me? And how is this me perceived or experienced?

By understanding the mechanics of perception, we can better understand how “I” becomes the core of corruption and sadness. Perception requires several dimensions. First, there must be a sensory system. We have five interdependent components of our system: sight, smell, auditory, touch, taste, and a thinking processor. Signals from each element are transmitted from objects to particular registry locations in our brain where they are identified, merged with other sensory dimensions into a gestalt, and coded into words and thoughts. For example, the object of a rose is fabricated into a mental image constructed from the merged registry’s of sight, smell, and touch, which is then labeled Rose.

The second aspect of perception entails observation of objects. For objects to be sensed, they must be distinguished from other objects, and to be understood, they must be differentiated (e.g., discriminated) into two opposite dimensions. An object is defined as an observable thing. Observation can be either physical or mental. An idea is a mental image (or object), whereas a rose is a physical object that becomes a mental image. The idea of a rose is different than an actual rose, and the word rose is different yet. Both the word and an idea are abstractions, or codes, to represent a real rose and both enable imagination and communication. To be perceived and understood, an object requires contrast (discriminate properties). For example, the idea of up only makes sense given the opposite of down; in opposed to out, a rose opposed to a non-rose.

The third and most important dimension of perception regards one who perceives (an observer) and the understanding that a true perceiver can’t perceive itself, since this perceiver has no observable properties or limiting identity yet can perceive anything objectively configured. This perceiver is our spiritual nature (versus our objective nature) and is understood as the true, unconditional mind. The mind is the locus of all perceptions, whereas the ordinary way of understanding the mind is a manifestation of the true mind (mental images, thoughts, and emotions).

Now we return to this idea of me. The same process of perception is involved with this me; only in the case of self-identification, there is no object to perceive except a physical body and a mental image of who we think we are: an ego or soul. In various traditions (religious, philosophical, etc.), the term “soul” was considered to be the psyche, from which the word “psychology” arises. The ancient Greeks expressed this as ψυχή, (e.g., Soul) and within the Buddhist tradition, it was known as Atman or Moksha. And it was understood in a similar fashion: The origin within human nature that produces mental images, thoughts, and emotions. Alternatively, the soul was understood as ego—the universal word for “I.” 

This mental image is now mostly understood as a totally fabricated, imaginary entity. Nevertheless, the image satisfies the requirement of being a conditional, discriminate object, which can be perceived by the one doing the perceiving. Thus there is an object of perception (self-image) and our spiritual being that is perceiving. It is essential to not confuse two terms: self and mind. Both the true Self and the true Mind are used synonymously. Neither has any identifiable properties since neither are objects. However, we have ideas about both. We imagine that the mind is the manifestation rather than the source. The distinction between a manifestation and the source is preeminent. 

The source of creation is vastly different from what is fabricated or created, just as a manufacturing plant is different from what is manufactured in the plant. The ideas we possess about ourselves are simply the product of imagination. Whether we label these ideas as ego/self-image or soul, they remain imaginary. We imagine a self that is an objective fabrication rather than who we truly are: The unconditional spiritual source. And as with anything else, there must be the two opposite parts that allow perception to occur. Importantly these two (self-image and the Self, represented by the image) are opposite in nature, just as up is opposite from down. The ego/soul is perceived, and we conclude, “that’s me.” But the ego is not the true self. It is a fabricated image to represent the self, and this ego is entirely unaware of the one creating and perceiving the image because the perceiver can’t be seen. The true Self is not conditionally objective; instead, it is unconditional without a limiting identity, which means that the true Self is identical in every sentient being, and is known as Buddha-nature. But to realize this within yourself is the antithesis of who we think we are. Meister Eckhart, perhaps the greatest of all Christian mystics—very close in his understanding to the most esteemed Zen Masters said: 

“The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel you must break the shell.” 

Of course, he was speaking of cracking the ego to discover our true nature within. We, humans, are superior problem solvers, but we only solve obvious ones, and we say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If we are continuously satisfied, there is no perceived problem and, thus, nothing to solve. People live their entire lives, denying their own suffering. Still, suffering is unavoidable so long as we misunderstand our true, unconditional nature but instead see ourselves as a vulnerable and conditional soul or ego. Suffering then is the seed of motivation to learn both who we are not and who we are truly. 

The ego is continuously vulnerable to suffering and wrongly concludes that possessing one object (which, when lost) can be solved by possessing another object to replace the one lost. Thus, the ego is possessive and greedy. This never works since all things change. After experiencing this failing process over and over, the ego is overwhelmed, suffers continuously, and becomes angry, hostile, blameful, and often violent. This strategy ultimately implodes, and the ego tries a very different approach but is not quick to commit suicide and eradicate itself.

The problem all along is this process of perception and conclusion of judgmental discrimination, me vs. not me, good vs. evil, all of which are concerned with objects and judgment. At long last, after endless suffering, the ego/soul begins to die, and we pursue a path of true Self-emergence and unity with our source, which has no identifying properties. This death of what is fabricated reveals what has been there all along, as a clear sky is revealed when clouds move away and are characterized within different spiritual disciplines in different ways.

The Buddhist manner of addressing this process is nearly the same as the Christian manner. When The Christ was quoted as saying in John 12:24-25 (“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”) he wasn’t saying anything significantly different than The Buddha when he distinguished between the Dharmakāya (body of truth as the source of all manifestations) and the misidentification of ourselves. Immortality encloses mortality. 

The question becomes, how to get rid of the conditional illusions or images we hold of ourselves and merge with our unconditional selves? How is this pragmatically accomplished? And the answer is to stop the process of abstract thinking (imagining) at least long enough to realize our true nature. The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) defined Zen as not thinking. Thinking, in simple terms, is the perception of virtual ideas and images. When we don’t think, what we are left with is the true Self-perceiver (The spiritual Mind) that is unified and unconditional (no discriminate properties). This true Self-perceiver is who all of us are, unconditionally and without limited identity. This is the essential conscious energy that permeates all life and is the place of constant peace and tranquility. This part of us never changes. It was never born, doesn’t die, and is without judgment. There is nothing to discriminate or judge since it is unconditional, unified, and whole.

In The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, he taught: 

“Every suffering is a buddha-seed, because suffering impels mortals to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is buddhahood. Your body and mind are the field. Suffering is the seed, wisdom the sprout, and buddhahood the grain.”

If there were no suffering, we would never search for the truth. It is anguish and suffering that goes on impelling us to reach beyond. This entire dawning of genuine, unified, Self-awareness (soul-awareness) could not happen without solving the problem of perceived suffering. Suffering alone provides the engine of motivation, and that is the value of suffering.

We are now deeply involved in a time when suffering is vast. Not only are we trying to survive a global pandemic, but we are also facing a warming climate that will ultimately mean our destruction, we are perhaps, at long last, coming to terms with racism, millions are now unemployed, losing their means of living and facing starvation. Hatred and violence are running rampid and the outlook, from a mortal perspective is grim. And yet, there is a rising tide of motivation to solve these issues. It may be the dawn of a time of significant transformation.