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.

The Big Bang and immeasurable silence.

Singularity and the void.

Back in the period before pandemic social-distancing, the story of Stephen Hawking was playing in movie theaters: The Theory of Everything. Recently I watched a biographical documentary film about his life. He has been credited with the “proof” that nothing beyond naturally occurring physical conditions contributed to the Big Bang and therefore concluded there was no God. 

In his view (solely based on a universe governed by physical, conditional matter), there was no before and no space beyond the moment of singularity. Accordingly, everything we know, including time, began with the Big Bang.

What Hawking did not consider was the context of the void within which the Big Bang occurred, that according to all scientists, has no limitations or boundaries. Earlier cosmologists argued that the expansion of the universe would eventually slow, come to a stop and then begin to collapse back to the beginning: a sort of Cosmic Breath, resulting in an eternal continuing series of black hole/singularities with expansions and contractions.  However, contrary to the orthodoxy of the time, no evidence has been found to support this process. Instead, there is evidence to the contrary: expansion is speeding up into the unconditional void.

One of the preeminent foundations, upon which Hawking’s conclusions rest, is the definition of space as understood within the field of General Relativity. Einstein argued that physical objects are not located in space, but rather have a ‘spatial extent.’ Seen in this way, the concept of empty space loses its meaning. Instead, space is an abstraction based on the relationships between objects, and without objects (due to the confluence of space and time), there would be neither space nor time at the point of singularity. 

The development of quantum mechanics complicated the modern interpretation of a vacuum by requiring indeterminacy. In the late 20th century, this principle was also understood to predict a fundamental uncertainty in the number of particles in a region of space, leading to predictions of ‘virtual particles’ arising spontaneously out of the void.

The scientific conclusions don’t address the limitless void since there is nothing to measure in a vacuum. However, to those who subscribe to the precepts of Zen, the void is everything yet nothing. According to Zen Master Huang Po:

“To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe. Moreover, in thus contemplating the totality of phenomena, you are contemplating the totality of mind. All these phenomena are intrinsically void, and yet this mind with which they are identical is no mere nothingness. By this, I mean that it does exist but, in a way, too marvelous for us to comprehend. It is an existence, which is no existence, a non-existence, which is nevertheless existence. To the ancients, to find the true essence of life, it was necessary to cast off body and mind. When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha.”

Similarly, Bodhidharma stated: “To say that the real Dharmakāya of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya ... they are one and the same thing... When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning ... this great Nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

It isn’t necessary to grasp either the highly technical nature of theoretical physics or the higher spiritual nature of Zen to understand the dimensions of The Big Bang, the context within which it occurred, and that of the infinite nature of the Void. All that is necessary is to understand a relatively simple matter: dependent origination, which says that everything that exists arises and ceases along with an opposite dimension. 

A simple example will suffice. “There is no up without a down. There is no in without an out. There is no phenomenon without noumenon. There is no physics without metaphysics. And there is nothing conditional without an unconditional dimension.” Thus to prove anything regarding the beginning of the universe (which Hawking later recanted) without considering the void is like showing the existence of fish without finding water. His latter perspective was that the universe was unconditional (no beginning, no end, no limits of any kind), which is precisely the position held by enlightened individuals. 

At Google’s Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Hawking said that “philosophy is dead,” and further, “philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science;” that scientists “have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”

Stephen Hawking was awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 2006: America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, and the Russian Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012. It is easy to agree with Hawking that there is no God, since “God” is a simple handle we use to speak of the ineffable source of everything. That, however, doesn’t really address the essential issue. With all due respect for his amazing insights and accomplishments, until the scientific community deals with the void and the Mind, the work will remain incomplete.

Primal ignorance and primal enlightenment.

When all of the pieces fit together

In a previous post: Our overturned world, I shared Patañjali’s view of the five kleshas as being the causes of suffering. His perspective that the very first klesha: ignorance of the true nature of reality, was the foundational cause of suffering. When this primal ignorance is overturned, the other four fall into place. That being the case, the question becomes, what is the opposite of primal ignorance? When ignorance falls away, what is our natural (primal) state of mind, and what is it that results and produces a state of transformation?

Some time ago, I wrote about two opposing states of karma: Karma and the Wheel of Life and Death, and Karma and the Wheel of Dharma. The Buddha compared two paths: one leading to the discriminate states of life versus death and the other, leading to our true nature—pure consciousness without any discriminate properties, known as Buddha-nature: the realm of unity or natural enlightenment. Can that realm be perceived? And if so what does it look like? The point was made that the entire universe is a function of consciousness, or said another way: the universe is nothing other than the primordial mind in manifestation. 

The Buddha taught in the Mahaparinirvana Sūtra, “Seeing the actions of 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.”  Of course, the mind is the source (consciousness) and as such, can’t see itself. We only see manifestations.

In that same Sūtra, he taught that “If impermanence is killed, what there is, is eternal Nirvana. If suffering is killed, one must gain bliss; if the void is killed, one must gain the real. If the non-self is killed, one must gain the True Self. O, great King! If impermanence, suffering, the Void, and the non-self are killed, you must be equal to me.”

Now we come to the critical point: unapplied consciousness has no properties. It is pure and indiscriminate. Only when consciousness is applied can discrimination occur. Until then, everything is unified and whole. 

A favorite sūtra of Bodhidharma was the Lankavatara. Here it says, “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is a place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakāya (our true primordial mind of wisdom/consciousness) which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?” 

Elsewhere Bodhidharma taught that the Dharmakāya was just another name for the Buddha and said, “When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning ... this great Nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

All of the above harmonizes with Nagarjuna’s Two Truth Doctrine and the teachings of many other Zen Masters that we have two minds (one a mind of manifestation with discriminate properties and the other the great Nirvanic Mind without discrimination of any kind). In truth, these are not two but rather the unified integration of ignorance and bliss. Rationally, it appears as if there are two but think of these two dimensions as you would a roof with an outside and an inside. 

There is only one roof. From the outside, there is light, and everything appears as discriminate, but from the darkness, in the attic (where no light exists), nothing can be seen, thus no discrimination. A roof is, however, a feeble example since the mind that can’t be seen contains nothing and everything at the same time. Everything comes from there, but until the moment of applied consciousness, there’s nothing perceptible. It’s an everything/nothing mind.  

The great Nirvanic Mind is not perceptible since it’s the ground out of which all perception emanates. It can only be experienced but in itself is “…far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind.” Here there is no life or death, no self or other, no birth or death, no misidentification (asmita), no attachment (raga), no anger following a loss (dvesha), no misunderstanding life, and death (abhinivesha), no versus of any kind. THIS is what a transformed mind is, and when you awaken to this realm, you discover nothing other than what has always been: your true self—the Mind of the Buddha, full to overflowing in wisdom (the opposite of primal ignorance). This is when all of the pieces fall into place—this is the true nature of reality.

The Watcher

“Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.”—The opening stanza of Chapter 16 of The Tao Te Ching

This post is more than likely going to result in a big yawn since the message should be self-evident, but probably not. Go see a movie (it’s instructive to my point), and you’ll undoubtedly notice two things: (1) You are sitting in your seat and (2) you’re seeing images moving on a screen. No-brainer. Watch TV; Same thing. Neither of those images is real, and you know that. 

So far, so good. Now take it to a not-so-evident level—You see the world, and it moves. There is still you, but is what you see real? That is taken for granted as being real, but as far as your mind is concerned it is no different from a movie or TV. Your true mind doesn’t distinguish. It just notices movement, and you could be asleep and, in principle, it is the same. Dreams come, they go, and there must be you who sees what moves. That you, the true Self, is a constant. Yet it is not yours. It never moves and it can’t be found. It just watches, listens, smells, tastes, and feels. It perceives everything but in itself is nothing.

“Look, and it can’t be seen. Listen, and it can’t be heard. Reach, and it can’t be grasped.

Above, it isn’t bright. Below, it isn’t dark. Seamless, unnamable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.”—Chapter 14 of The Tao Te Ching

Bandaids and fish.

The hidden root.

We live within an unfortunate protocol as the standard for treating pain and suffering, which is easily articulated by an analogy of a bandaid covering a festering wound. 

Determining causes, by necessity, takes us beneath the surface to find the root. Unexpectedly, the world of medical science is now playing catch up and turning to some surprising spiritual sources that don’t fit within scientific orthodoxy but work nevertheless.

We’re all familiar with the Chinese proverb of, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The proverb seems to imply an either/or. The problem with this either/or sentiment is it assumes the man will stay alive long enough to learn to fish. In the world of today that is not a luxury, we can afford. We must do both or the patient will starve before learning. Many millions around the world die daily waiting for the fish to arrive.

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

The Buddha spent his life ferreting out the root cause of suffering and began his diagnosis with the first of Four Nobel Truths: Life (e.g., mortal or conditional) is suffering. That observation took place more than 2,500 years ago but until recently his diagnosis ran under the radar of medical orthodoxy. Pathfinders have always made inroads by bucking the tide of conventional wisdom and this is certainly true for Dr. John E. Sarno, previously Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the prestigious Institute of Rusk Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University Medical Center.

Sarno’s most notable achievement was the development of his diagnosis, and treatment of tension myoneural syndrome (TMS), which is currently not accepted by mainstream medicine. Nevertheless, according to Sarno, TMS is a psychosomatic illness causing chronic back, neck, and limb pain which is not relieved by standard medical treatments.

Dr. Sarno noted in his practice that back surgery wasn’t working; it was failing to bring effective relief to his patients. He also noted unsatisfactory results from physical therapy, as well as from steroidal injections, and all the other therapeutic techniques commonly administered. He instinctively felt that there had to be something else going on with back pain. So he began to look more deeply into his patients’ charts where he noticed that his back pain patients also had many other things going on with their health. In addition to back pain, many had bouts of the shoulder and hip pain, knee pain, foot and hand pain, skin problems, anxiety, depression, migraines, ulcers, irritable bowel, heartburn, frequent urination, and allergies. Dr. Sarno shrewdly noted that where there’s smoke there’s often fire.

After having lived forty years with the belief that I was unworthy, I stood at the abyss of such despair that I seriously considered suicide. It was at that critical point that I left the world behind and lived in a Zen monastery and discovered, that the cause of my suffering was rooted in my mind. What I had previously believed, was a fabricated idea and the product of cultural myths, judgments, and misinformation. It took me quite a long time to root out the poison that existed in thought only.

Thankfully, while there I ate a few fish, lived, and then learned to fish. And then I came to a surprising realization: If I could pass on both the eating and the learning then just about anyone could as well. After all, the wisdom of The Buddha was not mine to selfishly possess. It belongs to the global community.

Complete Release— Number 2

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday this identity issue appeared to be unresolved with us trapped in a logical box. So now let’s shift gears and come at this from a different tack by turning, of all places, to the Bible and look at an insightful passage:

“For our light and momentary troubles (causes and effects at the conditional level) are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” —2 Corinthians 4:17-18

“How does the Bodhisattva-mahasattva meditate on the Void-Void? This Void-Void is where the sravakas (see ending note) and the pratyekabuddhas (see ending note) get lost. O good man! This is ‘is’ and this is ‘not-is’. This is the Void-Void.” Chapter 22—Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

When we are finally done with hope in temporal life; when we see completely that there is nothing to hold on to that doesn’t result in suffering; when we finally get it that attachment is a dead-end, rooted in a deluded sense of separate and independent identity, then we can emancipate ourselves by releasing from attachment to attachment. 

Is relinquishing opinions.

Believers in emptiness

Are incurable.”—Nagarjuna

And this from Buddhist scripture:

An is, in this context, means form as when we refer to something: We say it is a ladder. The is has defined characteristics. The not-is has no defining characteristic, which makes it emptiness or in other words the Void. 

The Void is the Wall—Essence: the unconditional nature of us all. One side of reality against which the ladder, (e.g., the other side) rests. Emptiness and form are the divine partnership, which frames reality. The Void is, as the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, unseen. So what does that make the Void-Void? The answer to this question is what makes Zen, Zen and to answer the question we turn to the 14th Patriarch of Buddhism—Nagarjuna.

He really knit this together as well as anyone ever has. His expositions on emptiness are sublime. What he leads us all to see is that if emptiness has any validity then it must measure up to emptiness itself. Empty-Emptiness; the Void-Void. Let’s examine this carefully and see where it goes. First, appreciate Nagarjuna’s interest and focus. He was not interested in meaningless philosophy and speculation. He wanted to rip apart speculation and arrive at the residue of truth. He wasn’t trying to create a new dimension of faith. He was working with the raw material spoken by the Buddha, and his focus was the dimensions of reality, which sat on a three-legged stool. The legs were:

1. Emptiness/essence/The Void (sometimes referred to as  Śūnyatā)—our unconditional Self

2. Form/matter/temporal life (in Sanskrit “Rupa”)—Our apparent self

3. Dependent origination

These three integrated measures of reality define what is known in Buddhism as the Middle Way. Here’s how these three fit together. Form must emerge from somewhere. That somewhere is the ‘is’ of ‘is.’ ‘Is’ equals otherness with defined characteristics, which makes it limited in time, space, and causality. ‘Is’ therefore is not the somewhere, otherwise, it would define itself, like a car with no driver. 

The somewhere must not be limited. It must have no properties yet all properties at the same time, therefore the somewhere is the indefinable, transcendent essence, which, as Paul states, is unseen—the Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-womb). These two—form and emptiness—come into existence simultaneously. One can’t precede the other for the same reason that a thinker can’t precede thinking. 

Creation by definition implies a creator just like a thinker implies thinking. This simultaneous arising is what is known as dependent origination. But that dependent origination as stated earlier seems to occur in the imaginary box, which looks like an unsolvable problem.

So let’s take the next step and see how we can resolve it. What is the pinnacle of surrendering? Surrendering from surrendering. What does that mean? It means the logical ground of faith. Surrendering is an action; a motion and form is the instrument of motion, but not the prime mover of the motion. Something must propel the motion of surrendering. It doesn’t occur by itself just as a car requires a driver. Mind essence is the indefinable, unseen Void-Void which propels motion. 

But this mind essence is not mind as we normally think of, as a product of our limited and independent brain. This is the primal mover of all motion. This mind moves flags, the wind, and us. It is the is of “is”.  When Nagarjuna postulates empty-emptiness, the Void is transformed back into form in a never-ending feedback loop, which can’t be separated.

This inseparable feedback loop of form/emptiness is this very special mind essence (our true nature) not emptiness or form but both. If it were one or the other we would still be non-integrated and dual, regardless of logic. 

The Buddha created a completely new paradigm, which brought speculation about self/SELF (anatman/atman) to an end, thus resolving the identity issue. If only emptiness/essence (atman) this would be like a ghost. If only form/flesh (self) this would be the non-walking dead—“Just like a plant or stone”. 

The combined union of emptiness-form provides all that is needed for the existence of life. It has the driver (essence) and the car (form) and the combination—not one or the other—makes the motion of surrendering possible. Neither alone would suffice. The two become one, but the One is two interdependent aspects of the same thing—the Ladder with a Wall. That being the case, dependent origination remains intact but no longer in a box constrained by mundane logic. This union has a name called mind essence. The technical term is the sambhogakaya—one of three aspects of a Buddha.

Attaching to anything, including attachment, creates misery. It is quite possible to become dogmatically undogmatic and cling to a fixed position of being uniquely undogmatic, but that would still leave us attached, resulting in the sort of dilemma we see today with people getting locked into unswerving ideologies and unable to compromise. 

Letting go of everything creates emancipation thus enabling us to conform to actions demanded by evolving circumstances.  When we see that, then we no longer fix our eyes on what is seen but rather fix our eyes what is unseen. What Paul asked of Christian believers to do as an act of blind faith, The Buddha and Nagarjuna reasoned as a logically discerned premise. 

There is a logical foundation for faith, which arose 500 years before Jesus walked the earth, and it came from Gautama Buddha, later to be refined by Nagarjuna sometime during the 2nd century CE, about a hundred years after the apostle Paul died during the 1st century CE. 

The problem is fairly simple to solve once we let go of the fixed limitations of conceptual, mundane logic, by escaping from this box of rational logic and accessing intuitive, supra-mundane logic. When the Heart Sutra says that emptiness is form and form is emptiness we need to look carefully at these words as an equation: as mirror images. The union can’t be broken.

Complete release means surrendering from faith in this material existence and placing our faith completely in the unseen union of mind essence: the Void-Void. From that point on, wisdom shifts from the mundane to spiritual origins and becomes Prajnaparamita—Perfect Wisdom—we enter the realm of Nirvana: “The ‘Dharmata’ (True Essence) of all Buddhas” and then see reality, as it is without discrimination. That is the ultimate wisdom. Complete release means the total absence of delusions, which thus allows the shining jewel of prajna to burst forth.

“Buddhas say emptiness

The problem with the conventional understanding of Paul’s statement is that it keeps God at bay; as a separate reality—in the bye-and-bye, not accessible in the here and now. What the Buddha brought to this discussion is integration. God/Buddha-Nature is both in the bye-and-bye and in the here and now. 

Buddha-Nature can’t be divided and neither can we since we are fundamentally Buddhas. The curious thing about Paul’s statement is not what he said but how it is usually understood. The conventional wisdom of his day—that God lived in heaven in the sky (where the Pie resides)—was used to interpret what he said. If you read his statement carefully you will not find a separate God.

And contrary to the Christian notion that we are separated from God, The Buddha saw this separation as impossible! We could quibble about the difference between God and mind essence and miss the point, which is that every moment within every sphere of existence, our beingness is the inseparable union of the seen (which dies) and the unseen (which lives forever). The true you and the true me is indiscriminate and exactly the same. It has no definable properties yet infuses all properties. Unless this is true then we are all like immovable stones.

This post concludes this series on surrender but more needs to be said about this matter of essence—the true you and me. Without a solid grasp of essence this entire matter floats about in the air with very little practical understanding and nothing is more practical than grasping our true nature.

Note: A sravakas is a disciple and a pratyekabuddhas is a lone Buddha; said to achieve enlightenment on their own, without the use of teachers or guides, by contemplating the principle of dependent arising.

Pie in the Mouth

In probing the layers of human physiology and psychology, Paul Broks, neuropsychologist/philosopher, leads us through a haunting journey in his book Into the Silent Land. 

 It is hard not to be stunned by reading his dissecting view of what it means to be human. We take so many things for granted. That, which is basically inanimate “meat,” can and routinely does animate with consciousness, cognition, imagination, feelings and every other aspect of our condition seems to float by as a given. This fundamental mystery is so ingrained into our being that it goes unnoticed, but not by Broks.

He asks alarming and provocative questions such as “Am I out there or in here?” when he portrays an imaginary man with a transparent skull, watching in a mirror his own brain functions. He notices, for us all, that the world exists inside the tissue residing between our ears. And when the tissue is carefully examined, no world, no mind, no ego/self, no soul, no perceptual capacities, nor consciousness—nothing but inanimate meat is found. Unable to locate, what we all take for granted, he suggests that we are neither “in here” nor “out there,” maybe somewhere between the space between the in and the out, and maybe nowhere at all.

Yet here I am writing these words, and there you are reading them, and so it has always been. We are nowhere and we are everywhere. Not to be found yet fully here. We are like holograms; mind manifestations, which appear or vanish when we are plugged in or out. The inescapable conclusion that arises from such a probe is that we are spirit. No other sensible conclusion is possible. This great mystery has puzzled and confounded humans since the dawn of time, thousands of years before there was the science of neurophysiology or neuropsycholgy. How is it possible that we function as we do, out of what is basically meat? The answer remains hidden beneath veils of mystery.

Anyone familiar with the Heart Sutra can’t help but observe the coincidence between Broks probe and the message contained in the sutra—that there is both delusion and non-delusion. There are human aspects rooted in illusion (which have no substantial reality) and there is the realm of all-pervasive, ever-present perfect peace which is, itself formless and void but nevertheless the well-spring of our existence. There is nothing to be found nor attained in the meat. And because of this “...The Bodhisattva relying on Prajnaparamita has no obstruction in his mind.” Prajna (wisdom)+ Paramita (perfection) means perfect wisdom. Such enlightenment comes with the acceptance of this great mystery, that there is nothing to be found yet we exist as manifestations of what we call God. That is the great mystery, not the animated meat!

And what is of equal fascination is how the Western mind grapples with this mystery versus how the Eastern mind does. Whereas the Eastern mind accepts the mystery as a given, the Western mind wants to probe beyond and explain the mystery—to understand it. To western thinking it is extraordinarily difficult to set the matter to rest, to drop it and just let it be. To Zen, a “nose” is not a nose (the convention of N_O_S_E) but rather the tweak of the object that lies between the eyes. Zen wishes us to wake up and feel the tweak—to move beyond all conventions, abstractions and models—and savor life as it is rather than to describe or understand it. 

“If one reaches the point where understanding fails, this is not such a tragedy: it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking. Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all: perhaps we only need to wake up.” (Zen and the Birds of Appetite)

To Zen, even conventions such as “The Void,” “God” and “Self” are not to be understood but are rather to be experienced. Such a thrust moves us beyond holographic understandings, beyond ideas and beliefs systems—conventions about life—into the realm of life itself. Zen is about pie in the mouth, savored on the tongue instead of a perfect description of the pie that exists only in the holograms of our mind.