Where are we going?

Any road to nowhere.

When you cut through the extraneous and get down to the fundamental issue, knowing where we are and where we’re going is kind of important. And I’m not referring to your next business or vacation trip. I’m referring to the ultimate destination if there is one. 

That’s a rhetorical “if” statement. Obviously, we are here, and just as obviously we will die, at least the physical house within which we live and have our being.

If we’re unsure of our ultimate destination then the Cheshire Cat (see image) is quite correct: Any road will take us there. On the other hand, if there is an ultimate destination then we are either heading for it by what we think and do or we aren’t. Many are persuaded there is no ultimate destination so it doesn’t matter. Any road will get them to nowhere.

However, many are persuaded they will go either up to heaven in the sky or down to the bowels of Hell. Consequently, these folks make an attempt to do what they can to hedge their bets against some nasty brimstone (call it an insurance policy against unknowing) by doing their best to be agents for good, which is not necessarily a bad thing but the motive is questionable. They kind of know they haven’t met the requisite conditions to get where they want to go, but just maybe it will happen anyway.

Such thinking overlooks the possibility that there is nowhere to go other than where we are. Yesterday is a memory-dream and tomorrow is speculation. So the trip destination is like being inside a giant room, unaware that you are, and thus desiring to be in that room. Of course, this room is an unconditional one and as such can’t be either here or there, tomorrow, today or yesterday. And why would that be? Because it is beyond conditions (unconditional). And if it is unconditional then we don’t have to wait for the grave to get there. We’re already there. And why is that? Because it’s unconditional.

All sentient beings have consciousness—ever-present yet without any defining properties. It is always here, and there—everywhere yet nowhere. And the true nature of consciousness is Shunyata (emptiness). The ultimate nature of the mind is empty like it states in the Heart Sutra: “Likewise, consciousness is Empty, and Emptiness is also consciousness. So, natural Tathagatagarbha is the emptiness of the mind.” There is nowhere to go where it is not so why go anywhere?

Granted this perspective is not your ordinary view, which says that our earthly life is separated from both the good and the bad future places, and which way we go depends on thinking and behaving our way into one or the other. This view has a name: duality, which is the anathema of religious thought. Of course, this idea would contradict the fundamental dogmas of religions, which splits the matter into separate departments. This latter would indeed keep us separated from our source and make our union an impossible task of never making a mistake, or miming a formula that has changed over time that requires you to admit that you’re a bum and incapable of satisfying the necessary conditions. So what’re your options? Letting our source do what it does.

But if IT is unconditional (and hasn’t gone on vacation) then he/she/it lives within us, outside of us, beyond time and circumstances. And if that is true then we’re in for a very short journey because our destination is right back where we started.

As unlikely as you may think, this outlandish idea is precisely what the parable of the Prodigal Son says—taught by Jesus—or if you prefer the Zen version, it is what Hakuin Zenji, one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism, taught. The following is from his famous Song of Zazen…

“From the beginning all beings are Buddha.
Like water and ice, without water no ice, outside us no Buddhas.
How near the truth, yet how far we seek.
Like one in water crying, ‘I thirst!’
Like the son of a rich man wand’ring poor on this earth, we endlessly circle the six worlds.
The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.’”

So where are you going? And are you sure? In the end, it matters little whether you’re sure or not because what we believe has no bearing on what’s real. But knowing certainly makes the non-trip more interesting.

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.

Guests and Hosts

The road to nowhere.

Imagine the relationship between a guest (who checks in and out) and a host who accommodates the guest. These two are essential to one another. Without a host, the guest would have nowhere to stay. And without guests, a host would go broke due to a lack of revenue. Thus they are two aspects of a quest that are intended to lead to the desired destination.

Now about the quest: Why does anyone go on a quest? The obvious answer is to move towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Thus the precondition that motivates such a journey is to find what is presumed to be somewhere else, but for sure not here. Clearly, there is no justification or purpose to journey far and wide if the treasure is already in hand. What if the desired treasure IS already in hand but the traveler remains unaware? In that case, the treasure will never be found, because it is not located “far and wide.”

Now about the host: Unlike a guest, the host never moves anywhere, any time. If the host did move, how would the guest find a place of rest and nurture? In that case, the host would be a moving target. Thus the host is fixed and permanent, and the guest is always on the move and impermanent. In fact, the guest can, and does, have a beginning and an ending; is born and dies. Not so for the host; no birth, no death—permanent and eternal. And one more thing: The desired treasure is a “bird in hand,” not in the bush, only that bird seems to likewise fly in and fly away. Try to catch the bird by closing your hand and the bird flies away before the hand is closed.

Now consider this: “All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water; apart from the water there is no ice, apart from beings no Buddha. How sad that people ignore the near and search for truth afar, like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst, like a child of a wealthy home wandering among the poor.”—Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku

The treasure we all seek is already within, and in Zen literature, the treasure (the host) is called “Buddha-Nature:” our essential nature—who we all are at the core. The problem is the traveler is unaware. The presumption is a quest will lead to a distant goal that is already present, and thus we are “…like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst, like a child of a wealthy home wandering among the poor.” We, the travelers are the water: fluid and forever moving. The host is ice, solid, and unmoving. 

“The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.”—Rabindranath Tagore. Wherever the traveler goes, the host comes along, like a shadow that never leaves.

The wizard beneath our Oz.

To those familiar with the story of The Wizard of Oz—a wizard nobody had ever seen, controlled the Land of Oz. In a way, this wizard inhabited the entirety of Oz with his unseen presence. 

The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says,“...the intrinsic nature of Complete Enlightenment is devoid of distinct natures, yet all different natures are endowed with this nature, which can accord and give rise to various natures.”

On the surface, this statement sounds arcane. Trying to imagine something which has no nature but is the basis for all nature is puzzling. Whatever that is, so says the sutra, is “intrinsic,” which means belonging to the essential nature of whatever is being contemplated, in this case, “all different natures.” 

The only way this can be understood is that Complete Enlightenment is ubiquitous. It doesn’t come and it doesn’t go since it is ever-present and thus does not depend upon the conditions of space/time. The word “transcendent” comes to mind.

But, so we think, if Complete Enlightenment is devoid of nature, how is it possible to be aware of it? It almost sounds as if we’re talking about something which is both empty and full at the same time—transparent yet concrete; the ground out of which everything grows but is itself invisible. By reading further in this sutra we find this: “Complete Enlightenment is neither exclusively movement nor non-movement. Enlightenment is in the midst of both.”

In other parts of Zen literature, we learn that it is the movement of ideas wafting across our screen of consciousness that constitutes what we call “mind.” And it is thus the goal of zazen to stop this elusive movement and thereby reveal our true nature. It is the nature of our Mind to create images to represent concepts and ideas. But the mind of concepts is an abstraction and the result of rational thought. The true Mind is accessible through intuition (e.g., inner insight), not thoughts. And when challenged to imagine something which is not an idea, we come up short. We can’t imagine enlightenment because in itself it is imageless. Consequently, when we try, we fail. And it is in the midst of that failure that enlightenment is understood.

As convoluted as this sounds, this insight is Complete. If there is nothing to see, then Enlightenment is seen everywhere we look. There is thus nowhere that Enlightenment can’t be found. When we see a tree, we’re seeing the manifestation of Enlightenment. When we see the sunrise, we’re seeing Enlightenment; A dog—Enlightenment; Another person—Enlightenment; Anything/Everything—Enlightenment. All perceptible forms, we find are the eternal manifestation of Complete Enlightenment. And why would that be? Because pure consciousness has no form, yet everything is perceived out of that.

Because we have never seen Complete Enlightenment, as an exclusive and separate entity, we think it must be a mystical matter, perceptible to only a select few and we imagine that this mystical state will be the result of adopting a state of mind which, for most people, is unavailable. This is exceptionally unfortunate!

Hakuin Zenji (circa1689-1796) is famous for his “Song of Zazen” in which he says, “How sad that people ignore the near and search for truth afar: Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst; Like a child of a wealthy home, wandering among the poor.”

The clear insight of these teachings is that enlightenment is the fundamental ground of our existence. It is everywhere we look (yet never found). It is our intrinsic true nature, without which we could not exist. You might say, consciousness is the wizard beneath our Oz.

The Matrix—Illusory Mind

Image via Wikipedia

In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Ch’an Master Sheng-yen said what might seem like a startling thing. He said, “The self (imagined self/ego) creates vexation, and the vexation, in turn, reinforces the sense of self...When there is no vexation, and therefore no self, the mind of discrimination is replaced by the mind of wisdom.”

What’s going on here is a psychic feedback loop. It’s the chicken/egg thing. Vexations and self arise together. Not one and then the next. Both arise together, instantly. Thinkers think thoughts. In this case, the “thinker” is the imagined self who is thinking the thought of a self, which then thinks more thoughts. Feedback loop—one illusion creating another illusion, which creates the next, like one mirror reflecting another. There is no substantial and real “self” inside this holographic illusion. It is a mirage or as stated in the Diamond Sutra: 

“This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world: like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

All of those notions about our identity obscure any sense of our substantial real self; the union and the integrated aspect of our existence. The Ladder-Wall is the Union. It is not a Ladder or a Wall. It’s a Ladder-Wall: one inseparable thing. Form and Emptiness. Essence and non-essence. 

For thousands of years, people have been attempting and failing to rid themselves of the flesh believing that the flesh was opposed to spirit. Even today certain religious sects engage in practices of flagellation. And within certain schools of Zen, there are advocates, who press to rid themselves of all thoughts, which is a psychic version of flagellation. I’ll be saying more about this thrust in a later blog but for now, I’ll just make a quick comment: nonsense! Essence is indivisible from both flesh and our minds.

As long as we are imprisoned within this holographic feedback loop we are unaware of what is real. We are like Keanu Reeves in the classic 1999 science fiction movie “The Matrix.” The film describes a future in which the world we know is actually the Matrix, a simulated reality created by sentient machines. Only our Matrix is self-created and it has been here forever. We are the sentient machines creating our own simulated reality. When we say to “Think outside the box,” the “box” is illusory mind: the Matrix; the realm of the self creating the self.

Like Keanu Reeves, we need to be de-programmed in order to break the grip of simulation. In Zen that is done by pursuing The Middle Way. Much of the harm done by not following this path is unintentional, but real nevertheless. How could we know inside the feedback loop? 

Unlike Keanu Reeves, we follow this way both with a support group (known as a sangha) and by our self. We don’t have to go to a confessional with a priest. We know (deep down in our moments of quiet honesty, when we can get beyond denial and blame) what we’ve done and whom we’ve infected. We know what judgments we’ve made, both of others and ourselves. It isn’t necessary for us to stand before others and announce, “I’m an alcoholic and I’m always going to be one.” 

This is a prison from which we can escape with commitment, patience, diligence, and perseverance. If we wish to escape we can. It just depends on whether or not we enjoy being “In the Matrix.” Some people don’t seem to care one way or another. The entire process is sort of like taking an inventory of the mess in our houses, collecting the trash, dumping it out, and doing the best we can to not continue creating a mess. Rather than garbage in/garbage out it becomes a virtue in/virtue out: VIVO, which in Latin curiously means living that takes place inside an organism.

That is an extremely foreshortened overview of the process. In point of fact it is a process that never ends. Because we live in a conditioned world, dust accumulates. We wash our clothes and clean our houses because cleanliness is more desirable than filth. The same thing applies to our inner house. Dust accumulates (emotional and psychic dust) and we need to keep it clean. If we bring in trash, due to bad karma, we suffer. If we become attached to fleeting stuff we suffer. If we live in the illusions of life we suffer. And all of that suffering makes us cranky and then we just make more bad karma. It is an inverted way of living, which must be turned upside down and shaken about.

And the truth is, none of this deep honesty is possible so long as we remain trapped in ego la-la land—The Matrix. Mr. or Mrs. or Ms ego is extraordinarily greedy and self-centered. From the perspective of our egos, everyone else is right to be blamed for our misery. Ego is very self-righteous. None of it is our fault. It has nothing to do with our own self-generated karma. Inside this hologram of blame and self-delusion, we experience life in competition and defensiveness. The world is either/or. It is either right or it’s wrong (and always my right and your wrong). This world runs according to hard and fast rules and inflexible boundaries and to deviate from the rigor entails fear, perceived threat, and loss. 

There is never enough insulation in this realm, and to share with others is to diminish our share and thus increase our risk exposure. We build fences of all kinds to keep the bad guys out without realizing that the fences also keep us in. The threat is everywhere and there is a good reason for the concern: Everything is changing. The storms will come and we better make sure our life raft is watertight.

Sound familiar? Who can question the exposures to risk and an unknown future? No one. Risk is a part of life but there is a huge difference between living hunkered down and walking tall. The ego, because it is an illusion, is rightly concerned with risk. It should know better than anyone. The ego is fragile and so too is our fleeting world. The alternative is to accept our wholeness—our integrated beingness, and to practice it moment by moment—a sacred act, not as a concept but as a reality. 

How is that done? This is a realm without multitasking. When we eat, we eat. When we talk, we talk. Whatever we do, we do wholly, in each and every moment, whether we like it or not. We just do it and let the illusions subside. It is a practice of being present with all of the grief, anguish, pain, sorrow and joy. We cry when we cry and laugh when we laugh and we do it with gusto. No illusions or expectations or wishes or overlays. We accept life as an un-gilded lily, without embellishment nor judgments nor any other forms of distortion or fabrication. Life just is. The Buddha called this “thusness”—things as they truly are.

This might all sound like accepting everything as unavoidable, but it is not. When we accept our ego-less interdependence—beyond the Matrix, truly, we must see that we are united with all of life. There is no way to disconnect from the ubiquitous dimension of essence. We are glued to our collective world, like it or not, so unless we like living in a mess then we must do what we can to clean it up and join the living. We are not isolated and independent beings, severed from life. We are life and there is no way to have a life without death. They arise as an undivided partnership. When the world suffers we pay the price because we are members of a common family. When the world rejoices, we rejoice with it. We are not just our brother’s keeper. We are our brothers and our sisters. There is no way to sever the link of essence.

This is not an airy-fairy thing. This is reality, inseparable, indivisible, and integrated and the only way to divide it is in the illusions of our imagination. That is where the danger lies. No, this is not resignation, cynicism, defeatism, or victimization. This is the polar opposite. This is a stance of engagement and responsibility, of doing what can be done but remaining hopeful without attachment to results.

The over-riding message contained in the Diamond Sutra regards the nature of enlightenment and compassion. The Buddha was teaching Subhuti (one of his disciples) that the distinguishing mark of a true Bodhisattva is deep compassion that can only come about without any sense of ego or gain. There is no calculation or contrivance since a true Bodhisattva realizes that there is no difference between himself and others. Jesus said something very similar: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” When we accept our ground-of-being relationship with life, the unavoidable conclusion is that we share common ground. We are in this together.

Bipolar

Manic depression; Bipolar affective disorder is a certifiable mental illness that can mimic something akin to phases of awakening. 

The principle of dependent origination says that everything in life is a reflection of this fundamental principle, and this is illustrated with the broadly known relationship between suffering and enlightenment. 

Bodhidharma said that without afflictions, there could be no enlightenment. The two are linked by the principle of dependent origination. A famous Zen saying is, “No suffering. No enlightenment. Little suffering. Little enlightenment. Great suffering. Great enlightenment.”

In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Chan Master Sheng Yen said that nobody having good dreams wants to wake up. Only when they have nightmares are they eager to do so. The point is that there is a correspondence between the magnitude of both suffering and awakening. The entirety of Buddhism concerns the alleviation of suffering. There is no other purpose for this quest than that. So some reading this may think to themselves, “I don’t suffer so Zen isn’t right for me.”

I have two rejoinders to this observation: (1) not yet, (2) and denial. The “not yet” part realizes that it is impossible to live and not suffer because the fundamental nature of conditional life is suffering. The “denial” part concerns resistance (a form of attachment which creates more suffering). And I am not throwing stones of blame. I too remained in denial too long and paid the price. I wrote about this in another post: The Four Horses of Zen.

Nobody wants to suffer and unfortunately this motivates many to stay in states of denial. The pain is too sharp to bear so we stuff it down and try to go on with life and this can eventually be a large problem because it isn’t possible to keep suffering locked away forever. Sooner or later it seeps out and corrodes our sense of wellbeing.

When you learn to mediate (and practice it) all of that suppressed mental poison gets released, you clean out the pipes and move on toward wholeness. It isn’t fun to lance that boil but it beats living with the compacted aftermath of suppressed suffering. Along the way toward restored mental health there can be wide swings from one depth to the opposite, but this is the necessary result of mental house cleaning. Zen is not a practice for the faint of heart. It’s only for the most desperate and those who exhibit the necessary courage to go through the anguish required to have a life worth living.

Preparing the soil.

As a boy living in the Kansas heartland, I learned about farming. My grandmother reared me, and her first rule was “good soil.” Consequently, we used a fair amount of fertilizer, and before ever planting a seed, she had me till the soil. After that, the soil had to sit a few days, and then we planted seeds. That lesson stuck with me all these years and I employ that method in teaching and writing. Tomorrow I intend to fertilized your mind to be receptive to a few seeds and expose you to an innovative way of exploring creativity.

Creativity depends on input just, like the soil depends on fertilizer and seeds. The more information the better, but eventually, all of that input needs to be digested, assimilated, and processed for creative output to emerge. Fortunately, we are quite capable of both rational analyzing and creative insight, but they are different. People who are predominately analytic may not be the most creative and vice versa. Others seem to be more balanced and excel at both.

People who engage in Zen meditation are trained toward the middle road of balance, and in one tradition (Rinzai Zen), a device is employed to foster this balance. The device is known as a koan, which is essentially a means to force you to move beyond the limitations of the rational mind and use another part of your mind to tap into insight and intuition. 

A koan is a riddle, and the only way to solve it is by using your intuitive mind. There is no rational solution to these riddles, and the harder you try, the further away you get. That results in frustration and reaching the point of yielding. If you immerse yourself in the koan process long enough, you eventually “break open,” the struggle ends, resulting in a flash of insight and an intuitive answer, unexpectedly leaps out. 

The opposite way (incorporated in Sōtō Zen) is to engage in an extensive intellectual study until you become saturated with the ingredients, and then hopefully experience enlightenment. In either event, both the intellect and intuitive faculties are important. The Rinzai way fuels the sudden way, and the Soto way fuels the gradual way but common to both practices is zazen—the meditation process of calming and emptying your mind, which causes a shift to the intuitive side of you brain.

So tomorrow, I will walk you through a particular koan to demonstrate how this process works. 

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.

Ego Death

From time to time, I’ve written about “ego death” or “allowing the self to die.” In Jungian psychology, ego death is synonymous with psychic death, which refers to a fundamental transformation of the psyche.

Our mind is an amazing biological fabrication composed of different cells and neurons located in different parts of our brain, which function differently, yet results in a seamless view of the world and ourselves. In a balanced way, our right and left hemispheres function to bring together very different modalities to form a balanced world view, which is both analytical and compassionate. Unfortunately, most of us are not balanced due to various reasons and tend to be either overly analytic or overly affectively sensitive. For the most part, our left brain rules the day, and this hemisphere is the home of our ego (sense of self).

Our ego-mind perceives the world in a possessive/resistant way, which creates attachments, clinging, and judgments. If we like (a judgment) something, our ego attaches favorably. If we dislike (a judgment) something, our ego attaches unfavorably. This clinging to conditions results in a brittle, judgmental, and inflexible perspective of ourselves, others, and life in general. Whereas a balanced mind recognizes our interdependent union with all life, our ego-mind denies this and treasures exclusivity and independence.

The three poisons (e.g., greed, ignorance, and hatred) manifest out of this imbalanced ego exclusivity. As we grow and mature, these poisons create strife for ourselves and others we come in contact with. We respond to this strife in one of two ways: Blame and denial or learning. The first response just exacerbates the poisons, whereas the latter choice moves us to realize they are rooted in our out of balance ego-mind.

Life, in essence, is structured so that we either awaken or we continue to suffer. This alternative set (in Buddhist terminology) is referred to as Nirvana vs. Saṃsāra—Bliss vs. Suffering. If we live long enough and are open-minded, we will eventually come to see the truth, and when this transformation happens, our ego (as the exclusive judge) dies—so to speak. The fact is this sense of self never dies but is transformed.

This transformation can be facilitated through Zen meditation. We learn to quiet the constant left-brain chatter that emanates from our ego with its judgments and critique, which normally overshadows our compassionate nature (e.g., dominates). This chatter is so loud and relentless that we could easily go through life with very little, if any, understanding of our pure and true nature, which makes life worth living. It is unfortunate that few follow this path toward breakthrough and remain ignorant of our complete human potential.

Breaking through occurs when our left-brain chatter comes to a halt, and we become aware of our deepest nature, which is always present. This is a matter of subtraction—a sort of shedding—rather than adding or seeking. Lao Tzu put it this way...“Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.” And this...“In the pursuit of learning, every day, something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day, something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved (e.g., non-action=Wu Wei). When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”

Amazing!

To live is to enjoy a truly great mysterious adventure! We have a body that moves, senses the universe, thinks and speculates, imagines realms which can never be touched, and it all happens with no volition, all by itself. The fascination is beyond understanding, yet we take it all for granted without giving it a second thought. What moves? Senses? Thinks? Imagines? And can never be touched? Whatever it is that functions in these ways has no name to ever adequately contain its meaning. IT is transcendent to a description.

Many enlightened beings have pondered this matter and come up short. The founder of Zen—Bodhidharma—saw it this way... “The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind is not outside the material body of four elements. Without this mind, we can’t move. The body (by itself) has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.” 

Huineng (sixth patriarch of Zen) saw it the same way with his famous observation about a flag’s movement. One monk argued it was the wind that moved the flag. Another said no, it was the flag alone which moved. Huineng corrected them both and noted that it was neither. It was the mind that moved. Nāgārjuna sliced this matter in a variety of ways, but one of my favorites is his poem about walking, which ends this way:

“These moving feet reveal a walker but did not start him on his way. There was no walker prior to departure. Who was going where?”

The mind moves: That is an amazing observation! And of course, it makes sense even if we don’t give it a second thought. Thinking about it doesn’t alter the function. The mind moves independently of thought, yet thought is absolutely dependent upon the transcendent mind, which can never be found and never described. 

When we enter this world, our mind is with us, stays with us while we are here, and remains when we are gone. My mind is not “mine,” and your mind is not “yours.” The mind is beyond possession. The Buddha said that there is no person—neither you nor me—to possess anything. The person we imagine our self to be is just that: “Imagined.” 

We all fabricate this entity called ego to have a sense of self. We all have the same wish—To know who we are.

After spending 9 years doing zazen facing a blank wall, Bodhidharma met with Emperor Wu and was asked “Who stands before me?” Bodhidharma answered, “I don’t know.” Nine years and he didn’t know. The reason he answered as he did is that who we truly are can’t be known. Our perceptual faculties can’t go to our unconditional nature. What we can perceive is concrete and objective. I can see a rock. I can see my own skin and a picture I fabricate (which goes by the name of “self-image”), but it is not my skin nor the fabricated image, which is me. Who am I? I don’t know. But then I don’t need to. My knowing doesn’t alter my existence at all. Without knowing what, who or how I still move, sense, think, and imagine. And it all happens without my volition.

There are really only two things which must be known:

1. Who I am not—Not an imagined, independent self which exists in isolation without connectivity to life, and

2. That whoever I am, however inadequately defined, is no different from you or The Buddha. We are indiscriminately connected in the vast and boundless realm we call “life.”

Amazing!

The Fourth Step

“From the beginning all beings are Buddha. 

Like water and ice, without water, no ice,

outside us no Buddhas.”

Right action/cause (samyak-karmanta—Sanskrit) is translated as right conduct. “Samyak” (or Samma in Pali) means either complete, perfect, or right. Karmata means conduct or action. Karma is thus understood to be the result of an action. Samyak-karmanta has a variety of possible meanings. One meaning might be a code of conduct to be followed to ensure a desirable outcome. This meaning establishes the causal connection between actions (causes) and effects—karma. An alternate meaning would be conduct that flows from what is already perfect. This understanding is the flip side of the first meaning. In the first, we are working toward a goal or payoff through our conduct, and in the second, our conduct is a reflection of attainment already.

Hakuin Zenji preferred this last meaning because he recognized that all beings are essentially Buddhas. The first line of his Song of Zazen says:

“From the beginning all beings are Buddha. 

Like water and ice, without water, no ice,

outside us no Buddhas.”

As Buddhas, there is nothing to attain. Buddhas (e.g., awakened-past tense) are not bound by karma since they are beyond cause and effect. A Buddha can’t be un-awakened. A Buddha is our unconditional well-spring—our true mind of wisdom—from which all things arise (Prajñāpāramitā). Of course, we can choose to deny this assertion and continue to suffer, trying to attain a payoff. Our lives, as well as our zazen practice, reflect either choice. We either have the payoff, or we don’t. To attain what we have already, by necessity, results in continued karma, utter frustration, and a never-ending quest. To accept our essential nature as Buddhas is to move beyond both attainment and karma.

The beginning of Hakuin’s Song of Zazen says,

How near the truth, yet how far we seek.

Like one in water crying, “I thirst!”

“Sila” in Sanskrit means morality or ethical conduct, but sila alone does not indicate on which side of attainment we exist. Many, if not most, arrangements of the Eightfold Path begin with Sila (Speech, Action, and Livelihood) move on to mental discipline (Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration), and ends with wisdom (Understanding and Thoughts). What I am now discussing is the fourth step—action, ordinarily seen as the second step. Hakuin’s interpretation turns this around to reflect his premise of “already.” The Sutras clearly state that prajna is beyond cause and effect and thus can’t result from prior actions. Likewise, prajna is the ground from which all Buddhas arise. I accept this order as the proper placement for “Right Action”—not leading to wisdom but rather flowing from wisdom.

Within Buddhism, five precepts govern conduct. They are reflected in the following refrain:

1. I observe the precept of abstaining from the destruction of life.

2. I observe the precept of abstaining from taking that which is not given.

3. I observe the precept of abstaining from sexual misconduct.

4. I observe the precept of abstaining from falsehood.

5. I observe the precept of abstaining from intoxicants that cloud the mind and cause carelessness.

Many Buddhist traditions routinely recite these precepts. The refrain “I observe the precept of abstaining from ...” which begins every precept, shows that these are not commandments. They are moral codes of conduct that lay Buddhists willingly undertake with the understanding and conviction that they are good for themselves and others.

No harm results from employing these precepts regardless of attainment. All such conduct benefits the giver and the receiver. The harm comes about when these measures are used to attain what is already attained. “They are like those who, being in the midst of water, cry out for water, feeling thirst.”