The partnership of science and non-science.

The 8th-century Indian Buddhist philosopher, by the name of Śāntideva, said that to be able to deny something, we first have to know what it is we’re denying. The logic of that is peerless. His exact statement was, “Without contacting the entity that is imputed. You will not apprehend the absence of that entity.” 

Similarly, Bodhidharma said: “That which exists, exists in relationship to that which doesn’t exist.” And, perhaps the first known person to discuss relativity was not Einstein but rather Nāgārjuna wherein he pointed out, “That which is the element of light is seen to exist in relation to darkness; that which is the element of good is seen to exist on account of bad; that which is the element of space is seen to exist on account of form.”

In today’s world, we have embraced science as the new god and have enshrined definable matter as the exclusive province of reality, yet unable to define what truth is. Perceptible form has become the gold standard that emerged out of the Western pre-Enlightenment era, beginning in late 17th century Europe emphasizing reason and individualism rather than religious tradition. Its purpose was to reform society using rational logic, challenge ideas grounded in dogmatic religious thought and, advance knowledge through the scientific method. However, to give thorough, impartial consideration to the framework of science, we need to carefully explore the foundation upon which it rests.

The physical world is governed by rules that require, as a minimum, the combined matters of time, space, and the circumstances of cause and effect. And a fundamental beginning point to all contemporary discussions of the physical world is the Big Bang.  

While Einstein wasn’t the first to discuss relativity, he did destroy the idea that time and space are two separate, independent matters and 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. Consequently, even the conception of space, given Einstein’s definition, could not have existed “prior” to the Big Bang since there were neither objects nor a before.

The development of quantum mechanics complicated the modern interpretation of a vacuum by requiring quantum indeterminacy (meaning uncertainty). In the late 20th century, this principle came to be understood to predict a fundamental unknowability in the number of particles in a region of space, leading to predictions of virtual particles arising spontaneously out of the void. Cause and effect likewise must be acknowledged as equally absurd within the idea of singularity and/or a “before.” There was nothing to cause anything measurable, either at the most distant (oxymoron) aspect of space (oxymoron) or at the smallest (oxymoron) quantum level.

I’ve been a cosmology buff for some time with a specific interest in the pre-Big Bang state of affairs. Everything known and expressed by cosmologist begins and precedes from the “moment of singularity” when space/time came into being. The question that can never be answered with the tools of science is the “before,” which is actually an absurd idea. The big clock in the sky that governs the past, present, and future didn’t exist before that moment of singularity, so the thought of “before” is an oxymoron. I’ve never heard any explanation for what came before but recently saw the following quote on TV a couple of days back when watching a “cutting edge” show of cosmology…

“In the beginning was the void, but the void was not nothing, and then there was light, and the light changed. And so the void brought forth the world. And the world was good. And it endured until man could comprehend it. And it will come to pass that one day, the energy of the void will have pushed all things away, leaving nothing but the void. But the void is not nothing.”⎯Commentary of the latest understanding of cosmology.

Compare that to this from 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.”

Or this from Bodhidharma (The alleged father of Zen):

 
“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.”

Some say that when the term “void” is used scientifically, the intent is different from when it is used spiritually. My response to this alleged differentiation is, “Really?” By definition, however, used “void” means “absence,” and absence can’t be divided since there is nothing to separate, which is, of course, the same thing as an undifferentiated unity. And that is precisely the nature of a Buddha as well as the essential nature of the cosmos. Pure, undifferentiated consciousness, like the Internet, is everywhere and nowhere at once. It has no definable properties, but without consciousness, nothing could exist.

There is a place for the theories of physical sciences that govern un-reality as well as the non-physical ideas of reality beyond the physical world. Śāntideva, Nāgārjuna, Bodhidharma, as well as Einstein agree that “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Science and non-science make a good partnership between illusion and reality, but perhaps, independently, they can’t exist at all.

The idea that opposites attract is a commonly held notion, not only among human relationships but also in the world of physics. It is not so much a matter of what lies on opposite ends of a spectrum but that there is a spectrum at all, and where one segues into the other. Now tell me again that science and spirituality don’t wed.

The Ladder—Form

It has occurred to me that the relationship (as expressed by Nāgārjuna) between the two truths—One being dual; this vs. that (two opposites such as right and wrong), and the other being united—emptiness, resembles a metaphorical arrangement between a ladder and a wall.

A ladder connects the two sides with rungs. If there were neither sides nor rungs, a ladder could not exist. Furthermore, a ladder must lean upon (e.g., depends upon) something, or it would fall. In my metaphor, that something is a wall (the equivalent of essential emptiness).  Together these two—a ladder and a wall—make a whole, complete; they are interdependent.

For essential emptiness (transcendence) to transform, otherness would have to exit. And if otherness were introduced into this realm seen through the imagination, emptiness would transform from nothing/everything into something. 

Once emptiness transforms into form, it would then no longer be wholly essence. It would then take on definable form—an extension of essence yet imbued with essence. Otherness provides dimension. Otherness is creative expression. Otherness means contingent: one thing depending on another thing at the primordial level and beyond. Otherness is interdependent and moves away from absolute essence into the realm of form and non-stagnation. Otherness is life itself and death itself and both life and death, and neither. Otherness provides infused separation, a condition necessary to be imagined. It is “being” with a “ground” for being.

“Being” and “ground of essence” define and support one another. The two are interdependent and integral to one another. One is not more important than the other just as a mother is not more important than a daughter, who will one day be a mother with a child, and neither can exist without the seed of essence, which is transmitted eternally through a form. 

All arise and exist together. The existence of entities depends upon infused otherness. They are mutually supportive. Ground-of-being and Being are essential partners for the creative expression to exist. Ground (form) without Ground-of-being (emptiness) remains unborn potential. Being without a foundation is not possible. Being without sentient beings is pointless. Source and sourced go together. Essence apart from otherness, meaning ceases to exist at least in any way which can be comprehended. Being is the sentient eye through which essence is intuited.

The Wall—Emptiness

Image via Wikipedia

The enlightenment of The Buddha introduced an entirely new vantage-point to the human experience. 

In summary, his grasp of reality addressed two, apparently different views which he said were the same thing looked at from alternate perspectives. Those two dimensions were the conditional and the unconditional realms of form and emptiness, which according to him arose dependent upon each other. 

Today and tomorrow we’ll consider these two, metaphorically through a model of a wall and a ladder that leans against that wall. The metaphor came in a dream following a day of contemplating the various understandings of the word dharma. 

I discovered in my research that dharma was derived from the Sanskrit root dhṛ, which means to support or hold, and often referred to cosmic law. In my dream, I saw a ladder leaning against and supported by a blank wall.

The story is told that Bodhidharma sat in meditation staring at a blank wall for nine years. What did he see? Let’s take a walk into a realm almost too strange to imagine. In fact, it is only possible to enter this realm through the imagination. It is the realm of a transcendent wall, which strips conceptuality down to the ground of all being. Think essence—pure essence, infinite essence, 100% essence, without any otherness. Such a realm is impossible to imagine because to imagine it requires separation and otherness: an imaginer as well as what is being imagined, and such essence is transcendent to all divisions. It is a realm where subjects and objects melt into one another. It is non-dual in any and every way. 

Form requires dimensions of at least the aggregation of time, space, and circumstances. Not the imagination. Essence is the sentient eye seeing itself beyond all time, space, and circumstance. This essence is what Eckhart said was, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” 

Form content needs context within which to exist but essence is both content and context at the same time, which is a contradiction already. Essence is entirely “+” and “-” fusion and such a thing cannot exist except in the imagination, or so it seems to conventional wisdom.

What would such a realm approximate? The closest thing imaginable would be a black hole, which instead of sucking in otherness, sucks in itself (symbolically an Ouroboros—expressing the unity of all things). An infinitely large (or infinitely small: size is a contradiction) sucking machine without motion or any defining characteristics. Why? Because this is the primordial seed essence before mother and child. Form mother and children come next. “Large” is a defining characteristic. “Small” is a defining characteristic. “Motion” is movement from one space/time circumstance to another and this requires otherness which in the case of essence is so profound it cannot exist.

Defined thusly, in a dream, essence is transcendent to both life and death. It is beyond time, space, and circumstances. Such a condition is non-conditional, non-contingent, and non-everything. In fact, it is transcendent even to that prior statement since “non” is otherness and pure essence is non-non and is indefinable. It is wholly beyond; even beyond imagination and logic and every other frame of reference, which requires discernment. This would be 100% potential energy without even a glimmer of kinetic energy. Conceptually it is impossible to imagine. All concepts fail to capture essence. 

I think this way of envisioning essence is a fairly accurate description of something that is 100% ready: neither alive nor dead but ready for either, neither or both, only this is transcendent to all such defining characteristics which imply life or death. Readiness is unborn and never dies. This would be an independent, wholly essential, unconditional non-thing with no other purpose except existence itself. This is a Self with no other. It would be the womb of creation without a child, forever and ever: another with no otherness, yet transcendent to such distinctions. It would be completely empty of everything, yet completely full at the same time. It would be everything and nothing at once. It would be completely meaningless and completely meaningful—The Big Bang before either bang or big—pure singularity of the essential kind.

Is this what Bodhidharma saw? We’ll never know but countless Zen Masters have spoken about this ineffability using names like Mind Essence, Ground of Being, Original Face, and Purity. Some have called it Buddha—the Dharmakaya. Others have used the word, God. The founder of the Rinzai Zen (Lin Chi) used the idiom, “True Man of no rank” because, within this ineffable sphere, there is no discrimination and discrimination is conditional, only possible when otherness is present. 

Bodhidharma simply called it “The Void” or the primordial mind and what he was experiencing for nine years was a view of his own mind. Names are mere handles to represent what can’t be, and never will be, adequate to describe what is utterly transcendent. Exodus 20:4 speaks clearly about the admonition of God: “You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth.” 

And the understanding of this admonition is clear: any and every word or handle harkens a conceptual image engraved in the mind: a shadow—a surrogate, of the energy which inhabits and moves all of life. Essence is things exactly as they are, sans any and all defining characteristics. This is suchness. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. “Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.” — Stanza 56, The Tao Te Ching.

Ideas about God.

Virtual and Non-Virtual Reality.

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein

Is Einstein’s statement true? In a certain sense it is and the reason, when thoughtfully considered, is that we are sentient beings. Broadly speaking, sentience denotes beings-with-consciousness, in some contexts, life itself. Some may argue, quite convincingly, that “yes, but we are fundamentally spiritual beings equipped with perceptual qualities.” I would not argue against this, and even so, our receiver of the spiritual source of all still must be perceived in one way or another. This is a case of a message and how a message is received. 

Unfortunately, for the most part, our receiver becomes clouded with a host of biases, preconceived beliefs, and ideas that sway the clarity of the message. The Psalms say, “Be still and know I am God,” Bodhidharma defined Zen as “Not thinking” and Jesus noted, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” The task is to not tamper with the message but instead to refine and clear out the receiver. 

One of the most profound mystics of all time was a Christian mystic by the name of Meister Eckhart who said this about God and ideas about God:

“To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God. Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God’s sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for whom there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

Until our hearts are pure, Einstein’s statement remains true and we will live in a perceptible and virtual world of illusion. Afterward, we will move beyond rational based perception and see God, who looks like nothing and everything at the same time.

Small steps.

Often, I’ve found myself faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges and felt as if I needed to swallow the entire ocean in a single gulp. The only result of that approach was fear, inaction, and coughing up the imagined impossibility. 

But after failing, I came to my senses and remembered an ancient bit of wisdom offered by the Chinese sage Lao Tzu, roughly 2,600 hence. 

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” 

The words of Lao Tzu are as useful today as they were a long time ago.

A friend sent me a link to words of wisdom offered by the oldest living person. He just happens to be a Zen man and offered similar thoughts concerning a healthy life. They are worth your time reading. I confess to having a problem with one of his tips: to have no choices but rather accept everything as it comes. 

Like everything, the tip has two sides. One side is the peace that comes with feeling the smooth caress of the winds of change on your face in the coolness of the morning breeze. The other side is to get out of the hurricanes of life before devastation occurs. Those are the two sides spoken of by Lao Tzu in the first sentence of the above quote.

Knowing when to stay and when to leave takes art and experience, and both this ancient sage and the world’s oldest man agree, as I do, that breaking down giant challenges into small pieces makes for manageable tasks. Importantly is that first assessment of staying or moving. To inform that assessment, we can turn, not to an ancient sage, but rather to Mark Cane, the contemporary American climate scientist who advises, 

“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.”

Regardless, there is always the first, small step or sip of water. Picking and choosing, as well as the wisdom of recognizing our self-imposed captivity, are seeming contradictions, but that is the true nature of Zen: To hold no fixed perspectives but rather use expedient means—upaya-Kausalya, measured and dictated by unfolding and unanticipated circumstances. How very different such advice is from the embedded and rigid ideologies of today.

Things are not what they appear to be, nor are they different.

“True vision isn’t just seeing seeing. It’s also seeing not seeing. And true understanding isn’t just understanding understanding. It’s also understanding not understanding. If you understand anything, you don’t understand. Only when you understand nothing is it true understanding. Understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.

When the mortal mind appears, buddhahood disappears. When the mortal mind disappears, buddhahood appears. When the mind appears, reality disappears. When the mind disappears, reality appears. Whoever knows that nothing depends on anything has found the Way. And whoever knows that the mind depends on nothing is always at the place of enlightenment.”

These are the words of Bodhidharma in his famous Wake-up Sermon. True of great sages, these words appear abstruse and difficult to fathom, but they are consistent with the experience of awakening. When that moment arrives, you reach a point where nothing seems to exist. In such a state, you become aware of both nothing (the absence of things) and everything (the presence of things). 

It is the true seer in us all that notices the difference between one state and another. That seer both exists and doesn’t exist. It exists in a pure, uncontaminated state as an unconditional non-thing but doesn’t exist as a conditional thing. Most of the time, we are ensconced in perceptional awareness of things. We see only what can be seen: Objective matter and remain unaware of nothing. Nothing can’t be seen, only experienced through a state known as no mind (wu xin in Chinese, Mushin in Japanese).

It is said that when everything appears, the mind appears. When nothing appears, the mind disappears. When the mind appears, we live within a state determined by cause and effect and subjected to karma. When the mind disappears, we live in the enlightened state of a Buddha, far beyond cause and effect. 

In this no-mind state, there is no discrimination: all is unified, whole, and complete: The realm of Nirvana. In a mind state, everything is subjected to discrimination between this and that: The realm of choice and karma. Mushin is shin: Shin is Mushin. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. Both united yet different. Both divided yet united. Emptiness is empty. Formlessness is form.

Seeing through the bias of life.

A few days ago I wrote a post called, “The lens through which we see the world.” 

In that post, I said that we are all looking through the filter of biases I labeled rose-colored glasses. Like any lenses we see though, we remain unaware. The lenses are like a pair of glasses sitting on our noses, coloring our perceptions of life. The world just appears shaded rose-colored, and we assume thas it is. 

Perception depends on the ability to discriminate one thing from another based on differences. That quality defines our ability to perceive the conditional world. Seeing differences is not the problem. The problem is the overlay on top of perception that tells us, the differences we see are either good or bad (the faculty that emerges from bias, which we call judgments).

When Jesus taught, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” he was speaking in karmic terms: what goes around comes around. This teaching is not different from that taught by The Buddha: “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” 

Perception is unavoidable. Judgment is not, and the essential key that unlocks this capacity is understanding our own mind. The Yogācārians refined this understanding with a model: a roadmap to see through these illusions. The map above is an image that illustrates the dimensions of mind, ranging from the unconditional to the conditional. 

According to the model, at the base of mind sits the unmoving aspect of mind I wrote about when discussing Akshobhya, the immovable one who reflects whatever is perceived, as if in a mirror. That aspect, (because it is beneath conscious awareness), remains unseen, yet it is the seer in us all.

Moving upwards in consciousness toward the perceptible/conditional world, we move through several channels that color (bias) what we perceive. First, there is a channel associated with our senses, including cognition that combines into a gestalt that results in what was called the third subjective bias. 

On the other axis lies the deep mind, still beneath conscious awareness, that divides into the storehouse (Alaya-vijnana: Sanskrit-storehouse consciousness) and what is known as ahamkara or “I-maker” (ego). The Alaya-vijnana contains karmic seeds: the residue from prior lives. When the body dies, we retain the unresolved effects of how we lead our previous lives. Having done right, the seeds start our new life on a sound footing. Bad experience before, bad seeds continue—either good or bad results in the first subjective level of bias.

The ahamkara/“I-maker” (ego) has a special kind of bias that is governed by the qualities of greed, anger, and ignorance. The ego is not aware of the true nature of mind, since that nature is buried deep, but instead believes it is the true nature and, in the sense of fear, survival, and possessiveness, operates to ensure competitive well-being. The ego defines itself by attaching to the ephemeral nature of things (attachment: raga), and when these things are lost, the ego reacts with anger following the loss (dvesha), and this error causes the second subjective bias. 

All three levels of subjective bias then combine to shape the color of an individual’s filters through which they perceive the world and cause judgments (which are understood to be justified, but in truth are misplaced self-righteousness). While Bodhidharma was right: “The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.” The bottom line is it isn’t necessary to allow this model to govern our lives since there is only one thing we can do to ensure spiritual growth: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” When we do that, all of the levels of bias are transcended, and we move forward toward realizing our own united perfection (τέλειος: spiritual maturity/completion).

The icon of purity and unification.

Akshobhya

Buddhism employs many icons of important significance. One of these is Akshobhya who is considered as the embodiment of mirror knowledge. As such he symbolizes the mind itself—clear as the sky, empty yet luminous. 

According to the teaching of Zen, what has ordinarily been considered our mind is merely a fabricated illusion spawned by a host of biases, preconceived notions, and cherished beliefs. And this fabrication is then constructed in the form of thoughts and emotions to which we cling. This clinging to illusions dominates our lives. Instead, the true mind is pure knowledge of what is real, vs. what is an illusion—a mere reflection of actual reality. Akshobhya represents the eternal mind holding the images of space and time, yet untouched by them all. In Sanskrit, his name means the immovable one.

In another post, “Reflections of Reality,” I began to illustrate the nature of the true mind and quoted Bodhidharma:

“The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.” And he said this to illustrate these two aspects (sic, dependent origination). One of these is an endless illusion (that looks real) and the other is non-illusory and empty. The first is always moving like clouds across an immovable sky. What Zen teaches is that our only true mind is that sky that never moves. Instead, it functions like a mirror reflecting whatever comes before it.

It is peculiar that in the West we define mental health by the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Yet according to Zen our grasp of reality is the flip side of reality. Instead, here in the West reality=illusion: we mistake the illusion as reality instead of a reflection and never consider the means whereby we can distinguish between reality and illusion. If you think deeply about this conundrum it is obvious that there must be an immovable mental faculty capable of making distinctions between one thing and another. If this were not true everything would blend into an indistinguishable mess.

Movement and non-movement are mirror aspects of each other and both must arise (and be distinguishable) from a base of nothing. Einstein dealt with this in his thoughts on relativity. We, for example, are moving through space on the earth at a given speed and anything else that is moving at the same speed appears to be not moving. If this base of immobility and emptiness contained something (instead of nothing) then we could not distinguish between that something and other things. 

Contrast is fundamental to the ability to distinguish anything. For example, an image of black depends on a backdrop of something not black. If everything is black there could not be a perception of anything other than black. Likewise, unless there is a backdrop of nothing, we couldn't perceive anything with discernible qualities.

Akshobhya is that immovable aspect of the eternal mind holding the images of space and time, yet untouched by them all. And since he illustrates this empty quality he also defines the unconditional true nature of us. Anything that is unconditional is not subject to the definition of discrimination. Akshobhya is the icon that represents the quality of pure consciousness that unites us all.

Kindness

We all expend a lot of energy opposing, and too little embracing. We are adept at ferreting out differences and estranged from sameness, long on talking, and short in doing. 

Today in the U.S. is a time we repeat once each year. It’s a day of giving thanks and expressing gratitude for what we have and, for a brief time, setting aside what we don’t.

When I was a boy I found it confusing and upsetting when I noticed how very pious people were while in church but how corrupt they were when not. As I grew older, I was told that the church was the house of God and that was the reason for the difference. That answer satisfied nothing and I thought to myself, what kind of God lives in a building but not in the hearts of people? Does that mean there is to be no peace anywhere, except in a building?

Later still I had the opportunity to attend seminary and learned to read Koine Greek and grasp the significance of ideas and words spoken by Jesus. In addition, I spent nearly 40 years practicing and studying Zen. Consequently I am an educated man but not a content one. I remain as confused and dismayed today as I was as a child noticing the hypocrisy of people who appear pious yet act with hatred. For many years I struggled to reconcile religious and spiritual differences among peoples of the world: to bridge those differences and find the common ground of caring among all of God’s people.

I discovered that way in my Greek study, but alas hardly anyone reads Koine Greek! And even if they did it seems to be human nature to cling to what they think and reject what they don’t. There is a passage in the Bible, allegedly spoken by Jesus (it doesn’t matter if it really was) that expresses the way I was seeking, and it concerns ideological differences: the source of all conflict. The passage, like many great words, is short: fifteen words that could change the course of human affairs if put into practice. Nevertheless, I have an obligation to share the knowledge I acquired: to lay it at the feet of readers and hope they will take to heart the message. If that should happen, the walls of Jericho (the church) would collapse and hearts would then become the new church.

Here is the passage, and what it means in Koine Greek. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” — John 15:13. And here is how that same passage reads in Greek: “Greater love has no one than this: to set aside manifestations of the mind for their friends.” Now that seems like a stretch but the Greek word undergirding the English word life in this passage is psuché (the basis of the word psyche: the human mind). So the essential matrix of questions: The most important set of related questions is the significance of setting aside one’s mind, how is it done and what is the result?

Ordinarily, we confuse a manifestation with a source. And when a ridiculous example is provided we can see how absurd it is. For example we all know that cars don’t suddenly just one day appear by magic at our front door (even though they do in TV commercials). No, instead the car is manufactured in a plant somewhere. The manufacturing facility is the source and the car is the manifestation. The two are directly related. No manufacturing plant=no car. That is so basic even a child can understand, but what how does that example fit the mind? Just as a car is a manifestation of a production facility, our ideas are the manifestation of our true mind. Our ideas are not our minds. They are the result of the mind. Ideas are all different and become ideologies over which we have fought since we walked out of the caves.

A few days ago I wrote a post concerning the manner in which Zen people express their true mind. In Japanese, the expression is “Mushin, Shin” which means no-mind is Mind. That seems very odd until you realize that the little shin means ideas and the big Shin means the source of ideas (the true mind). So then the question is what is MU? And the answer is nothing (no-thing), and perhaps most curious is this expression: Mushin, Shin is the same thing as Greater love has no one than this: to set aside one’s mind for their friends.

If you think clearly about conflicts and oppositions, neither would exist without ideas. But, you say, what would the world be like with no ideas? The answer is when anyone stops thinking, at that very moment (even if it is for a fleeting second) they become unified with all, and out of that space of no-thing/no-thinking arises all of the love of the world. It may be a quickly vanishing flash of pure, non-discriminate, unconditional love but that tiny seed, once experienced, can grow into the obliteration of differences and estrangement. We may not ourselves be able to sit under the shade of the tree of love that grows from those seeds but it is a beginning.

So today, be grateful for the love that resides in the hearts of all mankind and out of that heart, perform an act of random kindness.

The road to an imaginary nowhere.

I recently came across a statement that suggested that a precursor to moving beyond our egos was to first have a good or healthy one. There was something that troubled me about the suggestion that may have appeared worthy until thoroughly examined. 

Good egos/bad egos are both judgments, but to first make such a judgment, it’s necessary to describe the nature of ego and to distinguish it from our true self. In another post (Irrational exuberance and the tradition of silence), I shared what Chán Master Sheng Yen, said (Complete Enlightenment—Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment) about the self/ego. He said:

“… 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.” 

To pick and choose one phenomenal condition in contrast with another and feel righteous about our choice runs the risk of becoming self-righteous. So it is with care and sensitivity that I approach this matter.

In spiritual vernacular, noumenality (in contrast to phenomenality—known by our senses) is known as our true spiritual nature and is understood as the wellspring source of all. Noumenality is neither good nor bad. It is just what it is until contaminated with judgments. Whether we are aware of this nature being universally imbedded in all sentient forms is somewhat beside the point. We have a human history of being unaware of many matters that changed our view of the world, for example, the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. This was, of course, not true despite our belief to the contrary. It is likewise analogous that the world does not revolve around us either.

Noumenality is translated as a-thing-unto-itself of which the senses give no knowledge, but whose bare existence can be intuited from the nature of experience. It is our seed—our jewel of great value. The name we choose to articulate this transcendent seed is arbitrary. Any and every name is as good or bad as the next. No name can adequately define what is transcendent and every name chosen leads us to conceptual error.

I’ve used the following quote so often in my writing I run the risk of over-kill. But it is so insightful that I find it difficult to resist repeating. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as having said: 

“If those who lead you say unto you: behold, the Kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will be before you. If they say unto you: it is in the sea, then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.”

Contrast this teaching with the ordinary understanding—That the Kingdom is in fact in the sky somewhere (e.g., in heaven) or just about any place other than indiscriminately distributed—transcendent to space-time. Here Jesus was saying that the Kingdom is not limited to space-time, not even singularly within or outside. But instead, we find the Kingdom everywhere and then we come to know ourselves as sons of the living Father. He closes this verse by saying if we don’t know who we are then we are indeed poor. We could easily travel for an eternity, trying to find what is always the Kingdom’s spiritual air we breathe. We would be like fish not knowing they swim in the water.

This is a startling teaching, only because it is so radically different from the ordinary dogmatic Christian view. In fact, it is very similar to the Buddhist teaching about enlightenment. That teaching says that our only reality emanates from the body of truth, which is not limited or restricted in any way, and it is the loss of ignorance, which reveals our true nature. 

This body of truth was known as the Dharmakaya (The One Mind—pure, unrestricted, consciousness), equivalent to the Kingdom. Indeed this teaching says the same thing—we are poor because we have not discovered who we are. We are deluded (and poor) because we mistakenly believe that we are a shadow (an ego) of our real self. When we awaken to our true nature then we join the ranks among the Buddhas—The Awakened ones and are recognized for who we truly are: as sons of the living Father.

Meister Eckhart, a German Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic who lived 700 years ago clarified this distinction between God and the idea of God. He said, 

“Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God’s sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for who there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

My use of this quote underscores the important distinction between ideas and what is represented by ideas, or more aptly, an image, and what is represented by an image. This distinction is as meaningful for expressions of the ineffable as it is to tangible, measurable life. The philosophy of Zen does not require belief as blind faith. It considers this as an obstruction to the discernment of truth. To hold onto ideas, good or bad—however pious or well-intentioned—is considered part of the problem. 

It would seem that Eckhart would have agreed. Any and all givens are pieces of our own self-constructed prison bars, which reflect closed-mindedness and obstruct a-thing-unto-itself.  When we refuse to see what lies clearly before us, we forgo clarity in the interest of obligation and blind allegiance. These are mental anchors responsible for creating friction and emasculating our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, which in the nature of change determines genuine truth and justice.

The goal of Zen is to strip ourselves of illusions so that we can embrace life as it is, not as we decide it should be, and the means prescribed by the father of Zen (Bodhidharma) was simply to not think. Thinking is probably the greatest form of all delusion since is based on perception, which is completely phenomenal (as things appear through our senses).

Dogmatic constraints are gilds that distort life by requiring it to conform to artificially imposed constraints or suffer the consequences of rejection and condemnation, and the most pernicious shoulds are those, which we impose upon ourselves. 

Self-judgments result when we internalize the votes of others or impose judgments upon our selves and make them our own guiding force. In many cases, it takes years to break this cycle of self-judgment and recrimination, which lies at the heart of the manner in which we judge the world. By and large, we see life as a reflection of our own biases. Zen is a process, which can aid us in that endeavor by helping us to experience the contingency and emptiness of our egos and thus strip away the fences we create to set us apart and exalt us from others.

When we succeed in coming to terms with the fragile and fabricated nature of ego construction and dependency, we begin to notice that every other aspect of life is linked to this phantom entity, which drives the process. Pressed through the collapsing floors—dropping mind and body— to the ground of our being, we finally see our true linkage and are forced to accept union with our fellow humans and every other dimension of life. 

The result is deeply rooted compassion and desire to join with the unending ranks of those who have likewise plumbed the depths, survived the trip and found peace. When that occurs we realize that such discriminations and judgments like good and evil are nothing more than prison bars, which obstruct and diminish life and our relation to it.

The perversion of our correct selves into good or bad images degrades both our sense of the world and ourselves. An image of who we are, taken in one extreme direction results in feeling special and exalted compared to others. Taken in the opposite extreme, results in feelings of being worthless and lesser, compared to others.

Regardless, a rotten fish by any other name smells as bad. An ego is by nature a phantom idea or image of our true self and thus called a self-image. An image is a product of our imaginations: an unreal projection and can be nothing other than an image regardless of spin, and its nature is greedy, self-centered, and defensive. 

The perversion of our true noumenal nature is like a cloak masking our immaculate selves or a gild on a lily. It is not only not needed it is destructive. Eckhart reminded us that, 

“Humanity in the poorest and most despised human being is just as complete as in the Pope or the Emperor.” And we know what sort of clothing the Emperor wears—none.

Thus a good ego or a bad ego is in truth an oxymoron. If we wait until we have a good idea of self there would be no motivation to be rid of it. Chan Master Sheng-yen once pointed out, 

“Generally, unless a sleeping person is having a nightmare, he or she will not want to wake up. The dreamer prefers to remain in the dream. In the same way, if your daily life is relatively pleasant, you probably won’t care to practice in order to realize that your life is illusory. No one likes to be awakened from nice dreams.” And as one who had years of bad dreams about the despicable person, I thought I was, I can assure you I was very eager to wake up from the nightmare.