Modernity and Zen

Everyone who ever lived has lived in the most modern of times. Dominant cultures come and go and humanity ratchets its way to the future as civilization morphs in place to this-now-that configuration.

Zen benefits from modernity by virtue of the increasing efficacy of language. The maturation of secular thought has richened the ability of modern English to express in objective terms concepts that a mere hundred years ago would have to be relegated to mysticism.

Zen benefits from the richness of modern language, but the essence of Zen is the unchanging ultimate realization of the core of life its self. Like a faceted diamond that is immune to the collapse of civilizations or to the rise and fall of ideologies Zen abides. Recognized or unrecognized, anywhere in the Universe, Zen is unchanging and unchangeable.

So what's in a word? What's in a word is a key that opens the door behind which the mystery of our own existence is revealed.


Zen.

The Use of Language and Zen

Words are discreet elements with which one builds artifacts of consciousness in the mind. Mind is an action made inevitable when Transcendental Awareness inhabits a creature with a nervous system. The ultimate Life of life is Transcendental Awareness, and we find examples of learning and will in creatures that consist of just a single cell. Life in every case is Transcendental Awareness, and Transcendental Awareness seems to be a field phenomenon generated by certain aggregates of matter.

So what would it mean for this "Awareness" to become self aware and begin to do the living, rather than being wholly identified with the imperatives peculiar to its archaic hardware?


It would be rather like one of those movies in which people ride dragons.

It: "The Ten Bulls"

"The Ten Bulls" visual didactic parable has been around for about a thousand years, and has been variously interpreted.  Most interpreters see an allegory of the soul subjecting the personality to its authoritative sway.  The fact is much darker and lighter than this sophomoric reduction.

Let us consider all creatures as configurations of "Transcendental Awareness". And then let us consider should that "Awareness" which is the ultimate existence of such a creature awaken to the simple essence behind its genetically driven behaviors.

The animal is the ride.


ZEN