Instruction in Zen

From the analects: 

Monk: "Pray instruct me in Zen."

Master: "Have you eaten?"

Monk: "Yes"

Master: "Then wash your bowl."

It is said that this exchange produced the desired Awakening.

The Centipedede's Dilemma

A rich history has come down to us by way of records kept in ancient monasteries. Monks of the Rinzai Zen tradition were there expressly to pursue the change of being described as "Sudden Enlightenment". The social disciplines and meditative practices of these institutions were designed to eliminate any impediment to the achievement of this end, and even in these carefully articulated circumstances many acolytes failed to cross over. So how in the world is somebody in secular circumstances to achieve this Cosmic change of being?

The "Centipede's Dilemma" is an Aesop-like tale concerning the centipede's psychological collapse when confronted with the question of the facility of his many legs and the circumambulations necessary to his daily life. Well, the narrative of "The Ten Bulls" which we encounter in Buddhist lore directly addresses the struggle and successful resolution of the psychological upheaval inevitable when we begin to realize how much of what we have been in life could be described as: Cosmic Awareness enslaved by an animal. 

The silence of mind we cultivate in meditation makes possible that Awareness might come to the fore. The animal is the ride and beatings will not improve its quality of life. What is necessary is for Awareness to infuse and befriend the natural inclinations of the animal. The privations and austerities of monastic life are most certainly an accelerant to the self discovery necessary to the awakening of Awareness, but these bracing privations and austerities are not possible, or even advisable, in the press of secular existence.

Good will and good humor and meditation are advised.

Troubled Births

Loosely paraphrasing from the analects:

Master: "I see from your countenance that you have entered the realm of Awareness!"

Monk: "Yes, but my joy is that of one who has found a precious gem beneath a pile of dung."

Carl Jung remarked that "People who live unconsidered lives get along just fine. It is when some aspect of the Collective Unconscious treads unbidden into the realm of Consciousness that there is trouble." Neurosis is often a crisis of discovery.

"The Ten Bulls" of Zen poetically relates the struggle that even an individual with some degree of preparation has with integrating the discovered Unconscious framework of the personality with the new forming personhood of Awareness. The new creature of Awareness finds its Self a stranger in a strange land.

Meditation provides a foundation of facticity which smooths the birth of the child of the Universe.