The Essence of Zen

From the analects we have the tale of a monk who approached the master asking "what is the essence of Zen" the master answered "you ask at a time when I am washing my feet."

Meditation is not an end in its self any more than a cocoon is an end in its self. Meditation trains the consciousness to be silent in order that awareness may find primacy. It does not happen over-night, but eventually awareness becomes the seat of the identity. This is a genuine metamorphosis, and this is the realization of Zen.

I have often used the analogy of "seeing in the infra-red" to describe the difference between Zen mind and ordinary mind. No amount of theorizing or parroting catch phrases will quicken the spiritual vision. Meditation is the door, meditation is the key, meditation is the way: the clarity of being which evolves within one. . . this is Zen.

The Collective Unconscious

Much of what we say "I" to is simply the voice of the "Collective Unconscious". We don't hear much these days about the collective unconscious, but when the observation was first made by theoretical psychiatrists in the early 20th century it was very controversial and quite shocking. The core observation is that the foundation of personhood is a genetically constellated preprogram that determines our responses to the challenges of everyday existence.

The "Ten Bulls" of Buddhist lore is no less than a "pre-science" awareness of this same simple fact.

An element of popular spiritual fandom is that enlightenment happens to people. . . it's not that way at all. . . people happen to enlightenment.

Awareness innocently trapped in the nature of the animal believes it's self to be it affective states.

A Different Kind of Animal

Recent research has found physical changes in the brains of meditators.

Meditation is not merely an enrichment of one's everyday mind: meditation will make one a different kind of animal.

Madness

It seems to me that any objective observer would have to describe the world of humanity as characterized by madness. The kinds of regional and philosophical differences that cost individual human beings their lives, their peace of mind, and any future for their children (desperately important to any given individual) simply reduce to madness.

The machinations of politics in the service of neo-feudalism and a baroque set of ideologies co-opts any rational social discourse. When the ship goes down the last people to get wet will be the ones on the bridge....but they'll go down with the ship just the same. It seems to me that the most important spectrum of humanity to influence is the influential. But like children at the carnival...they've lost track of the certainty of time.

"I can drill all the holes I want in my end of the boat because it's my end of the boat"

This is madness.

Varieties of Certainty

Without some foundation of certainty animal existence would be impossible: the certainty of clover for the rabbit: the certainty of rabbits for the fox: the certainty of people for politicians. These varieties of certainty are fairly simple and straight-forward, but what of the personal categories of certainty. What of those categories of certainty that are personally constellated and have no objective existence except within the confines of individual minds.

Certainty is a dangerous fallacy except in cases such as gravity and similar self-evident objective facts. One thing we can be certain about is that people everywhere are certain about things that no-one really knows. And if we look for black and white answers to colorful questions there is no answer that will satisfy with any certainty.

The colors of being do not require certainty: the colors of being require resilience. Resilience is capable of discerning the shape of things, and resilience is inevitably impeded by any predisposition to certainty.

That resilience which makes possible a crystalline perception of reality is highly improbable outside of the practice of meditation.

Awareness of Mind

There are those who, though schizophrenic, because they are aware of being schizophrenic are able to lead somewhat normal lives. Granted these individuals tend to be quite intelligent, but the point is that awareness is capable of achieving primacy over mind. This is an analogue to the intoxication of animal mind and the capacity of transcendental awareness.

Animal mind is not an enemy any more than a great wave is an enemy. One can be tumbled and drowned, or "catch a wave and you're sit'n on top of the world." The wave is a primordial form and a source of energy.

Though it is inevitable that the awareness which is the essence of all creatures experience the intoxicating sway of creature-hood, it is possible in some cases that awareness awaken to the relation of the wave to the water: of Mind to Awareness. A mind infused with awareness is a very different kind of creature, and the difference is meditation.


Zen

. . .  zen

Take It To the Limit

There is no limit to the possible.

With the possible exception of the inevitable

The Artifacts of Consciousness

We study the lives of lost cultures by examining artifacts. Pot shards, arrowheads, figures modeled on the walls of caves: artifacts tell the story of consciousness meeting the physical and emotional needs of life. The lives of we moderns are no less revealed by the artifacts upon which we depend for sustenance and comfort.

A giant wheat harvesting contraption is an artifact. An atomic bomb is an artifact. Ideas of every stripe are artifacts of consciousness.

That our inner lives are filled with artifacts of consciousness is for the most part completely invisible to us. This observation does not in any way disparage the invented nature of our hopes, beliefs, and skills: but rather should encourage reverence and careful selection of those artifacts of consciousness with which we burden ourselves. Two concepts cannot occupy the same space, and we waste much precious psychic space on conceptual artifacts which have little value other than to provide an example of how desperate humanity is to dodge uncertainty in it's many permutations.

The existence of Emptiness as an artifact of consciousness is one of inestimable value. The contemplation of Emptiness will eventually lead to a spontaneous appreciation of Suchness: and without such an awareness, tyranny of the mind by the artifacts of one's own consciousness is inevitable.

Body Mind Magic

The body is the magic carpet

The mind is the magic lamp

The Trivial

There is trivial art but art is not trivial. One can play at trivial things but play is not trivial. Caring passionately about trivial things trivializes passion.

There is nothing trivial about the trivial.

Self: one hand clapping

When one inhabits that exquisite state of pure undifferentiated awareness found in meditation there is no Self: there is only awareness. Self is a natural and necessary product of the differentiation made inevitable by consciousness. Where there is consciousness there is Self. Because the focus of awareness which is consciousness exists as a center to which "things" are external, the external "not-self" of which one is conscious gives rise to and defines Self. Self is the sound of one hand clapping.

Nothing is external to Awareness. Awareness has no inside and no outside and no Self.

It is difficult to accurately describe these aspects of the real because language tends to be casual in its references. Phrases such as "self aware" serve well enough for street talk, but they are clumsy and misguided for other than colloquial purposes.

Let consciousness relax. Let consciousness dissolve into the awareness which is its substrate: this is meditation. And only by meditation does Self discover its identity and its abode.

Illusion

What would it mean to no longer harbor illusions of any kind? Illusion is that event where things are not seen such as they are. When things are not perceived accurately one's actions will be accordingly askew. The grief made inevitable by labors of illusion is the stuff of which legends are made.

There are all kinds of illusions: illusions peculiar to our biological make-up, political illusions, spiritual illusions, etc. Though illusions are often shared across some broad spectrum of humanity, all illusions are personal and coalesce around some existing predisposition.

Predispositions are formations of consciousness. Awareness has no form.

Only by meditation does one achieve the inner silence which makes inevitable an awareness of the subtle predispositions which are the enablers of illusion.

The Great Teachers

There is a wonderful parable that I first encountered in the Gurdjieff material which goes something like this...

the devil and his side-man are stalking mankind down the road of life...mankind reaches down and rejoices in something found...the side-man ask the devil "what's man found that is the cause of such rejoicing"...the devil says "man's found the truth"...the side-man says "well this is a bad business for us"... the devil says "oh no, we're going to help him arrange it"

The great teachers were pioneers. The great teachers were those precocious individuals who, though born to the earth, awoke as the children of the universe.  They dealt not in ideologies, they expressed the simple truth they found before them. It is not a crime that ten thousand ideologues have filled the space between them and us. It is the inevitable capture of truth by idea.

The soil of being is like that of a desert island: it takes millions of years of death and decay to produce a single flower.

Let us hope that on Earth this time has come.

Now

Charles Darwin was a man of his time: a brilliant inquisitive mind in a world supine to discovery. The voyage of the Beagle (aptly named for a kind of hunting dog) halfway around the world gave him days on end of staring out across the timeless ocean. The vast emptiness and seething sameness of this environment may have set his mind in sync with that timeless ever present Now which is the simple fact of existence. From this vantage point it is not an inconceivable leap of vision to see creatures morphing in-place as awareness refines the utility of consciousness in the Now.

Consciousness is one of the faculties of Awareness. The central illusion common to consciousness is Time. Awareness is ever Now, and Now is ever seething with inevitability. Consciousness is the ability of Awareness to pick up and follow the threads of the inevitable.  The existence of the inevitable and the echo which is its trail within the domain of conscious awareness, give rise to the illusion of Time and all of its subsequent confusions.

This is not to dismiss the obvious utility of the concept of Time, but rather to point out that concepts make a poor roof on a rainy day.

Concepts are an anathema to meditation except as they lead to shelter (which is to say it is a matter of utility). Meditation enables the alchemy which turns leaden concepts into golden realities. Meditation is the difference between Goethe's sorcerer and his apprentice. And Magic is the articulation of Now to influence the Inevitable.





A Thing of Beauty


seven days of snow

un-tread


pristine

before my home



because awareness has no form it can not be resisted

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

Any objective observer will have to admit that the world is not made a better place by the existence of humanity. We are a high maintenance creature that takes what it wants and doesn't mind leaving a big mess behind. If we are ever to live in symbiosis with our lovely Earth we need big sublime ideas. As it is we find humanity in the sway of a plethora of ridiculously small ideas.

Ideas are projections of imagination and as such are mutable, and all it would take to end the enmity and corruption and needless grief oppressing the peoples of the world is for individual human beings to use their imaginations differently. This is not about to happen because the imagination of humanity is fascinated by ridiculous small ideas. And these ridiculously small ideas revel in ridiculously complex answers to very simple questions: for example...the question of existence.

Sublime ideas are no less the products of imagination than ridiculous ideas. The power of the sublime is it's inclusiveness. What makes a sublime idea truly SUBLIME is it's perfect symmetry with the real, and it's utility. A truly sublime idea is one that like mercury seamlessly absorbing it's separate blobs, effortlessly unites small concepts into one coherent self-evident form.

The ridiculous is not going away any time soon, and those problems large enough to insist upon the sublime may be insurmountable by the time the obvious becomes apparent to the hopelessly occluded.

Fate hinges upon the use of imagination.

Ideation and Awareness

All mental imaging and thought processes are configurations of awareness. It is as if a mist would concentrate it's self to create identifiable forms. This self-same mist can concentrate its self into any form imaginable, and yet the mist does not depart from its nature. This is an extremely powerful ability (its called consciousness), but it has a downside in that it is by sensing forms present in the mist that the mist knows anything at all. And when the mist is busy configuring some self determined form it is less available for pure sensing of the not-self.

In the act of meditation the mist of pure awareness is at rest; unformed and completely aware.

Notes on Imagination

"Use your imagination" oft heard phrase: seldom done. In most cases it is the imagination which does the using. This is responsible for much personal difficulty and cultural unpleasantness.

With the emergence of awakened awareness by the practice of meditation it is not difficult to see if one's consciousness is dominated by imagination, or if one's imagination serves consciousness. The implications are obvious.

We all have a figurine collection: a glass menagerie of projections of imagination. We tend to be fiercely protective of our projections because they are "us" in the same way as our fingers and toes. Albeit in a less physically generative way.

It must be remembered that all ideas are imaginary, and when we are identified with the projections of our imagination we live in the shadow of our imagination. When imagination serves awakened awareness it is a magic lamp.

Intentional Being

Very few people are capable of making a decision. We "opt" all over the place, but opting is not the same thing as deciding.

Let me explain. The normal human creature is one for whom the animal core of the psyche is wholly invisible. It is categorically impossible for this creature to recognize the weight of undiluted great ape influencing its behavior, and since its core animal responses are taken as personal volition to say that this creature is capable of "deciding" as opposed to "opting" is doing it a decided disfavor.

Deciding and opting share the same territory in that they both reflect the resonance of the external within the domain of the internal. The point being that if the interior of our being is an unexplored mystery our responses to the external demands of life will be in large measure that of an automaton.

Self control is a necessary social discipline, but it is miles away from the ability to decide ones state of being. And since most people are in large measure automatons that respond in predictable and inevitable ways there is great value in being able to decide what to be.

The what determines the how. If we are capable of being what we need to be in a given situation the how takes care of it's self. This is a skill that makes life better for all that it touches: initiates and ordinary people alike, and meditation is the exercise which makes possible this magic

That cultivation of pure awareness which we practice in meditation gently pulls back the curtain behind which our animal nature operates. When awareness recognizes and befriends the natural animal, the animal is no longer a slave to the millions of years of darkness from which it has emerged: there is a metamorphosis; it has become the wand, the magic carpet, the wish fulfilling gem.

Of the many fruits of meditation one of the sweetest is intentional being, as the children of the earth are reborn as the children of the universe.

Transcendent Awareness

The synthetic abilities of the modern English language make possible shades of meaning that would have been impossible to convey a mere hundred years ago. The advent of psychology and the popularization of meditation have enriched the descriptive power of words to a remarkable degree. With such tools at our disposal let us revisit the relationship of consciousness to awareness.

The word "Consciousness" is used rather broadly and loosely and it makes no sense to try to sort that out. "Awareness" is less abused and therefore more easily used succinctly. That which is "Transcendent" is that without apparent limitations.

There is no such thing as transcendent consciousness. Consciousness is a configuration of Awareness. Anything that is configured is limited, and its limits are its value.

Awareness, simple, un-fixated, awareness is by nature transcendent. Consciousness is the surface of our being, and Transcendent Awareness is the substance of our being.

In meditation simply let consciousness contemplate Awareness. Nature will take its course.

The Carpet, the Wand, and the Gem

Someone recently asked me "Well, if awareness awakens as you say, what then about life?"

The Magic Carpet

The Magic Wand

The Magic Wish Fulfilling Gem


This is our creaturely life.

The Hand We Are Dealt

There is no-one on the surface of the earth who is not subject to the person that they are. And by and large we all have a head full of ideas. For the most part these ideas are historical artifacts of a by-gone age. We are all playing the hand we've been dealt.

History's game has played its self out.

If there is any future for humanity it will come only from laying the cards on the table and admitting that the deck has been stacked, and that all ideas are imaginary.

It is not to be expected that humanity at large should awaken. But those of us who are awake must recognize the hand we've been dealt.

For instance: the patriarchal murder form of problem-solving is something that can only be put in the past by recognizing it for what it is. In our supposed modern superiority we have lost the ever present truth of mere existence.

The wild card is that the Universe might awaken in its progeny.

Endless Sleep

It is not uncommon that dreams are remembered. And of course dreams forgotten are dreams not futile but ephemeral. There are those dreams that on awakening drift away even as we grab pen to rope them down, but what can be said of those dreams never remembered. They can not be thought of because they did not enter into consciousness. We know they exist because we know they must exist.

We wake in a sweat, and know not why. It seems a taste of lingering dream is bitter on our soul's tongue but all images are occult. Do any imagine that they are immune to the sway of human nature? Those dreams to which we cannot admit are the dross of the possible and the inevitable sway of the mind of the animal.

Various systems have come up with various colorful metaphors. From the Hindu "mad monkey", to Gurdjieff's "It" those who see "IT" have tried to lead others to the trough of truth. The most amusing element of the whole bit is that seeing clearly broaches no exemption. Should the iron of the casting awaken it will not be exempt from its form.

The shallow promises of religious tropes short circuit any hope for enlightenment. It is a nightclub where all phantasies are respected.

Bring your metaphor, your belief, your desperate hope, your tradition, you will not be turned away.

Dangerous Operators

There is no operators manual for the awareness inhabiting a human animal. These awareness are born into the jungle to sleeping progenitors and fed a diet of ideas guaranteed to cost them half a lifetime to digest (let alone evacuate).

When Chuang Tzu remarked that teachings of diligence and reverence lead to indolence and debauchery he made note of the clever way idea has of replacing intuition. The obvious has been apparent (to those for whom it is apparent) for thousands of years, but it has yet to become fashionable.

There seems to be no way to explain to the mad monkey that all it is identified with is just monkey business, no more, no less.

I guess calculus is not for the average six year old. And they should be protected from operating dangerous machines such as governments.

Really Exercising

A pole barn is an exercise in Aristotelian logic

A hamburger is an exercise in Platonic ideal form

Zen has no problem with any of this



because Zen is the exercise of reality

Love in the Time of the Kali Yuga

How is one to have a sense of well being in the time of plague? Even if one is not directly subject to the tide of evil sweeping the world, the suffering innocent and the futility of good will break hearts.

It takes courage to be of good cheer when you recognize the world is run by fools and knaves; courage and self knowledge. To have some relative resistance to sorrow when sorrow is so justified is a tall (yet necessary) order. Anger is the child of sorrow, and it is important not to become the womb of the next oppression.

Only enlightenment can stem the plague. Only enlightenment can stem the sickness and inner darkness made inevitable by knowledge of the world of man. Only enlightenment can make man's place in the Universe so small. Only enlightenment can make the small good one can do so good. Only enlightenment can speak the truth without rancor.

A Simple Truth Simply Stated

Being is a multidimensional fabric. There is not a thing which is not a part of that fabric and as an elemental thick spot in the gelatinous fabric of being if anything moves the movement ripples through existence. This is the way anything is known.

The river is the water, not the ditch. If the river were a river of awareness it would recognize every spring and creek and gutter.

And in knowing its self it would also know the ditch.

Validation

I believe it was Lin Chi who said to his followers "If in your travels you meet the Buddha, slay him." What he was pointing out is; if you require validation your identity is second hand. The fact of existence is first person singular. And though knowing things like "the world is round" can and must be accepted as valid second-hand information, it is only the unnecessary complexity of the modern world (for all it's charm) that gives such information value.

Being a living breathing thinking creature has no explanation.

Know thy self.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

In the on going search for metaphors that will succinctly express the relationship of Awareness to Consciousness the "mirror" comes up. The eye can not see its self without benefit of a reflective surface. Consciousness is the mirror enabling the awakening of Awareness. It is to be expected that a naive creature would think its self to be its reflection.

Self realization is the water's utility. The death of Narcissus is the water's revenge.

Ten Bulls Eat Chocolate Buddhas

Metaphor, analogy, and parable are the poetic tools necessary to descriptions of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that happens to the personality. Enlightenment is rather like the electricity in a TV set waking up. Suddenly the personality doesn't matter much anymore. Its not about the picture.

Pure awareness of it's self does not have color or flavor. It is the very bland emptiness of awareness that is it's supreme value. It is emptiness that makes sound and color possible. Awareness is that emptiness necessary as the womb of form. Form is knowable. Awareness has no form, and yet awareness is the ultimate truth of individual being. So long as we are hypnotized by form we are barred from any approach to the identity of the universe. The Buddhist parable of "The Ten Bulls" is an allegory elucidating an Awareness awakening within it's creature and the subsequent domestication of animal nature by an awakened Awareness.

I suppose it happens that there are cases of spontaneous enlightenment. Some limit is breached and awareness transcends consciousness. If the individual has no experience in and practice of meditation it is inevitable that the personality seize the moment and define the event to it's own satisfaction; thereby thwarting (probably forever) the opportunity of a lifetime. The parable of "The Chocolate Buddha Box" is the appropriate allegory in this tragic case. This kind of case often results in a sincere religious fanatic.

Meditation is the touchstone. Meditation is way. Meditation is the key, and meditation is the door. Simply let consciousness contemplate awareness; nature will take it's course. It is no more necessary to stop one's thoughts than it is to remove the butterflies from a meadow; let them go their way. Awareness is all.

The obvious will become apparent.

The children of the earth will be reborn as the children of the Universe

The Savor of Enlightened Being

If you are properly aware you will notice that every moment has a flavor. Every moment without exception has a flavor. Some are like water, and it must be admitted that some water taste better than others. Some are like high cheese; one must develop a taste for them. Some are sweet and some are bitter. Some are retched. Some sweet moments are poisonous, and some bitter moments are nourishing. Through meditation we develop the ability to become truly aware. It is obvious to those who are truly aware that we taste our way through life the same way a salmon finds it's way to the stream in which it was born.

The ordinary state of being is one in which the creature is wholly identified with it's affective states. An awareness wholly identified with the nature of the animal has no separation from instinct or impulse or the flavor of inner state. The ancients referred to this as Maya: illusion: awareness believes its self to be its states. Enlightenment is the spiritual equivalent to awakening from a hypnotic trance.

Many years ago discussing such matters with a friend he said "Well, enlightenment won't help you pick out a head of lettuce." This is not true. The awakened awareness is acutely conscious of the flavor of its state. It is by induced states that we know anything, and the very flow of thought is a self induce state.