The Ultimate Aspect of Zen

An ancient master is reported to have said words to this effect,

"If I were to manifest Zen in its ultimate aspect, the weeds in my yard would be chest high."

A Private Word

It seems to me important that just as Christianity separated its self from Judaism, Zen must separate its self from Buddhism. All living things are born from another, and the emergence of Transcendental Awareness from the exquisite Hindu traditions is just as dramatic as the emergence of Christianity from its historical culture. The lives of those that gave all to the reception of the ultimate reality of being can not be trivialized, but the achievement of that reality must inevitably be trivialized, for it is seldom found that creature which can venture into the realm of the the high truth of its own existence.

The Zen of the Patriarchs is the lore of an awakening unprecedented, but not unheralded. The quest for the impersonal recognition of the course and the core of individual mind had been pressing into the terra incognito of existence from the dawn of consciousness when that particular individual, after many strivings and privations, sat down with a will and woke up.

Looking at philosophy from a respectful distant, and looking at even the finest fruits of belief in its multifarious forms, there is nothing that speaks to Transcendental Awareness in other than the terms of belief.


The Buddha was not a believer.

Zen

One of the many difficulties with Zen is that it can not be popularized. Even a thousand years ago poseurs and want-to-be chaps were turned away from the gates of Zen sanctuaries. As with all things mediocrity worms it's way and so even into Zen. The Enlightenment of the Buddha was the awakening of the universe to its Self, not some human realizing something-or-other about something-or-other. The trivialization of Enlightenment by considering enlightenment as a "human" phenomenon is a tragedy, and an opening for mediocrity that all life on earth must suffer for.

The Enlightenment of the Buddha is the foundation for the birth of Transcendental Awareness as a criteria of judgment on a level that would be recognized anywhere in the Universe as Just, but instead of Enlightenment we have "enlightenment" and creatures remain trapped, but with a new complacency, within their humanity.

Zen this, Zen that.........it may make for a catchy title, but as concerning the Zen of the patriarchs.......Pshaw!

What Sets Zen Apart: the tyranny of concepts

Think of a basket. And then think of what a basket might hold.

Mind is the basket. Conceptualizations are its contents.


The true essence of Zen is the basket evaporating into the fabric of existence.



Where are concepts to take hold?

Narrative and Zen: a conundrum

The ultimate nature of Zen harbors no narrative.

If we boil away the narratives of any ideology that ideology no longer exists.

Idle Fascinations, Petty Irritations, and Satori

To those who have not experienced the Transformation, and to those who have been caught by surprise, it may seem that satori will solve their personal problems. This is not the case.

Satori does not banish the animal mind. Satori floods the animal mind with light. The ancient parable of the "Ten Bulls" gives us an historical recognition of the shock of the new, and the Hindu tales of the "Magic Carpet" and the "Wish Fulfilling Gem" are all about the fruition of self discovery.

Meditation is not about discipline. Meditation is a discipline necessary to the cultivation of a silent mind, and a silent mind is necessary to the awakening of Awareness.

Idle fascinations and petty irritations have their roots in the archetype laden labyrinth of the unconscious mind. They are elements of a preconscious animal existence that cloaks its self in a personality, and suspects no "self" higher than its immediate personal experience.  This is utterly natural and it is not for the "Enlightened" to criticize the behavior of the unenlightened.

The difficulty of those who have by hook or by crook entered the startling realm of light to accept that this realm of light to which they have entered finds them still in the sway of the primitive impulse can be discouraging, and at worst this leads to an affectation of elitism that dissolves into retrograde

Do not resent your humanity. Befriend your humanity. It is the magic carpet. It is the magic gem. The urge to elitism is in fact the sway of your humanity, and a dodge back into the shade.



Meditate.

God Help Us

From the dawn of time the occasional enlightened being has pointed out that the ordinary individual lives in a dream. This dream world of illusion is the natural state of any animal. In this state Transcendental Awareness is wholly absorbed in the animal mind and suspects no potential state of existence other than the one in which it finds its self. The mind of this creature exists in a state of innocence, but its innocence is that of a lunatic. In pastoral times this is relatively harmless.

Enlightenment emerges naturally from the cocoon of animal mind by a spontaneous process of evolution: it always has, and it always will. The problem is that the proliferation of human progeny and the exponential advances of technology have created situation where the freewheeling animal mind of man will be the end of us all. By the time the obvious becomes apparent to the hopelessly occluded those left of us will be looking out on a planet ravaged beyond repair. Spiritual infants are soiling the nest without restraint, and are rather pleased with themselves.

The answers are simple, but the animal mind is complex.


God help us.

Exceptional Individuals

The world of humanity is one created by exceptional individuals and inhabited by ordinary individuals. Unfortunately a significant number of power possessing exceptional individuals are sociopaths, and the ordinary individual just wants relative peace and comfort. The cumulative predatory instincts of exceptional sociopaths eventually culminate in the collapse of civilizations.

There is, however, a class of exceptional beings that tends to jealously guard its anonymity: the Enlightened. 

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man must speak with caution.

Zen and the Sea of Is-ness

There is much philosophical conjecture about the realness of reality these days. Rene Descartes' dog forever chasing its tail. Regardless of what we think about it, existence it just as it it. And if it amuses some individuals to dissect it like the frogs in some 101 Biology class: far out.

The western atomistic inquiry into the subtleties of existence will always disappear into the fog of an ephemeral Absolute. There is no right answer to the wrong question. All the blather about "mind" and  "matter" is an inquiry into the nature of a stone. This has a certain utility: this stone will make an arrowhead.....that one can be squeezed for oil. Industriousness depends upon fragmentation. And as to whether the stone has an abject existence independent of an observer, well it's pistols at dawn.

It is grotesquely unrealistic to imagine that an understanding of Suchness and Emtiness would satisfy the atomist's need for certainty, but the simple fact of the matter is: once Suchness and Emtiness are encountered there is nothing more to say.

Enlightenment

Those who see Enlightenment as a human phenomenon are the blind who will lead others into the ditch.


The knowledge of the butterfly is different than that of the caterpillar, but it is not knowledge that has made them different.

The World of Illusion

The world of illusion is not vaporous and ephemeral.

The world of illusion is viscous: thick, sticky, intoxicatingly opaque.

Zen Asks a Simple Question

Does entity precede awareness, or does Awareness precede entity.

And what is the nature of Enlightenment?

Zen and Birth

A caterpillar knows nothing of butterflies, yet in spite of lack of aspiration its transformation is assured. It is much the same with those for whom enlightenment is destined.

Zen does not have the market cornered on enlightenment. Zen is a wonderful technology for modern candidates, but there exist many other valid, well appointed, technologies of being. The central point is that animal intelligence is the soil from which a further leap in the evolution of being springs forth. Humanity is yet in the process of speciation, and those individuals genetically predisposed to Awakening will find it imposed upon them just as the butterfly to the caterpillar and the frog to the tadpole.

Zen is midwife. Birth is inevitable.

The Efficacy of Desire

If the energy of desire were a mist we would see it swirling around all creatures.The more psychic energy involved the more dense the display. Whether one wants a pony and a bicycle or something considerably more dense, the energy of desire sends its wavelength into the fabric of existence creating a sympathetic counter wave tracking back to its source.

Prayer would be seen as focus of such energy, but the normal situation is one where whims and animal needs of the dragon become the arbiter of desire.  Like water under the influence of gravity, the energy of attraction flows to mindless rivulets and ravines leading to the "normal" lives we see all around us.

With the awakening of Awareness that accompanies meditation we are able to recognize and husband the energy of desire in such a way that we no longer permit desire to flow in unnecessary and trivial ways. Instead of indulging a thousand "normal" attractions, we can bring desire to a focus that will affect the change we seek, as a broad mist might coalesce and gather its self into a forceful stream.

This can not happen as long as Transcendental Awareness is wholly identified with the dragon. The world in which we find ourselves is the one mankind has mindlessly desired into being. Meditation and the insueing enlightenment change everything.

Facts, Implications, and Conjecture: the meaning of life

What holds molecules together is shared electrons in the outer electron shield of individual atoms. The one thing that all life on Earth has in common is a complex double helix molecule: the DNA. Of course we have the RNA and the mitochondria and other cell organelles, but what I am looking for is the mechanical source of awareness (why should "life" emerge from matter) and I think it resides in field phenomenon generated by the behavior of electrons holding the DNA molecule together. We can imagine the complex patterns described by these electrons as they weave amongst the atoms that make up the molecule, and we can imagine field resonances established by these behaviors. It does not require a great leap of imagination to ask if awareness might be an awakening of space defined in such a field. Space wakes up.


Flatworms are the most primitive brain possessing creatures. They have eyes, and they have a central nervous system, and they hunt. Some years ago scientist trained these ganglia possessing flatworms to avoid an electrical shock. They then chopped up these trained planaria  and fed them to untrained worms. The untrained planaria exhibited the trained behavior. Slime molds are single cell organisms that travel to feed. In a recent experiment slime molds were similarly trained and chopped and fed back to slime molds. The fed slime molds exhibited the trained behavior.

The fact that these simple creatures are capable of learning is a clear demonstration of awareness. The fact that the training can be transferred by a simple feeding of tissue, indicates that the awarenesses that represent the training exist at some molecular level. It would seem that awareness is a field phenomenon peculiar to certain molecular configurations. This would imply awareness (not consciousness, but awareness) on the part of plants.


So from the simple ganglia of the planaria to the brain of the walking talking human being may take hundreds of millions of years of research and development, but the Universe has an eternity to play with.......what's a hundred million years more or less. What has changed in this evolution is the facility of Awareness to feed and reproduce by virtue of the consciousness made inevitable by increasingly sophisticated nervous systems, and by the corresponding refinement of a biological vehicle.

This implies that any consciousness delving to the core of its existence would find an awareness that was infinitely pure and receptive: a "Transcendental Awareness". And that this Transcendental Awareness exists beyond the ream of the physical restraints responsible for its existence, and that perhaps with sufficient integration could survive the dissolution of vehicle.

What is known as Buddha Nature is Transcendental Awareness, and awakening to its self, it will find the same view anywhere in the universe.

Outside of the existence of life, the universe is a giant pool table with things bouncing and combining in mathematically definable courses. The only new thing in the universe is the experience of Awareness, and I suspect that the experiences of Awareness throughout the universe is the Universe's way of accruing mass: of feeding.

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

Intuition and Whim

It is not uncommon to encounter admonitions agains the dangers of the sway of "intuition". It seems to me that the advocates of such caution are unable to differentiate between whim and intuition.

Whim is an intellectual construct. The monkey mind, in connecting the dots, discovers an advantageous aggregate and is swayed to performance that will affect the desired shapes in the field of reality. Whims are ideas. Intuition is a scent on the wind: subtile forms surround and presage the hard form of the real. Intuitions are a form of touch. 

Since both whim and intuition must use the mind to communicate with Awareness it is vitally important to be able to taste the difference between them.

Meditation is such training of Awareness.

Meditation is the silence in which sound is discovered.

The Method of Zen

Zen is not an ideology: not a conceptual framework that needs must be adopted and adhered to. Zen is the furthest of all things from a belief system. Zen is a technology of being so constructed that if applied to ones self with sincerity and diligence there is a reasonable expectation of the transformation of being known as "Satori".

Satori or "Enlightenment" as it is known, is that event where, as if awakening from a dream, the human animal comes into possession of the Transcendental Awareness which is the substrate of all life, and which is experienced as "one's original face before one was born". We are born the children of the earth, and we are capable of rebirth as the children of the Universe. Enlightenment is no less than such rebirth.

The method of Zen is twofold. First, there are certain principles which exert an ordering influence on all subsequent thought: they act as a lens through which light and dark are made apparent. These principles are Emptiness and Suchness. The ordering of our thoughts must have a foundation, and here it is. This could be thought of as the Yan aspect of Zen. Secondly, the mind must become the possession of Awareness. This is attained by the practice of meditation. Meditation is not an end in its self, meditation is the exercise by which we bring the mind under the control of Awareness. When mind has completely surrendered to Awareness we enter the state of "no-mind". This is the Yin aspect of Zen.

When we cultivate the Yin and the Yan aspects of Zen in ourselves we fecund that Transcendental Awareness which is the essence of our existence, and after a period of gestation proper to our state, Enlightenment is sure to follow.

Chuang Tzu and Zen

Chuang Tzu lived roughly one thousand years before Bodhidarma. China at the time of Bodhidarma's immigration from India was infused with Taoist thought and only needed the catalytic doctrine of Satori to produce the brilliant gem that is Zen.

The writings of Chuang Tzu shine as an operators manual for the human vehicle. His understanding of the pitfalls and stumbling blocks inherent by nature in a creature of human birth is flawlessly lucid. His suggestions as to how one should comport ones self in accord with the vagaries of circumstance are succinct and universal. And his use of Confucius as a foil to explore the limitations of intellect and rectitued are nothing short of genius. Chuang Tzu contrasts The Way of Heaven and The Way of Man, and finds that they can mingle and marry (or not). What we do not find in the writings of Chuang Tzu is a method where by one might discover within one's self and by one's own efforts The Way of Heaven.


This is what Zen is all about.

In a Nutshell

Our "humanity" is a conditioned state of Awareness.


Enlightenment is Awareness awakening to its state.

Tea Cups and Clay

If the clay that is a tea cup woke up, it would still be a tea cup.

Mystery and Materialism

Nothing has been explained. We know that matter is congealed energy, but of the ultimate nature of energy we know nothing but shadows. That Awareness should emerge from stacks of otherwise ordinary matter is a mystery of which not even the surface has been scratched.

The Times

2,500 years is a long time in human terms, and much has change since the days of the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, and Plato. Oddly enough though, when thought of in terms of humanity awakening to the true nature of individual existence, all the changes are superficial. The industrial revolution, the advances in medical knowledge, the broad scope of physical science: all of these things are superficial and unnecessary to the fact of coming of age as a child of the Universe.

All the progress we have made in understanding and manipulating the world around us tells us nothing about "what is the who".  The behavioral sciences are making excellent progress in elucidating the genetic imperatives of our humanity, but the fact that there exists the possibility of an evolutionary leap to a higher plane of existence is generally considered exotic nonsense. The Enlightenment which is transformation of being has been around for a long time, and some of those enlightened beings have given their lives to the attempt give others a hand up (with varying degrees of success). More often than not the teachings of these beings get turned into a belief system when what they were trying to do is build a tool kit to enable genuine transformation of being. Belief is a powerful attenuator of truth, leading to a situation where the message is obscured by worship of the envelope.

The fact is so simple, and so mind bogglingly self evident, that it is invisible. Or perhaps like cave fish the hardware necessary to sight just isn't there. In any case, there is nothing about the times in which we find ourselves that would interfere with answering this simple question.


What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Secrets in Plain Sight

It is said that the Buddha when first enlightened was reticent to go public because he knew that the subtlety of his revelation was all but impossible for an ordinary being to grasp. Chuang Tzu (who lived about the same time as the Buddha) also goes on about the problem of subtlety for a complex mind, contrasting the Way of Heaven and the Way of Man. Plato had his Cave. What all were referring to was the fact that Transcendental Awareness is always first encountered completely identified with its host. When housed in a lion it serves the lion's purpose. When housed in a lamb it knows only lamb-ness.

One of the high purposes of the practice of austerities and of meditation is that resistance to the flow of our humanity reveals our humanity. Humanity is a conditioned state of Transcendental Awareness. Humanity is a condition of being made inevitable as the Awareness which is the substance of the universe makes its way to self recognition through the vehicle of living organisms.

The mind wants it's individuality, self expression, and so-on; well it can have them. But as long as Transcendental Awareness is a slave to its host where is the individuality in that? It is the self expression of an automaton. For the Enlightened being the body is the magic carpet and the mind is the wish-fulfilling gem.

The tree of life is a wondrous occurrence in the fabric of the universe. Transcendental Awareness is the sap of that tree, and Enlightenment is its finest flower.

The Zen of Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma brought his special brand of Buddhism to China in A.D. 520. He is considered the first patriarch of Zen. He claimed a special transmission outside the sutras, and a direct seeing into one's nature. He noted that the enlightened being's mind is tranquil and its body moves freely in accordance with circumstances. What more could one ask? I would like to draw attention to the "tranquil mind" and how it relates to the human condition.

A mind caught up in illusion has a narrative to protect and can not possibly achieve tranquility. The animal mind exists in a narrative-rich environment and is pathologically drawn to romance and intrigue. So we find the Enlightenment of the Buddha early on entangled in superstitious ornamentation. Zen represents the refusal to gild the lily of Enlightenment.

The singular difficulty the doctrine of satori faces is the human appetite for narrative. When we "enter in to that which can not be entered" this becomes staggeringly obvious. The "not entered" is not entered because it was there all along. And entry to the "not entered" is barred by any narrative sacred or otherwise. Bodhidharma advocated a direct seeing into one's nature. This is no less than consciousness awakening to the Transcendental Awareness which is its progenitor. Awareness has no axe to grind, and the artifacts of consciousness are clearly seen to be the fabrications that they are.

The romance involved in throwing the word Zen around is made inevitable as mediocre minds seek to wrap themselves in an exotic triumphal narrative, and I suppose "honky zen" is better than no Zen at all.

The Zen of the patriarchs is the living meristem of the enlightenment of the historical Buddha.

The Buddhism of Huang Po: consciousness and sudden enlightenment

The great Huang Po (died 850) was the teacher of Lin Chi, the father of Rinzai Zen. And when Lin Chi achieved his enlightenment he is reported to have said "So after all there is not much in the Buddhism of Huang Po." What he meant by "not much in the Buddhism of Huang Po" is that the substance of Enlightenment was there all along, though tangled in the effects of consciousness. By the twin virtues of meditation and study, when the spell of consciousness snaps, that Awareness which is the stuff of Enlightenment is already in place, and the obvious is suddenly apparent.

The genius of Huang Po was the spareness of his method.

Being Here Now

Now is the then that was and will be.

Awareness, Consciousness, and Buddha Nature

There has been a recent buzz questioning if insects possess consciousness. This is a classic example of the confusion made inevitable when we do not differentiate between consciousness and awareness.

Awareness is the ultimate property of life, and the ultimate truth of Self. Awareness could be thought of as composing what religionist call the "Spirit". Consciousness is the result of awareness inhabiting a nervous system, and varies with the mechanical capabilities thereof. Consciousness could be thought of as comprising the realm of the "Soul".

As to whether or not insects have consciousness I will relate a personal anecdote.

Once, years ago, I came down from the sleeping loft to find that the huge black wood ant so common around here had discovered the honey-bowl. The bowl was very nice porcelain, hand thrown by a friend, and had a notched lid for the cherrywood honey dipper (all broken and discarded long ago). Well anyway, I came down that morning to find a steady line of very large black ants climbing the side of the bowl, slipping through the dipper notch, and getting after the honey. I opened the bowl to find about a half inch of ants flailing in the upper reaches of the honey like sabertooth tigers in a tar pit. My first thought was "Damn, now I'll have to throw the honey out." My second thought was that since the ants were a nuisance and since they were exterminating themselves why not let them have at it. That is what I did. I left the honey bowl untouched on the counter and went on about my business.

The following morning I came down from the sleeping loft to find a ring of ants surrounding the honey-bowl. Like a ring, shoulder to shoulder, of tundra musk ox defending their young: all were facing out.



Does a dog have Buddha Nature?