ZEN

Zen has achieved it's purpose when we have absorbed our illusions and become what we were to begin with.

Self Discovery

 

What do we mean by "self discovery"? How far do we wish to delve into the mystery of our selves. Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung were pioneers in the same way as Danial Boone: where once an Indian trail crossed the Cumberland Gap there is now a four lane highway. Without having scratched the surface how will be plumb the depths. 

In this narrative, of now however many years, I have tried to point out the stratigic importance of meditation. There is absolutely no doubt that the ordinary untrained mind is overwhelmed by the white noise of animal nature. This would be fine if it weren't for proliferation and for the violence inherent in the creature that we are.

It is not shocking that we fuck and that we kill each other. We've done all that from the dawn of time. Yet as a being we are the soil from which an entirely new animal might emerge. An animal that, though an unapologetical biological being, perceives its self with utmost clarity.

And that's a start.

Romantic Notions

 

What is "The Who"? 

If this "Who" reduces to a repository of territorial imperatives which make up the bulk of the personality then the individual is a myth, and we find before us mere plaid, woven of universal animistic themes.

The universal animistic themes which make up the foundation of the personality are the laws of a jungle which is everywhere the spontaneous product of nature.

So the question before us is this: does there exist an element within us above and beyond the obvious animal.  Is there a True Self: an entropy dissipating Awareness that is capable of perceiving and entering into a symbiotic relationship with the jungle.

If such exists it is a product of the jungle in the same way that a butterfly is a product of the caterpillar, and the degree of separation is absolute and irreversible.

Once found in this state we will notice that the common condition of the animal which is humanity, is to paper over the various laws of the jungle with romantic notions.

"The cypress tree in the courtyard."

The "Not Self"

 

The "Not Self" has cleverly camouflaged itself in our enlightened modernity. Psychology has taken upon the individual the sins and excesses of the ancient behavioral ruts which long ago were identified and separated from the individual psyche as the influence of the gods. The influence of Mars, of Aphrodite, and of other assorted gods were admitted to be influences outside of individual will. This implies the existence of a Will that is self referential and entropy dissipating which we might refer to as "The Real Self." While it was recognized by the ancients that the energy of the Real Self was subverted and preempted by the sway of animistic archetypes, moderns say "I" to the sway of the ancient gods and lose the ability to Awaken.

The Easter Bunny is Kali's rabbit. The birds and the bees are her minions. The flowers are a riot of sexual longing.

Why should a fish suspect the existence of water

The Undiscovered Animal

With the awakening of Awareness it becomes obvious that much of our personality before the dawning of Awareness was driven by the domain of the animal. The animal exists in an impersonal realm of biological necessity, and uses Awareness to exploit resources of nutrition and tribalism to its instinctual benefit.

When Awareness discovers the animal the tables are turned and the animal becomes a resource rather than a ruler.

Idle Thought

 

It occurs to me that the "Holy Ghost" of Christianity and the "Buddha Nature" of classical Buddhism are one and the same.

Perfomance of Narrative

It has been remarked in fables and philosophies that the world is a stage and we must play our part.

This is absolutely true.

From birth, through narrative and inculcation, we are trained to our roles. There is no aspect of cultural being that is not charged with, and dominated by, roles which have become normative by way of social evolution. One individual is a potentate another is a peasant. Had these individuals been born into other circumstances the structures of their lives would be correspondingly different. There exists a cultural eco-system populated with creatures adapted to every niche and cranny. 

The question before us is what is it that finds itself so adaptable.

Our roles, our personalities, our pride and our prejudices, are garments woven by the creature that we are in response to the vagaries of its existence.

What is the Who? 

Ascent

 

In the ascent of the Universe to self recognition through the vehicle of Life's ongoing sophistication of Awareness, humanity is merely a moment of convenience.

So near

Yet so far.

Monkey Business

 

Let us imagine one million monkeys silently evolving in empty space. Each one can access all of the knowledge, religious and secular, that exists in the universe, and yet they are asleep.

The awakening of Awareness that I have been referring to as "Enlightenment" is not the monkey waking up to Awareness. It is Awareness waking up to the monkey.

Intuition

Beneath the world that the mind of humanity has created, lies an undiscovered (and unsuspected) world of intuition. 

The works of genius which have given men and women so many comforts and so many horrors were first intuited, and then crafted, into being. The mind's distorted twisting of the fruits of intuition will be the end of us all

But that's not the point. 

The point is that with the awakening of Awarness the mind no longer rules the intellegence, and we enter a magical realm of unerring Intuition. 

Physicality

All existences are physical existences. 

The force-field of a magnet is invisible to the human eye, but non-the-less its physical existence is incontrovertible. The awareness which we find in all life is also a field phenomenon, and in the same way as magnetism, awareness is dependent upon specific agregates of matter for its activity. In much the same way that magnatism is a much utilized yet wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects, the Awareness which is the substrate of all identity is a wholly mysterious phenomenon known only by its affects. 

The "What" that is the "Who" of our daily life is a field of Awareness, and our humanity is the form made necessary to its existence: our humanity is a vehicle and an abode and a means of proliferation. Awareness (like magnatism) has only one quality: Awareness. In every creature we find Awareness, which is the very stuff of life, totally identified with the vehicle that maintains it. It is quite inevitable that this should be so. It is also quite inevitable that at a certain point in the evolution of living organisms, Awareness should achieve self-recognition and become the seat of identity, thus entering into an entirely new relationship with the natural world.

It is not too great a stretch to consider that such an awakening might be the entire thrust of evolution to begin with.

Shakespeare Reads Thucydides at a Dylan Festival

 

I have a friend who suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. She suffers terribly. She can’t eat. She can’t sleep. As therapy I have recommended cultivation of “The Historical View.“

In the prelude to his account of the (431 BC) Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (a general on the losing side) says that if people understood how stupid and unnecessary the war was then perhaps this sort of thing need never happen again. In the plays of Shakespeare we find a catalog of cruelty, cunning, and chicanery worthy of any modern despot. Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A Change’n” was something of an anthem for a certain idealistic set back in the day, but the times have slogged on in the same muddy rut.

The creature that we are continually recreates the forms made inevitable by the animal that it is.

My friend immediately found Donald Trump recast as Shakespeare's Richard the Third, but it hasn’t seemed to help much.

I think we’ll try Ecclesiastes next.

The Perception of No Mind

A silent Mind becomes the ears and eyes of Awareness. 

 Mind is a configured state of Awareness and when Awareness is configured, a state of tension exists that makes impossible the suppleness necessary to the more subtile aspects of perception. 

 No Mind does not imply the absence of Awareness.  Though a necessary and valuable tool, Mind is an abridgment of Awareness.

 The hand must guide the tool.

About Gnats

A world in which gnats exist is not made more remarkable by the existence of humanity.

Our Existence as Biological Beings

 

Our existence as biological beings is an accessory to Awareness.

Nuts and Bolts

 

Though necessary and celebratory, consciousness is patently superficial. Like the skin of any animal, consciousness is an interface and a protective layer. It is a conditioned state of Awareness that is made inevitable and necessary by the vicissitudes of existence, and the Awareness of any organism is generally found wholly identified with its animal consciousness.

But animal existence is the garden in which the Awareness of the Universe distills and refines itself to the state of Self Recognition. When the Universe awakens to Self Recognition in its progeny this is called Enlightenment. Awakened Awareness clearly recognizes consciousness as superficial and consciousness becomes more or less subsumed by an Awareness that transcends what is normally considered consciousness.

One side affect of this is that we find individuals with abundant potential who are hypnotized by consciousness and who therefore never become properly Aware.

Consciousness is individual.

Awareness is Universal

Chance Favors the Prepared

Recently there was an article in the health section of one of the news services concerning psychological problems resulting from the practice of "mindfulness". Some issues were the emergence of unpleasant memories, and an emotional leveling in which the individual no longer experienced strong emotions negatively or positively.

These "problems" come from using the method without a requisite intellectual preparation, and it is unfortunate because these "problems" indicate that this or that particular person was actually achieving something: actually getting somewhere. Silencing the mind enables repressed content to bubble to the surface, and if the practitioner is alert and prepared, that which has been repressed like leaves pressed in the pages of a book, can be digested, composted: the repressed element can be reintegrated and become a source of growth. Those reporting diminished emotional intensity, well duh, emotional intensity is seldom a sign of maturity of soul. Awareness is sufficient.

So in an odd way this is a demonstration of the efficacy of meditation. It works even if you don't know what you are doing or why. And it is a shame that these individuals came so close to change of being only to walk away, not recognizing a valuable opportunity: mistaking gold for brass.

Chance favors the prepared.

Ten Bulls: the Obvious Becomes Apparent

 

There is nothing the least poetic about "The Ten Bulls". "The Ten Bulls" is an utterly prosaic description of the state of an Awareness wholly identified with animal-mind discovering the Self.

The fact that this reality was noted and codified well over one thousand years ago says something about humanities marginal powers of observation.

Enlightenment is simply a matter of the obvious becoming apparent.

Labyrinth

 

The mind is not a labyrinth. The mind is a system of hallways designed to lead an enchanted Awareness into the ways of the world. Seen from above our humanity is warren of ancient pathways leading to various rewards that most generally serve the needs and appreciations of the creature that we inhabit. The Universe is thus served by the production and emanation of vibrations completely foreign to the material world.

The only new thing in the Universe is the experience of living organisms. The paramecium, the earthworm, the elephant, all generate what we might call "life", and the creation of new vibrations common only to life is the Universes way of feeding.

Enlightenment is an entirely personal matter, but I rather suspect that the Universe may find the vibrations delicious. 

Knowledge

 

Knowledge does not distance the mystery. It is not uncommon that physicists are properly in awe of the unknown for they are amongst the few who experience the limits of the known. Knowledge brings us closer to the Mystery by obliterating opportunities for mythologizing and donkey-tail pinning. The greater our penetration into the perceptible, the more obvious it becomes that the perceptible is the surface of a sublime Mystery the center of which is the substance of ourselves.

Many are those who continue to pin an imaginary tail on the inconceivable donkey,

The Spacious Mind

 

A mind has limited space, and like a a closet, or a garage, or a barn we can jam it 'till the doors won't shut. When we are in the habit of keeping things and making them ours, what then.

Meditation is the exercise by which we clear the mind of the detritus of our human existence, and create spacious living quarters for the Pristine Awareness which is the essence of all life.

Expectations

What do we expect to come from our study of Zen? Supposing we should domesticate the animal that was born to the earth and become the child of the Universe, do we suppose we will be the same person on some higher level of awareness? In overcoming sorrow we have overcome joy. Do we suppose the same things will move us, call to us, motivate us? Please us?

What then?

Tests of Being

 A great difficulty with Enlightenment is that the unenlightened imagine something that happens to a person. Enlightenment happens when the "person" dissolves into the sea of awareness while retaining the discipline that enables self purpose.

Without the familiarity with silence and emptiness that comes with the exercise of meditation the sudden breakthrough by accident might leave an otherwise newborn child of the Universe in a straightjacket.

About Becoming

 

We will never be what we can become 

until we see what we are.

The Gift of the World

 

The "Gift of the World" is that we will never know any peace except through self discovery.

Enlightened

There is a tendency to think of Enlightenment as an amendment to our being, not so. Enlightenment is when our being shakes off amendments.

Rain Drop

Let us give a drop of rain an intellect and an imagination.  What is this raindrop to think concerning rejoining the ocean?

The Qualities of Force

People are qualities


The dissipation of entropy concentrates force

Unintended Consequences

When I began my exploration in Zen I was 25. I had discovered Buddhism while in Japan some 5 years earlier, but the sect in which I had enlisted did not reveal to me the core of my Self. My search continued and I looked into every system I could find, looking for the essence of my Being.

It was the Koan exercise and the insistence of Enlightenment in Zen that finally struck a chord.

I am now 75. In my early survey of Taoist and Zen literature, for all its charm, there were anecdotes that mystified me. Lao Tsu: why did he leave the kingdom to live out the rest of his life in obscurity amongst the barbarians? Would not his enlightenment have been of great value in his homeland? He knocked out the "Tao Te Ching" at the request of the gate keeper on his way out, never to be heard from again. And the Zen masters who came to live under bridges or to dwell in some rustic hideout. Would not their presence in community have been of great value?

Well, now I understand the why of all that just plain as day.

Chocolate Buddha Box

The mind is the "Chocolate Buddha Box"