How To Practice ZenIntroduction to Intermediate and Advanced Zen
Overview
Although the term "Zen" is usually translated as "meditation," the actual practice of sitting meditation is just a part of Zen practice.
Nor is Zen meditation the same thing as Hindu meditation where the practitioner recites a mantra with closed eyes in an effort to merge with some higher being.
The presence or absence of one or more higher beings is irrelevant in the practice of Zen. That allows Zen to be practiced by those who hold religious beliefs as well as by those who don't.
Zen practitioners don't recite mantras nor do they fully close their eyes during practice.
Sitting meditation is called zazen, where "za" means "sitting." The full practice of Zen includes zazen but it also includes much more.
To practice zazen, we place a square mat on a floor so that the leading edge of the mat is about a foot from a wall, center a round cushion atop the mat so that the trailing edge of the cushion coincides with the trailing edge of the mat, and then sit on that contrivance with back and head erect, eyes slightly open but unfocused, looking down with the eyes but not with the head while trying to solve a problem for which there is no answer that can be expressed in words.
We don't move a muscle during the sitting. As the teachers say, if the body is moving, the mind is moving.
We remain alert, making no attempt to enter into a trance.
The Buddha sat outdoors, under a tree. He had no factory-made mats or cushions, although the early texts say he fashioned a cushion of grass. He had given up on his teachers; none of them could answer his questions. He was not satisfied with homilies such as: "Brahma is in control; just trust in Him."
The Buddha vowed that he would sit in meditation until his questions were answered. He placed his faith in himself, not upon any external entity.
He paid attention to his breath as it flowed in an out and according to the Pali canon, on the morning of the seventh day he saw Venus and exclaimed: "Wonder of wonders, all living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue. But because their minds have become deluded and turned inward to the self-centered ego, they fail to understand this.”
After he became enlightened, he remembered having lived before. He remembered lifetimes as a human, but he also remembered lifetimes as an animal. He remembered being a rabbit who saw a holy man starving to death, a man who would not kill a rabbit even to save himself. The rabbit that would become the Buddha after many more lifetimes threw himself onto the monk's campfire, cooking himself alive, so that the monk could eat him without violating his vow not to kill.
We westerners read such stories and think: Well, Buddhism sure is a crazy Asian religion. If you can believe a rabbit could recognize a monk in trouble, and then do a bunny hop into a campfire to painfully immolate himself for the benefit of that monk, you can believe anything. You can certainly believe in multiple lifetimes if you can believe the rabbit story.
Yet the story of God becoming a man through a virgin birth and suffering an agonizing death inflicted upon him by people capable of mind-boggling cruelty because he taught people to love God and each other, only to be resurrected after three days and then rising into heaven on a cloud after promising to return to earth at some future unspecified date to reward believers in him with eternal happiness and unbelievers with eternal torment is deemed plausible by westerners.
It isn't hard to understand why the Chinese told the Jesuits that Christianity sure was a crazy western religion.
Modern Zen practitioners sit on mats and cushions indoors because we deem that to be more comfortable than sitting outdoors under trees. Even the Buddha eventually established monasteries where people could sit indoors. The purpose of sitting in meditation is not to see how much hardship a person can endure.
We don't sit because we believe that a rabbit once committed hara kiri. We don't sit in order to get into heaven or to avoid hell. Nor do we sit because the Buddha sat; sitting is not the cause of enlightenment and enlightenment is not the effect of sitting.
We sit because we believe the Buddha spoke the truth when he said that all living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue. We sit because we believe our minds have become deluded and turned inward to the self-centered ego, thereby preventing us from realizing that we are whole and complete, just as we are, shining with wisdom and virtue.
But if sitting is not the cause of enlightenment, then why sit? We sit to create the conditions that allow awakening to occur. When we sit, we are not running around, creating more karma. For once, we are finally doing nothing, not stirring the pot. We sit in serene silence so that we can experience the inherent wisdom and virtue that we possess but which noisy daily activities cover up. We sit in deep silence, deep concentration.
We cannot reach that silence or concentration, however, if we lead a heedless life.
Just sitting comfortably on a mat doesn't alone create the conditions that allow awakening to occur. A mind that is undisciplined and filled with ignorance cannot wake up just by the simple expedient of meditation.
When the Buddha sat, he brought a high degree of discipline with him. He was not a mean-minded, loud-mouthed, opinionated, pleasure-seeking ignoramus who decided to sit to experience bliss. He was not trying to get high. He simply wanted to put an end to suffering, to wake up to reality itself with no preconceptions as to what he would find, with no expectations of feeling good or bad; he just wanted to see clearly.
Most Buddhist teachers teach that every serious Zen practitioner can benefit by having a personal teacher. Some students therefore ask: Who was the Buddha's teacher? The answer has already been given but it is repeated below.
When he sat down, he did so as a deluded individual. He wanted something. He didn't want to suffer anymore. He wanted happiness.
But he had practiced many disciplines. He was a person who had learned to avoid harming other people and other living things. His lifestyle was in harmony with nature and his fellow human beings. He was a practicing monk. He was a renunciate. He had left home. He was not a fool when he sat under that tree.
After he woke up, he said the biggest impediment to awakening had been his desire to be an independent individual, an individual filled with ambition to improve itself. He realized that his belief that he was an independent individual who suffered was the root cause of that very suffering. The desire to end the suffering of an individual is the cause of suffering.
Sufferers do not exist, any more than happiness or the passage of time does. For suffering or happiness or time itself to appear, the illusion of an independent self must first arise. The belief in an independent self as a subjective entity in an objective world is what allows time, suffering, happiness, and everything else, including the entire universe or plurality of universes, to arise and become manifest. Enlightenment is liberation from that delusion.
With that understanding, we approach the practice of meditation by preparing for it. We do not jump blindly into it. At the beginning level, we took three preparatory steps before meditating (recitation of the opening lines of Affirming Faith in Mind, following the Five Lay Precepts, and Repentance/Renunciation). We add a fourth preparatory step for the intermediate level (Taking Refuge) and a fifth (following the Six Paramitas) at the advanced level.
We undertake the preparatory steps so that we do not sit while filled with greed, hatred and delusion, wearing out meditation cushions, sliding further and further away from the awakening we seek.
Those who have awakened report that they are free of the cycle of birth, death, re-birth, re-death, and so on. They awoke after sustained, daily practice. Zen is not a hobby practiced once a week.
The ten steps of this program are arranged in an order that should make sense to the average westerner. Chinese masters advise people to begin their Zen training by taking refuge. However, the average westerner has no idea what that means. Therefore, Taking Refuge is placed at the intermediate level of the third step in the program. One cannot take refuge in something one is ignorant of.
The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures provide a framework for the program. Although they were not intended by their artist to be used as a guide, they provide a good outline for building an authentic, daily Zen practice.
The pictures appeared in the twelfth century. They were based on The Sutra of the Ten Stages that was translated into Chinese from Sanskrit in the fifth century. The original Sanskrit was authored about five hundred years before that by Vasubandhu, an Indian patriarch of the Dhyana (Indian)/Ch'an (Chinese)/Zen (Japanese) lineage.
The Ten Stages Sutra appears in its modern form as the 26th chapter of The Avatamsaka Sutra, also known as The Flower Garland Sutra or the Flower Adornment Sutra.
The intent of the Ox-herding pictures and the accompanying text was to depict and explain the stages a Zen practitioner experiences as he or she begins Zen practice, perseveres in the practice, and wakes up to Buddhahood, nirvana.
In other words, the pictures and text are passive in nature, i.e., they represent what happens to a Bodhisattva (a Buddha-to-be) who starts and maintains an authentic Zen practice.
The pictures say nothing about how to start a daily Zen practice, how to develop a full, well-rounded daily Zen practice, and how to sustain one. They passively report what happens when the Zen path is followed with diligence.
In this program, the pictures and the accompanying text are used in an active way to teach how to get on and stay on the Zen path.
The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures are entitled:
1. Seeking the Ox
2. Finding the Footprints
3. First Glimpse of the Ox
4. Catching the Ox
5. Taming the Ox
6. Riding the Ox Home
7. Self Alone, Ox Forgotten
8. Both Self and Ox Forgotten
9. Reaching the Source
10. Returning to the Marketplace
The Ox is a metaphor for the enlightened mind. To catch it, we have to discipline our wild, undisciplined monkey mind. The practice of Zen disciplines that monkey mind. We first look for the enlightened mind because we suffer from delusion and perceive it as something separate from our selves. We then find its footprints, catch a glimpse of it, catch it, tame it, ride it home, forget ourselves, forget the ox as well, break through the Zen barrier, and return to the marketplace as teachers.
Looking for the Ox, finding its footprints, catching a glimpse of it, capturing it, taming it, riding it home, forgetting the desire to become awakened and forgetting the self lead to the Source, to Buddhahood. In the Mahayana tradition, the awakened one then returns to the marketplace, living among the unenlightened and explaining the Buddhadharma (the teachings of the Buddha).
The traditional explanation of the first step, Seeking the Ox, is that a seeker goes through a stage of gathering information. In modern times, that most likely takes the form of reading books and visiting Buddhist sites on the web. In ancient times, it meant traveling from monastery to monastery, listening to lectures, looking for a teacher.
Most people today never take that first step. They spend their lives working, raising children, taking vacations, going to the church they grew up in, if any, and getting into hobbies such as spectator sports, dancing, and so on.
However, if you are one of the few who have been collecting information about Buddhism, you have been Seeking the Ox. A truly unruly mind never looks for the enlightened mind.
However, this course puts a new perspective on Seeking the Ox, adding a positive step above and beyond the information-gathering step. Daily recital of the opening lines of Affirming Faith in Mind is a step that modern people need when beginning their Buddhist practice.
By reciting those lines every day, we will gradually empty the cup of opinions. That takes us beyond mere information collecting and we are on our way to establishing a daily Zen practice built on a solid foundation.
Any Zen practice that skips the preparatory steps lacks a strong foundation. Those who merely gather information and then start meditating have omitted the preparatory steps and their practice may bear little fruit.
How Not To Start A Zen Practice
Almost all modern day practitioners read a few books about Zen and jump into practice. That is a mistake.
How do we know it's a mistake? Because the majority of people who read books about Zen and then go to the nearest Zen sitting group will attend just a few sittings, and then they will quit.
They quit because they lack an adequate foundation. They expect quick results and when nothing happens they conclude that Zen practice is not for them.
How To Start Off On The Right Foot
The first step of this program requires us to drop opinions. This helps us to free the Buddha within from the shackles of deluded, dualistic thinking.
Nothing on earth is harder than dropping one's opinions. Even the belief that you are an independent entity that holds opinions has to be dropped.
Daily recital of the opening lines of the Hsin Hsin Ming helps us to gradually drop our opinions. We do it every day at the beginning of the day. Over time, daily repetition of the first step results in a softening of opinions. Consistent practice of the first step results, eventually, in a true dropping of opinions. When that happens, our cup is finally empty and we are ready, for the first time, to begin to understand Zen.
Taking Inventory - Feel Connected? Or At War With Others?
If we already feel a sense of connectedness with the "outside" world, that sense will increase as we faithfully follow this ten step program. If we don't feel much connection, we will change more than those who do.
Those who feel connected to the earth and its occupants in general, including not just its peoples but its plants and animals and insects and rocks as well, have more affinity for the teachings of the Buddha than those who have a strong sense of self vs. other.
If we feel some interconnectedness with all life, we have some idea of what emptiness is.
Some Buddhists believe they should never express opinions, under the theory that Zen practice begins with a dropping of opinions, and that the world is just an illusion anyway and should not be taken seriously.
Other Buddhists point out that if one is connected to others, compassion must be a practice and not just a thought. Silence comforts the tormenter, not the tormented. So does dropping opinions require that a Buddhist remain silent at all times?
Roshi Robert Aitken of Hawaii, founder of The Buddhist Peace Fellowship, once observed that the expression "engaged Buddhism" is "redundant." He explained that only a non-Buddhist can be disengaged from the world, holed up in an uncaring, callous self-centeredness.
But doesn't that contradict the notion of dropping opinions? It does not because speaking out on matters of right and wrong is not a matter of opinion. The third patriarch of Zen said:
To founder in dislike and like is nothing but the mind's disease.
We form opinions as to what we like and what we don't like. Those are opinions to be dropped. We don't form opinions as to right and wrong; these exist independently of our opinions.
The moon is made of rock even if, in our opinion, it is made of green cheese. We can drop all of our opinions without affecting our affirmative obligation to speak out or to take action when others need our help. Dropping opinions does not mean that we must condone evil actions by silence and inaction. However, we speak and act appropriately, not guided by anger or hatred.
No independent self - a basic Buddhist teaching
If you clicked on emptiness above, you have already read the "political and social rant." Here are a few anecdotes that might further illustrate what emptiness means.
When venerable Ajahn Brahm received some beautifully wrapped gifts when visiting Japan, he left them wrapped and started through the customs line. He was advised to open the packages before going through customs, just in case someone had unscrupulously planted drugs in one of the gifts, using the monk as a courier. He declined to open the packages, saying that if someone had put drugs in one of his packages, he would get three square meals a day in prison so why should he be concerned?
Ajahn Brahm flies from time to time, visiting countries where he has received invitations to visit and lecture. When asked if he had any fear that his plane might someday crash and burn, he asked why crashing and burning was something to fear. Then he added: “After all, it’s a free cremation, isn’t it?"
Few Buddhist practitioners have reached such a level of selflessness but those who at least have an intellectual grasp of emptiness can appreciate where Ajahn Brahm is coming from.
One’s location on the continuum from strongly independent, isolated and fearful to a universal, fearless confidence and connectedness indicates where one stands on the path to enlightenment.
The unenlightened have a strong sense of an independent self that is under attack from a hostile universe. The enlightened have realized their inherent Buddha nature and live fully and fearlessly.
What Is The Goal Of Zen Practice?
As we work our way through the ten steps of this program, we will gradually begin to understand what the Augustinian monk Abraham of Santa Clara meant when he said: "He who dies before he dies does not die when he dies."
There are websites dedicated to near death experiences (NDE) that use this quote. However, Abraham of Santa Clara was not talking about NDE at all. How embarrassing.
Those who publish such websites have misunderstood what the monk was saying. Abraham's quote echoes the words of the Buddha: "All that arises is of the nature of falling. That which does not arise does not fall."
Both Abraham of Santa Clara and the Buddha shared the same insight: Only an independent self can live and die; where there is no independent self, there is no thing that can come into existence and there is no thing that can go out of existence.
If during our lifetime we can drop the notion of an independent self, our ignorance dies and we are free. We understand that there is no independent self created at birth, and no independent self capable of leaving awareness when a body dies.
When we drop our desires and opinions, we have abandoned mortal thoughts of life and death. We wake up and realize that there is no independent self created at birth and destroyed at death. This is the truth of which the Bodhisattva known as the Christ spoke when he said there was a truth that would set us free.
When he said: "I and the father are one," he was putting into words what he had realized, what all awakened sentient beings realize when they wake up. "I and the father are one" is just another way of saying: "All living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue."
It is easy to understand how people who heard the Christ say those words could easily interpret them as being exclusive to him and to him alone. It is not surprising that they failed to understand the deeper import of what he was saying, and that they began worshipping him, trapped in their own delusions and lack of understanding.
If the Christ had said: "Wonder of wonders! I just realized that we humans and god are not separated from each other at all; in fact, we are one!" then he would not have been put up on a pedestal as the one and only human being that had become one with a god.
The Buddha, at the moment of his awakening, said the same thing that the Christ said at the moment of his awakening. The Buddha made it clear that he was a human being who had awakened; the Christ used words, perhaps put into his mouth by Paul, that led many to believe that he was not one of us. The Buddha made it clear that he was one of us. In Buddhism, the Buddha is respected or venerated, but he is not worshipped.
The Buddha does not own the truth, no more than the Christ or Abraham of Santa Clara. The truth just is and few have found it. Those few experience difficulty in explaining what they have found to others. The others become their followers, their followers worship them or their words, and after a few generations their deep insight gets watered down to a few orthodox beliefs. The bath water remains, the baby is gone.
Zen Buddhism provides a practice that leads to the awakening of which Jesus the Christ spoke. Rote prayer (Lord, thank you for this day and its many blessings; be with the sick and afflicted, guide, guard and direct us for in Jesus' name we pray, Amen) does not lead to awakening. Blind belief in a god, a savior, or a prophet does not lead to awakening. Singing songs in a church building, listening to sermons, and putting money in collection baskets do not lead to awakening.
Awakening requires active work. In the 21st century, only Buddhism lays out a daily path of practice that is active work and that leads to awakening.
Paradoxically, striving to awake never works. Enlightenment cannot be grasped or attacked. All we can do is create the conditions for awakening to occur. An authentic daily Zen practice creates those conditions.
If we were chained to the floor of a dungeon and were offered a trip to the top of the castle, we would take it. Once there, admiring the view of the valley, the river, the mountains and lakes, breathing the fresh air, hearing babbling brooks and the songs of birds, we would not choose to return to the dungeon if given the choice.
However, the point of Zen practice is not to lift us from a dark place into the light. That's what self-help or self-improvement programs try to do.
The point of Zen practice is to enable us to see, to experience the fact that the dungeon and the top of the castle are mind alone.
An enlightened mind is neither enslaved nor liberated. The middle way is neither up nor down, neither happy nor sad. Nor is it a bland nothingness; it is a fullness, a wakefulness beyond mere joy or bliss. One experiences bliss upon entering into that state beyond bliss and one experiences bliss again upon re-entering the mundane world.
Only the awakened reside in that state of Incomprehensible and Incomparable Enlightenment. Awakening happens when it happens. It cannot be forced to happen. We cannot practice Zen so that we can win enlightenment. We can only practice Zen with diligence every day to create the conditions that allow awakening to occur.
We do not practice Zen to save ourselves from some vengeful, angry god who gets so mad that steam comes out of his ears. We do not practice Zen to gain entry into some man-made vision of a Billy Graham heaven where the golf courses are really nice. We practice Zen to allow our original, undefiled self to awaken. If we practice Zen with diligence, we learn who or what we are. The bottom of the bucket falls out, and we awaken to a reality that has always been there but which no one can describe.
When a person awakens, that is the Second Coming. It comes unexpected like a thief in the night.
Karma and the Satanic Mind
If we find ourselves today in an unpleasant situation, it is because every thought we have ever had, every act we have ever performed, has brought us to that situation. Where we are now is the sum total of every thought we've entertained and everything we've ever done.
That's the law of cause and effect. The effects we are now experiencing arise from previous causes. The Sanskrit word "karma," often translated as "action," can also be translated as the law of cause and effect because every action produces an effect.
If we find ourselves in a pleasant situation, it's because every thought we ever held, every act we ever performed, has brought us to that situation. Where we are now is the sum total of everything we've ever thought or done.
But the best situation to be in is one that is perceived as neither good nor bad. If we adjudge our situation to be pleasant or unpleasant, our mind is defiled. Our thoughts are satanic if we categorize everything we do as something we enjoy doing or don't enjoy doing. Our mind is satanic if we divide our personal acquaintances into people we like and those we don't. Or countries we like and those we don't. Or religions we like and those we don't.
The Metaphor of Mirrors and Movies
The mind is the mind of a Satan if it is not the awakened mind of the Buddha. A Buddha mind does not divide reality into categories, nor does it like and dislike. Like a mirror, it simply accepts what is and its equanimity is not affected by the scene reflected in it.
A movie screen is another metaphor for the Buddha mind. When fires burn in a movie, the screen remains cool to the touch. When a town floods, the screen remains dry. A movie monster lurks in the dark, and as the hero approaches doom, an audience member screams: "No! Turn back!"
Unenlightened life is just like that. We get caught up in the plot and come to believe that what is happening is real. But an enlightened mind remains cool, dry, and free of monsters.
Like a mirror, a movie screen, or a still forest pool, it is unaffected by what seems to be real.
The awakened ones understand that the ups and downs of life are just scenes projected onto the movie screens of our minds. They understand that each scene was caused by a previous scene, that each thought, word, or action leads to the next thought, word, or action.
Our inherent Buddha nature, our true self, is unaffected by the illusions projected onto or reflected by it. Our ignorant self denies that it is the screen or the mirror, and insists that it is a self that experiences the events flickering on the screen or reflected in the mirror.
We're all living our mundane lives, thinking we are pretty much OK. In fact, we're a bunch of Satans, walking around with deluded minds filled with junk and passing the time by doing stuff we like to do and avoiding stuff we don't like to do. We live in the dungeon of the unenlightened and are quite proud of it, too dumb to know we're dumb.
We have to drop our current modes of thinking. Only when we drop our body and mind that we cherish so much can we be liberated from the prison of body and mind.
No Two Things
A man wrote a letter to the editor of The St. Petersburg Times in the spring of 2009, saying that he wanted oil companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida "because we need a victory over the all-powerful environmentalists."
Why would anyone demand that their nest be subjected to potential fouling? "Please subject my home to fouling so that I may have a victory over those who tried to prevent it."
Another letter writer informed us that the jihadists hate us because our legal system provides a presumption of innocence to all accused persons and because we try the accused in federal courts without torturing them first instead of military tribunals after they have been tortured "to extract valuable information from them." Thus we now know that the jihadists liked us more when we were torturing them and curtailing their legal rights. And that torture produces reliable info.
A book could easily be filled with examples of ignorant ramblings that newspaper publishers feel compelled to print.
Almost everyone alive today is deluded. The ignorant who demand that their nest be fouled so that they can experience the thrill of victory while losing their habitat is the part of us that is that stupid. The people who think we defeat terrorism by becoming terrorists are the part of us that is that stupid. That's what the Buddha taught. There are no two people, there are no two things. Consciousness or Awareness is a seamless whole and there is no such thing as an independent individual.
The proof of that assertion can be proven but not by chaining words together. It can only be experienced and it can only be experienced by those who practice authentic Zen every day.
Zen And Religion
The word "Zen" means meditation. However, Zen meditation is unlike Hindu, Christian, and Islamic meditation. It requires no belief in a creed, a guru, a savior, a prophet, or a god. Belief in an outside entity is a roadblock to Zen practice; the Buddha is nothing other than the true self of every apparent independent individual. There are no two things; nothing, absolutely nothing, is outside, nothing is out there. Everything is mind. In the concluding lines of an ancient Buddhist chant:
This moment arises from mind. This moment itself is mind.
If you are not a Zen practitioner, you have no idea what it's all about. If you have read books like The Dharma Bums you have been misled as to what Zen is.
I once visited a self-proclaimed Zen group in St. Petersburg, Florida. A bunch of guys sat around, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, eating chicken and listening to an audio tape recorded by some guy who kept mentioning steak houses as he tried to make whatever foolish point he was trying to make. "Zen is anything goes," they explained to me.
Zen, however, is a highly disciplined practice having nothing to do with self-absorption, self-gratification, and licentious, undisciplined behavior.
Zen is not a revealed religion. It does not present a Truth and ask you to believe it. The Buddha challenged people not to believe his teachings but to test them. He said to follow the teachings that passed the test of practice and to drop the others. Blind belief, blind faith, plays no role in Zen.
The Buddha said, bluntly: "I am a man. Do not worship me, do not pray to me when I'm gone."
Zen is not a conventional philosophy. A conventional philosophy has a worldview, an outlook as to how one should think and live. Zen is about un-knowing, dismantling neat packages of thought that purport to explain things.
Liberation does not come from an accumulation of mundane knowledge; it is a dropping off of body and mind. A large accumulation of knowledge-based opinions is a hindrance to awakening.
Zen is non-religious and non-philosophic. Zen is a practice. Roshi Philip Kapleau explained that Zen is a religion only to the extent that those who practice it have faith that they are creating the conditions that allow awakening to occur. The practice of Zen opens the gateless gate.
Books about Zen philosophy are bunk. The Buddha taught that metaphysical speculation is a waste of time. Practice is the answer to every question, not philosophy.
Going to church might make us feel good, especially if the preacher tells jokes or convinces us that we are somehow better than those who don't go to church. Unlike church-attendance, Zen is active work, not passive entertainment. Going to church gives us a nice feeling that quickly fades. We don't practice Zen so that we can get a nice feeling.
Going And Returning Without Leaving Home
Jerry Seinfeld tells a story about horses talking to one another after a race. One horse says to another: "After crossing the finish line, I noticed it was the same as the starting line. I could've won the race just by staying where I was!"
Zen is like that, too. There is no goal to journey towards because we are already at the finish line. If we think Zen will take us from Point A to Point B, we will travel far when all we had to do was stay right where we were.
Chinese Ch'an (Zen) Master Yuanwu (1063-1135), compiler of The Blue Cliff Record, said nearly a thousand years ago:
Fundamentally, the Path is wordless and the Truth is birthless. Wordless words are used to reveal the birthless Truth. There is no second thing. As soon as you try to pursue and catch hold of the wordless Path and the birthless Truth, you have already stumbled past it. (translated by J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary in Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu (Boston: Shambhala).
What does that mean? As soon as we try to pursue and catch hold of it, we have already stumbled past it. We leave the finish line when we leave the starting line. If we approach Zen like any other subject, filled with a desire to learn and to become a better person for having learned, we have already stumbled past it.
Why do Zen teachers say they are selling water by the river? Because when we wake up, we will laugh and say: "It was right there all along, in plain view; I just couldn't see it."
Zen practice dissolves the distinction between inside and outside, ending the apparent conflict between self and other, subject and object. Self-improvement programs, however, strengthen the image of an independent self. The notion of self-improvement presupposes the existence of an independent self.
Zen is not a self-improvement program and should not be practiced for purposes of self-improvement. If there is no independent self, there can never be any self-improvement.
Zen practice can never be understood from an intellectual standpoint. With the practice of Zen comes experiential knowledge, not a collection of intellectual beliefs.
Emptiness Revisited
If there is no independent self, what is there? Nothing exists independently of anything else. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste or touch is connected to something else. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
John Donne's Meditation XVII, published in 1624, includes the passage made famous by Ernest Hemmingway:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Emptiness, in Buddhism, reaches a little deeper: the expression "because I am involved in mankind" indicates that Mr. Donne still saw himself as a part of mankind. Accordingly, the passing away of one person "diminishes me."
He didn't quite get it, but he was close. There is no independent self that can pass away or that can be diminished in any way. Are we independent selves that have birth dates and that will some day have death dates? No. That is the delusion, the mortal thought, that an authentic Zen practice demolishes.
Ultimate liberation comes from the knowledge, not the belief, in the fact of emptiness, the interconnectedness of all things, the absence of independent entities, and the reality of our inherent Buddha nature. Our inherent Buddha nature is Awareness.
None of us has ever heard a bird sing. It is Unborn Hearing Awareness that hears. Nor have we ever seen a bird. It is Unborn Seeing Awareness that sees. Nor is the Unborn an entity.
Book. Does that mean anything? We had to learn at one point that a book is a collection of pages secured together at their respective edges somehow and that upon those pages are words and possibly illustrations. But then, before that, we had to know what a page was, what paper is, and so on. Every word in a dictionary is defined by other words. Nothing stands alone.
And that's the way reality is. A dictionary is a great teacher of emptiness. Not a single word in it exists independently of the other words. Every single word is empty of an independent meaning and is therefore defined in terms of other words that are themselves defined in terms of other words and the regression is endless with no beginning. When a "new" word is coined, old words define it.
To fully understand, to fully experience emptiness, we have to practice Zen. That is the key to awakening. It has nothing to do with going to church and being entertained by a sermon. It has nothing to do with adopting a belief system.
Ironically, if we take this course with the ambition to become an authentic Zen practitioner, we won't complete it. If our only goal is to wake up, to be free of self rather than to improve the self, we'll make it. To state the matter more accurately, our inherent Buddha nature will reveal itself.
Looking for better mental and physical health? Better relationships? Want to win friends and influence people? Those may be some of the side effects of Zen practice but if Zen is practiced with those goals in mind, the practitioner is striving for self-improvement and therefore strengthening the ultimate delusion.
People say: "If Buddhism is all about giving up the self, count me out." They are clinching a shiny new penny in their hand, unwilling to give it up. Untold, limitless riches appear when that penny is released. How foolish it is to insist on living in the dungeon.
Some of the steps in this course involve memorization. The point of memorizing a text is to incorporate it deeply so that it is no longer something outside of us. A memorized text becomes a part of us, especially when repeated on a daily basis. An authentic Zen practitioner knows the Hsin Hsin Ming (Affirming Faith In Mind) by heart. He or she knows Master Hakuin's Chant in Praise of Zazen by heart, and many other chants as well.
Memorization of chants also increases mental discipline. A sloppy, undisciplined mind that refuses to work has no hope of awakening, and no hope of re-birth in the human dharma realm.
To complete this course, we need to find the right amount of tension. We can't play a guitar if the strings are too tight or too loose. A string drawn too tight will break and one that is too loose will produce no sound.
Therefore, we must find the middle way between too much exertion and not enough. We must work hard, but at a pace that we can sustain. Whenever the going gets too tough at the intermediate or advanced level, we go back to step one and start over.
The last words of the Buddha were: "Work out your salvation with diligence."
Who was the teacher of the Buddha? Suffering was the teacher of the Buddha.