Bold words to some maybe but it won’t kill anyone to consider them. Recently I came across a quote by Shunryu Suzuki that really clarified the matter. “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” Pretty much as soon as I read these words, an emphatic counter-thought occurred. “He’s simultaneously so close and so far off.” However, this opinion of mine obviously doesn’t demonstrate the certainty of its conclusion so let me elaborate.
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Various Zen teachers and paragons are recorded as affirming that there is no meaningful enlightenment experience which is distinguishable from our usual everyday routines. Zen is not an outwardly transformative experience that must manifest itself in some form of particular action. So in what sense is Suzuki wrong here? Notice now the particular object of stress in the second part of his statement: concentration. Here we have an entrance into a whole delta system of polluted rivers and something that seems to have been widely prevalent not only in the history of Zen in Japan but also China from at least the time of Huineng onward. That is to say, Zen as something which is obtained by means.
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Are there counterexamples to this view in the record? Yes. And not simply counterexamples but unambiguous declarations across lineages and eras. The following instances can be taken as representative:
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Master Shitou asked Layman Pang one day, "How are your everyday affairs since you met me?" He replied, "If you ask about everyday matters, there's simply no way to say." Shitou said, "I knew you were thus; that's why I asked.” (Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching, 292)
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Followers of the Way, the teachings of the Buddha leave no place for exerting effort; it's just being without issues in everyday life, dressing, eating, excreting, lying down when tired. Foolish people laugh at me, but the wise know this. (Linji, Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching 274)
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The Scripture of Perfect Enlightenment says, "At all times do not produce delusive thoughts, also don't try to stop and annihilate deluded states of mind; in realms of false conception don't add knowledge, and don't find reality in no knowledge." (Book of Serenity 45)
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The only essential thing in learning Zen is to forget mental objects and stop rumination. This is the message of Zen since time immemorial. (Foyan, Instant Zen 16)
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How to not stir? Uttering a few sayings does not amount to talking of mysteries and marvels, or explaining meanings and principles; sitting meditation and concentration do not amount to inner freedom. (Foyan, Instant Zen 34)
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If in the midst of all things you are utterly without any defilement by greed, so your aware essence exists alone, dwelling in exceedingly deep absorption, without ever rising or progressing anymore, this is the demon of concentration, because you'll be forever addicted to enjoying it, until ultimate extinction, detached from desire, quiescent and still. This is still demon work. (Record of Baizhang 3)
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Aeons of striving will prove to be so much wasted effort; just as, when the warrior found his pearl, he merely discovered what had been hanging on his forehead all the time; and just as his finding of it had nothing to do with his efforts to discover it elsewhere. Therefore the Buddha said: 'I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment.' (Huangbo, Transmission of Mind 10)
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The monk asked, "Master, do you practice the Way?"Zhaozhou said, "I put on my robe, I eat my rice." The monk said, "To put on one's robe, to eat one's rice are ordinary, everyday things. Master, do you practice the Way?" Zhaozhou said, "You try and say it then. What am I doing everyday?" (Record of Zhaozhou 160)
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Layman P'ang was sitting in his thatched cottage one day. "Difficult, difficult," he exclaimed, "[like trying] to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree!" "Easy, easy," retorted Mrs. P'ang, "just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed." "Neither difficult nor easy," interjected [their young daughter] Ling Zhao. "On the hundred tips of the grass blades, the great ancestor's meaning." (Record of Layman P’ang 51)
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Lingyun became enlightened on seeing peach blossoms. (Empty Valley Collection 16)
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Each of these cases is saying essentially the same thing: recognizing the self-nature requires no specific contrivance. It is like noticing something unobscured that is already in your field of vision; only involving even less effort than that! Any effort at all is to already place the self-nature in a vessel and, however translucent said vessel is, this will always introduce a superfluous opacity. The mind itself is an awareness that can also be aware of itself but how does it actually become aware of its own essential nature? Every single moment that nature is manifesting itself in all experiences because what is truly fundamental to the mind never fluctuates. Because the true nature of reality is omnipresent and pervasive, any concentration will inevitably exclude something and every discrimination will inevitably mutilate what was already perfect and whole. Buddha awareness is seeing that.
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The concentration that Suzuki speaks of in the earlier quotation is just such an error; the introduction of a superfluous discrimination. One does not need any artifice to be natural and trying to be natural is the most unnatural thing of all. One might even call this the paradigmatic error in the Zen tradition: in all the ways that Zen is distorted, those responsible are doing so to fit Zen into the confines of some personal attachment. But in all such incidents, Kashyapa’s flower dies instantly.
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To be wrong about Zen is to always be infinitely wrong. Why? Because Zen encompasses the infinite, the whole of reality, and so even the smallest deviation here veers away completely. Consider the nature of trajectory. Whenever you aim at something and miss, the degree to which you miss is determined by the initial error and the total distance of one’s object. The farther away one is aiming, the wider the deviation will increase along the trajectory over time. Since those who aim at Zen are aiming at something that extends to even the infinite reaches of the cosmos, missing here means falling completely into the perdition of unreality. Fortunately for us, many ancients have pointed out the way with perfect accuracy. The fourth patriarch, Dayi Daoxin, for example gave it to us completely:
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The fourth patriarch said to meditation master [Niutou Farong]: “The hundred thousand teachings revert alike to the heart; wonderful virtues as numerous as sand grains in the Ganges River all abide in the wellspring of mind. All methods of discipline, methods of concentration, methods of insight, spiritual powers and manifestations, are all inherent, not apart from your mind. All afflictions and obstacles of habit are originally void; all causes and effects are like dream illusions. There is no triplex world to leave, no enlightenment to seek. Humans and non-humans are equal in essence and characteristics. The Great Way is empty and open, beyond thought, beyond cogitation. Now that you have gotten such principles, you lack nothing anymore; how are you different from Buddha? There is no special doctrine beyond this. Just let your mind be free; don't do contemplative exercises, and don't try to settle your mind either. Don't conceive greed or hostility, don't think of sorrow or worry. Clear and unobstructed, free as you will, not contriving virtues, not perpetrating evils, walking, standing still, sitting, lying down, whatever meets the eye, in any circumstance, is all the subtle function of Buddha. It is called Buddhahood because of happiness without sorrow.” (Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching 255)
Submitted February 10, 2023 at 03:08AM by wrathfuldeities https://ift.tt/Kkb6IL2
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