Zen is largely psychological rather than supernatural, a big plus

Since Zen Buddhism tends to deny that reality can be captured in words or concepts, I guess it isn't surprising that I have difficulty explaining, either to myself or to others, why I've been so enamored of Zen since my college days.

That's when I kept the only book I've failed to return to a library (I'm pretty sure I paid the San Jose Public Library for the replacement cost), Hubert Benoit's The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought. I wrote about this back in 2005: "'The Supreme Doctrine', thirty-six years overdue" 

Whenever I need another dose of Zen, that's the book I'm most likely to pick up. Sure, I've read it many times, but Benoit's profound writing always gives me fresh insights, probably because while the book doesn't change, I do, constantly.

A few days ago I started to re-read the introductory chapter in The Supreme Doctrine and noticed that Benoit says his book isn't for Zen neophytes, and he assumes that the reader is familiar with D.T. Suzuki's The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind.

I hadn't paid attention to that assumption before, so I jumped up and checked the Buddhism section of the bookcase in my office to see if I had that book by Suzuki. I did, but I'd only read less than half of it. so to honor the long-dead Benoit, I decided to finish The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind.

Haven't done that yet, but I've re-read the first 60 pages, which is as far I got in the book before.

What's striking about what Suzuki has to say is how psychological it is, as contrasted with religious books, which primarily focus on the supernatural, with human psychology being much less important.

In other words, Zen, along with Buddhism in general, though not to the same degree as Zen, starts with the human mind/consciousness, not with the supposed nature of God and divine realms of reality. Zen, in fact, both starts and stops on the psychological level, though some "cosmic" Buddhist notions do creep into Zen teachings to a certain extent.

Suzuki discusses the implications of the famous couplets presented to the Fifth Patriarch (sorry women, there's no Matriarchy in traditional Zen) by Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng which encapsulate the difference between the northern Chinese view of gradual enlightenment and the southern Chinese view of sudden enlightenment.

Translations vary, but Suzuki has Shen-hsiu saying:

This body is the Bodhi-tree.
The mind is like a mirror bright;
Take heed to keep it always clean
And let not dust collect upon it.

Whereas Hui-neng replied:

There is no Bodhi-tree,
Nor stand of mirror bright.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?

Boom! Smack down! In your face, Shen-hsiu! Suzuki writes:

'From the first not a thing is' -- this was the first proclamation made by Hui-neng. It is a bomb thrown into the camp of Shen-hsiu and predecessors. By it Hui-neng's Zen came to be sharply outlined against the background of the dust-brushing type of Zen meditation.

...If the Mind is originally pure and undefiled, why is it necessary to brush off its dust, which comes from nowhere? Is not this dust-wiping, which is the same thing as 'keeping one's guard', an unwarranted process on the part of the Zen Yogin? The wiping is indeed an altogether unnecessary contrivance.

If from the Mind arises this world, why not let the latter rise as it pleases? To try to stop its rising by keeping one's guard on the Mind -- is not this interfering with the mind? The most logical and most natural thing to do in relation to the Mind would be to let it go on with its creating and illuminating.

Suzuki's sympathies clearly are with Hui-neng.

The dominant idea prevailing up to the time of Hui-neng was that the Buddha-nature with which all beings are endowed is thoroughly pure and undefiled as to its self-being. The business of the Yogin is therefore to bring out his self-nature, which is the Buddha-nature, in its original purity.

But, as I said before, in practice this is apt to lead the Yogin to the conception of something separate which retains its purity behind all the confusing darkness enveloping his individual mind. His meditation may end in clearing up the mirror of consciousness in which he expects to see the image of his original self-being reflected.

This may be called static meditation. But serenely reflecting or contemplating on the purity of the Mind has a suicidal effect on life, and Hui-neng vehemently protested against this type of meditation.

So what is meditation, or Dhyana, if it isn't brushing the dust off of the mind? Suzuki tells us.

That Dhyana has nothing to do with mere sitting cross-legged in meditation, as is generally supposed by outsiders, or has been maintained by Shen-hsiu and his school ever since the days of Hui-neng, is here asserted in a most unmistakable manner. 

Dhyana is not quietism, nor is it tranquillization; it is rather acting, moving, performing deeds, seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering; Dhyana is attained where there is, so to speak, no Dhyana practised; Dhyana is Prajna [intuitive knowledge], and Prajna is Dhyana, for they are one. 

...If you say you have attained something, this is the surest proof that you have gone astray. Therefore not to have is to have; silence is thunder; ignorance is enlightenment; the holy disciples of the Purity-path go to hell while the precept-violating Bhikshus attain Nirvana; the wiping-off means dirt-accumulating.

Comments

[Ron E.]

Suzuki: - “That Dhyana has nothing to do with mere sitting cross-legged in meditation, as is generally supposed by outsiders, or has been maintained by Shen-hsiu and his school ever since the days of Hui-neng, is here asserted in a most unmistakable manner.”
“Dhyana is not quietism, nor is it tranquillization; it is rather acting, moving, performing deeds, seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering.”

Huineng is said to be the founder of the ‘Sudden Enlightenment’ Southern Chan school of Buddhism, which focuses on an immediate and direct attainment of Buddhist enlightenment. In western Chan today, along with Koan practice, Chan practice still embraces ‘Sudden Enlightenment’ though it is usually called ‘Silent Illumination’.

Suzuki (above) refers to meditation as not being ‘quietism’. In western Chan today students are steered away from quietism – the idea that thoughts have to be vanquished. They teach that every-thing; thinking, feeling, emotions etc. are all natural happenings that arise in the present moment and are therefore exactly what is.

All else, all conjectures, concepts, stories, hopes, desires and fears that we overlay onto ‘what is’, take one away from the reality of the moment into delusion and suffering.

[777]

Hi Ron and all

The sole exception is That special Love
that a Saint Master generates and
is forever
Pubers understand
until life rakes over

Love

[[email protected]]

Dhyan (imagine isn Sankrit) is the Power of the Soul to
find yr car keys
If you don't Dhyan you can never find them even when they are in yr hand
Dhyan makes a kind of Love possible
we can only dream of unless HE gives it to you

I often think that hypnose is part of that, That it is God s way
and ifs further totally misused
like th word IMAGINE they say to children to indicate FALSE
"U just imagine that"
BUT
It is the Force of Creation
and the force to exit

[Ergo]

Religion is the closest thing to evil that exists on this earth. All belief systems can become a form of religion.