Zen! Real, Clear, Simple (eBook)

Two Truths - Relative truth and absolute truth;

all Buddha’s teachings are based on the assumption of the two truths.

Thomas Cleary, Classics of Buddhism and Zen. Volume 1

This is the article I mentioned in the introduction to the book. Some of it is stuff I already wrote about but a little repetition is good.

A young student once asked a master, “Would you teach me Zen?” The master answered, “Yes, go into the bamboo forest and learn to draw bamboo. Don’t return until you are a master bamboo artist.” Ten years later he returned with his art work. The master was impressed. He then instructed the student to, “return to the bamboo forest, meditate on the bamboo and do not return until you are one with the bamboo.” Ten years later the student returned and simply stood in front of the master. The master felt the essence of bamboo emanating from the student. The master told the student to once again, “return to the bamboo forest and sit in stillness until you forget that you are bamboo.” The student did so and was enlightened.

Stories like this are used to teach Zen, and we’re supposed to, “just get it”. Now, sometimes we do, but sometimes we don’t and we certainly don’t get the full picture, the totality of Zen from stories like this.

The metaphors, stories and koans (teaching riddles) used to teach Zen aren’t meant to give a total understanding of Zen. We’re supposed to read the stories, meditate and arrive at an aha moment coming to an intuitive understanding of the true nature of Zen. Most people easily get that Zen is about letting go and living in the moment. But this only scratches the surface and once we try to live it questions start appearing. Without some answers to our questions and having a fuller and deeper understanding of Zen it’s almost impossible to “get” Zen. Understanding helps us to “just get it”. Some teachers will tell us to let go of our questions and be with the mystery or to meditate on it or just to meditate. But this isn’t good enough. We need a more complete understanding and we need answers to our questions.

To some this may seem like an almost anti-Zen approach. It’s said that Zen is not an intellectual understanding. Zen must be experienced and that any attempt to understand it only leaves us with superficial, contradictory and essentially wrong answers. This is only partially true. Partially, because Zen can be understood and masters have been writing about and explaining Zen since ancient times.

My goal is to present the teachings of Zen in a clear, straight forward way so they’re easy to understand. This can help us to clearly know what it is that we’re supposed to “just get”. By knowing what Zen is intellectually we can more easily travel the “pathless path” of Zen and “arrive where we already are”.

One of the most foundational concepts essential to understanding Zen is a concept that’s rarely mentioned. I’ve heard and read masters expound on it and never explicitly, clearly just come out and say it in a simple, clear and detailed way. This one understanding is so important that I believe if we don’t know it we may never have a clear understanding of Zen. This concept can take years or even decades off of your trying to “get” Zen. This is the concept of the two states, the relative and the absolute. Let me give you a clear understanding of this without any stories or metaphors, just simple straight forward definitions.

Relative State (It will sometimes be referred to only as, the relative.)

The relative state is the everyday state/reality that we live in. This is the state of duality. It is divided and differentiated. In this state there are many polarities such as, yin and yang, good and bad, you and me, past and future and different spaces (here and there). This is also the state in which we experience love and hate, stress and calm, problems and solutions, questions and answers and in this state, we may feel spiritual or not spiritual. It’s in this state that we identify with our thoughts, feelings and beliefs, we belief that we are our egos. We believe that we are relative beings living in a relative world.

Absolute State (It will sometimes be referred to only as, the absolute.)

The absolute is the state of oneness. It’s also referred to as the state of enlightenment or emptiness or the void. There are no polarities, no yin and yang, no good or bad, no you and me and no time and space, just infinite undifferentiated oneness. It’s often experienced as love, peace, bliss or complete satisfaction. It may also be experienced simply as inner silence. In this state there are no problems and solutions and no questions and answers. Since the absolute is infinite (everything and nothing) it’s also the relative. This is where things tend to get confusing with Zen but stay with me. The absolute contains the relative. Although words such as “contain” and “part of” wouldn’t usually be used in Zen because they imply separation. I’ll use them here anyway for clarity. The relative is part of the absolute. The two states together are called the absolute even though the word “absolute” is usually meant only as the transcendent state of undifferentiated, non-polar oneness.

The absolute is our real self. The answer to questions such as, “who am I”, “what am I” and “what is the true nature of self” is, we are the absolute. We are the infinite undifferentiated oneness. This is the ground and totality of our being. The absolute is transcendent to thoughts, feelings and beliefs and yet it is the source, middle and end of all thoughts, feelings and belief. It’s everything and nothing. It is self, pre-self, all selves and trans-self. This is what we really are.

A common misconception is that the goal of Zen is to achieve the absolute state and when you do this the relative state, which some see as an illusion, goes away and you dwell in, are, oneness and bliss forever. In truth the relative is part of the absolute. The relative is never transcended. This was expressed by Zen master I-ch’ing, as follows, “When the absolute is absolute it is incomplete, within completeness there is also the relative.” When the absolute is realized, and you don’t try to deny the relative, the two states naturally merge and you experience them as one. Then you are whole. You can never be whole by trying to ignore, transcend or leave behind one part of the whole. When you’re whole, in this merged state, you tend to feel the absolute more than the relative. You feel the oneness, contentment and peace of mind that’s commonly associated with Zen. However, you will still have your normal thoughts, feelings and beliefs. It’s just that you see through them. You know them as just the workings of the brain, the results of your conditioning. You’ll be able to sit back and watch them come and go. You won’t take them as real and feel as if you are them.

This concept will be elaborated on throughout the rest of the article.

From time to time in this article you’ll see the phrase, “look at yourself”. “Look at yourself” is a Zen practice. It means that you take a moment to simply notice yourself. You take note of yourself as you see, feel, hear, smell and taste what’s happening in and around you. You’re not thinking about yourself, you’re just sensing yourself. I just couldn’t help slipping in a bit of actual Zen practice.

The Teachings of Zen Buddhism

We think of the spiritual path as a way to improve ourselves, to make our lives better, more peaceful and easier. We want to solve our issues, fix ourselves and once and for all end our problems so we can dwell in peace forever. This is commonly called enlightenment or perfection. Zen tells us that this very idea is the problem. We run into trouble when we try to fix or improve ourselves or try to achieve psychological or spiritual perfection. The trouble is that it can’t be done.

Self-improvement and the whole paradigm of trying to solve all of your problems so you can reach perfection only exist in the relative. In the relative world there’s no end to change. This means that there is no end to problems and solutions. So, problems lead to solutions which lead to new problems which lead to…on and on infinitely. We get stuck in thinking that if we can just get over that one big issue, that one thing holding us back we’ll finally be OK. Zen tells us that this whole paradigm is false. It’s just an illusion of seeing things from the relative perspective only. This is the illusion that Zen teaches us to break through. If issues, problems and solutions and self-improvement are infinite, what do we do?

The Zen solution to this situation is to stop your seeking, trying and wanting. Stop the quest for self-improvement and spiritual development. When you do this, you’ll find that your dissatisfaction with the present and the search for something better is what keeps you from experiencing the natural perfection of this moment, even if it seems imperfect.

So now, right here in the middle of your life, in the middle of your journey, when you have not yet achieved your spiritual and psychological goals, this is the time to stop and be content with what is. This is why Zen is known as a “pathless path”. You stop the journey and find that you are already there. (A touch of Zen humor…When you stop looking, you’ll find that there is here.)

Stopping and being content with what is...