What is the Zen master talking about

What is the Zen master talking about?
by Stewart W. Holmes
ETC: A Review of General Semantics
Vol. 50 Issue 2 Summer.1993
Pp.157%164
Intend in the following to make sense of Zen non_sense. Fundamental Zen
terms like "naturalness" and "emptiness" and "nothingness" are used in
disregard of the COIK principle: Clear Only If Known. For example, Shunryu
Suzuki, a Zen master, said, "It is absolutely necessary for everyone to
believe in nothing." (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen
Meditation and Practice. New York and Tokyo: John Weatherhill, Inc., 1983.
Page 117) What did he have in mind when he used the word "nothing"? He also
said, "Originally we have Buddha nature." (P. 99) Again, what was he
thinking of by saying that we all are born having Buddha nature? How would
readers growing up in Western culture translate into terms familiar to them
what this Zen_trained Japanese person meant? Which senses or what
observations can be used to imagine something like nothing or to imagine
the nature of Buddha nature? I shall also speculate as to the relationship
between "nothingness," "emptiness" and "naturalness" and "zazen," or
"sitting quiet."
Here are some more statements from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind that will
provide opportunities for translation. "The understanding passed down from
Buddha to our time is that when you start zazen, there is enlightenment
even without any preparation. Whether you practice zazen or not, you have
Buddha nature." (P. 99) " . . . without any idea of attainment, you are
always Buddha. This is the true practice of zazen. Then you may understand
the true meaning of Buddha's first statement, 'See Buddha nature in various
beings, and in every one of us.'" (P. 132)
First, let us look up the derivation of "Buddha" given in Webster's New
International Dictionary. The word is from the Sanskrit buddha, "awakened,
enlightened," from bodhati, "he awakes, is awake, observes, understands."
Now let us examine the Buddhist belief that when Gautama experienced
enlightenment, he became buddha, enlightened. While he was meditating under
the Bo tree, he awoke with a particular understanding. After that he was
called "Buddha," the Enlightened One. His enlightenment apparently included
his understanding that he and everyone else is always by nature
enlightened, is always buddha. He said, "Buddha nature is in various
beings, and in every one of us."
Twenty_five hundred years ago Gautama used the word "buddha" to describe
his awakening to a particular understanding. Those who translated his
teachings into English used the word "enlightenment" to describe this
awakening to his new understanding. The editors of Webster's Third use
"enlightenment" to describe the Buddha's experience. I wonder what goes on
in the minds of people who read this entry and who encounter the word
"enlightenment" in books about Buddhism.
The COIK principle warns us against believing we know what the Buddha and
his followers have meant by this word.
his followers have meant by this word.
Readers of computer manuals and of instructions for putting kits together
have suffered from the technical writers' disregard of this principle. The
ancient Hindu parable of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant warns us not to
assume too quickly that we know what a user of such a word as
"enlightenment" may have meant by it __ especially if our eyes have not
been opened by having had a presumably similar experience.
What kind of "lighting" occurs in this enlightenment? To answer this
question, let us examine the notion that each of us is a Buddha, that each
of us has Buddha nature from the beginning to the end of our life. In other
words, what is it that each of us has that the Zen masters call "Buddha
nature"?
What is it that is observably, tangibly, part of us from birth till death?
Our DNA, of course. Our DNA contains our genome, all our genes. Our genes
direct the creation of our body and influence the kind of interactions we
have with our environment. From the one_celled little creature to the
multitudinously_celled adult, the DNA remains constant (unless operated on
by a surgeon's recombinant gene procedures).
This process of development appears to be true for all living beings. The
germinating daisy seed produces daisies of the same variety. The polar
bear's fertilized egg produces a polar bear. The daisy "knows" what
nutrients and the amount of sunshine and water it needs to reach maturity
and produce the next generation of daisies. The polar bear "knows" what
foods to eat and how to produce and bring up the next generation of polar
bears. Different species of plants thrive best in certain environments __
and only in those. Different species of animals thrive best in certain
environments. Each species instinctively knows best how to do its own
thing.
As an animal, the human being is from the one_celled beginning equipped for
survival. He/She bears the unwritten manual in his or her DNA. Is this in
observable terms a statement of what the Buddhist means when he says, "You
are always Buddha"? The Buddhist's statement differs from the scientist's
in that we can see and touch a cell's DNA. We can observe the idiosyncratic
development of an individual to maturity. Can anyone see and touch Buddha
nature? The DNA and the cells can be sensed __ seen and touched. The
hypostatization, Buddha nature, cannot be sensed with any of our sense
organs. Thus we may say that the scientist's statement makes sense; the Zen
master's must be called "non_sense."
We now come to the second part of our inquiry, the Zen master's description
of the practice of zazen. Shunryu Suzuki strives in many pages to tell his
"students" what he means by "zazen." He writes (pp. 108_109), "For a plant
or stone to be natural is no problem. But for us there is some problem,
indeed a big problem. When what you do just comes out from nothingness, you
have quite a new feeling. For instance, when you are hungry, to take some
food is naturalness. You feel natural. But when you are expecting too much,
to have some food is not natural. . . . The true practice of zazen is to
sit as if drinking water when you are thirsty. There you have naturalness.
. . . This naturalness is very difficult to explain. If it comes out of
. . . This naturalness is very difficult to explain. If it comes out of
nothingness, whatever you do is natural, and that is true activity. You
have the true joy of practice, the true joy of life. . . . From true
emptiness the wondrous being appears. . . . True being comes out of
nothingness, moment after moment. Nothingness is always there, and from it
everything appears. But usually, forgetting all about nothingness, you
behave as if you have something. What you do is based on some possessive
idea or some concrete idea, and that is not natural."
Can you think of any observable operations you can perform to describe
"naturalness," "nothingness," "emptiness"? What can you do to become
natural, to realize nothing, to be empty?
Suzuki has given us a clue. He tells us that plants and stones have no
problem in being natural, but that for us there is indeed a big problem.
What makes us so different __ and unlucky __ is that we have language. We
alone live in two worlds, the world of no_language and the world of
language. I shall call these worlds "Reality_1" and "Reality_2,"
respectively. Reality_1 really exists outside our mind. Reality_2 "exists,"
but only as thoughts_feelings, semantic reactions, in our mind.
Recall that the author(s) of Genesis described the harmonious life enjoyed
by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Life at that time existed as
Reality_1; no Reality_2. Then one day they ate the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge. Let us suppose that fruit symbolizes language. After that they
lived in two worlds; they perceived Reality_1 through the filter of
Reality_2. They transformed the seeing of each other's naked body into an
act of sin. Their feeling of shame made them hide from God. With language,
they could now conceive ideas and judgments, and feel emotions like shame.
They could say, "We're bad; we've sinned; God will punish us for disobeying
Him. Let's cover our genitals with fig leaves and let's hide from our
angry, father." The result of gaining language was getting kicked out of
the Garden. Gone was the wordless harmony of living like animals with the
other animals. Ahead lay the miseries of living belanguaged.
The possession of language has enabled us to create for ourselves more
wonders than any other animal has done. it has also enabled us to damage
ourselves and our environment as no other plant or animal has ever done.
Like fire, language is a good servant but a bad master. The Buddha came to
this realization and devoted the rest of his life to helping us master our
language __ and thereby our language_created Reality_2. He told us to
become natural, to realize nothingness, to open ourselves to emptiness. His
followers who accepted his teaching and developed his practice have been
helping people to adjust their R_2 so that it does not distort their view
of R_1 in a life_degrading way. This process usually takes many years, for
we have been conditioned ever since birth to believe that R_2 is identical
with R_1.
Is there a way to describe in observable terms the Buddha's way of speaking
about this human condition? I believe that describing the actual processes
involved in our seeing and talking about the world will make more sense to
our Western minds. The key word in that statement is "sense." How do we use
our senses to create our Reality_2, our pictures of Reality_1?
Here is my attempt to capsulize the very complex series of processes
involved in our seeing Reality_1 through the filter of our Reality_2. Our
limited senses register some, but only some, of the stimuli that impinge on
them. Our brain responds to this input by transforming it into "pictures."
These pictures constitute symbols that stand for but are not the same as
what is "out there." Put simply, R_2 is not R_1 and is certainly not
identical with R_1.
In the transformation process, our language plays a decisive role. For
example, the word "dog" can mean dangerous creature to Person_1 and lovable
friend to Person_2. A dog runs toward P_1, who becomes terrified. The same
dog runs toward P_2, who is delighted. P_1's meaning of "dog" is the result
of a language_distorted picture __ as is P_2's quite different meaning. The
language usage involved enables us _and typically determines us __ to
generalize from one experience to all. Person_1 thinks of all dogs as bad
because early on she was once attacked by a dog. Person_2 expects all dogs
to behave pleasantly like a dog she has previously experienced.
Another unfortunate language usage involves believing as true __ that is,
as existing in Reality_1 __ what another person says is true __ a statement
existing in Reality_2. A contemporary example may be found in the abortion
controversy. Someone says that the fertilized egg in a woman's body is a
human being. This classification exists only in Reality_2, in the
classifier's mind. In Reality_1 the egg consists of a complex, changing
material process. The word "human" exists as a category or definition. The
egg itself exists "out there," in Reality_1. The category, the thought
labeled "human," exists only in human minds, in Reality_2. The actual egg
is living according to its dynamic DNA_determined destiny. The word "egg"
describes a static picture, an unchanging thing, a discrete meaning, or
symbol, stored away somewhere in a memory bit of neuronal association in
our brain. Two people who will agree on the existence of the egg will
differ violently on what to do about it because their meanings of the word
differ. Their different actions will be based on their different meanings
of the word. One person's "blob of protoplasm" is another person's "human
being."
We don't know everything about the egg __ nor about any other process in
the world, for our senses and nervous system (and such extensions of them
as microscopes and telescopes) have limitations. Our language, which
filters and distorts while we use it to describe, has its limitations,
also. When we use language in a life_degrading way, hurting ourselves and
our environments, we should examine our way of using language in perceiving
the world. We should realize that our language consists of symbols (words)
standing for other symbols (mental constructs) that in turn stand for
what's "out there." What's out there can never be known as it exists in its
entirety.
Now let us match this description with Suzuki's description of Zen
practice. "Naturalness" would refer to the body's cell activities as
directed by our DNA. Many of our activities, like eating and drinking
unhealthy foods, are directed by what our culture tells us to do. Our DNA
directives exist in Reality_1. Our culture's largely symbolic directives
exist in Reality_2. Suzuki, I believe, classifies the Reality_1 operations
as "natural," differentiating them from life_degrading culture_influenced
Reality_2 operations.
"Emptiness" would refer to the fact that we don't know exactly what is
going on in the Reality_1 world. All we know is what we know. What we know
consists of what we have experienced directly through our limited senses
and what people have told us, that is, somewhat language_distorted reports.
What we know is in the Reality_2 realm. What actually exists "out there" is
in the Reality_1 realm. The Reality_1 world is not the same as the
Reality_2 world. Filtered by hundreds of different languages and an
indefinitely greater number of meanings in people's heads, human pictures
can never be identical with Reality_1. Being other than our mental
pictures, Reality_1 must be empty of human meanings. In that sense,
"emptiness" most truly describes its existence, its actuality.
How about "nothingness"? If we cannot know precisely what is out there, our
descriptions and evaluations and judgments exist in our heads, in
Reality_2, not in Reality_1. The things that we see through our sensory and
language filters are not in Reality_1. Thus Reality_1 is the world of no
things. Suzuki said, "It is necessary to believe in nothingness." Let's put
a hyphen between "no" and "thingness," and then say "It is necessary to
believe in fluid no_thingness rather than in static thingness. As
Heraclitus said 2500 years ago, "Panta rhei," "Everything flows" __ in
Reality_1. The world of static things exists as a product of our
neurosensory symbolic transformations of Reality_1. Reality_1 exists __
energy, forming and unforming and reforming, moment by moment.
Once we accept these meanings of "Buddha nature," "naturalness,"
"emptiness," and "no_thingness," the light goes on. We are enlightened as
to the way we see and talk about as our DNA set us up originally to do. Our
steady awareness of how we make meanings will color all our interactions
with life. We will be better prepared to flow with what is happening, to
act creatively, and to hope that some life_enhancing force in Reality_1 may
be acting creatively in our behalf. Za_ zen, sitting quietly, wordlessly,
serves to make habitual this awareness that our words are not the same as
what's out there. This frequently reinforced understanding will cast light
on all our interactions with life. All our interactions will then
constitute zazen, that is to say, enlightenment.
Do you now, Western reader, find less puzzling what Suzuki meant when he
said (p.115), "Just to see; and to be ready to see things with our whole
mind, is zazen practice. . . . This is called mindfulness. . . . The point
is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking. This is
called emptiness of your mind. Emptiness is nothing but the practice of
zazen."