UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud

Welcome once again to UnMind, the podcast of Great Cloud, my Zen name, also published on Substack, and as my DharmaByte in the newsletter of the Silent Thunder Order (STO) - visit www.STOrder.org. Please let me know if there is a subject you would like to hear about in a future segment. We are pioneering a creative, collaborative approach to establishing true Zen community (Skt. sangha) in the USA. We invite you to come aboard the raft. If you are in the Southeast, visit www.aszc.org for our schedule.

"Excuse Me My Dear Aunt Sally," in case you are unfamiliar with the expression, is a mnemonic I learned in high school for remembering the proper sequence of arithmetical operations to be performed in solving quadratic equations: solve the exponents first; then do the multiplication; then the division; the addition; and finally, any subtraction called for. If you do not follow this sequence exactly, you will not get the right answer.

Setting aside for now the question of what may be the larger point of getting the right answer, as well as the question of the potential arbitrariness of the "givens" of any equation — i.e. the initial values attributed to "x" and "y" — XMDAS provides an analogy for the process of solving any problem, from a design-thinking perspective. Let's look at each of the five steps, one at a time. From writing a book to simplifying our life, it works.

Determining what value lies under the radical in an exponent (X) is roughly analogous to defining the reason for pursuing any problem, whether in a professional setting or in everyday life. "What's it all about, Alfie?" or "What's the meaning of this?" as my grandfather would sternly demand, when we were caught roughhousing, in my younger days. He didn't realize what a profoundly central question he was asking.

I find myself at the intersection of Zen and design-thinking, when confronting the various aspects of daily life. Zen practice and the discipline of design-science, as one of my many mentors, R. Buckminster Fuller, termed it, are both generalist worldviews oriented to a problem-solving mentality as an approach to navigating the challenges of life in our times and developing the specialist skills necessary to that endeavor. Key to finding the best solution to any problem is developing the best definition of the problem.

In the professional context, working for the benefit of a client company, the first step may involve redefining the client's own definition of the problem they are asking you to solve. One of the values of using outside consultants is that they ostensibly are not subject to the same tunnel vision of insiders, though of course they may be hindered by another sort of tunnel vision. The process outlined is meant to mitigate against this. Returning to and redefining the focus of the initiative is a crucial part of the process.

It should be noted that someone writes down the ideas on a whiteboard for all to see.

The second step, doing the multiplication (M), is likewise analogous to brainstorming, engaging in the uninhibited free association of any and all factors that may have a role in developing the final solution to the given problem. This is where thoroughness and lack of prejudging come into play. Best done as a form of playful "What-if" scenarios.

The third, division (D), correlates roughly with sorting the various free-ranging comments into groupings or categories of related items, like the familiar "One of these things is not like the others" theme from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

The fourth, addition (A), suggests fleshing out the various distinct categorical groupings with other items that may not have occurred to anyone on first consideration.

Finally the fifth step, subtraction (S), involves setting aside all the various components and considerations that are not immediately necessary at this point in the project, for later development, scaling down the scope of the first phase of solution iterations to include only the most important and germane elements. Prioritizing, in other words.

Needless to say, and so I will say it emphatically: this is not a one-and-done process. It will be necessary, in virtually every case, to revisit the exponent several times to see if we have wandered too far afield from the original problem definition, and to reexamine the other four steps again as we proceed. Everything is a work-in-progress.

There are some provocative prompts to the process that can be brought to bear when the creativity seems to lag, such as positing the "Worst Possible Solution" — imagining that if we wanted to subvert the objectives of the project altogether, how would we do it? Oftentimes, conjecturing the most negative outcome in opposition suggests a different positive approach that we otherwise would not come up with.

We can apply this design-thinking approach to our Zen practice, emphasizing problem definition over leaping to a solution, based on the underlying premise that within a thoroughgoing and complete definition of any given problem, the solution will be implied.

It becomes clear that, while as Master Dogen reminds us, "Zazen is not step-by-step meditation,"  the process of our Zen life moves through several distinct, if overlapping, phases, if not exactly stages. The difficulty with conceiving the arc of our experience as progressing through stages is that we will inevitably be looking to the next stage, assuming that it will be more advanced. And consequently, missing the reality of the present moment. As the old Ch'an poem reminds, "Not understanding the Way before your eyes, how will you know the path you walk?"

Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us who find ourselves in the unenviable position of being regarded as teachers or exemplars of Zen to address this issue, when students or followers express a sincere aspiration to insight, and confusion as to its meaning, or the common experience of "plateauing" — the sense that no progress is occurring.

Let us attempt a correlation of the fivefold sequence of the process outlined above with the general arc of the narrative of a typical Zen pilgrim’s progress. As always, your results may vary, and the map is never the same as the territory.

X — Let's begin with the exponent of Zen - what is the root of the problem? What lies under the radical, waiting to be solved? What is the source of our suffering?

We can derive some guidance from the written record, of course, where we find such definitions as the reification of a non-existent self, unsatisfactoriness with the causes and conditions of our existence, et cetera, which are, of course, not very satisfactory. The problem of existence, and our place in it, begs the question: Is it really a problem?

It is more important to personalize this problem definition than to generalize it. What is troubling you immediately, in space and time? As Master Dogen says in "Genjokoan":

If you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. If you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

So the problem, if it is a problem, must be hiding in plain sight.

M — Brainstorming intentionally, rather than allowing the monkey mind to hijack the process, we embrace our world of complexity and distractions from all four spheres of activity and influence — the personal, social, natural, and the universal realms — in which we find ourselves. All apparent barriers to solving the problem.  

The root of the problem we might logically assume to manifest on the personal level; but we cannot ignore social demands of family, friends, colleagues and strangers; nor the many ways in which we connect with the world of Nature; and even the universal, especially in a time when technological evolution has revealed so much of our macro- and micro-cosmic context.

D — Sorting through the matrix of all dimensions impinging upon us and considering how to group them into relatively discrete aggregations, analogous to the "five skandhas" of the traditional Buddhist model of sentient being, may help to overcome the daunting asymmetrical nature of the scope of our interconnectedness and diminishing influence on outcomes, as we move from the personal to the social, natural and universal realms.

Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness accompany a growing sense of humility at the vastness of the enterprise. But at least we are beginning to comprehend it. Recognizing the problem is the first step; visualizing or modeling it is the second.

A — After articulating the many components of our living situation we come up with, writing them down in a mind-mapping exercise, and sorting into relatively discrete — if overlapping — categories, we can now review each  to see if we have inadvertently left out any elements that may prove to be relevant or important. Are they complete?

S — At this point, the problem may be well-defined, but any point of taking action is still obscure. Subtracting what is inessential from consideration at the present time, leaving what is necessary to address first and foremost, we come to a point of taking action. No process of problem-solving is effective unless it leads to appropriate action. Resistance to doing so is based on fear of the unknown, unintended consequences, and the desire to maintain the status quo. "Fall down seven times get up eight": we succeed by failing.

Once the "problem" is stripped down to a limited set of actionable items, we can begin the prototyping phase of the project. This involves trial and error, experimenting with various promising approaches, assessing progress, and adjusting as necessary.

The current trope in the business world is "agility," the ability to recognize when we are off-course, and correct accordingly. It is an apt expression on the personal, as well as the corporate, level. The main difference is that we should be able to get ourselves to risk a change in behavior on a strictly personal level much more easily than it is to sway others into compliance with our definition of a solution.

In summary, most of us approach Zen with an initial curiosity or motive — X, the root exponent — derived from the unsatisfactory nature of living in today's world, drawn to Zen by a hunch that it seems focused on this very issue, buttressed by impressions from reading books and hearsay. As Matsuoka-roshi would often say, people go though life with a sense of something missing. They don't know what it is, but they definitely know it's missing. Eventually they come to Zen hoping to find it.

This is typically followed by a phase of "doing my own research" — M, multiplication — perusing more books on the subject, pursuing podcasts and documentaries, attending lectures and joining groups. There is a nearly inexhaustible smorgasbord of entrees on offer in today's spiritual materialism market. The multiplier effect often lends more confusion than clarity as to our initial purpose — the exponent of Zen — where we started out.

Once we have surveyed most of the approaches on offer, we begin to categorize them — D, division — as to sameness and difference, effectiveness and convenience, the whole gamut of judgment calls that we generally apply to any other activity or pursuit. They break down into such categories as various styles of meditation, our personal bibliography of books that we choose to read and re-read, teachers we choose to follow, and support groups with which we engage and disengage. As well as those we reject.

Much of this trial-and-error testing and analysis is aimed at rationalizing our resistance to making the effort sustained required to realize any long-term positive effects. We resist change, if on an unconscious level. In my first book, "The Original Frontier," I devote an entire chapter to the various lame excuses we make up for evading the hard work of meditation, beginning with the most common cop-out, "I don't have the time." These are followed up with suggested workarounds, under the rubric, "Damn your lousy excuses."

Over time, we cobble together our own Frankenstein monster of a practice path, adding to the mix — A, addition. Hopefully, we settle upon a combination that seems to work. In Zen, it usually comes together as a balanced combination of buddha-, dharma-, and sangha-practice, a 3-legged stool consisting of: time on the cushion; studying the teachings; and participating in Zen community. And, in a non-monastic setting, finding a reasonable, operable schedule of training.

Eventually, we begin to minimize or eliminate — S, subtraction — those activities and preoccupations that have proven to be peripheral rather than central. As Master Dogen asked, if you want to find drinking water, do you drill a lot of shallow wells, or one deep well? He also recommended focusing on the central method, rather than the surrounding protocols:

When first you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance and reading scripture, you should just wholeheartedly sit, and thus drop away body and mind.

Again, over the span of our lifetime, it is likely that we will cycle through this process many times, disappointed by unmet expectations and buffeted by the whims of fortune. As Matsuoka-roshi would often encourage us, "Just don't give up." The reality that Zen points to does not change with the vicissitudes of fate.

More design thinking to come in the next installment of UnMind: "It's Not About That."

Welcome, once again, to my UnMind podcast, also published on Substack, and as my Dharma Byte in the newsletter of the Silent Thunder Order (visit www.STOrder.org — STO). Please let me know if there is a subject you would like to hear about in a future segment. In STO, we are pioneering a creative, collaborative approach to establishing true Zen community (Skt. sangha) in the USA. 

This haiku poem, in the traditional 5,7,5-syllable format, I composed some years ago.

Memorial day this year happened to coincide with the 51st anniversary of wedding my long-suffering wife, the love of my life, a living bodhisattva of compassion. The bouquet I presented her at our breakfast date had a few buds that had not yet blossomed, until this morning. Recalling my mother often saying, "Don't bring me dead flowers!" I realized that cut flowers are, indeed, if not dead already, then at least dying, as we trim them and put them in a vase, prolonging the decaying process with water and flower food. I revised the haiku to read:

Flowers blossom all

unaware of their beauty —

though doomed to failure

Repositioning "all" so that it modifies both "flowers" and "unaware" depending on the reader's interpretation, the last line reflects my mother's cold-eyed insight that cut flowers are no longer living, and that the seeds they produce through pollination have the chance of a snowball in hell of germinating.

This brings up another common trope of modernity, the concept of "dichotomies."  Giving dying flowers to celebrate the living is a kind of dichotomy, or contradiction. My root teacher, Matsuoka-roshi, was prone to say, "There is no dichotomy in Zen!" I think he was implying that any dichotomy is in the eye — or mind, or both — of the beholder. Suffering from obsessive curiosity as to all things verbal, I looked up the term in the New Oxford American Dictionary bundled with my MacBook Pro:

di•chot•o•my

noun (plural dichotomies) [usually in singular] a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different: a rigid dichotomy between science and mysticism. • Botany repeated branching into two equal parts.

One of the most common dichotomies — speaking of a "rigid dichotomy between science and mysticism." and which has become a trope in the USA, and perhaps all over the world — is the expression, "There are two kinds of people in the world..." followed by the speaker's perspective on some defining difference between their worldview and that of others. My rather circular version is "There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world, and those who don't."

But seriously, folks...

It occurs to me that one of the many such distinctions that do make a difference — particularly on the social level, and with ramifications in the natural sphere — is of religious viewpoints. The "first kind of people in the world" believe that there is a loving creator God watching over humankind — His children made in His image — protecting us from the worst consequences of our actions, or at least assuring us that they must be in some way the manifestation of His will.

A current example is that of climate change. If our most dystopian fears come to pass, anything coming to pass on such a grand scale must be part of God's plan, rather than an unintended consequence of our collective action, mustn't it? Wouldn't it be ironic if the human race were to wipe itself out, based on a mistaken belief that our reckless stewardship of the planet is under the control of a loving God, who would surely not allow such a thing to happen.

It begs the existential question: What if we are wrong?

We may be forgiven for our resistance to elevating such a belief to the lofty level of "thought," which is held in such high esteem in Western philosophy. "Religion" as such was supposedly replaced by "Reason" following the Enlightenment, as deserving of our highest reverence. In its most extreme manifestation, this worldview — shared by the "second kind of people in the world" — devolves to "secular reductionism," widely reviled by theistic creationists as reducing the existence of humanity to some kind of evolutionary fluke.

The second kind subdivide into two camps as well — those who are agnostic on the concept of the existence of God as a being, though it is unclear whether or when, and under what circumstances, they suppose they might find an answer to the question — and those who take the contrarian position, defaulting to atheism, which some mock as  the strongest form of theism, by the theory of opposites. You can't have atheism without theism. A few atheists enjoy a degree of fame and fortune from their efforts railing against the popular tide of conventional belief systems.

Buddha knew that his teaching would be swimming upstream against the prevailing tide of contemporaneous beliefs, such as that of the atman, or soul, of Hinduism. However, he apparently did not make a public case of it by challenging the political hierarchy of the time, which was based on Hinduism, and in which he enjoyed a privileged position as a prominent member of the second highest caste. Instead, he shared his views with his followers for reasons of personal salvation. Buddhism promised to reform society by offering an alternative to the status quo, which he interpreted as motivated primarily by self-striving. His doctrine began with challenging the belief in the existence of the self, not in that of God, or gods.

If this manifestation of two contrary and opposed worldviews of believers and nonbelievers — one requiring hard evidence, the other only faith — stopped at the boundary between the personal and social spheres, its unintended consequences would be relatively trivial, in their impact on the world we live in. But when the claim is made that the ways of the world, including the machinations of mankind, reflect the will of God — in particular those people who are likeminded, and part of our political cohort — the worst impulses and basest motives of men are enabled in His name, not ours.

We are now witness to an international situation in which the most powerful men in the world are child killers and / or child molesters; take your pick. It is impossible to imagine anything more selfish than that. Their family, friends and supporters are implicated to a degree proportional to their proximity to the inner circles of power. Six degrees of non-separation. That they do not, or cannot, see this fact, and own up to it, constitutes an undeniable manifestation of the root of the trouble that Buddha identified as "ignorance."

According to his model of the Twelvefold Chain of Interdependent Co-arising, everything arises out of a kind of universal ignorance, including most centrally for humans, the conviction that we are independent, existent entities — i.e. the constructed self. This ignorance is, originally, essentially innocent: a case of simply not-knowing. But when this sense of self is taken to be real, it intervenes in our judgment calls in navigating the world, leading us to commit all kinds of actions in defense of it. Willful ignorance, that is.

But again: What if we are wrong?

What if what we take to be our persona, our very own self — stemming from the very convincing assembly of the body-mind complex: the six senses, five aggregates, DNA, et cetera, implying a fundamental bifurcation into "self" and "other" — is a kind of categorical error, a rudimentary, ingrained confusion?

The sixth ancestor in China, Master Huineng, was famous for saying, "Show me your face before your father and mother were born!" or words to that effect. What if what we are now — channeling through this biological body — is precisely what we were, before this body was born? What if we will be exactly the same, after this body dies?

My understanding of one Buddhist teaching is that desire — the primordial desire for existence itself — precedes birth, and indeed, is the impulse that logically leads to birth. However, to assume that this idea necessarily implies the existence of a self or soul, an entity of some sort that precedes birth, a basic tenet of Hinduism's doctrine of reincarnation, namely the atman; or that the soul comes into existence with the advent of birth in this lifetime, which I take to be a fundamental doctrine of Christianity; is to impute to Buddha's teaching the very idea that he refuted with his doctrine of anatman: he found no evidence of such a being in his transformational spiritual awakening.

In the Heart of Great Wisdom Sutra chanted in Zen centers and monasteries around the world on a frequent basis, the implication is that in Zen meditation, we progress through the Five Aggregates of sentient existence until arriving at "consciousness only," our awareness shifts to "no consciousness also." Or as Buddha is said to have taught, a "turning about in the inmost consciousness," Master Dogen's "backward step" of "turning the light around to shine on the self."

This "no consciousness" is not the absence of consciousness, but the necessary complement to consciousness itself – the resolution of the apparent dichotomy. You cannot have consciousness without "no consciousness." You cannot have impermanence without permanence. You cannot have being without nonbeing, as the great Ch'an poem illustrates:

Emptiness here; emptiness there —

But the infinite universe stands always before your eyes

Infinitely large; infinitely small — no difference

For definitions have vanished, and no boundaries are seen

So, too, with Being and Non-being

According to this principle of no dichotomy in Zen, then, even the existential question resolves itself into a complementarity. There is no being without non-being. The dichotomy exists only in our interpretation.

Paraphrasing Krishnamurti, don't "Think on these things"; Sit with these things. 

Welcome to another segment of the UnMind podcast and DharmaByte column. I would like to share a concern about something I have witnessed in the propagation of Zen. I am afraid that Zen in America is being categorized — in my opinion, erroneously -— as a "religion," during its second century in the West. As Zen assimilates into the volatile and increasingly violent American cultural milieu — primarily under the influence of Christian and Judaic traditions — Zen is widely, and wildly, misinterpreted as a faith or belief system. Buddhism is counted as one of the world's big four religions, we are told.

But unlike Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, as well as Judaism, Buddhism is not a form of theism. I would not go so far as to categorize it as atheism — which is said to be the strongest form of theism — but that the question of the existence or nonexistence of God with a capital "G," or a pantheon of gods with lower "g's," simply does not arise. The traditional Zen saying would classify the term "god" as a "head upon a head" — a  superfluous addition — on top of the reality that we all face in life. If god is what god is purported to be — i.e. omniscient and omnipresent — then there is no need to name that concept. More to the point, Zen is not based on a set of beliefs, or doctrine, but upon direct experience, whether yours or that of Buddha — who, after all, was not a Buddhist, any more than Christ was a Christian. Both were human beings, just like you.

According to my poor understanding, in Buddhism, no independent, self-existent entity can be found anywhere in the universe. "Universe" is another word for naming the totality, but it is not conceived of as a conscious being, though the phrase "Vairocana Buddha" or "Cosmic Buddha," used to designate the concept, may suggest as much. An AI / Wikipedia summary says:

Vairocana is the "Cosmic Buddha" or "Great Illuminator" in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, representing the ultimate, formless truth (Dharmakaya) and the source from which all Buddhas emanate. Unlike historical figures, he is a universal Buddha, often depicted at the center of the Five Dhyani Buddhas, embodying wisdom and dispelling ignorance.

The "he" pronoun here is a tell — that Buddhist cultures of origin were patriarchal if not misogynistic — and any spiritual beings were cast in the mold of humanity. A section in the ancient Ch'an poem, Hsinhsinming—Trust in Mind, refers to this idea of an essential truth from the perspective of personal experience, characteristic of Zen:

If the mind makes no discriminations

the ten thousand things are as they are of single essence

Understanding the mystery of this One-essence

we are released from all entanglements

When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached

Note that this underlying unity, or noumenon in today's vernacular, is a thread running through the "ten thousand things," or all phenomena, not just human consciousness. "Timeless Self-essence" may smack of the western concept of an eternal soul, but this assumption amounts to a kind of cultural appropriation, interpreting the 7th century Chinese view of "essence" as a self-existent entity, which is anathema to Buddhism.

The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, testified to the fact that he found no evidence of any such transmigrating soul, or the Sanskrit "atman," in his experience in meditation. He used an analogy to what was at that time a familiar object, a chariot — which, when disassembled and the parts laid out on the ground, no longer exists. The functional reality exists only in the assemblage. The contemporary term of art for what remained was sunyata, usually translated as "emptiness." But this term does not merely point to an absolute void, as it is often misinterpreted. Again, from our online gurus:

Śūnyatā (Sanskrit) or Suññatā (Pali), commonly translated as "emptiness," "voidness," or "openness," is a foundational Buddhist philosophy referring to the lack of inherent, independent existence in all phenomena. It means all things—including the self—are empty of a separate, permanent ego, existing instead in a constant state of interdependence and change.

I lean toward "openness," and note that "constant interdependence...and change" do not amount to a "state." There is nothing static about it. All things found in the universe are not things at all, but interconnected causes and conditions in constant flux — wave functions in science-speak. Likewise, aggregate reality: uni-verse, is not itself a "thing."

The normal concept of "God" as a transcendent being does not stray far from this idea, except in depictions of Him or Her as human in form. As we are part of this universe, the idea that we can realize this unity with God or the cosmos permeates most religious belief systems. In Zen this proposition has the more prosaic connotation of being the truth, whether we know it or not. If God is anything, God is everything. The prospect of realization or awakening requires relinquishing our dualistic conceptions regarding this truth. Again, the great Chinese sage captures the dilemma in relatable terms:

Denying the reality of things misses their reality

Asserting the emptiness of things misses their reality

The more we talk and think about it

the further astray we wander from the truth

Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know

So while I maintain that Zen is not a religion in the conventional sense, what it is pointing to is the essential founding impulse of all religions, as well as philosophy: a realization of the truth of existence. Whether one interprets that realization as a religious experience or not does not change the fact of it. Again, Master Sengcan reminds us:

Now there are sudden and gradual

in which teachings and approaches arise

With teachings and approaches distinguished

each has its standards

whether teachings and approaches are mastered or not

reality constantly flows

"Sudden and gradual" here refers to the so-called Southern and Northern schools of Zen in China that preceded Sengcan by a couple of centuries. But they could just as well refer to today's various theistic religions with their multitude of denominations, or even to schools of philosophy, as well as theories and hypotheses of science.

I italicize that last phrase, "reality constantly flows," as a simple truth, one that does not necessarily negate any of the various religious or philosophical worldviews, but amounts to a universal caveat: that whatever belief you may adhere to, it cannot possibly capture the totality of reality.

Zen inquiry is said to take off from where philosophy leaves off, the latter having gotten there in a more roundabout manner. Whatever the starting point and mode of analysis, finally we are left with the "hard problem of consciousness," to co-op the phrase coined by the philosopher David Chalmers. Or as Master Dogen is said to have said, "At last we are left with ambiguity."

One particular way of understanding various approaches to practice was taught by Kuei-feng Tsung-mi. Tsung-mi was a C’han master, and also the fifth Ancestor of the Hua Yen tradition in the Tang dynasty in China . He spoke of five different kinds of Zen, which are bompu zen or “usual zen,” gedo zen or ” Outside Way zen,” shojo zen or “Hinayana practice,” daijo zen or “Great Practice zen” and saijojo zen or “Easy and perfect” zen. In this sense, we could say that zen with a small “z” means simply a form of practising.

Begin Here: Five Styles of Zen

by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
Zazen-ji, October 14, 1989

[from the book, “Before Thinking”]

Let us embrace this hard problem, and the inconclusiveness of its resolution, as we continue exploring the original frontier of Mind, and sharpening the razorblade of Zen.

To make these postings a bit more interactive, please let me know if you have any subjects you might like me to address in future. My current focus is on the two underlying themes of my first and second published volumes, "The Original Frontier" and "The Razorblade of Zen," both available online.

The former is a kind of user's manual for meditation, specifically of the Zen flavor, or zazen; the second is about where I see Zen fitting into the American cultural milieu as a third, alternative way, between the extremes of rationalism and science, leading to secular reductionism on one end of the spectrum, with those of theism and religion, or fundamentalism at the outer reaches on the other end. Zen lives in the middle.

In these two books, both the personal and social spheres of practice-experience are engaged, separated for clarity of message. Implications for the natural sphere in the long term — if it is not already too late, in terms of climate change, for one example — I leave to you. Zen may offer our last and best hope for world peace, and saving our home planet. Implications for our understanding — or better, comprehending — the universe, and our place in it, I also leave to you. You are more likely to find your answers to the deeper questions on the cushion than off of it. But — no guarantees.

Beginning with this segment of the UnMind podcast and DharmaByte column, I want to depart from commenting on the content of my Substack postings, which feature chapters from a manuscript we anticipate publishing in future, working title: "Speaking With One (Zen) Voice." It is subtitled: "25 Centuries of Buddha-Dharma; 3 Countries of Origin; 9 Dharma Masters; 2 Dozen Teachings; with Commentary by an American ZenElder." Long subtitle, but at least it lets you know what your are in for. 

            Instead, in going forward, I want to introduce you to some of the most mysterious and compelling implications of Buddhism that I have come across in my studies, admittedly limited to those texts that are available in English translation. The first is the startling claim that Buddha enjoys an infinite life span throughout eternity, as testified to in the Lifespan Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, considered to be his last teaching. 

            This use of "buddha" should, I think, be understood in both senses: as it relates to the historical "fully-awakened one," his teachings about reality and his place in it—Buddha with a capital "B"; as well as its application to human consciousness—buddha with a small "b." The latter, generalized as buddha-nature, true of all sentient beings. 

            This message implies that in our conventional wisdom—philosophical and religious beliefs surrounding the "Great Matter" of birth and death—we are making a kind of category error as to first causes and final conclusions. Let's take a look at what a cursory bit of research online has to say about this phrase, consulting Master AI:

AI Overview — category error

A category mistake (or category error) is a logical fallacy where an object, property, or concept is mistakenly assigned to a category to which it does not belong. Popularized by philosopher Gilbert Ryle, it often involves treating abstract concepts as if they were physical objects, or mixing up different logical levels, such as asking for the "location" of a team's "spirit" after seeing the players. 

Note that the fallacy is defined as "logical," calling into question all instances of the most basic category of intelligence: logic itself. Next, our friendly online AI assistant lists examples of various types of category mistakes, such as confusion between the abstract and the physical, mixing up parts and wholes, conflating mental and physical phenomena, as well as functional, linguistic, and scientific confusions. All conceptual.

            Then, we are treated to key characteristics of categorical errors, including rank absurdity or nonsense; nouns as subjects of verbs they cannot perform; using terms in the wrong syntactical context; or using inadequate data to support an analytical operation. Dutifully providing links for further study to various online sources such as Reddit, Philiosophy Stack Exchange, and YouTube, AI summarizes succinctly:       

Essentially, it is a way to make a philosophical argument cringe by treating a "concept" as a "thing." 

Glad we cleared that up!

            Speaking of "making a philosophical argument "cringe" is, in itself, intentionally or not, a kind of category error, is it not? Can an argument cringe? Do AIs have a sense of humor?   

            However you feel about the current debate over AIs encroaching upon human territory—which may be another categorical error, just on a meta level—you have to admit that they can throw together a neat and comprehensive summary, saving this writer the time and effort it would take to track down all of those links. Good enough to support the point I am trying to make, anyway.

            My point being that Buddha seems to be saying, based on his own direct research in meditation, that we are grossly misinterpreting the phenomena of birth and death, making a "thing" of the concepts we have about them. 

            If birth, as well as death, are not "things,"—that is, not real—in the sense we imagine, it begs the question, then what are they? They definitely denote a change, but what order of change? This seems to be the point of one of the standout assertions of the Hsinhsinming—Trust in Mind, from Sengcan, third patriarch of Ch'an Buddism:

Change appearing to occur in the empty world we call "real" 

only because of our ignorance

We can understand this claim on a universal level, I think. From the perspective of the solar system or the galaxy, change on this tiny planet does not seem all that dramatic. But on a proximate and personal scale, it takes on draconian dimensions.

            Matsuoka-roshi's suddenly cutting off one of his senior student's statement about dying is another finger pointing at this particular moon. He didn't qualify the assertion. He just said, matter-of-factly, "You don't die," correcting the assumption "Sensei, when I die" mid-expression. 

            What it is that we refer to as "I" comes under intense scrutiny in Zen. We assume that this aggregation—of what are called the Five Skandhas: form, feeling, thought, impulse and consciousness; and the Six Senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking—taken together, is what constitutes the "I" in question.

            This self-awareness is then assumed to have been born with the birth of the body-mind complex, developing along with the fetus in the womb, consciousness slowly emerging out of the growth of the brain and nervous system. This is common knowledge. Which is why it is callenged in Zen.          

            Another reference to the kind of singular realization that Zen is pointing to comes from Tozan Ryokai, 200 years after Sengcan, in Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi:

Although it is not constructed it is not beyond words

Like facing a precious mirror form and reflection behold each other 

You are not IT but in truth IT is you

The first line refers to the unconstructed nature of what Master Muso Kokushi, a generation or two after Master Dogen in Japan, called the "uncreate" in his letters, or "Dream Conversations," to the two brothers who shared the shogunate at the time. 

            Master Dogen also pointed a few fingers at this same moon, such as this excerpt from Fukanzazengi—Principles of Seated Meditation recently posted by Joan Halifax-roshi:

Put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light around and shine it inward. Your body and mind will drop away of themselves, and your original face will manifest. If you want to get into touch with things as they are, you—right here and now—have to start being yourself, as you are.

Approaching "things as they  are," the singularity of Zen, then, requires a fundamental reversal, a 180-degree flip, of our usual approach to learning, engaging in un-learning. Not learning something new, but unlearning what we think we know, in order to return to the original state of not-knowing. Huineng, sixth patriarch in China, coined the phrase:

 Show me your original face before your father and mother were born

Another teaching attributed to Hakuin Zenji asks, "What nostrils would there be on that face?" In other words, what was THIS—long before our body came into being? Whatever that was, it must also still be what it is after the body deconstructs into its components, as Master Dogen asserts in another teaching: 

Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash

You do not return to birth after death

This analogy refutes the common (mis)belief in reincarnation left over from early Hinduism—that there is an essence, entity, or spirit, the atman, a "thing"—believed to be reborn again and again, transmigrating from one lifetime to another. There is no "you" to return to birth, just as there is no "you" that can die. The body is the firewood.

            Buddha testified that he found no evidence of the existence of such a "thing" in his direct experience, likening the incarnated body to a chariot. When the chariot is taken apart, and the parts are laid out on the ground, where, he asked, is the chariot? The chariot (or any other thing) functions as a chariot only when assembled. There is no entity, no "there" there, between the parts somewhere. 

            Likewise, the human body, which seems to be one thing, is more like a jellyfish, consisting of an unimaginably complex amalgam of many parts all functioning together to create the illusion of a single entity.

            This raises the question of what kind, or order, of experience Buddha can be talking about, if at the center of it there is no self, no soul, nothing but connectivity of the parts. How can that realization even be called an "experience"? This conundrum is hinted at in the Heart Sutra, after a long line of negations: "given emptiness...no seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching...no realm of sight, no realm of mind-consciousness," etc. Again, Zen wisdom from Master AI:

The phrase "until we come to no consciousness also" refers to a specific passage in the Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya) that systematically negates the traditional Buddhist categories of experience to reveal their "emptiness" (śūnyatā). 

Which brings us to the functioning of zazen, or shikantaza, the objectless meditation of Zen. It is often misinterpreted as "emptying your mind of thought." But this is not the point of zazen, however, and in any case not really feasible. Thinking is not the problem; it is our over-reliance on thinking that gets in the way.

            It is not for nothing that Zen is called the meditation school of Buddhism. All other sects practice meditation to some degree, of course, but the singular emphasis upon upright seated meditation belongs to Zen, primarily Soto Zen, or what we refer to as "Dogen Zen," as illustrated by this line from his Jijuyu Zammai—Self-fulfilling Samadhi:

From the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering 

chanting Buddha's name repentence or reading scripture

you should just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind

When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal

by sitting upright in Samadhi the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment

Emphasis mine. One aspect of Dogen's particular genius was to recognize the centrality of this practice of upright seated meditation, referred to as the genuine transmission of realization from generation to generation of the lineage, going all the way back to Shakyamuni himself. And according to Buddha himself, even previous, "prehistoric buddhas." 

            Like transmitting art or music, the method can be taught, but the essence of the practice cannot. Art and Zen have to be discovered by the student from their own experience. In the process, they have to set aside all they think they have learned. Zen and creativity are based on the process of unlearning what we have learned to the present. 

      A current trope may make this point a bit more succinctly. In zazen, we are "reverse-engineering" consciousness itself, allowing it to  manifest untrammeled by our ideas about it. 

Let's pick up the thread in the next segment. Meanwhile, practice-practice-practice: attention-attention-attention.

 Welcome to another installment of my Dharma Byte column and UnMind podcast. We have initiated a Substack posting of the unexpurgated reference texts for this series, based on the manuscript for future publication as a book, titled:

"Speaking with One (Zen) Voice — 25 Centuries of Buddha-Dharma: 3 Countries of Origin; 9 Dharma Masters; 2 Dozen Teachings — with Commentary by an American Zen Elder"

In reviewing the written record of Zen Buddhism spanning some two-and-a-half millennia — from Shakyamuni Buddha in India, through the Chinese transmission legendarily initiated by Bodhidharma, to Japan through Dogen Zenji in the 13th Century, and finally to America through Matsuoka-roshi in the 20th Century — the main thesis of the book is that all these great masters and geniuses of Zen were speaking with one voice, so to say: transmitting the same truth — that is, pointing directly at the nondual reality — through differing languages and cultural idioms.

Our mission in propagating Zen today is of the same nature. To borrow a meme from end-user research, we must find a way to come to the same findings, conclusions, and recommendations that they did, following the method of Zen meditation, or zazen; and then find a way to translate — or better, paraphrase — the traditional teachings into the language and idiom of modernity, as well as the cultural context of our times.

As my root teacher, Matsuoka-roshi would often say, "Zen is always contemporary." My efforts in publishing in this digital age are dedicated to this proposition.

This month's commentary is on the sixth chapter of the book, the "Loving Kindness Sutra," or the Metta Suttain Sanskrit. This is one of the most ecumenical of the teachings attributed to Buddha, and the least controversial in terms of including jargon and ideas to which other religions and philosophies might take exception. Which is one reason it is commonly quoted in interfaith gatherings. But I hope to point out some of the subtler implications of the message. It is one that I have set to music, and a relatively brief passage, so I will quote it here in its entirety:

This is what may be accomplished by the one who is wise; who seeks the good and has obtained peace: let one be strenuous upright and sincere; without pride; easily contented and joyous; let one not be submerged by the things of the world.

Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches; let one’s senses be controlled; let one be wise but not puffed up; let one not desire great possessions even for one’s family; let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove.

May all beings be happy! May they be joyous and live in safety; all living beings whether weak or strong; in high middle or low realms of existence; small or great; visible or invisible; near or far; born or yet to be born.

May all beings be happy!

Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state; let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child; so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things; suffusing love over the entire world above below and all around without limit; so let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world.

Standing or walking; sitting or lying down; during all one’s waking hours

let one cherish the thought that this way of living is the best in the world.

Abandoning vain discussion; having a clear vision; freed from sense appetites; one who realizes the way will never again know rebirth

In the cycle of creation of suffering for ourselves or for others.

The six subsections into which I have divided the text represent a shift in focus of the message. I refer you to the Substack postings for details. 

The first section sets the tone with a personal definition of wisdom, and suggested attitude adjustments, connected to the Eightfold Path dimensions of right speech, action and livelihood. The basic admonition is to avoid being submerged by the things of the world. So this is not a matter of accomplishment in the conventional sense, but its inverse: accomplishing liberation from entanglement, as expressed in my introductory haiku poem:   

What is Accomplished?

“What is accomplished”

is not a question in Zen —

It is a statement.

The basic question in Zen is not "Why?' — the religious and philosophical question — nor is it "How?" — the rationalist & scientific question (as I discuss in detail in "The Razorblade of Zen") — but "What?" - the concrete question, or "hard problem" of philosophy: What, exactly, is this reality in which we find ourselves? When and if we have insight (J. kensho) into this reality, we find that this is not a question but a fact — the "whatness" of existence is realized, though it is a deeper question, not an answer. This is captured by Master Dogen in his inimitable way with words:

The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization itself comes forth with the actualization of buddha-dharma. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.

Inconceivable, and not at all apparent; indistinguishable from ordinary perception.

The second section turns to the societal level, challenging so-called "values" of the imperative to pursue wealth and all its trappings, pursuit of sense pleasure, and using family as the excuse for self-centered striving. In which case, one is more likely to do mean and unwise things.

The third expresses an aspirational yearning for all beings to overcome the natural suffering of the world and to desist from creating unnecessary suffering — self-inflicted and inflicted upon others. The latter form of suffering can come to an end through this kind of realization; the former is built-in to existence, and so can be transcended. But, the very idea triggers incredulity, as captured in another haiku poem:  

May All Beings Be

May all be happy —

What kind of cruel joke is that?

This is Samsara!

Buddha was not one to lead us down the primrose path wearing rose-colored glasses in a Panglossian "best-of-all-worlds" kind of fantasy. He meant that all beings should be happy with an "it is what it is" kind of mentality — take it or leave it, like it or not.

The fourth stanza goes more deeply into the interconnectedness of all beings, or "inter-being" as Thich Nhat Hahn termed this universal truth. Starting with the blame game — our tendency toward the victim mentality, blaming others, wishing them ill-will, and seeking revenge. As the ancient Taoist saying reminds us, "when the blaming begins there is no end to the blame." Then putting forward the doctrine of the "three minds": the magnanimous and nurturing mind, synergistically yielding the joyous mind. Here we find a rare use of the word "love" in the Buddhist canon, in its universal form, called "agape."

Let No One Deceive

We should not deceive,

harm or despise another —

seems impossible!

Again, the ideals of Buddhism as expressed in the Ten Grave Precepts are not meant to be easy to follow. Like the Eightfold Path, they describe Buddha's prescription for practice in daily life, a detailed exposition of the prerequisites for coming into harmony with the Great Way. Master Dogen extends this piece of advice to its logical conclusion:

Furthermore all beings

in the Ten Directions and the Six Realms

including the three lower realms

at once obtain pure body and mind

realize the state of great emancipation

and manifest the original face

If and when we manage to make this transition from a self-centered worldview to one in which all beings may be happy, including ourselves, we return to the original state. In which case, one is liberated from even the notion that awakening is causally connected to zazen, as in the last haiku from the text:

Standing or Walking

It doesn’t matter

what posture you may adopt —

the truth is the same.

Obviously, from this perspective, being enlightened or not can have nothing directly to do with what physical posture you happen to be in at the moment of insight. Cherishing the thought that "this way of living is the best in the world" is not a violation of the Precept to not praise yourself at the expense of others, but rather an expression of the inner joy that accompanies the ordinary becoming the miraculous, on an intensely personal level.

This kind of realization would obviate the need for a lot of discussion, as Master Sengcan reminds us in Hsinhsinming: "the more we talk and think about it the further astray we wander from the truth; stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know." Clarity arises from direct awareness preceding language.

Buddha does not claim that, following this revelation of inmost consciousness, that one will never be reborn, only that any rebirth will not now be back into the same cycle of creation of intentional suffering, either for ourselves or others. May all beings be happy — rebirth or not. There can be nothing wrong with birth, or death, for that matter. So how could there be anything wrong with rebirth?

In the introduction to “The Surangama Sutra, A New Translation” by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, the section on “The Reasons for the Teaching” explains six reasons for this particular sutra, the title translating to something like, "heroic march or journey":

1)    The first is the importance of balancing learning and meditation practice.

The authors explain that Ananda, the interlocutor in this sutra, had “the keenest memory of all the Buddha’s disciples” but thought he could rely solely on his intelligence and neglected his meditation practice, thus making himself vulnerable to the “spell” the young courtesan in the story cast upon him on the way to the meeting with Shakyamuni Buddha.

They also explain “The Syllogism and the Tetralemma” as key forms of formal logical argument that the Buddha employs in trying to help Ananda navigate the intricacies of the nondual nature of Mind. Quoting one example, using the five parts of a syllogism: proposition, reason, instance, application and conclusion:

1)    Proposition: it is the mind, not the eyes, that see

2)    Reason: our visual awareness is active even if nothing is being seen;

3)    Instance drawn from ordinary life: In the Buddha’s words, “If you asked a blind man on the street, ‘Do you see anything?’ he would no doubt answer, ‘All I see is darkness.’”

4)    Application of the instance: “Reflect upon what that might mean. Although the blind man sees only darkness, his visual awareness is intact.”

5)    Conclusion: “The eyes themselves simply reveal visible objects; it is the mind that sees, not the eyes.”

A brief explanation of the Tetralemma, or Fourfold Negation, follows:

In the logic of ancient India, statements could be affirmed, negated, neither affirmed nor negated, and both affirmed and negated. In this fourfold negation, sometimes called the “tetralemma,” (catuskoti), a proposition is asserted to be neither true, nor not true, nor both true and not true, nor neither true nor not true.

That’s a lot of neither-nors, for those of us who presume that Zen promotes a positive mental attitude. But they go on to explain that “This formula can serve as a reminder in our practice that all we perceive is empty of any attribute, and so nothing definitive can be asserted about the world and the contents of the mind.” In more recent times, namely the Thirteenth Century, Master Dogen affirms this tenet in several fascicles from his masterwork, the Shobogenzo, including “Self-Fulfilling Samadhi (J. Jijuyu Zammai): 

All this however does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness in stillness — it is immediate realization. If practice and realization were two things, as it appears to the ordinary person, each could be recognized separately. But what can be met with recognition is not realization itself, because realization is not reached by a deluded mind.

Implicit in this last is that, therefore, any form of recognition, of any perception, is itself delusion. It is only when perception itself undergoes deconstruction that the delusory nature of perception becomes apparent. If fundamental reality cannot be perceived, let alone recognized, described and asserted as real, we have to embrace a new definition of primary experience itself, most immediately before it is translated into perception.

Nagarjuna gets a mention as the founder of the “Emptiness (Madhyamaka) school of Buddhism” who “popularized the logical negation of these four possibilities as a way of showing the emptiness of anything that might be construed as a real, permanent self or phenomenon or as an attribute of a real, permanent self or phenomenon.” Note that the imputed self is lumped in with all other phenomena as fundamentally unreal.

The question of whether things are real or not, is not the question in Zen, however. The existential question in Zen is not either-or black-and-white, but HOW things exist. They exist by virtue of emptiness; that is, with determinate characteristics of impermanence, imperfection, and insubstantiality. Given these three attributes yes, things do actually exist. For now. Forever is a different story. One might argue the case that “thingness” exists forever, and that no single thing is separate from all things. But what we perceive as a thing is pulling a fast one on us. Don’t be fooled.

An interesting and, I think, cogent definition of enlightenment and awakening is included, and I quote:

In this volume we use the English terms “enlightenment” and “awakening” as synonyms. In Buddhism, when these terms are used in a formal sense, they do not connote a temporary experience but rather a complete and irreversible transformation of one’s fundamental way of being in the world. Only the enlightenment of a Buddha is perfect and complete.

The text goes on to explain that others, such as those folks who function as Bodhisattvas, “have awakened but have not perfected their awakening.” There are several other definitions of some of the more ubiquitous jargon terms of Buddhism, which often go unexplained, and just as often lend to confusion, rather than alleviating it.

While the idea of perfecting awakening may seem to contradict the mark of imperfection that is one key characteristic of dukkha, the unsatisfactory nature of sentient existence, it is important that we do not go off the deep end of intellectual analysis with every seeming contradiction. We must have faith that there is no real dichotomy in reality. As Matsuoka Roshi would often say, there is no dichotomy in Zen. That all such confusion will be resolved in meditation of the “right” kind, is a kind of faith in Zen Buddhism.

So just where is this so-called mind? If there is such a thing, it must be somewhere, right? And what about this Original Mind versus ordinary mind? Are there two minds? We often hear the trope, “I am of two minds about this…” This is one of many confusions that arise in Zen practice, owing to the dualistic nature of the discriminating mind trying and failing to comprehend nonduality. The question or conjecture of the true mind versus the constructed mind may be considered foremost in the focus of Zen meditation.

In the section on “The Request [from Ananda] for Dharma,” the dialog ensues:

The Buddha said to Ānanda, “It is as you say: your mind and eyes were the reason for your admiration and delight. Someone who does not know where his mind and eyes are will not be able to overcome the stress of engagement with perceived objects… I am now asking you: precisely where are your mind and eyes?”

In the interrogation that follows, Ananda responds with great sincerity and increasing stress as Buddha mercilessly rejects each response, thus mercifully reducing Ananda’s reliance on intellectual analysis to the level of futility. Ironically, Buddha expresses the very engagement with perception as a form of stress. That the mind is in the body is the first and most obvious idea, dismissed immediately with a syllogism, demonstrating the impossibility of Ananda’s assertion. Same for outside the body. Ditto for residing in the faculty of vision. Even that the mind is in the middle, between the sense faculty and its object. Even no specific location — no dice.

One gets the impression that Ananda is like the sinner in the old spiritual, “O sinner man, where you gonna run to? All on that day.” There is no place to hide, no answer that is going to satisfy this demon in hot pursuit of him. This may represent the first koan assignment and the following distress-inducing exchange with the Rinzai master.

Then Buddha performs a minor miracle, as he is wont to do — so that all present have an intense, if unexplainable, experience of the Buddha’s power, involving light radiating from his countenance, infinite worlds appearing in all directions at the same time — your garden variety astonishing sign that he is about to say something significant, so listen up:

People who undertake a spiritual practice but who fail to realize the ultimate enlightenment…all fail because they do not understand two fundamentals and are mistaken and confused in their practice.

Ānanda, what are the two fundamentals? The first is the mind that is the basis of death and rebirth and that has continued since time without beginning. This mind is dependent on perceived objects, and it is this mind that you and all beings make use of and that each of you consider to be your own nature.

The second fundamental is full awakening, which also has no beginning; it is the original and pure essence of nirvana. It is the original understanding, the real nature of consciousness. All conditioned phenomena arise from it, and yet it is among those phenomena that beings lose track of it.

We are going to have to leave it there for this segment. A real cliff-hanger, with lots for you to chew on. We will continue with “The Nature of Visual Awareness,” one of my personal obsessions, next time, with a brief wrap-up of where the mind really resides. Thoroughly investigate this in your meditation, as Master Dogen would advise.

The fourth and last of the immeasurables of Buddhism is translated as "equanimity" — in Sanskrit, upekkha. Has the ring of authenticity, doesn’t it? Equanimity, not so much. Too familiar, too ordinary. Besides, nobody really knows what it means. Note how much more authoritative it sounds when we use the Sanskrit.

            Brings to mind the Peter Sellers scene in The Naked Truth where, trying to pass for Irish in a pub in order to buy a bomb from the IRA says, “Well, we always have the Gaelic…” and after launching into a monologue, is immediately punched in the nose and thrown out of the bar. Fake accent of an Englishman — a dead giveaway.

            This tendency — to rely heavily on jargon-speak — has a similar deleterious effect in any category of discourse, and can be especially disingenuous in dharma dialog. For one thing, it sets up an “us and them” dichotomy, whether intended or not. It tends to imply that the speaker possesses greater knowledge, moreexpertise — at least in her or his own estimation — and therefore, presumably, the listener is rendered lesser inthat regard. It leverages the faux asymmetry of the relationship. Zen is, or should be, the great equalizer.

            Boldly brandishing the Zen vernacular implies that I must have mastered its deeper meaning. This is whywe have to keep reminding ourselves that we do not master Zen — in any language — it masters us. Far betterto de-mystify any discussion, eliminating jargon wherever possible, and to rely on our own, direct experience — and plain language — to explore the true meaning of these ancient teachings. We teach each other Buddhism, as Matsuoka Roshi often said.

            Equanimity brings to mind other terms derived from the same root, such as equipoise, and equilibrium. The good thing about these terms is that they imply something physical, rather than strictly emotional, or mental. The first two syllables derive from “equal,” and the dictionary definitions all refer to balance. So all three would have some connection to the Sanskrit samadhi, one of the more frequently mentioned jargon terms in Buddhism, which loosely means "centered" or "balance."

            In zazen, if we sit still enough for long enough — and straight enough — we begin to experience equipoise in our upright seated posture, coming into perfect alignment with gravity. All forces of mass and weight come to center around the spine, like the cables supporting a digital cell tower. When we hit that sweet spot in the middle of our stomach, it is as if we are floating off the cushion — free-falling. Equilibrium ensues, profoundly affecting our mental clarity and emotional composure; which leads to equanimity. Eventuallyequanimity manifests even in the social sphere, where relationships with others benefit from less friction and conflict, more harmony.

            If we regard equanimity — along with loving kindness, compassion, and empathy — as essentially immeasurable, they connect to Master Dogen’s closing lines in Jijuyu Zammai (Self-fulfilling Samadhi):

Hundreds of things all manifest original practice from the original face

It is impossible to measure

Know that even if all the buddhas of the ten directions

As innumerable as the sands of the Ganges

Exert their strength and with the Buddha’s wisdom

Try to measure the merit of one person’s zazen

They will not be able to fully comprehend it

So what is truly immeasurable is the whole of the effect — the merit — of zazen. Zen claims to transmitBuddha’s meditation, bringing about the very same process that took place that night under the Bodhi tree some two-and-a-half millennia ago. We all have the same equipment to work with that he had, after all — the toolkit comes with birth as a human being.

            We also enjoy relatively supportive causes and conditions — the circumstances of contemporary life —including exposure to the buddha-dharma, and access to training in meditation. As Hakuin Zenji asks toward the end of Zazen Wasan (Song of Zazen), “What is there outside us? What is there we lack?”

            He goes on to claim that “Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes. This earth where we stand is the pureLotus Land and this very body the body of buddha.” A bit hard to swallow, in the light of our self-effacingself-doubt, which at its worse becomes the life sentence of self-loathing. Nobody said this would be easy.

            Bringing our focus back to zazen, I think it is critical to recognize and accept that the immeasurablesof this excellent method are also the most important aspects. It matters less how regularly we sit inmeditation, how frequently, how long we sit, et cetera. Whatever measurable parameters we may put around it,the most important is that we simply never give up, as Matsuoka Roshi always reminded us.

            The downside to setting up strict regimens around zazen — as we are prone to do around working out, aerobics, and other activities that we expect to show results — is that the results of zazen are not so obvious. And, just as with any goal-oriented activity, if and when we do not live up to our own expectations, we are naturally disappointed, may become discouraged, and tend to reaffirm our own self-criticizing proclivity, proving that we are the failure we always suspected we were.

            Better to sit without expectations, but without abandoning our aspiration to something that cannot be sosimply expressed as a measurable goal. This does not mean that we do not set reasonable benchmarks to assure enough depth of experience that we give zazen a legitimate chance to work its magic. But the immeasurable of the qualitative dimension of the experience takes precedence and priority over any quantifiable dimension.

            Which brings us back to the old cliché, “Just sit.” This overworked expression is not a cavalier or flip comment meant to dismiss any consideration of the serious issues that we face, including actual mental disorders and chemical imbalances that we may be dealing with, but to suggest that when we do sit, we just sit,rather than engaging in daydreaming, planning, ruminating over the past, et cetera.

            If we turn up the intensity knob, sitting “more” in the qualitative sense — when we are actually sitting —then we begin to manifest the true meaning of “just sit.” Would it were so simple. But of course we find that "just sitting" includes the full panoply of monkey-mind machinations, the impertinent imprecations of negative thinking on steroids, as well as the more trivial but distracting push-you-pull-me of everyday tedium, those mundane but persistent weasels of samsara ripping our flesh. It is difficult to feel equanimous on the Titanic. The ship is definitely going down, and it doesn’t matter that the lifeboats are made in Japan. Zen is American as apple pie. Just not as sweet.

            The gateway drug to equanimity is patience. If we can come to practice patience on the cushion — patience with our situation in this imperfect world, and patience with the monkey’s inept attempts to cope with it — we may find our way clear to the equilibrium, the equipoise, the equanimity that is at the heart of all the clamor, clutter, and seeming chaos. It is all floating in samadhi. Time to release our grip on our imagined reality, so as to float in the equanimity of Zen.

In the next segment, we are taking a new direction for 2026. Stay tuned.

The third of the Four Immeasurables of Buddhism, as defined online, is sympathetic joy, or empathy, I have long taken to indicate the kind of genuine delight that one can feel at the good fortune of others.Unfortunately, in the context of our prevailing dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all, loser-victim mentality—the emerging tribal take on social and economic standing in America—this fulsome embrace of the success of others has become a diminishingly rare commodity, if we are to believe the daily reporting. Your winning at the game of life means that I must be losing. As if there is a finite store of happiness, from which any one’sindividual achievement, or gain, necessarily takes away from the total available to others.

However, if empathy has a more substantial base than its conventionally positive, but dualistic or relativistic meaning—reduced to like-mindedness, or even pity—it must also be operative in negative mode. In certain cases, when and where we are not at all sympathetic, but stubbornly indifferent; we may even find ourselves opposed to others. In which case, empathy for oneself tends to trump — no pun —any possibility of empathy for others.

Shakyamuni Buddha was reputed to have been able to read minds. One of the ten honorifics accorded him during his lifetime translates as something like “controller of men,” which is roughly the meaning of Matsuoka Roshi’s first dharma name, “Soyu.” Empathy plays a central, determinative part in this ability to win friends and influence people. But our inborn, naturally altruistic empathy may need an occasional boost from the nurturing, tender loving care of meditation.

My supposition is that Siddhartha Gautama was already a highly sensitive youngster, becomingestranged from existence itself, owing to the pain and suffering he had witnessed in his life. Like MasterDogen, he witnessed the death of his own mother at an early age. But his realization in meditation during hismid-thirties must have engendered the emergence of an even deeper and broader sensibility for the suffering of others. He clearly was a natural empath, born of magnanimous and nurturing mind, innately endowed with compassionate traits. Which were only amplified in, and by, his intense meditation under that fig tree.

In the Surangama Sutra, attributed to Buddha, he suggests that it is possible, and even probable, that his followers will themselves develop such paranormal powers (Skt. siddhis) through their own meditation. One of which would be this ability to “know others’ minds.” In the Fifty Warnings attached to this sutra, cautionary tales against falling into certain states of delusion (Skt. mara), he offered specific spoiler alerts,flagging the likelihood of getting stuck at various stages of the process, ten in each of the Five Skandhas.

By misinterpreting fifty gobsmackingly vivid meditative experiences that Buddha describes in meticulous detail—occurring at remote passes on the parallel track of transcending ordinary perception of reality—your average monk or nun might come to believe, falsely, that they are now fully enlightened. When, truth be told, they still have a long way to go, before finally getting off the train at anuttara samyak sambodhi, the end of the line.

He also admonished them not to demonstrate any such abilities to others, as their audience might also get the wrong idea, that gaining such seemingly mystical or magical powers is what the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path is all about. Too soon. Wait—there’s more. Just keep on keepin’ on, no matter whateverfantastic or fabulous transformation seems to have taken place. You are not home free, yet.

It is worth mentioning that at this time there were apparently any number of clever charlatans andwould-be magicians plying their trades of trickery in the public marketplace, masquerading as genuine sages (Skt. sadhu) or seers. Buddha apparently did not want his followers to settle for a “me too” position in the contemporaneous war of ideas, competing for the attention of the hoi polloi.

This throughline of the teaching further suggests that in Buddha’s case, he had persevered, making itall the way down and through the rabbit hole, and all the way back. In other words, he did not fall for thevarious offramps that Mara (the spirit of delusion), offered up to sidetrack him, that long dark night under the Bodhi tree. Even the daughters of Mara, with their seductive wiles, were unable to distract the young prince from his single-minded focus on penetrating the primordial koan of suffering existence. According to the story, he had already been there, done that, with many a merry maid, under the direction of his doting father. Whose game plan was to keep him in thrall to the sensory pleasures of the world, so that he would succeed to his inheritance, the leadership of theShakya clan. But young Siddhartha was not buying it. He had other fish to fry, starting with himself.

Because Buddha was able to resist the temptations of fantasy and overcome the nightmares of fear, ifwe are to believe the story—doggedly persisting in the face of all resistance—he eventually emerged from the other side of the wormhole. In other words, he went full circle through the looking glass, returning to whence he had launched his excellent adventure, exploring the new frontier of mind-only. He came home again, the prodigal son, but home had been miraculously transformed into the entire universe. Yet nothing special, indicated by his touching the Earth.

But his enhanced empathy, for himself and his intimately personal causes and conditions, extended to include all beings. It had to be an even more painful embrace of universal suffering, than had been his initial, self-centered view of suffering that drove him to the cushion. Fortunately, his profound, newfoundinsight swayed him to try to help all others, the very beginning of the bodhisattva vow.

So compassion turns out to be just one of those things—as one of the Supremes famously said of pornography—difficult to define definitively. But you know it when you feel it. When you feel true compassion, however, it will not be compassion for others. It will be compassion for your sorry self. And it will not be coming from yourself. In other words, it will not yet manifest as true empathy.

Along with all the other findings, conclusions, and recommendations that formed the deliverables of Buddha’s contract with humanity, empathy fits all three. He found that it constitutes a description of reality, concluded that it is a fundamental law of sentient existence, and recommended a big dose as a prescription for negotiating the Path. At once a cause, as well as an effect, empathy is a natural attribute of the Way. It is only natural that we realize it, the sooner the better.

The second of the Four Immeasurables of Buddhism, compassion is a term that is frequently bruited-about in Zen circles, the ubiquity of which extends to the customary reference to buddha-dharma itself as “the compassionate teaching.” Which begs the question, Compassionate to whom?

When we look at the teachings of Buddha, beginning with the Four Noble Truths, they do not look all that compassionate at first blush, at least not in the conventional sense of coddling us poor babies, who,after all, are the ones who are suffering, here.

Right out of the blocks, with no warning emoji, comes the shock of the raw, blunt, undeniable existence of suffering — and the charge that we are to fully understand it. This does not seem very forgiving if you ask me, not of the intensely personal nature of our birth, aging, sickness and death, nor of our personal comfort level in confronting it. No rose-colored glasses here. Take it or leave it.

The origin of suffering — consisting mainly in our own desires, exacerbated by our own attachments to them,which we are to fully abandon — is not very user-friendly, either. Since they — beginningless greed, angerand delusion, to name a few — are inborn — indeed, according to the Repentance verse, arising naturally from body, mouth and mind — it does not seem fair that we bear all the burden for abandoning them. Whose bright idea was this, anyway? We are not God, after all.

The third reality-check — that there can be a cessation of suffering, but wait,

there’s more: its realization is entirely dependent upon each individual’s personal

efforts — is equally cringe-worthy. Is there no interlocutor, no savior to whom we can turn for succor and salvation? At least a support group we can join?

Lastly, that we must follow some righteous, prescribed Noble Eightfold Path, every day — in order to realize this cessation of suffering — seems insufferable. Can’t we just be done with it and move on?

This is obviously a set of inconvenient truths, intended to place the onus for acting on them directly on us. So what, exactly, makes them so noble?

Well, you could say they are ennobling, in that they remind us of the true meaning of compassion, “suffer with,” implying that we are all in the same boat, ultimately. Our woes are shared with all other sentientbeings, who are also subject to these truths, perhaps with the exception of the Eightfold Path, which is more within the human social realm of practice, though by extension, all sentient beings are on the Path, whether they know it or not. You cannot accuse chickens, cats, dogs and cows of talking the talk but not walking thewalk. Only humans can manage that.

Of course, along with his description of unvarnished reality, Buddha offers certain prescriptions for practice, i.e. what to do about it. The Three Treasures may be interpreted as the highest values in Zen, butalso as the three legs of its practice stool: Buddha as right meditation; Dharma as right understanding; and Sangha as right action. Or you may want to substitute the tripartite model of right discipline, wisdom, and conduct, respectively.

The implication that we can get this right doesn’t necessarily mean that we can get it wrong. Thenotion of compassion suggests that we have the right to be wrong. Fall down seven times get up eight, thank you Dogen. We have to allow ourselves to fail, in order to succeed. Master Dogen makes the point — no pun — that the arrow hitting the bullseye depends upon the preceding 100 misses. Also, place your oxygen mask on before attempting to help others. Okay, Dogen did not say that.

We speak of “practicing compassion,” which doesn’t make sense when expressed as “practicingsuffering with others.” We are already suffering with others, so practicing what already is does not seempossible. What we can practice is ways of helping others. Which implies that what we come up with may notwork. It largely depends upon them. It does not help to suffer fools gladly. But that does not mean that we should not even try.

So karuna, compassion, may mean something more like practicing loving kindness, engaging in selfless behaviors of a bodhisattva, without making a big deal of it. In spite of our obvious limitations, doing what we can to help others, but without any attachment to outcomes. Suffering the consequences of failed attempts with equanimity, and practicing the kind of patience that recognizes that this may not end well.

Taking up the bodhisattva path of saving all beings begs the question, “From what?” Save them fromtheir own ignorance? Even Buddha could not do that. Also, how many are there? How long is it going totake? And Where do I begin? Living by vow, the bodhisattva vow, means embracing the possibility of eternal rebirth. The possibility, not a belief in inerrancy, nor even the probability. Buddha’s teachings are not arguments.

Taking the long view of Buddhism means that issues arising in this lifetime may not be resolved in this lifetime. But this is not a shrug of the shoulders, just a real-world platform for mounting our well-intentioned actions.

If there is such a thing as compassion, it must already exist. It cannot be dependent upon, let alone created by, our actions. Compassion is not a karmic consequence. If we are to “practice” it, we have to already have it. Having compassion is not a trait that we can develop, but a fact. We already have compassion, in the sense that the universe has suffered us to be born. We are in receipt of all the compassion that there is to be had. We did not create this mess, but we are responsible for what we do withthe opportunity. Our actions can add to the chaos, or perhaps mitigate some of the stress.

The kind of compassion we can conceive of practicing must be balanced with wisdom, which is also notsomething we can actually practice. It is the same slippery slope to imagine that we can acquire either. Wisdom is said to be the natural merging of right view and right thought, from the Noble Path. This merging cannot be said to be completely dependent upon the practice of right meditation, but it is less likely to come about without it.

Sitting in upright seated meditation, zazen, is the form of expressing our aspiration to compassionate action, the fertile training ground for realization to be made manifest. The theory is that if it becomes clearenough that all beings, sentient as well as insentient, are instantiations of compassion, it will be possible to join them. Just as we are naturally manifesting the truth that we cannot speak, if we settle into the real world of compassion, it will naturally emanate from our most mundane activities.

We will find ourselves rowing the “boat of compassion” (shout out to Master Luopo) gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily — life is but a dream.

From a downloaded document from one of my online dharma dialogs — dated June 8, 2016, but otherwise unidentified — we find the following definitions of the Four Immeasurables of Buddhism:

Metta (loving kindness) Karuna (compassion)

Mudita (sympathetic joy or empathy) Upekkha (equanimity)

I have always felt that the immeasurables of Zen practice are more important than those aspects subject to measurement. For example, it is more important in doing meditation, zazen, to never give up, as MatsuokaRoshi would often encourage us, than how long we sit when we do, how often, how frequently, how regularly, etc. More important than the quantitative dimension is the qualitative.

Folks bring this up in dokusan frequently, saying they know they need to “sit more.” I ask them when do they think they can do that. You cannot sit more in the past — it’s too late. You cannot sit more in the future, because it is not yet here, though you can plan to do so — and possibly set yourself up fordiscouragement by failing to live up to your own expectations — been there, done that. The only time you can do more zazen is when you are doing it. You can do zazen more by refraining from doing anything else while you are on the cushion. Such as daydreaming, worrying, planning, ruminating, regretting, and so on. Turn up the intensity knob. The list is followed by an extension of the definitions:

The ease of equanimity, the full-heartedness of love, the tenderness of compassion, the radiance of joy.

There follows a brief “prayer,” a term we do not often see in Buddhist teachings, a “short version” attributed to H.H. the Dali Lama:

The Four immeasurables are found in one brief and beautiful prayer: May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,

May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes, May all sentient beings notbe separated from sorrowless bliss, May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free of bias,

attachment and anger.

This sounds very similar to the familiar Metta Sutta, or Loving Kindness Sutra, from the Soto Zen liturgychanted often in Zen temples, though finding our “bliss” is not a term I would use as a goal or objective of Zen practice. While human beings are included in the panoply of sentient beings that we pray may be happy, it is also acknowledged that human beings can be a significant part of the problem, the cause of unhappiness and sorrow in their fellow sentient beings. Needless to say, we “pray” in the sense of earnestness — not to a god, to Buddha, nor to a specific bodhisattva. Our basic prayer is that we wake up, as soon as possible.

It should be equally needless to point out that the prayer, or wish, for all beings to be happy does not imply a rose-colored, magical-thinking belief that somehow just because we pray for it, it shall come to pass that all beings will suddenly become happy, via some “spooky action at a distance” — thank you, Zen Master Einstein.

We “transfer merit” at the end of our service because we don’t want to suggest that we actually believe we personally accumulate any real merit owing to our devotional activities. Whatever merit there maybe, it must already finitely exist, and can be neither increased or decreased by what we do.

Likewise, the practical worldview of Buddhism and Zen dictates that if and when all beings actually do become happy, it will be happy with the causes and conditions of existence just as they are, or in spite ofthem: the unsatisfactory nature of life, being subject to aging, sickness and death, etc ad infinitum. Zen isnothing if not realistic.

“Things as it is” is an expression David Chadwick attributes to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in his charming book, “Crooked Cucumber,” as his condensed expression of one of the central truths of Zen. It does notmean “things as they are.” If it did, there would be no reason to engage in all the necessary discipline andwork of Zen, if it were only to result in things staying the way they are. That is, if our own perception and conception of our own reality did not undergo some kind of meaningful change as a result of our efforts, what would be the point of practicing? Which begs another central question, What kind of change is that?

The kind of change that can come about through the practice and study of Zen, particularly itsmeditation, is pointed to in the Heart Sutra, chanted ubiquitously in Zen centers all over the world. The linethat declares, “Given Emptiness, there is no suffering, no end of suffering.” This Emptiness is capitalized tostress the unique meaning of the Sanskrit shunyatta. It is not voidness of existence, or devoid of meaning, but the dynamic nature of change that underlies all existence, the operative meaning of dukkha, usually translated as “suffering.” The suffering that can change through our coming to this insight that Buddha experienced and coached others to find, is of the unnecessary sort — that needless suffering that we heedlessly inflict upon ourselves and others. The suffering that does not — indeed cannot — change is that of the natural type, e.g. sickness, aging and death.

Metta, nonetheless, is a worthy and worthwhile aspiration to a frame of mind that, while embracing the universal givens — impermanence, imperfection and insubstantiality — continues to encourage a hopeful mindset, and an engagement in compassionate action for all, toward that ideal of all beings being as happy as is practicable, under the circumstances.

However, kindness — and likewise the other three immeasurables — is not at all separable from the immediate circumstances of life. Suffering fools gladly, or humoring others in their delusions or neuroses, is not an act of kindness, but of uncaring, a kind of cop-out. Treating others in ways that may not be helpful, butthat allow one to sustain a false sense that one is being kind, is not truly kind.

In Zen, we recognize that the kindest thing to do, with and for others, is sharing the dharma assets, including those aspects that are most adaptable by others, such as the unsurpassably simple method of Zen meditation. But we also recognize that, even then, the effect of Zen training upon their lives is entirely up to them. You can lead a horse to water, et cetera. It requires a sense of modesty and humility to accept that we can actually do very little to help anyone else. And that what we suppose to be the most important kind of help they need may not be so. The most we can do is to expose them to the practice and teachings of Zen — sanzen and zazen — in the midst of the universal, ongoing, relentless pandemic of ignorance. Whether the inoculation against this virus takes, or not, depends upon them.